Q&A on the Contemplative Practice of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness 19

Question: During meditation, various states arise, such as seeing images of the Buddha, etc. How should one deal with them? 

Answer: All states are illusory; pay no attention to any of them. Do not welcome what comes, do not see off what goes. When you see an image of the Buddha, neither rejoice nor be afraid; when you see someone coming to kill you, pay no heed either. There is no Buddha and no demon—it is all just illusion. Simply contemplate the breath. 

Question: Previously, following the deep breathing method taught by Master, when doing abdominal deep breathing, I first inhaled fully, then held my breath, then exhaled, paused for a while, and repeated in this way—this was active breathing. Yesterday, after actively contemplating the breath for a while, I began to observe the breath naturally entering and leaving the nasal cavity, and I felt the breath becoming lighter, gentler, and subtler, no longer deep and long. Is this correct?

Answer: When first contemplating the breath, if the breath is rather short and there is an obstruction, you should use the active deep breathing method to regulate the breath. Once the breath has been regulated evenly, the mind is purified, and body and mind feel tranquil and at ease, then return to natural breathing. In this way you can enter the normal mode of contemplating the breath, and the physical body will have no obstruction. 

Question: This afternoon when I sat down on the cushion, the qi mechanism quickly stirred into motion. I felt my body light and floating, as if merging with empty space, with no inside and no outside. Places like the body, the eyes, the chest, and so on all seemed to be breathing—an open, expansive kind of breathing—and I was floating in the air. With a single thought in my mind I returned to my old home; a force was pushing me, and I flew backward in retreat. A thought arose in my mind that I was dying, but I paid it no heed—dying, I paid it no heed (in my mind I intended to hand it over to the manas to handle). Later I stopped retreating, and I saw moonlight, bright and luminous, shining over the whole earth. Still I paid it no heed. Finally I got off the cushion, and my body remained in a floating, weightless state the whole time. 

Answer: All the bodily sensations and states are states of meditative concentration. Once the mind becomes still, the four great elements of the body will naturally undergo changes, and the body will feel tranquil and at ease, as if floating in the air; the changes in the physical body in turn prompt changes in the mind. The mind turning within these states is a state of concentration that appears only after the mind has emptied. Not paying attention to them is right. Do not stay in the state of concentration too long or too often; take contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) within concentration as the main focus, with contemplative practice as the main thread.