Mind Like a Wall Can Enter the Path

Question: One night, while dreaming, I entered meditative concentration. My mind was bright and lucid, and I clearly knew the people and things around me, yet I felt that these people and affairs seemed to have no connection with me and could not affect me. It was as if I were in a vacuum, with not a single distracting thought in my mind, only one thought of contemplating a dharma teaching (I can't remember exactly which teaching it was), like a lone sun shining in the sky without a single dark cloud. At the same time, my whole body and mind felt incomparably tranquil and comfortable, and I finally realized how blissful it is to be in meditative concentration! Even after waking up, I could still feel that comfort. If one has this kind of meditative concentration, one truly would no longer crave worldly pleasures. That feeling of tranquility and ease is something the five desires of the world cannot compare with! May I ask, Master: why would such a state, which I have never experienced in waking life, appear in a dream?

Answer: This dream was a state of investigating Chan within meditative concentration, with both concentration and wisdom present — śamatha and vipaśyanā operating together. You cultivated this kind of meditative concentration in past lives; it was preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi). Your manas experienced it in a previous life and has a memory of it. Now, in your heart you yearn for it and want to experience this state of meditative concentration again. But your present life is rather busy, and the conditions for cultivating concentration are not complete, so the manas has no choice but to dream, enjoying in the dream the bliss of meditative concentration and Chan investigation. It seems the manas is rather pitiable and helpless — modern society is so chaotic that one cannot even cut off the tumult of life to cultivate the Path single-mindedly.

In the dream, the mind consciousness was in a lucid, thought-free state, bright and clear, without thoughts — it should have been in preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) — while the manas was functioning in a state of investigating dharma meaning, deliberating (manasikāra) on the Buddha-dharma. Only by such deliberation on the Buddha-dharma can the fundamental problem be solved and the Path be realized. Investigating Chan is precisely this state: not a single distracting thought in the mind, external objects not entering the mind, the mind as immovable (tathatā-acalita) as a wall of bronze and iron. When Patriarch Bodhidharma said that a mind like a wall can enter the Path, this is exactly what he meant. If your meditative concentration and contemplation cannot reach this degree, do not expect to realize the Path.

This state of deliberation and investigation by the manas can only arise and be sustained continuously under conditions of extreme quietness; only then can one investigate the profound and extremely subtle principles of the Dharma. Therefore, a true practitioner will cut off all external conditions, in absolute solitude and loneliness, alone without companions. Cultivating the Path is a great undertaking done by a solitary person; it cannot be accomplished amid clamor and in company. Those who cannot endure loneliness cannot walk the true path of cultivation. Meditative concentration can subdue and eradicate afflictions, and can bring tranquility, joy, and happiness — nothing brings more happiness than cultivating the Path. Therefore, those who possess meditative concentration do not relish worldly dharmas; their minds do not cling to the world, they do not pursue wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep, nor fame and gain, nor power and status. Being greedy for worldly dharmas is truly unwise conduct.

Some people say that as long as one can contemplate dharma meaning without distracting thoughts for a dozen or so minutes, one can attain realization and see the mind. Such talk is simply absurd. With only such a short time of contemplating the Buddha-dharma, it is impossible to contemplate deeply and subtly, and impossible to cultivate to the state of the equal cultivation of Samādhi and Prajñā in Chan investigation. It is like boiling a large pot of water, which takes an hour; if you stop the fire after five or ten minutes and continue the next day, even boiling like this for a year or ten years will not bring the water to a boil. Treating the Buddha-dharma as child's play like this brings quite unwholesome retribution. If the Buddha-dharma were so easy to cultivate and realize, how could there be so many beings in the three evil destinies? People of the world all love to take shortcuts, yet the result of taking shortcuts harms oneself. You reap what you sow; if you want to achieve something, you must relinquish body and mind and be willing to put in real effort.