The Process and Results of Contemplative Practice (vipaśyanā-caryā)

The Process and Results of Contemplative Practice (Vipaśyanā-caryā) When contemplating the breath and the mind settles down, you will discover that the respiratory system is like an automated program, hardly different from an inanimate object, having nothing to do with yourself. This is progress in cultivating the Path—this is precisely the effect that is sought. There will be many more new discoveries to come; through this quantitative change, a qualitative change will occur. The qualitative change is the discovery that the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) of body and mind are all false and illusorily transformed, impermanent, without self.

Gradually the mind will detach from the physical body and detach from sensation; oneself divides into two parts: one is the observed, inanimate system of the physical body's organization, like a dull, unresponsive machine; the other is the observing conscious mind, which moves more and more slowly, with emotions and emotional attachments growing fewer and fewer, the mental state becoming increasingly fixed and calm, feelings growing ever fewer—just a pure observing and knowing, yet the power of awareness grows stronger and stronger, the mind becomes ever more subtle and penetrating, and more and more truths are discovered. Later on, you will find that the observer and the observed become increasingly empty, increasingly mechanized, increasingly without self, and ignorance becomes thinner and thinner. Only at the very end can ignorance be broken through and self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) be eliminated.

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