True Questioning Doubt Arises within Meditative Concentration (Samādhi) (2024-08-27)

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: Nowadays, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, I am generally in samādhi, contemplating the dharma principles familiar to my mind. I mainly contemplate the white-bone contemplation in my mind and my own white bones; I have no interest in people or matters outside the mind, nor do I discriminate about them. Once my daughter pulled me along to the supermarket to buy snacks; all the way to the supermarket I was introspecting, could not clearly hear other people's voices, and had no interest in looking at the people and things around me. When my daughter called me to pick out items, I felt as if my body were wandering in a dream, unreal. My hands and eyes seemed not to obey my command; I could not even pick out things properly, absent-minded. If I did not rouse my spirit to face people and things, then with a turn of thought I would stand there blankly staring.

When I practiced the white-bone contemplation last year, I already had some experiences of body and mind. Looking at family members who had once been closest to me, or at the most beautiful people outside, I felt they were all filthy like a pool of flesh and blood. Sometimes when going to the toilet I would also contemplate that all people are this filthy, that the body's nine orifices are always discharging filthy things; I felt that people are unreal, and thinking of it seemed meaningless, so I no longer sought fine food or fine clothing—good or bad, it made no difference. Recently, whether day or night, whether awake or asleep, I am in samādhi, with dharma principles continuously in my mind.

Assessment: The white-bone contemplation can absolutely eliminate the self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi). If the white bones can appear in the mind at all times, it shows that one is at all times in the white-bone contemplation, that is, at all times in meditative absorption (samādhi), able to spontaneously and automatically manifest the white bones; eliminating self-view would then be a matter of minutes—it could happen anytime, anywhere. Perhaps the self-view has already been eliminated, yet you yourself cannot feel it, because you lack the wisdom to judge, and your mental state and experiences cannot be described clearly. Only if you can recognize your present state clearly and understand your thoughts and feelings can your wisdom and cognition be judged—whether it belongs to the state of having eliminated self-view, or how far you still are from eliminating it. At the moment of eliminating self-view, body and mind both have some corresponding states; if you cannot understand them and treat them as ordinary matters, you will miss them.

If a person can at all times have no interest in external people, things, and affairs, this is not only the merit of meditative concentration but also the merit of wisdom. Only by fully recognizing that the world is suffering, impure, empty, and falsely unreal, and by being adept at contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha), so that the mind can accord with emptiness, can such reactions appear; or only after eliminating self-view can one have such reactions at all times. If one's practice is not in place, it is impossible to be uninterested in people and things and not want to know anything about them. Therefore, this state is more than ninety percent likely to be the state of having eliminated self-view; the specifics still await observation and understanding.

The description of the experiences of practicing the white-bone contemplation shows that Ven. Shi Ruyuan's practice of the white-bone contemplation is remarkably effective: able at all times to contemplate that all sentient beings are impure, fully recognizing (or perhaps realizing) the emptiness and unreality of the five aggregates of sentient beings, the mind has removed greed, no longer being picky or concerned about food and clothing, able to remain in meditative concentration whether asleep or awake, with the state of meditative absorption (samādhi) unbroken—quite excellent attainment. The state of awakened clarity after eliminating self-view is just like this.

These states are generally the states one is in after eliminating self-view. Before eliminating self-view, although meditative concentration may be quite good, with preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) complete, there will still be interruptions; only after eliminating self-view, when the mind is empty, can meditative concentration be continuous and unbroken, at all times in samādhi. These various phenomena show that there is a probability of more than ninety percent that Ven. Shi Ruyuan has already eliminated self-view; it is only that her own description is not very clear. In the state of samādhi, everything indeed seems like a dream, everything looks unreal; this state resembles the state after self-view has been eliminated. If some major event occurred previously in body and mind that she herself overlooked, I now cannot judge accurately. Your experience and wisdom are insufficient, and your ability of verbal expression is poor—what can I do about it?

Walking, standing, sitting, and lying down all in meditative concentration, all in contemplative practice, external circumstances cannot pull you away no matter how they try—meditative concentration is quite firm, the mind like walls of bronze and iron. At this point, entering the Path is a matter of minutes; this holds for both the Great and Small Vehicles. From here on, barring accidents, attaining enlightenment in this life and becoming a sagely bodhisattva is more or less settled. Others who want to enter samādhi cannot enter it, cannot be pushed into it; you cannot be pulled out of it. The difference is considerable—why is there such a great difference?

Apart from the wisdom and cognition within such samādhi, no other situation counts as seeing the Path. Apart from the state of meditative concentration, neither the Great nor the Small Vehicle can truly see the Path. Even if you have meditative concentration but are not at all times in it, and you believe that your cognition when not in meditative concentration also belongs to seeing the Path, that is also impossible. With shallow concentration, true seeing of the Path is also impossible; it is all something the mind consciousness has pondered up, and that does not count.

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: Once, inexplicably, a line popped out of my mind: "The mechanical wooden man, when the mechanism is triggered, its marks arise." At the time I had not yet come to my senses, and I kept murmuring it in my mind, feeling as if Master's book had mentioned this phrase. Previously I did not understand what it meant; now this phrase suddenly leaped out, and I pondered its meaning attentively. It should be using iron men and wooden men, and shadow-play figures pulled and entangled by strings, and so forth, as metaphors for the activities of the human five aggregates, shouldn't it?

That these five-aggregate shells of sentient beings leap about so lively is all the wondrous functioning of the tathāgatagarbha's self-nature operating behind the scenes; the wondrous functioning of the tathāgatagarbha is manifested in all dharmas. All public cases (gong'an) and huatou investigation are speaking of the wondrous functioning of the self-nature of sentient beings' tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, in samādhi, looking at everything seems like being in a dream—unreal, without any feeling. Sometimes at night while still asleep, I was awakened by the mantra being recited in my mind.

Assessment: Inexplicably a line popped out of the mind: "The mechanical wooden man, when the mechanism is triggered, its marks arise." This is being in the state of samādhi, with a great-vehicle questioning doubt suddenly bursting forth from the manas. It shows that the conditions for investigating Chan in the Great Vehicle have naturally ripened. Being able to produce questioning doubt automatically like this shows that the manas is deeply tied to the dharma principles; otherwise, only the mind consciousness would give rise to questioning doubt, while the manas would not. The reason the manas can give rise to great-vehicle questioning doubt is, first, that the Small Vehicle foundation is very firm—being fully confirmed and without doubt about the non-self of the five aggregates, one then comes to wonder: since the five aggregates are empty, why is there still activity of the five aggregates? Second, the cultivation and permeation of the Great Vehicle dharma has already matured. Therefore, when self-view still exists or is even still rather heavy, the manas will not give rise to great-vehicle questioning doubt; the mind consciousness, however, can, because the mind consciousness can leap across many levels to cognize dharmas through mistaken perception/non-valid cognition, whereas the manas cannot do so.

From this we can see that true questioning doubt arises spontaneously within samādhi, not murmured out by the mind consciousness like reciting a mantra; it gushes forth from the manas when conditions ripen. It is that after the manas knows the five aggregates are empty, it wants to fathom the secret mechanism within the body of the five aggregates. This is a natural phenomenon of great-vehicle practice reaching the point where the channel is formed by the flowing water, not questioning doubt deliberately and forcedly delivered by the mind consciousness. Only in this way can investigation be fast and efficient, not waste time in vain, and not lead to false or mistaken enlightenment. In such a state of samādhi, seeing one's true mind and attaining enlightenment is only a matter of days away.

However, what Ven. Shi Ruyuan says in the later passage—that behind the seeing of all dharmas there is the wondrous functioning of the tathāgatagarbha—yet being unable to say what that wondrous functioning actually is, clearly shows this is something learned externally by the mind consciousness, not her own genuine wisdom and cognition; it belongs to learning words, merely believing very strongly in this principle. But believing is believing; it has nothing to do with realization and cannot be regarded as the wisdom of realized realization. To obtain the wisdom of true realization, one must investigate within the operation of the five aggregates, investigating as if one did not know there is a tathāgatagarbha, forgetting all the theoretical knowledge about the tathāgatagarbha one has learned.