Investigating the Huatou Requires Preparatory Concentration and First Dhyāna Concentration

Question: If seeing the path requires the preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi), the first dhyāna, the second dhyāna, the third dhyāna, or the fourth dhyāna, then does the Chan school's method of investigating the huatou to attain enlightenment and see the path accord with Buddhist doctrine?

Answer: Without the preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) and the concentration of the first dhyāna, one cannot investigate the huatou; one can only recite the huatou word by word in the mind, which is in fact reciting the tail of the huatou — the huatou itself cannot be found, so how could one speak of attaining enlightenment and seeing the path? But it is only before the first dhyāna that one can investigate Chan and awaken to the Way. From the second dhyāna onward, the five sense consciousnesses cease, and the mind consciousness becomes faint, so one cannot investigate Chan — unless the manas has been deeply, deeply steeped in the huatou, in which case one might perhaps investigate it alone. In the past, the Chan patriarchs awakened to the Way within the concentration prior to the first dhyāna; they both sat in meditation cultivating tranquil concentration and also investigated Chan in the course of daily activities. The two kinds of concentration complemented each other, and thus they awakened to the Way quickly; with only one of the two, awakening to the Way is rather difficult.