What Is Actual Practice and Actual Realization? (Starting from Ruben's Contemplative Practice Journal)

Ru Ben: This morning when I sat down, I adjusted my breathing for a while, but it didn't feel very smooth and I wasn't focused. Then I slowly and silently recited the Heart Sutra and entered a state of śamatha-vipaśyanā, and my mind became quite settled. Then I tried to contemplate the in-and-out breath. When my legs became numb and swollen, a feeling of restlessness was about to arise in my mind, or distracting thoughts were about to emerge, so I stopped contemplating the breath and slowly and silently recited the Heart Sutra again, entering a state of śamatha-vipaśyanā once more, and my mind became quite settled.

When I got off the cushion and went to the toilet, I felt that this body is just a "flowing" thing—where is there an unchanging body-appearance? While eating, I looked at my family member sitting across from me and felt that she was just a dummy made of eye, ear, nose, and tongue combined with the five internal organs and six viscera assembled on a skeleton. Yet she doesn't know she is such a dummy. I couldn't tell her about this feeling of mine, for fear she would be unhappy. While eating, looking at the rice and vegetables in the bowl made of the four great elements, I felt that after they entered my body they became part of the body; the material body and the material rice are no different—both are just the four great elements, just like the flowers on the balcony absorbing soil and water and growing into various plants.

But why don't I consider the flowers to be myself? Why do I grasp a body of the four great elements as "me"? Why does everyone's body look different? What does this have to do with my mind consciousness? At this point I stopped and did not think further. I did not want to fit my previous learning into analysis and thinking; I should hand this question over to the manas to deliberate. Only through continuous observation, investigation (vitarka-vicāra), and chewing over does one get "mean~~ing"; only with a questioning doubt is there the desire to probe deeply.

Today when I went out and saw people walking toward me on the street, I felt that their figures, movements, and speech were also moving dummies, yet they all don't know they are dummies. At the entrance I greeted an acquaintance I knew; staring at the person's forehead, I thought that beneath the forehead is a pile of white bones, with the same stuff inside. It felt truly meaningless. Watching others speak, I felt that the sounds of speech they emitted were merely collisions of airflow with the material lips, tongue, throat, and windpipe—not much different from a person beating a drum or ringing a bell. The right and wrong, disputes, beauty and ugliness that people usually talk about or argue over are all meaningless. I didn't want to speak. I rested in the breath. (End of journal)

The above is one process of practicing the four foundations of mindfulness. In this process, the contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) becomes deeper and deeper, broader and broader, gradually extending to every corner and every aspect of life, from morning to night to sleep, reaching uninterrupted continuity. The mind gradually detaches from worldly appearances, becoming increasingly empty, gradually exchanging the ordinary person's bones and shedding the ordinary person's shell. If one keeps practicing like this, sooner or later one day one will leap over the Dragon Gate, and the carp will become a dragon.

When the contemplative practice is extended to every aspect of daily living and reaches uninterrupted continuity, that is the initial stage of meditative absorption (samādhi). This samādhi contains both meditative concentration and wisdom, only it is not yet perfect and ultimate. The perfect and ultimate samādhi is the samādhi at the time of realizing the Way, the samādhi of the pure Dharma eye, the samādhi of severing the three fetters, the samādhi of not falling into the three evil destinies. Such contemplative practice is only a process, a process of transformation of body and mind. In this process, the five faculties, the four right efforts, the four bases of supernatural power, the seven factors of enlightenment, the eightfold noble path, and the four foundations of mindfulness gradually become complete and perfect. When the conditions for realizing the Way are complete, one will eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa), enter the stage of realizing the Way, and attain the pure Dharma eye.

This is what is called genuine practice—genuine down to every corner and aspect of daily life, genuine down to every thought in the mind, every conduct, every discipline, genuine down to every step, genuine down to all the practice processes and necessary conditions taught by the Buddha, meticulous and without impatience, genuine down to afflictions not arising and mental thoughts ceasing. Of course, what ceases are the mental thoughts of the mind consciousness; the manas's deliberation (manasikāra) upon dharmas never ceases, mind-moment after mind-moment without interruption.

Therefore, the final seeing of the Way must be the manas seeing the Way and realizing the Way. After attaining the fruits of realization, its mental thoughts are also uninterrupted, its transformed mental activities and mental factors are also uninterrupted and continuous, and the five grades of gross afflictions (dausthulya) are also uninterruptedly extinguished. There will not be a back-and-forth switching between being a sage one moment and an ordinary person the next, with no need for the mind consciousness to restrain the manas and pull it back to the cognition of emptiness and no-self.

The mind consciousness attaining the fruits is just the opposite: when the mind consciousness is clear, one is a good person, but when circumstances arise, the manas gives rise to defiled intent along with the afflictions, and the six consciousnesses, unaware, follow along and create defiled karma. Afterwards, the mind consciousness feels it was improper and supervises the manas to suppress the afflictions—but by the time of suppression, the afflictions have already arisen, the faults have already been committed, the unwholesome karma has already been formed, the seeds have already been left behind—what to do about the future? Greedy thoughts appear at every turn, hateful thoughts appear at every turn; from time to time one breaks a precept, gives rise to an affliction, creates some unwholesome karma—what kind of sage is this? Although one afterwards recognizes the error and corrects it, cycling round and round like this—what Way has been seen? So unreliable, so exhausting? When the mind consciousness feels fatigued, it will no longer endlessly supervise the manas—the brakes have failed—then what will the consequences be?