Chan Meditation Is Not Reasoning or Guessing

To practice Chan, one needs to be fully endowed with the bodhisattva's six pāramitās, and the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment must all be cultivated to completion. In particular, one must possess preparatory concentration/threshold concentration (anāgamya-samādhi). Only when one contemplates Chan under these conditions, with all causes and conditions complete, can one attain realization. Otherwise, it is nothing but theory or inference and speculation; even if the resulting conclusion is reasonable, it lacks the liberating merit and benefit of actual experience. One cannot eliminate the three fetters, nor can one contemplate the workings of the eighth consciousness as they truly are.

With a result obtained through inference and speculation, the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) cannot die, mental activities are not emptied, and afflictions remain as before. If one additionally develops a sense of pride, the afflictions will become even worse than before. How many so-called sages have afflictions worse than before, harboring two selves in their minds—all because they lacked meditative concentration (samādhi), never went through the arduous process of personal investigation, and their mental activities were never quietly transformed and subdued. A fruit of realization suddenly appeared in their minds, and so arrogance arose and afflictions increased.

Whether it is a Mahāyāna fruit or a Hīnayāna fruit, the fruit itself is not the most important thing. What matters most is: when the fruit appears, does it deeply touch your own mind? Does it change you to some degree, and to what extent? From then on, will you forever benefit from this fruit, and, taking it as a starting point, can you step onto a genuine and solid path of liberation? If you wish to gain the greatest benefit, you must value the manner, the channel, and the process by which the fruit is obtained. The process represents the degree of hardship involved in gathering evidence; the more arduous the effort, the sweeter the fruit feels when attained, the more it is cherished, and the more the mind becomes resolute, at ease (praśama), free, and selfless, and the less likely one is to regress. The more you invest, the greater the harvest. If the fruit is obtained easily and without effort, the experience of selflessness will be faint, the fetters of birth and death will be harder to sever, and liberation will be harder to attain.