Another of Ta-hui's objections to the Silent Illumination school seems to have been its natural drift toward quietism, toward the divorcing of men from the world of affairs. This he believed led nowhere and was merely renouncing humanity rather than illuminating it.
_These days there's a breed of shaven-headed outsiders [i.e., rival masters] whose own eyes are not clear, who just teach people to stop and rest and play dead. . . . They teach people to "keep the mind still," to "forget feelings" according to circumstances, to practice "silent illumination." . . . To say that when one has put things to rest to the point that he is unawares and unknowing, like earth, wood, tile, or stone, this is not unknowing silence--this is a view of wrongly taking too literally words that were (only) expedient means to free bonds.17
_He seemed to be counseling never to forget that meditation is only a means, not an end. Instead Ta-hui advocated meditating deeper and ever deeper into a koan, focusing on the words until they "lose their flavor." Then finally the bottom falls out of the bucket and enlightenment hits you. This "Introspecting the Koan" form of Ch'an (called Kanna Zen by the Japanese) became the standard for the Rinzai sect, whose students were encouraged to meditate on a koan until it gradually infiltrated the mind. As one commentator has explained, "The essential is to immerse oneself patiently and wholeheartedly in the koan, with unwavering attention. One must not be looking for an answer but looking at the koan. The 'answer,' if it comes, will come of its own accord."18 As described by Ta-hui:
_Just steadily go on with your koan every moment of your life. . . . Whether walking or sitting, let your attention be fixed upon it without interruption. When you begin to find it entirely devoid of flavor, the final moment is approaching: do not let it slip out of your grasp. When all of a sudden something flashes out in your mind, its light will illumine the entire universe, and you will see the spiritual land of the Enlightened Ones. . . .19
The important thing is to concentrate totally on a koan. This concentration need not necessarily be confined to meditation, as Ta-hui illustrates using one of the more celebrated one-word statements of Yun-men.