How to Practice Contemplation to Attain Enlightenment? (Training the Mental Faculty)

Original text from the fifth volume of the Shurangama Sutra: (Chudapanthaka) The Buddha, taking pity on my dullness, taught me to abide peacefully and regulate the incoming and outgoing breaths. At that time, I contemplated the breath, investigating its subtlety exhaustively—its arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing. All formations are momentary. My mind suddenly became clear and unobstructed. Ultimately, the outflows were exhausted, and I attained Arhatship. Abiding at the Buddha’s seat, I was confirmed as one beyond training. When the Buddha inquired about perfect penetration, according to my realization, turning the breath back to follow emptiness is supreme.

Explanation: The Buddha taught Chudapanthaka to abide in one place, regulating the outgoing and incoming breaths. The act of regulation itself was the observation of the breaths. While observing the breaths, Chudapanthaka eventually perceived that his incoming and outgoing breaths were extremely subtle, so subtle they were almost ceasing. He further observed the subtle processes of the breath’s arising, temporary abiding, changing, and ceasing. He even discerned that the outgoing and incoming breaths operate moment by moment—that is, they are processes occurring instant by instant, not as a continuous, unbroken whole. They are segmented, mechanistic processes and procedures, assembled and pieced together.

At this point, he suddenly realized that the incoming and outgoing breaths are empty and illusory, not real. Thus, Chudapanthaka’s mind opened with great clarity. He suddenly awakened to the emptiness and selflessness of his own five aggregates and was no longer obstructed by these conditioned phenomena of arising and ceasing. Immediately, his afflictions were completely severed, and he attained the fruition of the fourth stage, becoming a great Arhat. Chudapanthaka’s experiential realization through contemplation was to turn his awareness back to observe the source and destination of the breaths until he discovered that both the source and the destination are empty. The entire process of the breath’s arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing is empty and utterly ungraspable.

Observing the breaths is the latter part of observing the breathing process. The initial stage involves observing the air entering and exiting the nostrils—this part is relatively coarse and easy to observe. After the air enters the body, it gradually transforms into the breath connected to the subtle channels (nadis). This part becomes more subtle, and the extremely subtle breath may even become disconnected from the respiratory air at the nostrils. It becomes the body’s own automatic operation of the breath-energy channels. Even if external respiration through the nostrils stops, with no external air entering the body, this subtle breath-energy continues to operate slowly and faintly. This is the state of the fourth dhyana, where breathing ceases, yet the person does not die. So how does this breath-energy arise? The human body has pores; external air enters the body through the pores, transforms into subtle breath-energy, and propels the blood flow to sustain basic life activities.

If not in the fourth dhyana, such minimal breath-energy cannot drive the rapid flow of blood. The body’s required supply of blood nutrients becomes insufficient, leading to feelings of suffocation and unbearable discomfort. The fourth dhyana is the samadhi of abandoning conceptualization and attaining purity. Without mental activity, it does not consume so much vital energy (qi and blood). The nutrients provided by pore respiration are sufficient.

The main base of the breath-energy is at the dantian (elixir field). From the dantian, it circulates throughout the body. Observing the breaths primarily means observing the breath-energy in this dantian region. One rise and fall at the dantian constitutes one cycle of breath-energy. When vitality is abundant and the mind is finer, one can follow the breath-energy as it circulates throughout the body and observe the breath-energy in the entire body. The breath-energy has coarse and subtle aspects, fast and slow rhythms. While observing, one merely feels the operation of the breath-energy with detachment, dispassion, and objectivity, adding no thoughts or ideas. As samadhi deepens and the mind becomes extremely refined, one will observe that the operation of the breath-energy is very faint and slow, occurring in segmented intervals. The connections between segments are not tightly continuous; it seems pieced together and feels less real.

This is like observing a circle of fire. Ordinarily, one sees a circle of fire, unaware that it is formed by a single torch being swung rapidly—there is no actual circle of fire. This is an illusion, a misperception. When the mind becomes finer and one observes carefully, one realizes it is not a circle of fire at all but rather the torch moving point by point along a fixed circular path. Thus, the mind suddenly opens with clarity, attaining great insight: there is no circle of fire, and the torch itself is also empty. The mind instantly becomes empty and liberated. From then on, one is no longer bound by the circle of fire and need not revolve around it ceaselessly, finding no peace.

Observing the breaths, as well as observing all dharmas (phenomena), follows this same principle. Observing to the end, one discovers there are no such things, no such matters, no such persons, no such dharmas—all are empty. In this way, one realizes the truth (sees the path). Simply by observing the arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing of dharmas as they truly are, one can instantly realize the path. Understanding the direction pointed to by contemplation, mastering the correct method of contemplation, and cultivating the practice to the requisite level make realizing the path not difficult. The difficulty lies in the mind not being devoted to the path, still valuing and clinging to worldly dharmas, unwilling to let go. Mental attitudes and views play a decisive role.

Due to ignorance, sentient beings’ minds are very coarse, lacking the power of samadhi. They perceive everything as real—all dharmas of the world appear to them as actual dharmas, utterly real, without the slightest doubt. Thus, they frantically and incessantly grasp at all dharmas, ending up battered, bruised, scarred, and even sacrificing their lives, yet they stubbornly persist. They dub this as "striving hard," "nurturing great aspirations," "being proactive and enterprising," "having a sense of mission," or "having ideals, responsibilities, and a sense of duty." For the sake of those fundamentally empty dharmas, devoid of any real person or matter, they pay any price—truly an act of folly beyond words.