Only by investigating a single huatou can one concentrate one's energy to break through the huatou (2025-03-03)

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: Ever since I listened to your teachings, Master, I have kept in my heart every single sentence you taught me. When you instructed me, it felt as if you had tapped the back of my head—there was a distinct power of blessing, and the blessing was very strong! These past few days I have felt my mind to be a blank, with only that sentence you taught me: the five aggregates are all false, so why is there still activity of the five aggregates? Go and contemplate who is dragging this corpse along. Every time I contemplate these words, I recall your compassionate guidance and instruction, Master, and I am moved to tears.

A few days ago my daughter bought me a movie ticket for Ne Zha 2. While watching the movie with them, I could not close my eyes, so I endured and watched it through. In the past, when watching movies, the sounds from the screen in the theater were so loud they seemed deafening, but this time I did not feel there was much noise at all. As I watched, it felt as though I were watching images appearing on a screen within my mind. Before I knew it, more than two hours had passed, and I did not even know what the movie was about. While watching the movie, I was in meditative concentration contemplating how the five aggregates of these people, events, and things operate. I am in samādhi at every moment; when in deep meditative concentration, the mind is clear and aware, only it lacks the power to discriminate—it can no longer discriminate the objects of the six sense-objects.

I am grateful to you, Master, for teaching us to cultivate meditative concentration. Only in samādhi can one deeply realize the truth that all marks are false and illusory. The thoughts the mind clings to are so utterly illusory; I will never waste time on them again. As long as one applies the mind, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, the mind will spontaneously recite and contemplate within: Who is it that drags this five-aggregate shell of form, which can walk, sit, and lie down, around everywhere? Who is it that recollects the Buddha? Raising a hand or lifting a foot all comes from the place of practice. Or, contemplating such huatou and questioning doubt as the mechanism of the puppet-like mechanical man springing into motion, or the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West—who is it that manifests and functions wondrously within the mental sense-objects? And who is it that drags this corpse of the five aggregates around everywhere? Whose power is it that, from behind, propels the sentient being of the manas, together manifesting wondrous functions at the gateheads of the six faculties of body, speech, and mind?

As long as one applies the mind to contemplate with questioning doubt, there arises in the mind an inexplicable stirring of the heart, a kind of experience that cannot be expressed in words. I am grateful to you, Master, for once again dispelling some of this disciple's foolish and ignorant mind. From now on I will no longer contemplate in a scattered way; I will focus on a single theme and initiate deep contemplation within samādhi for genuine practice and realization. Investigating any dharma is inseparable from meditative concentration; only in deep samādhi can there be genuine practice and realization. Only through genuine practice and realization can I prove worthy of the immense kindness and virtue of your painstaking instruction over these years, Master.

Assessment: Watching a movie without being caught by the movie's objects is precisely having no mind toward objects—no greed, no grasping, no feeling. This is the emptiness of the true mind, not the false emptiness of verbally speaking of emptiness while clinging to existence. Only after true emptiness, under the nourishment of the waters of samādhi, can one be without greed or anger and without arising afflictions. Your Chan investigation has become a bit chaotic—too many huatou and questioning doubts arising in the mind. Investigating just one huatou can resolve all questioning doubts; there is no need to apply the mind to and investigate every doubt. With such disorder and distraction, no result can come from the investigation.

Ven. Shi Ruyuan's path of practice is a template. If everyone follows this path, their practice will be swift and direct, without taking detours. Developing wisdom within samādhi is the foundation of practice. Wisdom developed by oneself is the real thing; it can be carried into future lives, never disappearing, providing inexhaustible benefit life after life. The most taboo thing is to be all talk—glibly boasting without being practical. Even if one speaks so splendidly that flowers fall from the heavens, it is all flowers in the sky, without any practical value.