A Wall-Like Mind Can Enter the Path

Question: One night during sleep, I entered a meditative state in my dream. My mind was perfectly clear and lucid, fully aware of all surrounding people and events, yet it felt as if these matters had no connection to me whatsoever and could not affect me. It was as if I were in a vacuum, without a single distracting thought in my mind—only one thought contemplating the Dharma principles (though I cannot recall the specific principles now). It felt like a solitary sun shining in the sky, completely free of clouds. Simultaneously, my entire body and mind experienced incomparable lightness, ease, and comfort. I finally understood how profoundly comfortable meditative concentration could be! Even after waking, I could still feel that comfort. If such meditative concentration exists, I truly would no longer crave worldly pleasures. That feeling of lightness, ease, and freedom is beyond comparison with the pleasures of the five desires in the world! Master, please teach me: Why did this state, which I’ve never experienced in reality, appear in my dream?

Answer: This dream state reflects the condition of practicing Chan meditation in meditative concentration, where there is both concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (prajñā), the unified application of concentration and insight. You have cultivated this meditative concentration in past lives—it is the access concentration (anāgamya-samādhi). Your manas (mind-root) experienced it in previous lives and retains the memory. Now, your heart yearns for it and wishes to experience this meditative state again. However, in your current life, you are quite busy, and the conditions for cultivating concentration are not yet complete. Thus, your manas has no choice but to create a dream, allowing you to enjoy the joy of meditative concentration and Chan meditation in your sleep. It seems your manas is rather pitiful and helpless—modern society is too chaotic and bustling, making it impossible to renounce the hectic life and wholeheartedly pursue the path.

In the dream, your consciousness was in a clear, thoughtless state—utterly lucid and without thoughts. You were likely in the access concentration, but your manas was actively engaged in investigating Dharma principles, contemplating the Buddha’s teachings. Only through such contemplation of the Dharma can fundamental problems be resolved and realization be attained. This state is precisely what is meant by “investigative Chan meditation” (cān Chán): not a single distracting thought in the mind, external objects failing to enter the heart, the heart unmoving like an impregnable fortress wall. The Patriarch Bodhidharma said that a heart like a wall can enter the path—this is what he meant. If meditative concentration and contemplation do not reach this level, do not expect to attain realization.

This investigative contemplation by the manas can only arise and be maintained continuously under extremely quiet environmental conditions; only then can it penetrate the profound, subtle, and extremely deep principles of the Dharma. Thus, genuine practitioners renounce all external distractions, embracing absolute solitude and isolation. They are utterly without companions, for cultivating the path is a great undertaking for the solitary, not something achieved amid clamor and company. Those who cannot endure solitude cannot tread the true path. Meditative concentration can subdue and eradicate afflictions, bringing lightness, ease, joy, and happiness. Nothing brings greater happiness than cultivating the path. Therefore, those with meditative concentration do not enjoy worldly dharmas; their minds do not cling to the world. They do not pursue wealth, sensual pleasures, fame, food, sleep, reputation, or gain, nor do they crave power, status, or position. To be greedy for worldly dharmas is truly unwise.

Some say that merely contemplating Dharma principles without distracting thoughts for ten minutes or so can lead to attaining the fruit and realizing the mind. Such claims are utterly absurd. With such a short time, it is impossible to engage in deep, subtle contemplation of the Buddha Dharma, nor can one reach the state of balanced concentration and wisdom in Chan meditation. It is like trying to boil a large pot of water: it requires an hour. If you stop after five or ten minutes and resume the next day, even after continuing this way for a year or a decade, the water will never boil. To treat the Buddha Dharma so frivolously, to toy with it, brings exceedingly unwholesome karmic retribution. If the Buddha Dharma were so easy to cultivate and realize, how could there still be so many beings in the three evil realms? People in the world love to cut corners, but the result of cutting corners only harms themselves. You reap what you sow. To achieve anything, you must renounce body and mind and be willing to put in the effort.

Dedication: With all the merit from the Dharma propagation and group practice on our online platform, we dedicate it to all sentient beings in the Dharma realm and to the people of the world. May there be world peace and an end to war; may conflict cease and weapons be forever stilled; may all disasters completely subside! May the people of all nations unite in mutual aid, extending kindness to one another; may there be favorable weather and national prosperity! May all sentient beings deeply believe in cause and effect and cherish life without killing; may they widely form wholesome connections and cultivate wholesome deeds; may they believe in the Buddha, learn the Dharma, and increase their wholesome roots; may they recognize suffering, abandon its causes, aspire to cessation, and cultivate the path; may the door to the evil realms close and the path to Nirvāṇa open! May Buddhism flourish eternally and the true Dharma abide forever; may the burning house of the three realms transform into the lotus land of Ultimate Bliss!