The Form Produced by Meditative Concentration Is the Manas's Realm of Direct Perceptual Realization

Bai Xuexiang's sharing of her white-bone contemplation experience: While sitting in meditation in the morning (with eyes closed), she felt an itch at the ankle bone of her right foot, and then (with eyes still closed) suddenly saw (as seen with eyes closed) that the itchy spot on the ankle bone had become festering and rotten. Then she contemplated visualizing drawing a line with her finger, and all the flesh on her body fell away, leaving only a skeleton; but hanging on it were dark-red blood vessels and strands of flesh, not the snow-white bones that others have produced through the contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of white-bone contemplation.

I thought: Is this not precisely a stage in the middle of the contemplative practice? First the skin falls away, then the flesh, then the sinews, and only afterward do the bones appear. Both the contemplative practice and its results proceed in stages; you cannot suddenly contemplate and visualize the white bones out of nothing—the practice advances step by step. What appears now is an intermediate level of contemplative practice; later there will be deeper contemplative states appearing, and only at the very end will the white bones come.

Assessment: The above states of white-bone contemplation are all states manifested within meditative concentration (samādhi), called concentration-born material form (dhyāna-produced rūpa). States brought forth by meditative concentration are all states of direct perception, states of genuine realization, without the slightest function of the mind consciousness's imagination and deliberation; they are all states of the manas's direct-perception contemplative practice. Whatever thoughts and notions the manas holds, whatever dharma it accepts, that is the state that manifests—no fakery is possible. Such is the might and power of the master consciousness. In meditative concentration, the flesh on the ankle bone rotted and fell away, with the bone hanging with blood vessels and strands of flesh—such phenomena arise involuntarily; this is the manas's realm of direct-perception cognition, something that cannot be imagined into being by the mind consciousness.

If white-bone contemplation relied on the mind consciousness's deliberation and conjecture, then no matter what the mind consciousness thought the body should look like, the body simply would not obey and would never turn into that form, because the mind consciousness has no power and does not take charge. Concentration-born material form arises from the manas and never from the mind consciousness; however, in the early stages of white-bone contemplation, the mind consciousness plays the role of guiding the manas into the realm of contemplative practice, exerting a guiding and perfuming influence upon the manas; therefore the mind consciousness also deserves considerable credit.

The above contemplative practice is indeed a stage of contemplative practice; the white-bone contemplation is not yet complete—the bones are not yet clean enough and their color is not yet white and pure enough, which shows that the practitioner still has some karmic obstructions not yet eliminated, the mind is not yet pure enough, and the power of meditative concentration is not yet strong enough; further, deeper contemplative practice is still needed to complete the white-bone contemplation, eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi), and attain purity of the dharma eye.