Here I stand with Chinese Zen (Ch’an), especially as I was taught and as explained by the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng. He warns against turning meditation into a narcotic, resulting in a pleasant passivity. He went so far as to declare: “It is quite unnecessary to stay in monasteries. Only let your mind … function in freedom … let it abide nowhere.” And in this connection he later explains: “To be free from attachment to all outer objects is true meditation. To meditate means to realize thus tranquillity of Essence of Mind.”
