How Does the Practice of Skeleton Contemplation Lead to the Eradication of Self-View and the Attainment from the First to the Fourth Stages of Enlightenment?

Ordinary sentient beings, since beginningless kalpas due to ignorance and delusion, lacking meditative concentration and wisdom, can only superficially observe and cognize the five aggregates and all dharmas at a coarse level, unable to engage in substantive and ultimate observation. Thus, they have persistently mistaken the material body as a truly existent dharma and regarded the functions of the consciousness-mind as truly existent dharmas, remaining ignorant of their nature as suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self. This constitutes erroneous cognition regarding the five aggregates. Through the practice of the contemplation of the white skeleton, as meditative power deepens progressively, the power of observation grows increasingly stronger and more subtle, enabling clear observation of the arising, ceasing, and transformation of the material body. The truth of emptiness then surfaces, and the entire physical body manifests the appearance of white bones. Ultimately, even the white bones become empty, thereby eradicating the view of selfhood and the view of a personal self.

The entire process of contemplation occurs within a state of samadhi. The skeletal appearance and the appearance of emptiness of the material body, flesh, and bones arise naturally as a state of directly perceived reality (pratyakṣa), not as an inferential or erroneous state (parikalpita) conjured by the intellect through imagination and reasoning. All samadhi originates from the mental faculty (manas). They are all states of directly perceived wisdom cognition of the mental faculty, entirely devoid of the inferential and erroneous components of the intellect. Within samadhi, the intellect can only know passively, moving and knowing according to the mental faculty. Prior to entering samadhi, the intellect can play an active role in thinking and observation, guiding the mental faculty onto the path. Once guided, meditative concentration deepens progressively, and the initial state of samadhi arises. The active function of the intellect diminishes progressively, while the process of deliberation by the mental faculty grows increasingly stronger. When the mental faculty perceives the dharma as it truly is, wisdom manifests. Genuine samadhi characterized by the equal abiding of concentration and wisdom then appears, and at this point, the fruition is realized.

Without meditative concentration, the mental faculty cannot achieve focused confrontation with the material body and the five aggregates, cannot deliberate and perceive the dharma as it truly is, remains ignorant of the true characteristics of the material body and the five aggregates, and thus wisdom cannot arise. The contemplation of the white skeleton can generate meditative concentration, and from meditative concentration, wisdom emerges. Ultimately, this leads to the eradication of the view of self and the realization of the fruition. The initially seemingly impossible white skeleton finally manifests within the mind. This is the form manifested through concentration (dhyānaniṣyanda). Upon perceiving the white skeleton as a form manifested through concentration, one knows the material body is not the self. When the samadhi characterized by the equal abiding of concentration and wisdom appears, one attains the pure Dharma-eye and realizes the fruition.