Thoughts, Dhyana, and the Deva Realms within the Three Realms

Greed is the attachment to cravings and desires, while love is the affection and delight in them. When one no longer feels affection or delight towards the Three Realms, love ceases. When love ceases, the karma of the Three Realms is exhausted. When craving and desire cease, the fetters of the desire realm are severed, enabling liberation from the desire realm. The first meditative absorption of the form realm will inevitably arise, and upon death, one will be reborn in the heavens of the form realm. For those with intense craving for sexual desire, not only will they be unable to attain the first meditative absorption, but they also cannot achieve the access concentration of the desire realm, nor even the most rudimentary concentration within the desire realm. Thus, they possess not the slightest meditative concentration.

This is because all meditative concentration arises when the mind aligns with the state of heavenly beings, not with the state of humans. When the mind's nature surpasses that of humans, its state transcends the human realm. Those who possess concentration within the desire realm certainly have minds that are detached from human cravings. Those with concentration in the form realm have minds detached from the states of humans, ghosts, animals, and the heavenly beings of the desire realm. Those with concentration in the formless realm have minds detached from the states of both the form and desire realms.

The presence or absence of meditative concentration depends entirely on the thoughts of the mind. With a single movement of thought, concentration vanishes—the mind is indeed this powerful. Those who lament their inability to cultivate good meditative concentration should examine whether their thoughts are pure, whether they are too closely entangled with human affairs and worldly matters, and whether their minds are constantly preoccupied with human concerns. If thoughts are impure, forcibly enduring physical discomfort to cultivate concentration will be futile.