The Mysteries of Contemplative Practice and Zen Meditation

When severing the view of self, the consciousness must first provide the manas with all evidence and data. Then, consciousness reduces its thinking and effort, cooperating with the psychological activities of manas, allowing manas to deliberate and evaluate freely, enabling it to verify certain facts independently. If manas deems the facts insufficient, the evidence inadequate, or the data incomplete, then consciousness resumes contemplative thinking, gathers more data, and presents it to manas. Manas then deeply deliberates and evaluates once more. In this way, consciousness continuously supplements data and materials from the side, enabling manas to process and refine its thinking continuously, ultimately arriving at a solid, well-evidenced conclusion—thus attaining the fruit of enlightenment.

If many matters require handling, forcing consciousness to exit meditative concentration to perceive the six dusts (objects of sense), manas can still work diligently in the background. It can engage in investigation whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, even continuing its effort during sleep, whether dreaming or dreamless. When manas genuinely perceives a matter as crucial, it may decide to forgo food and sleep, neglecting rest and sustenance. This is because manas strives for diligence; activities like eating distract its focused contemplation, diverting attention to mundane trivialities. Thus, it may decide to reduce other activities of the five aggregates (skandhas) to ensure undistracted focus. During sleep, without consciousness assisting from the side, manas lacks sufficient data and materials to commence investigation. Therefore, manas decides not to sleep, preventing consciousness from ceasing.

In the investigation of all dharmas, initially, manas cooperates with the analytical thinking of consciousness, assisting in gathering various data and materials. Once consciousness has collected relatively sufficient data for manas to utilize, consciousness must then cooperate with the deep deliberation of manas, support manas in processing and integrating the information, and assist manas in its scrutiny and filtering work. By letting manas exert more mental effort and reducing the activity of consciousness, the investigative work can be swiftly completed.

To make consciousness less active in thinking and allow manas to deliberate more, one must cultivate meditative concentration (dhyāna). Only within concentration can the focused investigation of manas be assured. Although it cannot be completely fixed on a single point, it suffices if it can settle on a very few dharmas. Apart from the essential dharma principles requiring focused investigation, others need only be lightly discerned, without hindering its own inquiry. Therefore, contemplative practice must occur within concentration. Consciousness must not indulge in emotional or intellectual interpretations but should instead engage the deliberative nature of manas more fully, effectively leveraging manas's capacity for deliberation to personally realize the selflessness of the five aggregates. This is the profound secret of contemplative practice (guanxing) and Chan meditation (canchan).

Thus, if manas does not realize the dharma, it is impossible to awaken to the mind (mingxin) and attain enlightenment, and equally impossible to sever the view of self. When engaging in Chan meditation and contemplative practice within concentration, one must use conscious thinking sparingly and employ the deliberative nature of manas extensively. This is the profound secret of Chan meditation and contemplative practice.

Without the cooperation and assistance of consciousness, manas can still investigate and deliberate on the meaning of the dharma, though it may take considerably longer—potentially an indefinite amount of time. However, the prerequisite is that consciousness must deliver the content and data of its thinking to manas. Only then can manas deliberate with something to follow, enabling it to understand through deliberation and attain realization. For example, one might ponder a problem in the evening without resolving it before falling asleep. After a night's sleep, upon just opening the eyes the next morning, inspiration arises, and the unresolved problem suddenly becomes clear. This indicates that manas was working and deliberating throughout the night. Leaving a question for manas before sleep and awakening to find the answer in the morning is an experience shared by many.

Similarly, sometimes a problem contemplated earlier may not yield an immediate answer. One then turns to other tasks, seemingly forgetting the matter on the surface—consciousness no longer considers it. Then, unexpectedly, at some point, the answer suddenly appears in the mind. This is manas silently deliberating in the background all along, finally producing a result. Cultivation is precisely about utilizing manas more extensively. The cultivation of manas is true cultivation; only through it can one realize all dharmas and attain all wisdom.