Without Meditative Concentration, One Cannot Truly Realize the Buddhadharma

For us practitioners, if we want to realize the Buddha's teachings experientially, meditative concentration (samādhi) is extremely important. Every step of realizing the Buddha's teachings depends on meditative concentration to carry out contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), and only then can one understand the true reality of all dharmas. For example, to contemplate whether the eye consciousness arises first or the mind consciousness arises first, and whether manifest form (rūpa) appears first or shape-form appears first, one must first have meditative concentration in order to contemplate and observe it; otherwise, with a scattered and distracted mind, one certainly cannot contemplate out a correct result. We can look at the scenery outside, look at the sky, look at trees, look at flowers, grass, and forests, look at rivers. When the eye consciousness goes out, first observe the external objects the eyes are facing—do you first see manifest form, or first see shape-form, or first see the content within these forms? Step by step, only with meditative concentration can one contemplate and observe this; without meditative concentration and relying only on imagination in the brain, one absolutely cannot think it through clearly, and cannot realize the Buddha's teachings experientially.

The realization of the Buddha's teachings—apart from meditative concentration, none of it can be called realization; it is all imagination, thinking, and intellectual understanding based on sentiment. Relying on sentimental intellectual understanding, we cannot have true wisdom, and the wisdom we originally had will not improve; only learning this bit of wisdom from outside, wisdom grows very slowly. Without meditative concentration, even if one barely achieves seeing the mind and knows the answer to where the eighth consciousness is, one cannot contemplate and observe it, wisdom cannot grow, and the wisdom of contemplative practice cannot appear either.

Apart from meditative concentration, after seeing the mind, the illusion-like contemplation of the ten abodes cannot manifest, the special feelings of body and mind will not appear, and no change can occur in body and mind. If the feelings of body and mind do not change, one has not realized the illusion-like contemplation; apart from meditative concentration, the mirage-like contemplation of the ten practices also cannot be contemplated, and one will not have those feelings of body and mind of the mirage-like contemplation, making it impossible to pass beyond the ten practices; plus the dream-like contemplation of the ten dedications—if meditative concentration is lacking, the feelings of the dream-like contemplation will not arise either. If, in these contemplative practices, one cannot get through them one by one, then the bodhisattva's path-cultivation will just mark time in place, unable to advance. Apart from meditative concentration, wanting to realize the Buddha's teachings experientially is sheer fantasy. With meditative concentration, at the time of eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) and seeing the mind, the feelings of body and mind and the joy of dhyāna are simply indescribable in words, and the subsequent growth of wisdom, growth of meditative concentration and wisdom, and advancement of bodhisattva stages will all be very fast.