When Wisdom Does Not Match the Dharma, It Cannot Be Called Contemplative Practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) (2024-06-09)

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: I began my practice step by step with the four stations of mindfulness, contemplating the body as impure. Once I happened to see thirteen images of human skin magnified a hundred million times. I looked at them carefully over and over many times, and also observed my own body against them many times. It truly benefited me greatly in contemplating the illusory nature of the material body. I usually wake up at three or four in the morning and contemplate the Dharma principles. At that time it is very quiet, and in meditative concentration I carefully observe how the five aggregates combine the four great elements to form the material body, and then combine the five faculties—eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body. This five-aggregate material body, together with the six sense objects and six consciousnesses, constitutes a sentient being of the eighteen realms. The five-aggregate material body is also composed of tiny particles and atomic nuclei, arising and ceasing. This is how I simply contemplate the Dharma principles.

These days I have been diligently cultivating meditative concentration, carefully contemplating how the material body is assembled and how it decays, disintegrates, and disperses. In meditative concentration I observe that the material body is composed of tiny particles and atomic nuclei. Combined with the white-bone contemplation I practiced before, I try to break my view of the body and self-view. The deeper the meditative concentration, the subtler the mind, and the thirteen images of dissolution appeared more and more distinctly. I also involuntarily analyzed the four great element seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind. When analyzing the earth element, I analyzed my five-aggregate body—bones, flesh, sinews, and so on—everything hard is the earth element. When analyzing water, fire, and wind, I also contemplated realm by realm.

Now when I wake up in the morning, without deliberately thinking of these states, the thirteen images and the white bones involuntarily appear slowly. When contemplating the white bones, I see the body as wood, which slowly breaks off, shatters, and disappears. Then I contemplate how the realms of water, fire, and wind slowly drain away, the body's heat slowly dissipates, the wind element within the body also disappears, and the flesh becomes stiff. This life's material body dissolves into atomic particles and fine dust and all disappears, and the four great element seeds return to their original place.

Now this Dharma principle keeps appearing repeatedly in my mind. After contemplating it for a long time, I feel as if my mind and body have separated. Riding an electric bike on the road, I cannot feel the existence of my body, as if the body were suspended in the air—so light and easy. When walking, I am unaware of time, and I can no longer distinguish the comings and goings of pedestrians. My mind is very clear; I am just not interested in the external world and do not want to know anything.

Assessment: Overall, your meditative concentration is quite deep and can be considered adequate. The preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) has long been fully attained, and you are close to the first dhyāna. With further cultivation, the first dhyāna will arise. Of the five hindrances, the hindrance of sloth and torpor has already been subdued; check for yourself how you are doing with the remaining four hindrances.

In contemplative practice, you have removed the Mahāyāna Dharma, and the situation of mixing Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna contemplation has decreased, so your focus is somewhat better, but it is still not focused and orderly enough—still a bit chaotic. You are not fixed on contemplating a single Dharma and cannot go deep through one gate; instead, you contemplate whatever you want to contemplate, and your train of thought is not clear. Thinking this way is somewhat scattered, so wisdom advances slowly. If you cultivate the four stations of mindfulness, then cultivate the four stations of mindfulness exclusively and single-mindedly. Perhaps even without reaching the later Dharmas, you could eliminate the self-view. In fact, you do not need to contemplate all Dharmas comprehensively; by finding a single point of breakthrough, you can completely eliminate the self-view. Learning every Dharma once through, then picking the key and crucial points for contemplative practice—using a point to drive the whole surface—then every aspect can be eliminated. This is a sign of inexperience in contemplative practice.

Ven. Shi Ruyuan has not understood contemplative practice, observation, and thinking clearly, nor has she understood the difference between direct perception and imagination. Contemplative practice is observation—the wise application of direct perception. When wisdom is insufficient, that is thinking, analysis, understanding, and imagination, not contemplative practice, nor observation. The fact that the material body is composed of subtle particles cannot be observed without meditative concentration of the fourth dhyāna or above. Even with meditative concentration of the fourth dhyāna or above, if wisdom has not reached the level of a bhūmi bodhisattva, it still cannot be observed—probably even first- and second-bhūmi bodhisattvas could not observe it, and those who have not attained enlightenment are even less capable; they would still need to cultivate for an incalculable kalpa before this becomes possible. Including the matter of contemplating the four great element seeds—none of this is contemplative practice or observation; it should properly be called thinking, analysis, and understanding.

Ven. Shi Ruyuan says that when a person dies, the material body dissolves into particles and fine dust and disappears. This statement is theoretically wrong. While a person is alive, the material body is already composed of particles, arising and ceasing and changing moment by moment; it does not turn into particles and disappear only after death. Moreover, she also imagines that the four great element seeds of the material body return to their original place and hide away. This idea is also wrong; theoretically it is incorrect. The correct statement is that while a person is alive, the four great element seeds constantly arise and cease on the material body without interruption, flowing forth from the tathāgatagarbha onto the material body, and flowing back moment by moment, cycling back and forth—not returning only after death. Correct Dharmas are not contemplative observation, and erroneous Dharmas even less so.

What is meant by "the four great element seeds return to their original place and hide away"? It is purely based on her own imagination. This fact Ven. Shi Ruyuan currently cannot observe at all; even if she cultivated to the first bhūmi, she could not observe it. Regarding the matter of the four great element seeds, through studying the Dharma, it is all her own analysis and understanding by comparison with what she has learned—some correct, some wrong. Many Dharmas currently cannot be observed, but after learning them, they help in understanding and accepting the illusory nature of the five aggregates, help in eliminating the self-view, and help in reducing grasping at the five aggregates—that is all. Contemplating the Buddha's Dharma with such focus can also elevate meditative concentration and deepen it; the body's condition is naturally very good, and the feelings are comfortable and pleasant. Although your meditative concentration is deep, you still have not avoided emotional sentiment and intellectual interpretation; there is a considerable portion of mind consciousness's thinking. The manas has not fully played its proper role, because wisdom is severely insufficient and does not yet match the Dharma.

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: Whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, I contemplate one Dharma principle. When awake, I am not scattered; my mind is no longer muddled and heavy like before, when doing even a little things I could not find direction. It is as if there is a force inside pulling my body along. When walking, my body, legs, and feet feel very light and nimble. But if I use my eyes to discriminate, it is strenuous—I feel so tired I cannot keep my eyes open. Turning the gaze inward is relaxed and effortless, not tiring. I must be grateful to our greatly virtuous teacher, hard to seek and hard to encounter, Dharma Master Shengru, who teaches us to cultivate the true Dharma and meditative concentration. We should also be grateful to our parents, who gave us the five-aggregate material body as a tool for cultivation.

Now I constantly remind myself to diligently cultivate concentration and contemplate the Dharma principles, and it really works! I sleep less too—at night I can only sleep three or four hours and then cannot sleep anymore. If I keep lying there, my whole body feels uncomfortable and my mind is anxious and restless; but getting up to sit and contemplate the Dharma principles makes it all go away, and joy arises in my heart. From time to time I smell a fragrance. In the past, whenever I read your Dharma teachings, Master, I would always smell a fragrance. These past two years, since family matters distracted me, I stopped smelling it. Now I smell it again. Whether reading sutras or contemplating the Dharma principles, my mouth and teeth, as well as my body and hands, all emit fragrance. That fragrance is hard to describe in words; if I deliberately sniff for it, I cannot smell it. When the fragrance appears, it is as if it is encouraging me to diligently cultivate upward without doubt or interruption.

Now, because I am in meditative concentration at all times, the deeper the concentration, the clearer the Dharma principles in my mind. Cultivating meditative concentration is truly so important. With profound meditative concentration, when contemplating the Dharma principles, external sounds do not enter my ears—I cannot hear sounds clearly. In meditative concentration, it is as if I forget there is a material body, forget there is this world and family and so on. Without meditative concentration, the mind is scattered and grasping, and only then does one care about family ties. When contemplating the material body as non-self, one also needs profound meditative concentration to see through the material body's non-self, to feel that the material body is actually a false body composed of atomic particles, and there is an indescribable stirring in the heart.

Such an important matter as cultivating meditative concentration—Master, you have earnestly taught us about it many times! So now my mind is no longer on the external world. Before, as soon as I sat in meditation I would involuntarily enter concentration, and if there was the slightest small movement, there would be a loud boom in my ears. Like before I was tonsured, I had to tie up my bangs; sometimes when a few strands of hair fell, the sound was like a clap right beside my ears, extremely loud, and my eardrums vibrated for a long while, so I dared not sit emptily without mindfulness—lying down was fine.

Assessment: The fragrance appearing from various parts of the body is related to meditative concentration. Meditative concentration has opened up the body's qi meridians; the qi and blood circulate very smoothly, without blockage, so the body is naturally fragrant. Where there is blockage, like stagnant river water, rot and foulness appear, and the smell is offensive. The fragrance is also related to purity of mind and unobstructed mind. When both body and mind are transformed and purified, fragrance naturally appears; the mouth, teeth, throat, nostrils, seven apertures, and even the pores of the whole body will emit fragrance. The purer the body and mind, the more the body is filled with fragrance; even without bathing for a long time, the body is fragrant, without any foul odor.

No matter how you contemplate, you fundamentally cannot observe the four great element seeds, no matter how deep your meditative concentration, because wisdom is severely insufficient; it can only count as intellectual interpretation. Remove the habit of intellectual interpretation as soon as possible; honestly observe the facts that appear, and if you cannot see the facts, do not imagine. Wisdom is always more important than meditative concentration; cultivating meditative concentration is precisely for the arising of wisdom. If in meditative concentration you do not discern useful worldly Dharmas, and your wisdom in handling worldly affairs is very weak, that too is foolishness. Meditative concentration coexisting with foolishness is not a bodhisattva's state; one cannot be a bodhisattva. A true bodhisattva is endowed with both merit and wisdom. Wisdom includes transcendent wisdom, and likewise includes worldly wisdom, including the wisdom of the manas and the wisdom of the mind consciousness—it is wisdom in all respects.

A practitioner may temporarily be uninterested in worldly Dharmas and not devote any attention to them, but cannot ignore worldly Dharmas for the long term without elevating the various kinds of wisdom within worldly Dharmas. If one ignores worldly affairs for a long time and remains foolish about them, at most one is a Hīnayāna person who cares only about liberation and nirvāṇa, cares nothing about the rest, and has no wisdom to deal with them. The final outcome is entering nirvāṇa, extinguishing the body and obliterating wisdom; the living being disappears from the world, doing not a single beneficial thing for the world, wasting a precious life in vain. Not doing anything in the world, not creating the provisions of merit, yet constantly enjoying others' offerings and help—the merit accumulated grows less and less. A person without merit or with meager merit likewise cannot be a bodhisattva.

With some Dharmas, after learning them, during contemplative practice act as if you had never learned them; only observe the Dharmas before you that can be observed; for those that cannot be observed, do not fill in with imagination. Learning too many Dharmas, all mixed together, also hinders progress. How many people spend years and months just studying, studying everything; studying on and on, their whole life comes to an end, and at death they are nothing. Some people, with the several hundred books of the Tripitaka laid before them, study themselves into old pedants. Who has ever heard of a pedant attaining the Way? A pedant is merely a pedant, nothing more.