About This Volume

This volume brings together the contents of Venerable Chi Chern’s two early works, Like a Dream and Entanglements, together with his essay, “Ordinary Mind: The Unifying Thread Throughout Master Hong Yi’s Life,” written in 1979 during the period immediately after his ordination, when he travelled to Taiwan to receive full ordination and pursue his Buddhist studies.

Like a Dream

This collection records Venerable Chi Chern’s reflections and insights into the Dharma during his thousand-day meditation retreat. Comprising more than a dozen essays, the book offers concise yet profound accounts of his personal experience and understanding of Buddhist practice, with the hope of inspiring fellow Buddhists on their own path of cultivation.

Entanglements

The Venerable has always been drawn to Chan (Zen). Yet, as a newly ordained monastic still learning and practising the Way, he found himself not yet free from worldly entanglements. Thus emerged this collection in three parts:

• Days in the Mountains — serene, lofty, and composed.
• Days by the Water — tranquil, leisurely, and detached.
• Days Amid the Dust — colourful, complex, and filled with entanglements.

His writing follows the movement of the mind: wherever the mind arrives, the words follow. Whether these writings truly convey the states of mind and landscapes they seek to express is for each reader to discover.

Ordinary Mind: The Unifying Thread Throughout Master Hong Yi’s Life

This essay was written in 1979 as a personal reflection after Venerable Chi Chern had repeatedly studied the biographies of Master Hong Yi during his period of self-directed study. It predates his later work, A Teacher of Humans and Devas for an Era: An Analysis of the Spiritual Legacy of Master Hong Yi, and represents his early understanding and appreciation of the Master’s life and spiritual example.