When the mind is like a wall, one can enter the Path

Question: One night I entered meditative concentration (samādhi) in my sleep, my mind was bright and lucid, and I clearly knew all the people and things around me, yet I felt as if these people and affairs had no connection with me at all and could not affect me in any way. It was as if I were in a vacuum, without a single distracting thought in my mind, with only one thought contemplating the meaning of the Dharma (I can no longer remember exactly what it was), like a single sun shining alone in the sky without a single dark cloud. At the same time, my whole body and mind felt incomparable tranquility and comfort, and I finally realized how comfortable it is to be in meditative concentration! Even after waking up, I could still feel that comfort. If one has this kind of meditative concentration, one truly would no longer crave worldly pleasures. That feeling of tranquility and ease is something the pleasures of the five desires in the world cannot compare with. I would like to ask you, Master: why did such a state, which I have never experienced in waking life, appear in a dream?

Answer: This dream was a state of investigating Chan within meditative concentration, possessing both concentration and wisdom, with śamatha and vipaśyanā operating together. You cultivated this kind of meditative concentration in past lives—it was preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi). Your manas experienced it in a previous life and has a memory of it. Now your mind yearns for it and wants to experience this state of meditative concentration again, but your present life is rather busy and the conditions for cultivating concentration are not complete, so your manas could only dream, enjoying in the dream the bliss of meditative concentration and Chan investigation. It seems the manas is quite pitiable and helpless—modern society is so chaotic that one cannot even shut out the tumult of life to single-mindedly cultivate the Path.

In the dream, the mind consciousness was in a lucid state of no-thought, bright and clear, without thoughts; it should have been in preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi), while the manas was functioning in a state of investigating the meaning of the Dharma, deliberating (manana) on the Buddha-Dharma. Only by such deliberation on the Dharma can the fundamental problem be solved and the Path be realized. Investigating Chan is precisely this state: not a single distracting thought in the mind, external objects not entering the mind, the mind as immovable as suchness, like a wall of bronze and iron. When Patriarch Bodhidharma said that when the mind is like a wall, one can enter the Path, this is exactly what he meant. If your meditative concentration and contemplation cannot reach this level, do not expect to realize the Path.

This state of deliberation and investigation by the manas can only arise and be sustained continuously under conditions of extreme quietness; only then can one investigate the profound and extremely subtle principles of the Dharma. Therefore, a true practitioner will cut off all external conditions, in absolute solitude and loneliness, alone without any companion. Cultivating the Path is a great undertaking done by a solitary person; it cannot be accomplished amid clamor and in company. Those who cannot endure solitude cannot walk the path of genuine cultivation. Meditative concentration can subdue and eliminate afflictions, and can bring tranquility, joy, and happiness—nothing brings more happiness than cultivating the Path. Therefore, those who possess meditative concentration all dislike worldly dharmas; their minds do not attach to the world, they do not pursue wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep, nor fame and gain, nor do they crave power and status. Being greedy for worldly dharmas is truly unwise conduct.

Some people say that as long as one can contemplate the meaning of the Dharma without distracting thoughts for a dozen or so minutes, one can attain realization and see one's true mind. Such talk is simply absurd. With such a short time of contemplating the Dharma, it is根本 impossible to have any deep and subtle contemplation, nor is it possible to cultivate to the state of the equal cultivation of Samādhi and Prajñā in investigating Chan. It is like boiling a large pot of water, which takes an hour; if you turn off the fire after five or ten minutes and continue boiling it the next day, even boiling it like this for ten years you still could not bring the water to a boil. Treating the Buddha-Dharma as child's play in this way, the karmic retribution for toying with the Dharma is quite unwholesome. If the Dharma were so easy to cultivate and realize, how could there be so many beings in the three evil destinies? People of the world all love to take shortcuts, yet the result of cutting corners only harms themselves. You reap what you sow; if you want to achieve something, you must let go of body and mind and be willing to put in real effort.