How to Engage in Contemplative Practice to Achieve Ideal Results?

Ruben's contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) log: Over the past two days, while sitting in meditation observing the breath at the nostrils, I have mainly focused on cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi) and training my legs. There have been no special states. My right leg is a bit more supple than before. Each sitting, I do full lotus for about half an hour and then switch to half lotus, or do half lotus for 50 minutes and then switch to the other leg; it is no longer especially painful, and an hour no longer feels very long. 

After getting up from the cushion, during the day when I go out and move about, I constantly keep up the intention of being an onlooker, to see how this body actually moves and acts. With that mind that has no language, thinking, or reasoning, I watch, listen, and know myself and others as they open their mouths to speak or chew their food, or bare their teeth in a smile, or move their eyes, or raise a hand and lift a leg while walking past.

One must absolutely not analyze by saying in the mind, "This is the function of the manas, this is the function of the mind consciousness, this is the function of the ear consciousness, this is the function of the body consciousness," and so on. Rather, one should adopt the attitude of an onlooker: not helping or participating, not helping to analyze. Only in this way can that detached "mind-eye" that stands outside the body arise, watching from the side the process of change of body and mind. Within this, what the mind consciousness does is very subtle; only by experiencing it can one understand.

Sometimes, at a certain moment, I will also turn back and introspect with the power of introspection (pratyavekṣā-bala) on what this mind that cognizes and discerns actually looks like, and how exactly body and mind operate in correspondence with each other? I just hold this questioning doubt, and absolutely do not think or reason about it. Moreover, I feel that as soon as thinking and reasoning are added, the desire and strength to keep experiencing and investigating disappear. I increasingly feel that my power of meditative concentration is still quite lacking. Sometimes when I talk with people too much, I easily lose the power of mindful awareness, my habitual tendencies are hard to control, and I often need to return to the breath and settle there. I increasingly feel the importance of cultivating meditative concentration, and I sense the difference between experience and knowledge. 

Assessment: During contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), try to maintain simple knowing; do not deliberately add the thinking and analysis of subjective consciousness, do not have conscious subjective thoughts, and do not bring in any preconceived notions. Settle the mind, let go of the mind. All matters are silently watched over and managed by the manas; trust the master. Sometimes having a lot of knowledge is also a burden, as it can obstruct the manas' own deliberation (manasikāra) and observation, making it impossible to see clearly the truth and the facts, and impossible to attain realization. Among the various successful people in society, they are not necessarily those with the most knowledge, but rather those with deep and subtle thinking and unique insights—people whose manas possesses wisdom, people who do a lot of actual hands-on work, not those who indulge in empty fantasies of the mind or empty talk of the mouth. Empty talk often ruins a country.