Bhadrapāla in the Twenty-Five Sages' Perfect Penetration Methods, Volume Five of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Original text: 跋陀婆罗。并其同伴。十六开士。即从座起。顶礼佛足。而白佛言。我等先于威音王佛。闻法出家。于浴僧时。随例入室。忽悟水因。既不洗尘。亦不洗体。中间安然。得无所有。宿习无忘。乃至今时。从佛出家。今得无学。彼佛名我。跋陀婆罗。妙触宣明。成佛子住。佛问圆通。如我所证。触因为上。

Explanation: Bodhisattva Bhadrapāla, together with his sixteen companion bodhisattva-mahāsattvas, rose from their seats, paid homage at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: We heard the Dharma and left home to cultivate during the time of Buddha Wéiyīn-wáng (Buddha King of Awesome Voice). Once, when the monks were bathing, I entered the bathing room in accordance with the usual order. While bathing, I suddenly awakened to the causes and conditions of water: it neither washes away the dust nor washes the body. In the midst of bathing, everything remained tranquil, and nothing could be obtained or possessed. This habitual tendency from past lives has never been forgotten, down to the present time when I have left home under the Buddha to cultivate, and now I have attained the fruit of being beyond training (aśaikṣa), the fourth fruit. That Buddha gave me the name Bhadrapāla, because through the wondrous contact experienced during bathing my mind became awakened and illumined, and I took my abode in the seat of a Buddha-son. The Buddha asks about the dharma gate of perfect penetration; as I myself realized it, contact as the sense object is the supreme dharma gate of perfect penetration.

Why can water neither wash away the dust nor wash the body? Because all dharmas lack self-nature (svabhāva), and insentient material form (rūpa) all the more lacks self-nature. Therefore water has no actual function or efficacy of washing away dust or washing the body. That the dust is washed off is not due to any merit of the water; that the body becomes clean is not due to any merit of the water. Water and dust do not touch each other at all; water and the body do not touch each other at all; likewise, the body and the dust do not touch each other at all. Since material forms fundamentally have no boundary between them, they cannot change anything in one another. And yet what is the result? The dust is indeed washed off, and the body is indeed washed clean. This is truly a wondrous thing. Therefore Bhadrapāla realized the intrinsic nature of all dharmas, called this wondrous thing "wondrous contact," and clearly proclaimed this realization of wondrous contact so that everyone would know it, in order to inspire everyone to realize this wondrous contact themselves.

However, to realize this wondrous contact, one must have profound meditative concentration (samādhi); without meditative concentration there is no realization whatsoever. What is produced by emotional thinking and intellectual understanding has no actual merit or benefit—like talking about food, it does not satisfy hunger. Only when meditative concentration is deep can the questioning doubt be deep. If one can abide in questioning doubt at all times and in all places, then upon encountering the corresponding conditions, gathering in one's thoughts and pondering deeply, one can awaken to the Way. Afterward, one will not only know that it is so, but will also know why it is so; meditative absorption (samādhi) manifests before one, great wisdom arises, and even great supernatural powers may manifest—all those who truly realize it are like this.