The Method of Training the Manas in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: Contemplating the Whiteness at the Tip of the Nose (Manas Training Section)

Original text of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: 孙陀罗难陀即从座起。顶礼佛足而白佛言。我初出家，从佛入道。虽具戒律。于三摩地。心常散动。未获无漏。世尊教我及拘絺罗。观鼻端白。我初谛观。经三七日。见鼻中气。出入如烟。身心内明。圆洞世界。遍成虚净。犹如琉璃。烟相渐销。鼻息成白。心开漏尽。诸出入息。化为光明。照十方界。得阿罗汉。世尊记我。当得菩提。佛问圆通。我以销息。息久发明。明圆灭漏。斯为第一。

When Sunandrananda first left home and entered the Path under the Buddha, although he had fully received the precepts, his mind was constantly scattered and restless in samādhi, and he had not attained the undefiled fruit of the Path. The World-Honored One therefore taught him and Kauṣṭhila to contemplate the breath at the tip of the nose turning white. Sunandrananda contemplated for only twenty-one days before he saw that the breath entering and leaving his nose was like smoke, and his body and mind were clear and bright within, able to perfectly and thoroughly perceive that the entire world had become empty and pure, translucent like crystal. Then the smoke-like appearance of the breath passing in and out of his nostrils gradually vanished and turned white. Within this samādhi, wisdom opened and afflictions were exhausted; all the breath entering and leaving from the tip of his nose transformed into light, illuminating the worlds of the ten directions, and he attained the fruit of arhatship. The World-Honored One prophesied that he would in the future attain unsurpassed bodhi. His gateway to perfect penetration was dissolving the breath entering and leaving at the tip of the nose; after a long time, wisdom arose, and when it became perfect, afflictions were extinguished.

The samādhi attainment that Sunandrananda achieved was the fruit of contemplation through the manas; it was a fruit of actual cultivation and realization, not a fruit produced by the mental consciousness's thinking and analysis. No function of the mental consciousness can perceive the true reality and essence of things, and therefore it cannot produce results. The results come from the cultivation and realization of the manas, because the manas can perceive the true reality of things, perceive the true reality of the great thousand worlds, and perceive the empty nature of the five aggregates. These true realities cannot be thought up by the mental consciousness's imagining, because the dharmas that the mental consciousness can contact are separated by a layer from the dharmas contacted by the manas, and are one layer more false. The manas is closely connected with the tathāgatagarbha; the dharmas it contacts are image-only objects bearing a basis (bhauma), coming directly from the essential objects, with no transitional dharmas in between, whereas the dharmas contacted by the mental consciousness are manifested once again after the manas has contacted them. For the mental consciousness to perceive true reality is extremely, extremely difficult; one can only rely on the manas.

I have not cultivated this dharma gate, so I cannot explain clearly the specific process of practice and its sublime results. But the general point of entry in practice is objective contemplation: without adding the mental consciousness's thinking and analysis of the breath, use the manas's direct intuition to directly perceive the breath at the tip of the nose, gradually reaching single-pointedness, and with the equal cultivation of samādhi and prajñā, enter into samādhi. In any dharma gate of contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), once the mental consciousness's thinking and other functions are activated, one is no longer in a state of contemplation; one has departed from the present state of experience, things become not in accord with reality, the results are no longer trustworthy, and no state of samādhi arises. The more the mental consciousness is used, the greater the obstruction to the manas's contemplation, and the farther one strays from the Path.

Therefore, to train the manas's contemplation, use the method of direct perception: dissolve the mental consciousness's thinking, let the mental consciousness only play a guiding role, and leave everything else to the manas. The manas's contemplation is an objective and actual contemplation, without non-valid cognition (non-valid cognition) and imagination divorced from reality; it can dominate the changes in states of experience, letting the states turn according to the mind rather than the mind turning according to the states, thereby transforming body, mind, and world. The point of entry seems simple, but in fact the practice is difficult to accomplish. The reason is that there are too many people and affairs that the mind is entangled with and hung up on; the mind is so entangled that it cannot enter a quiet, single-pointed state of contemplative practice, and neither samādhi nor wisdom can appear—of course there can be no talk of the fruit of cultivation and realization.