The Benefits of Manas Contemplation

Question: I seem to understand how to use the manas for deliberation. It is a mental activity that cannot involve thinking, because once thinking occurs, the consciousness participates. Once consciousness participates, that state becomes less profound and subtle. Is that correct? This state lasts for a very short time. When deliberation reaches a point where the problem gets stuck, I start thinking with consciousness, and immediately the state becomes less profound and subtle. Also, during meditation, when I observe the state of the body with awareness, a feeling arises that this material body does not exist. It feels like a body composed only of slight sensations and consciousness, very insubstantial. Suddenly, I had the thought that the things we usually see are merely images, projections manifested by the mind. With this feeling, after emerging from concentration, looking around, everything still appears so real.

Answer: You can now roughly distinguish during meditation whether it is consciousness pondering or manas deliberating. Your method is correct, but your skill is not yet pure and effortless. You need to proceed slowly and gradually deepen your foundation. When contemplating the Dharma in stillness, using manas indeed allows the mind to be very profound and subtle, while using consciousness feels somewhat superficial, as if separated by a layer, not deep or penetrating enough.

When observing the material body with focused attention during meditation, concentration power increases. As concentration deepens, awareness and observation actually become more subtle, leading to the disappearance of the perception of the material body, and the mind becomes empty. Concentration power enables the mind to be subtle and precise, often allowing observation of things not normally perceived, enabling the discovery of the truth of phenomena, thereby penetrating and realizing the truth. Thus, feeling in concentration that some things appear like images, less substantial, is a correct view. Building upon this correct view and refining your skill until it becomes effortless holds the potential for realization.

After realization, upon emerging from concentration, one no longer mistakes illusory phenomena for reality. Before realization, the view is merely a view and changes nothing. However, the correct view does involve some degree of liberation from false cognition, tending towards discovering the truth of phenomena. Maintaining and deepening this state of practice allows one to see more clearly how all principles and phenomena are utterly illusory and insubstantial. When causes, conditions, and timing are complete, it becomes possible to realize emptiness. Therefore, the realization of all dharmas occurs within profound meditative concentration. Even during activity, there is concentration power, which stems from the meditative concentration skill cultivated in seated meditation—it is the extension and continuation of the concentration attained in stillness.