The Contemplative Practice of Cultivating the Mind and Cultivating the Body

Regarding brainwaves, each brain neuron has a nucleus, and every neural nucleus continuously emits brainwaves outward. This is the fundamental reason why our mental activities consume our own energy. Moreover, when the six sense faculties contact the six sense objects, consciousness releases a large number of brainwaves during acts of willpower, discrimination, reasoning, and judgment. When consciousness engages in contemplation, brainwaves are emitted outward most intensely, consuming the greatest energy. Therefore, practitioners of meditation, by focusing inwardly and not grasping at external phenomena, consume very little energy.

All the neural tissues throughout the body ultimately converge at the brain. The inner six sense objects manifest within the brain, and the seventh consciousness also operates there. Once the seventh consciousness becomes active, its movement affects the brain's neural organization system, which then transmits this influence throughout the entire body. Thus, various activities and reactions of the conscious mind can induce changes in the physical body, affecting its respiration, heartbeat, pulse, blood circulation, internal organs, and even the skin. From this, we arrive at one conclusion: Cultivating the mind is cultivating the body. Another conclusion is: Cultivating the body also nurtures the mind. This conclusion is left for everyone to deduce and prove the principle behind it.

The Buddha Dharma is the most rigorous science, the most advanced science. However, without sufficient merit, without meditative concentration, and without wisdom, one cannot realize it. With insufficient meditative power, the capacity for logical thinking cannot keep up, thinking becomes insufficiently refined, and wisdom cannot be developed. Many people constantly seek to learn theories everywhere but are never willing to spend time cultivating meditative concentration and contemplating the Dharma. Consequently, what they learn remains merely theoretical knowledge, utterly useless to their own body and mind. Afflictions remain afflictions, lack of wisdom remains lack of wisdom, arrogance remains arrogance, the ego remains the ego—they gain not the slightest benefit of liberation of body and mind.