The major purpose of this pilot study is to find out how the meditation method of silent illumination related to the participants’ mental health. Master Sheng Yen was an internationally well- known Chinese Chan teacher. Silent illumination is one method of his teaching in meditation. Thus, how the practice of silent illumination influences the meditators’ mental health is the major interest of this study. Through the narratives of the research participants’ life experiences, the influence of the method of silent illumination has been examined. There are twelve senior meditators invited into focus groups to share their life experience about why they engaged into the practice of silent illumination and how the silent illumination influenced their lives. The data of the focus groups has been transcribed and analyzed. The participant’s life stories can be synthesized into four transformative stages: 1. encountering the bottleneck of their lives; 2. breaking hardship and calming body and mind; 3. understanding why suffered and looking for alternatives; 4. accepting puzzles in lives but holding the method of silent illumination to cope sufferings. During the transformative stages there are four dimensions changed: 1.Physically: (1) through awareness and relaxation, physical syndromes decreased; (2) quality of sleep increased. 2. Psychologically: (1) decreasing negative emotional reaction and thinking; (2) increasing the self-awareness of behavior patterns; (3) acquainting how to transform the mind. 3. Interpersonally: (1) decending self-centered with smooth interpersonal interaction; (2) decreased interpersonal conflict with better emotional control; (3) looking for sincere communication to eliminate argument with no hurt. 4. Life attitude: (1) enriching life meaning through deep reflection; (2) cultivating a natural attitude toward death. The wisdom of awareness has been recognized as a capacity for silent illumination meditators to deal with the hardship of lives in this research.
