Cultivating Meditative Concentration Can Break Through the Obstruction of the Form Aggregate

When one first begins sitting in meditation and has not yet attained meditative concentration (samādhi), the field of vision is black when the eyes are closed. With a slight degree of meditative concentration, the colors before one's eyes are gray. As meditative concentration strengthens, the colors before one's eyes turn red. When meditative concentration strengthens further, the colors before one's eyes become pale red and pale yellow, or grayish white, and later they become white. Purple is similar to red, perhaps a bit lighter than red. This is the phenomenon of the obscuration of the aggregate of form becoming smaller and smaller; meditative concentration can reduce the obscuration of the aggregate of form.

When one cultivates meditative concentration to the point of breaking through the domain of the aggregate of form, once the domain of the aggregate of form has been passed, there is no obscuration whatsoever in seeing forms before one's eyes—one can see everything. No matter what obstacles there may be, no matter how far away or how high a place is, one can see it all.

When one cultivates meditative concentration to the point of breaking through the domain of the aggregate of feeling, having gone beyond the domain of the aggregate of feeling, one no longer has any sensation of the cold, heat, touch, or pain of the physical body. One can be free of painful feeling and remain indifferent to pleasant feeling as well.