The Inner Experiences During Realization

Question: After truly realizing that one's entire being is empty, what is the inner felt experience like?

Answer: For a person without meditative concentration (samādhi), after understanding the principle that the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) are all empty and selfless, there is almost no shocking felt experience in body and mind; one merely feels emptiness—it is merely a feeling. Because there is no meditative concentration, the contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) one performs cannot touch the fundamental manas of the self, and thus there will be no stirring in body and mind, let alone a sense of shock. Only when there is a stirring from deep within, from the manas, will body and mind have a truly deep and immense felt experience; only then will one feel as if one has become a different person.

At present, because the general public is severely lacking in merit and meditative concentration, their contemplative practice cannot touch the manas; the contemplative practice they perform remains merely at the level of the mind consciousness. The result of such contemplative practice is merely an understanding that the five aggregates are all empty and a feeling that oneself is empty—in reality, one has not realized emptiness. When situations arise, one cannot get past them: the principle is one thing, the person is another, and the two have no intersection. This is the common state of Buddhist practitioners nowadays; I dare not call it a common ailment.

As for the felt experience after truly realizing emptiness, it is also not suitable for public discussion; one may ask those who have gone through it in private. If the genuine experience were spoken of publicly, some people, once they knew of it, would go around hinting that they themselves have such experiences—in effect hinting that they have attained realization of the fruit—with the aim of gaining certain things, such as fame, praise, and material offerings. People's hearts are no longer as they were of old; they are naturally not pure, and their worldly minds are too severe, penetrating everywhere.