The Chan Practice Kung Fu That Should Be Possessed Before Enlightenment (2025-03-30)

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: I am grateful to Master for His blessing over these past days, so that I have been in meditative concentration whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down. On the first evening after seeing Master, while sitting in meditation, an inconceivable phenomenon appeared in samādhi. As soon as I sat down on the cushion, my head instantly went "boom," as if a large mass of air current had been expelled; my mind felt empty and hollow, as if something had struck my head hard, and I was shaken out of meditative concentration. On the second and third days my body remained in samādhi and could not move; I could not come out of concentration. On the third night I was too excited to sleep, and I became a bit worried: if the following days were all like this, what would I become? During these days my thighs also became sore and swollen, my eyes would not open; when I wanted to get up and walk, I simply could not move; when I stood up, I felt floaty and unsteady, afraid of falling, as if my cerebellum had lost its sense of balance. 

On the fourth day things were slightly better; I could move, and my legs were no longer sore and swollen. Around eleven o'clock at night, while in samādhi, a powerful current of air rushed out from my nostrils and shook me out of meditative concentration. At the time I just sat there to compose myself, remembering Master's teaching that I should not just sit, but should move around appropriately, practice walking meditation, and investigate the tathāgatagarbha amid the states I encountered. So I got up and did walking meditation, while contemplating that all dharmas born of the tathāgatagarbha are illusory dharmas. In an instant I felt the dharma meanings turning back and forth in my mind ceaselessly; I could not control body and mind to come out of concentration, could not perceive the six sense objects outside the mind, and only the sound of the Buddha's name kept spinning and playing in my mind. Such great responses and experiences truly cannot be expressed in words; they can only be enjoyed or understood within meditative concentration—those with shallow concentration cannot feel them at all. 

The above are the responses and experiences of those few days. Now I have recovered; body and mind are relaxed and at ease, and I can contemplate dharma meanings normally. Now the questioning doubts or answers that arise in my mind are becoming clearer and clearer. Even going to the toilet, I can raise questioning doubts without interruption: doubting who it is whose power drags this wooden-like five-aggregate body of mine to the toilet; doubting how this power exercises its wondrous functions on the sentient being's shell of form. When eating and drinking, I cannot help asking: in the activities of my five aggregates—raising hands and lifting feet, dressing, eating and drinking, holding bowl and chopsticks—who is it that holds and sustains them? 

Assessment: The spontaneously arising questioning doubt of Ven. Shi Ruyuan is very powerful. If a bodhisattva's conditions are all complete, investigation takes no effort at all—it is merely a matter of a layer of window paper. If the manas can continuously hang onto this question in its mind, one's Chan-investigation skill is in no way inferior to the many Chan masters of the Tang and Song dynasties. Because the investigation skill before realization is the same in every era—there is no updating, no change, and the standard and level cannot be lowered. The only difference is that Ven. Shi Ruyuan has learned too much of the tathāgatagarbha dharma from me, and it is too straightforward; she need not spend much energy organizing and systematizing it, relying more on external force, so her self-power appears very insufficient. The ancient Chan masters, by contrast, learned the prajñā doctrine only roughly, far less abundant and detailed, so they had to apply their minds much more in investigation, relying more on self-power, and their wisdom developed deeply and subtly. Teaching too straightforwardly is not conducive to disciples' Chan investigation; it easily leads to intellectual understanding, affecting the disciple's progress on the Path and the arising of wisdom.

 Ven. Shi Ruyuan first said something: contemplating that all dharmas born of the tathāgatagarbha are illusory. This sentence is learned language, borrowed language; it does not count as contemplation, does not belong to investigation, and belongs to deliberation, thinking, and understanding within samādhi. Not yet having realized the tathāgatagarbha and not knowing how the tathāgatagarbha gives birth to all dharmas, one cannot possibly know specifically how all dharmas are illusory—there is no evidence to say so. This is called taking the effect as the cause, also called conjecture; it is the result of not knowing how to use the manas to hang onto a questioning doubt. But because Ven. Shi Ruyuan's meditative concentration is deep, the dharma meanings she understood also shook the manas with great force. For a person without meditative concentration, even if their understanding is correct, their inner fluctuation is not great—there is no question of any shaking. 

As for the questioning doubts Ven. Shi Ruyuan raised later, they are like a layer of window paper—a single poke breaks through—pointing directly at the central point, pointing at the target of realization, pointing at that moon that never disappears. This relies entirely on her meditative-concentration skill, which is very dense and continuous—cannot be torn apart, cannot be disturbed by māras, cannot be interrupted by anyone. So at this time she did not use the mind consciousness to resolve the questioning doubt through reasoning, guessing, conjecturing, or analyzing. If she had applied the mind consciousness, she might have resolved the result without effort, breaking the mind consciousness's questioning doubt—but the manas's questioning doubt could not be broken. 

Precisely because Ven. Shi Ruyuan did not use the mind consciousness to resolve the questioning doubt, but only used the manas to investigate honestly, the questioning doubt that looks like window paper to an enlightened person she herself could not see through, simply because her wisdom was insufficient and she was too honest, never cutting corners. In such deep and dense skill, cutting corners is not easy; when the manas itself carries a heavy questioning doubt, it generally does not give the mind consciousness a chance to resolve it. 

Therefore, as long as the skill is deep and the manas's questioning doubt is heavy, even if the dharma is taught as straightforwardly as possible, intellectual understanding can be avoided. Even if the secret meaning is explicitly told, because the questioning doubt is present, the manas will still investigate and verify it, practice and realize it, and will not allow the mind consciousness to believe and understand it. In this way, as long as the skill is in place and the manas has doubt, previous intellectual understanding can be transformed into realization: turning the plainly stated Buddha-dharma into a proof problem—knowing the answer yet requiring the process of solving it. In the genuine process of investigation, the bodhisattva's disposition matures, thereby giving rise to the merit and wisdom of seeing the Path. 

In Ven. Shi Ruyuan's account, she inadvertently displayed the entire method and process of applying effort in Chan investigation, and also pointed out the target of Chan investigation crystal clearly—just short of stating it outright; the finger pointing at the moon is shining brightly, pointing at the moon. But even so, for many people it is still of no use; they cannot get a handle on it. What is the reason? Not cultivating merit, with merit severely insufficient, and meditative-concentration skill incomplete—even guessing with the mind consciousness is difficult; and even if they guess it out, it is not accurate enough, has no effect on their own body and mind, and afflictions remain afflictions just the same. 

Most importantly, they lack the Small Vehicle's mind of renunciation, and the Great Vehicle's bodhi mind cannot be aroused either. Buddhist practice and realization are only a small part of these people's lives; many affairs of the worldly realm still occupy an important place. If the manas does not value cultivation, how can skill be developed? Each person cultivates and each person enjoys the results; no one can substitute for another. So explicitly stating the final result of Chan investigation is of no help to others either—intellectual understanding is already not easy, and realization is even more impossible.