How to Train Your Own Awareness?

A wealthy man in Germany had a son who was deaf, mute, and paralyzed. He refused to give up on his paralyzed son, believing that through effort, he could nurture him into a capable individual. Thus, he devised a plan to train his son's perceptual faculties of the five senses. He began by training the sense of sight, placing a bright, luminous toy before his son's eyes and constantly moving it up, down, left, and right. Finally, one day, the son's vision recovered—his eyes could not only see the toy but also follow its movement, becoming lively and alert. The wealthy man continued training his son to enhance his concentration, awareness, and powers of observation. For hearing training, he used a sound-producing object, repeatedly tapping it near each of his son's ears. Eventually, the son's hearing recovered; he could hear sounds and turn his head toward the source of the sound.

Not content with his son merely having normal sight and hearing, the wealthy man sought to enhance his perception and observation through vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, as well as his concentration, thinking ability, and imagination. As the son grew older, the father stimulated his mind with various questions to improve his reasoning skills. By the age of fourteen, the son had become a genius with exceptional intelligence. This so-called intelligence includes stability of mind, concentration, observation, thinking ability, memory, awareness, insight, and more. Collectively, these faculties are known as the power of stability (samādhi) and the power of wisdom (prajñā). "Exceptional" (chāo qún) refers to standing out among ordinary people; humans consider outstanding ability within the human community as "exceptional" (surpassing the human crowd), not surpassing celestial beings or sages. Yet, surpassing the human crowd satisfies most people, as ordinary individuals generally lack the aspiration or pursuit to transcend celestial or sage communities.

Therefore, an ordinary person is not necessarily ordinary for life. Through various forms of training and diligent effort, one can cultivate oneself into a capable and outstanding individual. "Outstanding" here means possessing strong wisdom, including concentration, awareness, observation, insight, execution, comprehension, understanding, enlightenment, and so on. Such cases of training to achieve excellence in the mundane world can be fully replicated in the practice and realization of the Dharma. The cultivation of the Dharma follows the same principles as training in worldly methods—they are mutually applicable. Moreover, once the practice of the Dharma succeeds, it can be fully applied to worldly affairs. The ultimate goal of Dharma practice is to perfect the worldly life, applying wisdom to worldly matters to make them as flawless as possible. If the Dharma cannot be applied to worldly life, then the Dharma one has studied is useless and meaningless.

Our Buddha, Śākyamuni, long ago paved the path for sentient beings' practice, established a practice plan, and provided the simplest yet most effective method: the Four Foundations of Mindfulness (satipaṭṭhāna). Here, "mindfulness" (guān) refers to observation, awareness, perception, realization, enlightenment, experience, and so on—similar to the training methods described in the earlier story. Through such training, one enhances various faculties, namely the powers of observation, perception, and thinking related to the five senses, thereby advancing wisdom, recognizing truth, and liberating oneself from bondage.

However, some people, upon seeing that the Four Foundations of Mindfulness belong to the Theravāda tradition, develop a contemptuous attitude, dismissing it as unimportant and casually skipping its practice. These individuals, burdened by deep arrogance, fail to recognize the importance of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. They do not realize that this is a precious Dharma treasure for training various mental faculties. If they abandon it, how can they enhance their powers of observation and the wisdom of the first seven consciousnesses? Once the various powers of the seven consciousnesses are enhanced, the contemplative wisdom of the Mahāyāna path naturally rises like water lifted by a rising tide, and the Mahāyāna realization of the mind's nature and seeing one's true nature (明心见性) quickly follows. As long as the various abilities of the seventh consciousness (manas) are enhanced, wherever they are applied, wisdom will manifest. It is like a pure bead: no matter which pond it is dropped into, the water will become clear.

The initial practice of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness is to contemplate the physical body, starting with mindfulness of breathing to train concentration and awareness. Other faculties will gradually be perfected as well. Next is to contemplate the body's movements: with every physical action, the mind must be aware and observant. Slowly, a power will arise, separating the mind from the body, enabling one to perceive the body as illusory and unreal—as if it does not belong to oneself. At this point, the mind aligns with emptiness (śūnyatā). This is called "investigating phenomena to realize truth" (格物致知). It is a genuine, experiential realization, vastly different from—or even completely opposite to—the understanding gained through book learning. When each person experiences this firsthand, they will know: "So this is how it is! I was utterly mistaken before, lost in deluded thinking. And so-and-so is now just like I was—indulging in wild fancies, interpreting texts literally, scratching an itch through one's boot."

After "investigating phenomena to realize truth," the Four Preparatory Practices (四加行) preceding the Path of Seeing (见道) emerge. At this stage, one may be in the stage of heat (暖法), the stage of peak (顶法), or the stage of forbearance (忍法). As the mind increasingly detaches from the body and aligns more closely with emptiness, one transcends the worldly supreme dharma (世第一法) of the Four Preparatory Practices, and the Theravāda practitioner attains the Path of Seeing. This process is inevitable with diligent effort and is an indispensable step for attaining the Path of Seeing, regardless of theoretical knowledge. Those who are eloquent often disdain such arduous practice, prioritizing theory alone. Because they enjoy collecting others' theoretical views, they fail to develop meditative concentration (dhyāna). Without a tranquil mind, there can be no power of observation, and wisdom, of course, cannot arise.

Once the mind separates from the body, one personally experiences how illusory the five aggregates (skandhas) of the physical body are—as if they do not belong to oneself. Every action and mental event feels unfamiliar, and the world seems utterly boring. One loses interest in everything and becomes somewhat melancholic. Meanwhile, the emptiness conceived by those skilled in theory is indescribably distant from firsthand experience—pure speculation, after all. Their body and mind remain as they were, perhaps even deteriorating.

Those who have attained or are nearing the Path of Seeing reflect: "What have I been doing all this time? It was utterly meaningless." Looking at others, they sigh deeply: "What are they clinging to in this world? What is there to cling to? How foolish!" Conversely, those attached to worldly affairs see these practitioners and think: "How foolish! They apply no effort and pursue nothing." The result is that each regards the other as foolish. If the two kinds of fools cannot reconcile, they must temporarily part ways. Personal experience is far superior to clinging obsessively to the Tripiṭaka scriptures. What good does it do to read and memorize the entire canon of twelve divisions? The scriptures are the scriptures, and you are still you—the two never intersect. Greed, hatred, and delusion remain as they were, without the slightest benefit or change. How much better is actual practice! Study while practicing, practice while realizing. After realization, whatever one studies becomes thoroughly understood. With thorough understanding comes further realization. Wisdom develops cumulatively, and Buddhahood becomes attainable within a foreseeable time. Why cling to others' words while having not an ounce of merit to one's name?