Cultivation of Concentration and Chan Meditation for Realization of the Way (Part 1)
Section Three: The Benefits of Cultivating Meditative Concentration
1. With Meditative Concentration, Perception Becomes Subtle and Refined
One morning during sitting meditation, I heard a "ding-dong" sound from QQ. At first, there was only knowing of the sound, without any definition or concept of the sound, and without any feeling or sensation—just simple knowing. This process lasted quite a long time; this was the discernment of the ear consciousness, which is relatively coarse. Only afterward did the discernment of the mind consciousness arise; once the mind consciousness discerned it, it distinguished that it was the QQ sound, and there came definitions and names, and feelings arose. At the same time, there was a lazy disinclination to move, a slight attachment to the comfortable feeling, wanting to continue sitting—this was the attachment of the manas. Before the ear consciousness heard the sound, it was the manas that knew; when the manas knew, it was vague and indistinct, unable to discern what kind of sound it was or what content it contained. Only when the mind consciousness emerged could it gradually discern that it was the QQ ding-dong sound.
If one is not sitting in meditative absorption, this discernment process is extremely brief and passes quickly. But in meditation, the mind is very subtle and refined, the discernment is very fine; the ear consciousness, mind consciousness, and manas are all more subtle than usual, so the whole process appears somewhat prolonged, the content somewhat refined, the knowing somewhat pure. The mind does not easily give rise to emotions, and afflictions are easily subdued—all this is the credit of the manas. If one further subdues the manas, then when the ding-dong sound arises, He does not want to discern what it is; then the ear consciousness and mind consciousness do not arise, the five consciousnesses all do not arise, there is no feeling and no knowing, and one enters the state of the second dhyāna.
During sitting meditation, the mind becomes very subtle and refined, perception is very vivid and objective, without emotion, and one can discover truths that normally cannot be discovered. As long as the mind does not enter into sense objects, but simply perceives and discerns objectively, eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) and seeing the mind will be relatively easier.
A person with meditative concentration has a very subtle and refined mind; their discernment is fine, they see people and affairs very accurately, and can grasp the fundamentals. When doing things, their mind is very meticulous and thorough with details; when encountering new things, they learn quickly, make few mistakes, and are intelligent and wise. As for a person with a scattered mind, one can imagine: coarse-minded and irritable, careless and sloppy.
2. Meditative Concentration Can Subdue the Māra of the Five Desires and Afflictions
The māra king Pāpīyas least of all wishes sentient beings to cultivate meditative concentration, because once someone cultivates to the fullness of preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi), equal to his own meditative concentration, the māra king can no longer control that person; once someone cultivates to the concentration of the first dhyāna, they escape the māra king's control, and he can no longer govern them at all. Therefore, if someone obstructs our cultivation of meditative concentration or denies the function of meditative concentration, we must be careful. In this world, the afflictions of the five desires blaze fiercely; without meditative concentration, there is no way to subdue or eradicate afflictions, and the future retributions are fearsome.
3. With Meditative Concentration, Thinking Is Clear and Thorough
If one's thinking is not clear enough, one reason is a lack of wisdom and logical thinking ability, and another is a lack of meditative concentration. One should cultivate more concentration to make the mind single-pointed, and then thinking will become clearer. When the power of concentration is insufficient, the mind consciousness's thinking cannot follow a single main thread and will become distracted in all directions, without focus—just like qi and channels not flowing along one line but darting about everywhere in the body. Only when a person has strong logical thinking ability, relying on powerful concentration, can they achieve single-pointedness, like an awl driven deeply into one point. A person without concentration is like a flat board laid on the ground, leaving no trace.
If one's concentration is sufficient and one's knowledge and views are also sufficient, one should combine them with the stillness-concentration of sitting meditation to strengthen the power of concentration, and then engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of the Buddha-dharma, contemplating the five aggregates (pañca-skandha). Afterward, one investigates Chan, with the questioning doubt of investigation constantly present in the mind. First eradicate the view of self, then investigate Chan to see the mind. The purpose of studying the Dharma is precisely to engage in contemplative practice and then attain realization. If one cannot engage in contemplative practice, it shows that the power of thinking is not good enough—that is, the power of concentration is not good enough. Without meditative concentration that involves contemplative cultivation, one cannot attain realization. Therefore, one should learn to cultivate concentration, so that meditative concentration can play its proper role.
4. Meditative Concentration Can Open Up the Functions of the Six Faculties
When sitting meditation reaches extreme stillness, sometimes one can hear very beautiful musical melodies in the air—this is what the ancient Chinese called the "sounds of nature" (tianlai). The Buddhist sūtras say this is the singing of a class of heavenly beings called kiṃnaras. This is a state close to the divine ear. Meditative concentration can develop the function of the ear faculty and open up the mind, reducing the obstruction to discerning sounds, so the discerning function becomes powerful. Meditative concentration can prompt the tathāgatagarbha to draw in, through the ear faculty, the material particles of more distant sounds, allowing the ear consciousness and mind consciousness to hear them, and thus the divine ear appears. Of course, this so-called distance is spoken of relative to the body faculty; for the tathāgatagarbha, there is not the slightest distance—these sounds are all manifested and upheld by the tathāgatagarbha, and all exist within the tathāgatagarbha.
The reason sentient beings cannot give rise to meditative concentration and cannot give rise to the power of supernatural powers is the scatteredness and grasping nature of the mind and the obscuration of the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion. What most severely obstructs meditative concentration is the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion. Whoever has heavier greed, hatred, and delusion will suffer more severe obstruction and obscuration; their own faculties will be hindered, and the mind will not be keen. We originally could all become Buddhas and could possess a great thousand-world, but because of the obscuration of the afflictions and ignorance of greed, hatred, delusion, and endless clinging to ourselves, not only do we fail to obtain the great thousand-world, we instead lose our freedom as humans and vainly endure measureless suffering of birth and death—gaining the small and losing the great, the loss outweighing the gain. It is evident that for beginningless kalpas, sentient beings have been creating karmic acts of foolishness without knowing it; sentient beings all lose the great thousand-world for the sake of such tiny, fly-head profits.
5. Stillness-Concentration More Easily Gives Rise to Wisdom
What is the difference between walking and sitting or lying down? When walking, the body consciousness and mind consciousness must be placed on the operation of the physical body, with attention on the body and the surrounding environment, so the attention of the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta) for contemplating the meaning of the Dharma must decrease; energy is insufficient, one cannot be single-pointed, thinking is not deep and subtle, and wisdom does not easily arise. But in sitting and lying down, the consciousnesses are less dispersed, the solitary consciousness's attention is more concentrated, thinking is deep, subtle, and meticulous, and wisdom easily arises. Therefore, it is said that the stillness-concentration of sitting and lying down more easily gives rise to wisdom. In sitting and lying down, the mind has no extra burdens, can concentrate energy, and think meticulously, without worrying about what situations walking might encounter; therefore the mind is at ease, and sitting meditation more easily gives rise to preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) and first-dhyāna concentration.
Wisdom born from concentration—this concentration refers to preparatory concentration and first-dhyāna concentration. Therefore, for attaining the fruits and enlightenment, one must at minimum have full preparatory concentration. As long as it is not the thought-free preparatory concentration or first-dhyāna concentration, when concentration is deep, thinking is more meticulous, and opening wisdom and discovering new frontiers is no problem. Without meditative concentration, contemplative practice is impossible; if concentration is shallow, contemplative practice lacks power, the mind is not refined, and one does not resonate with the Dharma. Therefore, in studying Buddhism and cultivating practice, after cultivating the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment and the bodhisattva's six perfections, one takes meditative concentration and contemplative practice as the main line of cultivation.
6. Cultivating Concentration Nourishes the Mind and Also Nourishes the Path
In the first-dhyāna concentration and preparatory concentration of sitting meditation, one can contemplate and practice the Buddha-dharma; the degree of thinking is far more refined and far deeper than thinking during activity, and wisdom opens more easily and more thoroughly. In concentrations of the second dhyāna and above, there is no feeling and no knowing, so one cannot contemplate the Buddha-dharma. Although one cannot think while sitting in second-dhyāna concentration, after emerging from concentration, one's contemplation of the Dharma is very deep and subtle, and the power of concentration during walking, standing, sitting, and lying down is also maintained quite well.
When contemplating the Dharma in sitting meditation, there is no burden; the mind is stable, inwardly calm and settled, not restless. After rising from the seat, both body and mind throughout the day are joyful and relaxed, without afflictions, and thinking is also agile. The stillness-concentration of sitting meditation can truly nourish the concentration amid the activities of body, speech, and mind; cultivating only a little concentration amid activity cannot solve the fundamental problem, cannot subdue afflictions, and one's contemplation of the Dharma is neither meticulous nor deep.
In the Dharma-ending age, sentient beings have meager merit (alpa-puṇya); everyone rushes about for the enjoyment of material life, without the time or environmental conditions to cultivate concentration. So, to accommodate themselves, everyone says that having concentration amid movement is enough—but this is far from sufficient; it cannot solve real problems, does not easily lead to realization of the Dharma. There is much lip-service skill, but the mind remains restless, and greed, hatred, and jealousy still blaze fiercely.
Sentient beings today all live in noisy and turbulent environments; most people's grasping of self is strong and solid, so their combative nature is very vigorous, fighting and struggling with one another, making the whole society and every group a scene of murky chaos, hard to clean up. This is because sentient beings have no meditative concentration in their minds and cannot suppress afflictions, so afflictions run rampant. If this continues, the split and decline of Buddhism is an inevitable trend; no one can stop the demise of Buddhism, and this demise will begin from within—the internal splits of Buddhist groups will lead to Buddhism's inevitable extinction. Without the nourishment of meditative concentration in studying and cultivating Buddhism, there is no real benefit for body and mind, and no benefit for sentient beings or the future development of Buddhism. Therefore, I sincerely advise every Buddhist learner to learn to sit in meditation to nourish the mind; nourishing the mind is nourishing the Path, and it can purify the social environment, purify people's hearts, and promote the stable development of the Buddhist cause.
7. The Merits of the First Dhyāna
The four dhyānas and eight concentrations are shared not only with Buddhism but also with non-Buddhist paths, and are not divided between Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna; but the meditative concentration cultivated by bodhisattvas is far superior to that of the non-Buddhist paths. In attaining preliminary concentration, the body sometimes has the phenomenon of being able to move and sometimes not being able to move. Concentration in which one can move at will is relatively flexible; although there is movement, the mind is fairly single-pointed and discursive thoughts are few. In the concentration of the desire realm, the body has a feeling of lightness, as if walking on a gust of wind, without any commotion; the body feels light, as if being lifted upward, no longer dragging one's legs heavily as before.
The body in first-dhyāna concentration is even lighter and more agile than this, approaching the feeling of having no body. In the first dhyāna there is no sensation of bodily itching; everything is comfort and tranquility (praśama), and the feeling is indescribably wonderful—beyond description in human language. The feelings in the human realm truly cannot compare with the feelings in first-dhyāna concentration. Precisely because of such wonderful feelings, one no longer delights in the pleasures of the five desires of the human realm; wealth and sex no longer hold interest, and the five desires of the world all feel coarse and inferior, so one no longer yearns for them.
The bodily feelings in the first dhyāna have no sense of heaviness; all is lightness and tranquility (praśama). The body floats straight upward, and within the body there is no sensation of the five organs and six viscera. There is no sensation of cold or heat, no sensation of fever, no sensation of bodily roughness, no uncomfortable sensation of any kind; the mind is clear and bright, refreshed in spirit, without torpor. Quite the opposite—the bodily feelings at this time can be expressed with words like "wonderful" and "light and agile." If there is any unpleasant feeling, that is suffering, not the meritorious feeling that the first dhyāna should possess.
8. With Meditative Concentration, One Can Eradicate Doubt and Give Rise to Faith
When meditative concentration is insufficient, wisdom is shallow, and one will inevitably have doubts about the Dharma; the view of doubt will necessarily exist. Especially with those profound dharmas—the dharma of the wisdom of seeds of Consciousness-only—everyone will have doubts to varying degrees, because meditative concentration and wisdom are insufficient, and merit is also insufficient, so one cannot attain realization or observe directly (inference/direct perception); thus the doubt is even deeper. Therefore, in the Diamond Sūtra, the Buddha instructed sentient beings to eradicate doubt and give rise to faith. When one cannot attain realization oneself, doubt is unavoidable, but one must never draw definitive conclusions; if the conclusion is wrong, it is slander, and the retribution is severe. A person of wisdom, regarding dharma meanings they cannot realize themselves, neither readily affirms nor readily denies, and does not add karmic obstructions to themselves.
