The Stages of Practice After Enlightenment

After enlightenment, there are two paths of practice. One is to see the Buddha-nature with one's own eyes, realize the contemplation of illusoriness, and feel that body, mind, and the world are all like illusions, thereby entering the tenth abode (daśa-vihāra); then continuing to practice upward, attaining the first dhyāna, eradicating the afflictions of greed and anger, becoming an anāgāmin, and through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) realizing the contemplation of heat-haze, becoming a bodhisattva of the tenth conduct (daśa-carya); then, after passing through the three barriers of the Chan school, realizing the contemplation of dreamlikeness through contemplative practice, one gains the ability to enter the first bhūmi, and thereafter practices progressively through the eighth bhūmi up to the Buddha ground. This is one path of realization and cultivation.

The other path is that one may skip the stage of seeing the Buddha-nature with one's own eyes, as long as one can see the Buddha-nature before reaching the eighth bhūmi. After enlightenment, one diligently engages in contemplative practice and cultivates meditative concentration, weakening greed, anger, and delusion, becoming a sakṛdāgāmin; then giving rise to the first dhyāna, becoming an anāgāmin, and subsequently carrying out various progressive contemplative practices, respectively realizing the contemplation of heat-haze and the contemplation of dreamlikeness, thereafter entering the first and second bhūmis, all the way to the eighth and ninth bhūmis, and finally perfectly accomplishing the Buddha way.

Realizing the contemplation of illusoriness is equivalent to the second fruit of the Small Vehicle: one knows that everything inside and outside, body and mind, is false appearance and illusory manifestation, not truly existent, and no longer takes any of the dharmas of the five-aggregate world as real. From then on, the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion become extremely slight, almost nonexistent, and meditative concentration will arise. After seeing the mind, one gradually feels that everything inside and outside, body and mind, is unreal like an illusion, and from then on greed, anger, and delusion all become extremely slight. Later, meditative concentration will deepen, reaching the first dhyāna, eradicating craving and anger—one then becomes an anāgāmin. If these are eradicated cleanly and one has passed through the three barriers of the Chan school in sequence, and is thoroughly versed in the dharmas of the three vehicles, one enters the first bhūmi. Of course, this also requires many other realizations, which I will not detail one by one, because everyone is still very far from the first bhūmi.

If one has not seen the mind and directly attains the second fruit, with greed, anger, and delusion weakened, one cannot realize the contemplation of illusoriness; even if one cultivates to the fourth fruit, one cannot reach the seventh abode, let alone the tenth abode. However, once the great arhats see the mind, they are not necessarily at the seventh abode—perhaps higher—and their cultivation of the Mahāyāna path will be extremely rapid. There is a type of first-bhūmi bodhisattva who proceeds directly through precepts and concentration, who has cultivated supernormal powers and can fly to a hundred Buddha worlds to meet a hundred Buddhas. But their wisdom is not deep, and they cannot expound the Dharma for sentient beings—this is an example of entering the first bhūmi through meditative concentration and supernormal powers alone.