A Mind Like a Wall Can Enter the Path

Question: One night I entered meditative concentration in a dream. My mind was bright and lucid, and I was clearly aware of the people and things around me, yet I felt that these people and affairs seemed to have no connection with me at all, and could not affect me. It was as if I were in a vacuum, without a single distracting thought in my mind, with only one thought of contemplating the Dharma meaning (I can no longer remember exactly what Dharma meaning it was), like a solitary sun shining alone in the sky without a single dark cloud. At the same time, my whole body and mind felt incomparably tranquil and comfortable, and I finally realized how blissful 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 five desires of the world cannot compare with. I would like to ask the Master: why would such a state, which I have never experienced in waking reality, appear in a dream?

Answer: This kind of dream is 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 you yearn for it in your heart and still want to experience this state of meditative concentration, but in your present life you are rather busy, and the conditions for cultivating concentration are not complete, so your manas has no choice but to 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 and cluttered that one cannot even shut out the tumult of life to cultivate the Path single-mindedly.

In the dream, the mind consciousness was in a lucid, thought-free state, 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 Dharma meaning, deliberating (manasikāra) on the Buddha-Dharma. Only by such deliberation on the Buddha-Dharma can the fundamental problem be solved and the Path be realized. Investigating Chan is precisely this state: without a single distracting thought in the mind, external objects do not enter the mind, and the mind remains immovable in suchness (tathatā-acalita) like walls of bronze and iron. 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 degree, do not expect to realize the Path.

This deliberating and investigating state of the manas can only arise and be sustained continuously under conditions of extreme quietness; only then can one investigate out the profound and extremely subtle principles of the Dharma. Therefore, a true practitioner will shut out all external conditions, in absolute solitude and loneliness, alone without companions. Cultivating the Path is a great undertaking done by a solitary one; it cannot be accomplished amid clamor and in company. Those who cannot endure loneliness cannot walk the path of genuine cultivation. Meditative concentration can subdue afflictions and eradicate 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 cling to the world, they do not pursue wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep, nor fame and gain, nor power and status. Craving worldly dharmas is truly unwise conduct.

Some people say that as long as one has a dozen or so minutes of contemplating the Dharma meaning without distracting thoughts, one can attain realization of the fruits and see the mind. Such a claim is simply absurd. With only such a short time of contemplating the Buddha-Dharma, it is utterly impossible to have any deep and subtle contemplation, nor is it possible to cultivate to the state of investigating Chan where Samādhi and Prajñā are equally cultivated. It is like boiling a large pot of water, which requires an hour; if you stop the fire after five or ten minutes and continue boiling it the next day, even boiling it this way for a year or ten years will never bring this pot of water to a boil. To treat the Buddha-Dharma as child's play like this brings quite unwholesome retribution. If the Buddha-Dharma could be cultivated and realized so easily, 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 taking shortcuts is harming oneself. You reap what you sow; if you wish to achieve something, you must relinquish body and mind and be willing to put in real effort.