Only in a State of Meditative Concentration (Samādhi) Can One Realize the Dharma (2024-02-24)

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: Over the past two years, my practice has mainly been contemplating the four foundations of mindfulness, practicing the contemplation of impurity and the white-bone contemplation. In the last six months, due to the movement of the qi channels, my body has continuously produced all kinds of reactions. My teacher taught me some methods to deal with them, such as tapping the head, and also taught me to apply moxibustion to the head and to wash my hair with ginger water. Wearing the moxibustion cap makes me feel much better, but I still feel as if there is wind burrowing into the crown of my head, and there is a small egg-sized patch that feels swollen and uncomfortable, and slightly hot, yet my body feels tranquil and comfortable, and my eyes have also improved a lot.

The house I lived in when I got married collapsed. At first I felt quite sad and thought it was a pity, but then I turned my thoughts around and considered that a house is no different from a human body—both will be destroyed and perish—so I let go of my attachment. When I went to the hospital to visit my elderly father-in-law, I saw that all the inpatients in the hospital were elderly people, each of them relying on tubes to maintain their breathing. Because lately whenever I see any physical body, questioning doubt arises in me, so right then I contemplated the impurity of the physical body, continuing to contemplate it. Suddenly I was stunned: my mind automatically presented these old people as having turned into skeletons, some lying down, some reclining. Afterward, my mind also presented the crushed white bones of my father at his cremation, like dust, which then disappeared.

Thinking carefully, our loved ones are merely connections of this one lifetime, yet they become obstacles to our practice. After realizing this, family affection immediately grew thin, and my mind could settle down to practice diligently. Through careful contemplation, I saw that the essence of things like family members and houses is also empty and unreal. Once I understood this, I could let go, no longer clinging or feeling sad. The more I personally witness the impermanence of all people and affairs, the more resolute my mind becomes and the stronger my faith grows; the mind becomes empty and contemplating the Dharma's meaning becomes easier, without deluded thoughts arising.

During the period approaching the New Year, there were some things at home that I was asked to help with, but I would forget as soon as I heard them, and I kept mishearing and doing things wrong; my mind's reactions became slower and slower, and I kept delaying matters. Not only that, I also felt as if wind had entered the top of my head; when my scalp touched water or encountered wind, my head felt as if it were splitting open—extremely uncomfortable. My eyes and nose ran constantly, my eyes felt dry and strained when looking at things, and my ears buzzed—I thought my ear faculty had gone bad. But strangely, although I could no longer hear other sounds clearly, I could hear what seemed to be the sound of the Buddha's name both inside and outside of body and mind. Before, only when my mind was pure could I hear the Buddha's name in my mind, but recently, the more anxious I became and the more I couldn't remember things, the more dazed my mind felt, and it seemed as if a force was pushing the sound of the Buddha's name in my mind to arise, even clearer and louder, continuous and unbroken.

Assessment: These phenomena appearing in the body during practice indicate that through cultivating the four foundations of mindfulness, meditative concentration has become very deep; she is in the samādhi of recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti) and a mild samādhi of the white-bone contemplation. The sound of reciting the Buddha's name within the mind arises automatically and spontaneously—it would be hard to keep it from appearing. This means the manas is in a samādhi state of recollecting the Buddha, not under the control of the mind consciousness. At the same time, there is also very deep contemplative wisdom (vipaśyanā-caryā); samādhi and wisdom are equally cultivated. At this point, it is easy to eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa), or one might not even know when the view of self was eradicated.

Her reflections on the house and her loved ones belong to the mind consciousness's understanding and analysis, not realization; the component of mind consciousness is greater than that of the manas, so it is not direct perception. The white-bone contemplation that appeared in the hospital, however, had a greater component of the manas, though also a component of mind consciousness; the samādhi state was relatively shallow and the power of concentration not yet sufficient, so upon seeing the elderly people she still needed to raise questioning doubt on the spot, rather than the bones immediately manifesting. If her meditative concentration deepens further and the samādhi state becomes deeper, the white bones will automatically appear before her, and it will then be very easy to eradicate the view of self. Therefore, both the eradication of the view of self and seeing the mind occur within very deep meditative concentration, within a samādhi state, where wisdom manifests automatically without deliberate thinking or contemplative practice, not under the control of the mind consciousness—that is the direct-perception state of realizing the Dharma; when the mind consciousness dominates, it is the state of non-valid cognition or inference.

The phenomena at the head indicate that the qi channels are about to open through the entire head; once it is opened, the body will have no obstructions. I just don't know whether this is the Conception and Governing vessels being opened, or whether the central channel is also about to open—without data I cannot judge. But this is not far from eradicating the view of self; after eradicating the view of self, meditative concentration will deepen further, and even more auspicious signs will appear.