Meditative Concentration and Merit Are the Prerequisite for All Things

Shi Ruyuan: Recently, the tight, swollen feeling on the top of my head and between my eyebrows at the forehead has lessened. The phenomenon of blisters forming at the eye sense organ and expelling impurities has also reduced. Now, my eyes feel fatigued when looking at things, too tired to stay open, making it impossible to discern form-dust. Sometimes, when thoughts arise slightly, if I ignore them, they disappear.

After the qi in my head cleared, I felt like a different person – light and airy all over, very comfortable and joyful. However, I feel absolutely no interest in any people, matters, or objects. When I go out, I am also unwilling to differentiate sound, smell, taste, and touch-dust. Because my mind is not focused on the six dust realms, I find it impossible to apply my mind to whatever I do in daily life. Sometimes, I unknowingly enter samadhi. While in samadhi, I can still hear the Buddha's name chanting in my mind, without it hindering my contemplation of the Dharma meaning.

Contemplating the Dharma meaning is clearer and more lucid than before. Just reading the Dharma meaning once allows me to continue contemplating it continuously, with very few distracting thoughts. A few days ago, as the sun was setting, looking at the setting sun with my eyes caused it to enter my mind. Whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, the image of the setting sun did not disappear. It was like a red-hot pot lid shining in my mind, feeling warm. Because wind entering my head made me feel cold and afraid, I constantly visualized the sun like a red-hot pot lid roasting my head. Then, my head actually became warm, and the cold, painful sensation slowly disappeared. This shows that the power of mental concentration and the power of contemplation are inconceivable.

Previously, I couldn't let go of my family. When practicing the contemplation of the skeleton, I started by contemplating my close family members, visualizing them all turning into skeletons. At first, I felt panic and discomfort in my heart. After getting used to the contemplation, no matter what kind of sentient beings I encountered, I could visualize them as skeletons wrapped in a layer of skin, wearing masks and moving about everywhere. Now, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, my mind constantly presents images of skeletons everywhere, covered with strands of flesh and blood. Some skeletons look like piles of old wooden puppets, missing heads, arms, or legs, with bodies askew. Such images continuously arise in my mind, making me feel that this five-aggregate shell is like wood – lacking true reality, subject to birth, cessation, impermanence, and decay.

In the last few days, I went to the nunnery for a Buddha-name recitation retreat (Fo Qi). While reciting the Buddha's name or sutras, reciting and reciting, I would suddenly not know where my body was. Others felt very, very far away from me. Seeing things felt like looking at images in a mirror; hearing sounds felt unreal, like listening to sounds from a speaker. So, I just blankly listened to the Buddha's name chanting in my mind.

Commentary: This is the merit of samadhi. When samadhi power is strong, reading the Dharma meaning once allows you to remember it and continue contemplating without needing to reread it. Visualizing sunlight or the setting sun is the same; whatever you visualize becomes like this. This shows the inconceivable power of samadhi. With samadhi, one can accomplish all dharmas. The samadhi power of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas can initiate immeasurable spiritual powers and abilities, accomplishing immeasurable and boundless deeds, freely transforming the trichiliocosm. With samadhi power, mental imaginings can also become reality, appearing before one's eyes. People in such a state should not be easily provoked by outsiders, because their mental power is extremely strong. If they want to punish you, they can do so without meeting you, and you wouldn't even know what happened. If they lack thoughts of revenge or punishment, but their level of cultivation and realization is high, their virtue deep, and their merit great, they can still cause evildoers to experience retribution. Furthermore, with the protection of Dharma protectors, the evildoers receive even greater punishment.

Many people cannot continue studying the Dharma or delve deeply into it. This is because they lack sufficient personal merit. Without any samadhi power to speak of, the Dharma cannot enter their hearts; it's like duckweed floating on the water's surface. Therefore, in the cultivation process, merit is extremely important, and samadhi power is equally crucial. Without these two, and without diligently upholding precepts, studying Buddhism becomes merely academic study, or one might not even study well. Principles remain unpenetrated, obstacles are everywhere, and theory cannot connect with practice. Studying the Dharma relies first on the mental faculty of the sixth consciousness. Without samadhi, the understanding and thinking of the sixth consciousness are very shallow, lacking logic and wisdom. Therefore, the wisdom of the sixth consciousness also requires samadhi to become complete. When you contemplate the Dharma meaning and simply cannot penetrate it, that is a lack of samadhi, and perhaps also a lack of merit, causing shallow mental contemplation that cannot delve deeper.

If the first step in studying and cultivating the Dharma lacks actual practice and realization, then trying to contemplate and understand Dharma meanings five steps ahead becomes extremely laborious and mentally exhausting. Understanding simply cannot reach the required level. If one then tries to understand and contemplate Dharma meanings ten steps ahead, it's like reading a celestial book – interesting, yes, but what practical significance it holds is unknown. Therefore, when we contemplate Dharma meaning at a certain level and cannot understand or penetrate it, we should step back and take the next best approach: cultivate merit, develop samadhi. This way, wisdom can deepen, striving to realize the foundational parts that came before.

When each person cultivates to this step, it becomes almost impossible to live with anyone. Yet, living alone, one cannot take care of oneself properly. Therefore, this is the most difficult period. True cultivators face some obstacles in worldly interactions; they cannot get along with others, yet living alone lacks the necessary conditions. Integrating with this world is very difficult.

When samadhi encounters obstructing conditions and recedes slightly, the contemplative function of the seventh consciousness (manas) becomes insufficient, and the analytical thinking of the sixth consciousness appears. Even in deep samadhi, if the wisdom of the seventh consciousness is insufficient, one cannot contemplate according to principle and will instead substitute it with the understanding and analysis of the sixth consciousness. When the function of the sixth consciousness becomes dominant, it is no longer contemplation but analytical imagination. Therefore, even someone possessing the Samadhi of Non-Perception and Non-Non-Perception (the highest state before realization) is not necessarily enlightened. If a conclusion is reached while withdrawing from samadhi or in a shallow state of samadhi, this conclusion is primarily based on the sixth consciousness. Such a conclusion is not reliable; it may change later, be retracted, or disowned. Even if not retracted, a conclusion from the sixth consciousness does not belong to the category of realization.

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness (Satipatthana) are four of the thirty-seven factors conducive to enlightenment (Bodhipakkhiyādhammā). The result of cultivating them is to cut off the view of self and realize the fruit (of Stream-entry). While cultivating the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the other factors will gradually become complete. Only when all thirty-seven factors are complete can one realize the path (see the truth). Human life is short and impermanent. Seize the time to realize whatever you can. Ensuring rebirth as a human in the next life to continue cultivation is fundamental. Being eager to learn in this life, interested in everything but realizing nothing – once reborn in the three evil realms in a future life, what can you do then? Be a smart and wise person: one bird in the hand is worth more than ten in the bush. What you haven't grasped is not yours.

There are also some people still indulging greatly in the meager worldly blessings, grasping at sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches, unwilling to give up even a little bit. Yet, they cannot progress in the Dharma, and it doesn't enter their hearts. Once they fall into the three evil realms in a future life, the suffering will be for kalpas (aeons), with no enjoyment at all. Will regret be of any use then?