How to Contemplate the Aggregate of Consciousness as Illusory through Contemplative Practice

The most fundamental of the Buddhist teachings, the Hinayana Dharma, requires cultivating the principle of the Four Noble Truths of suffering, its origin, cessation, and the path; contemplating the suffering and peril of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha), clearly understanding the truth of the origin of the suffering of the five aggregates, knowing the truth of the cessation of the suffering of the five aggregates, and cultivating the truth of the path that extinguishes the suffering of the five aggregates. Then, one contemplates one by one the suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and selflessness of the five aggregates; when one genuinely and deeply acknowledges this in the depths of one's heart, one eradicates the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) and attains the first fruit, and the karma leading to the three evil destinies is thereby eliminated. Carrying out contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) with wisdom in accordance with the Buddha's teachings also does not depart from the cultivation of precepts, does not depart from the cultivation of meditative concentration (samādhi), nor from merit and favorable conditions.

In contemplative practice, the main difficulty is that the delusoriness of the aggregate of consciousness is not easy to contemplate; especially the mind consciousness, which is too deep and subtle and also very extensive. It is quite difficult to identify the mind consciousness in its entirety and then negate each aspect of it, and to genuinely acknowledge the delusoriness of these functions of consciousness is also not easy. If one can gain a deep and subtle understanding of the nature of the consciousness mind, then identify all the places where the consciousness mind operates, and then contemplate its nature of arising and ceasing and its delusoriness, one can be confident of thoroughly eradicating the view of self. The realm of the mind consciousness is very extensive. People generally find it easy to know that the scattered, afflicted mind consciousness is subject to arising and ceasing and is delusive; yet they often do not know that when the mind consciousness enters meditative concentration, becoming deep, subtle, and pure, without arising deluded thoughts or having any thoughts, this state is also subject to arising and ceasing and is delusive. This is the meditative state of the mind consciousness, not the unchanging realm of the true mind.

Since it is a state, a state is a realm of mental sense-objects (dharma-viṣaya); the realm of mental sense-objects is the object discriminated by the mind consciousness. So when one knows one has entered concentration and entered the meditative state, the one who knows this meditative state is the mind consciousness, which is a conditioned phenomenon subject to arising and ceasing; it is not the self, not real. Because after emerging from concentration there is no longer any meditative state, and thus thoughts arise again—such a phenomenon that changes and arises and ceases is a delusive dharma, not the true, unchanging dharma. The Sixth Patriarch said: 那伽常在定，无有不定时。The true mind is always in concentration; there is no emerging from concentration, nor entering into concentration, no increase, decrease, or change.

The Buddha said in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra: 内守悠闲，犹是法尘分别影事。What the Buddha spoke of is precisely this situation of entering concentration. He, the Elder, long ago foresaw that sentient beings would find it difficult to distinguish the true from the false; especially in the Dharma-ending age, when sentient beings have meager merit (alpa-puṇya) and wrong view/false view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi) blazes fiercely, they cannot clearly recognize and discern the genuine from the counterfeit. The World-Honored One specifically gave this pointer in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra as a warning to later generations.