Chan Meditation Skills to Be Possessed Before Enlightenment (2025-03-30)

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: I am grateful to Master for the blessing He has given me, His disciple, these days, so that whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, I am in meditative concentration. On the first night after seeing Master, when I sat in meditation, an inconceivable phenomenon appeared in samādhi. As soon as I sat down on the cushion, my head instantly went "boom," as if a large mass of air current had been expelled; my mind felt empty and hollow, as if something had struck my head hard, and I was shaken out of concentration. On the second and third days my body remained in samādhi and could not move—I could not come out of concentration. On the third night I was too excited to sleep, and I became a bit worried: if the following days were all like this, what would I become? These days my thighs also became sore and swollen, my eyes would not open; I wanted to get up and walk but could not move; when I stood up I felt dizzy and unsteady, afraid of falling, as if my cerebellum had lost its sense of balance.

On the fourth day I was slightly better and could move about; my legs were no longer sore and swollen. Around eleven o'clock at night, in samādhi, a powerful current of air rushed out of my nostrils and shook me out of concentration. At the time I sat there to recover my composure, remembering Master's teaching that I should not just sit, but should move about appropriately, practice walking meditation, and investigate the tathāgatagarbha in the states I encountered. So I got up and practiced walking meditation, while contemplating that all dharmas born of the tathāgatagarbha are illusory dharmas. In an instant I felt the dharma principles turning back and forth in my mind ceaselessly; I could not control body or mind to come out of concentration, could not perceive the six sense objects outside the mind, and only the sound of the Buddha's name kept spinning and playing in my mind. Such great responses and experiences truly cannot be expressed in words; they can only be enjoyed or understood within meditative concentration—those with shallow concentration cannot feel them at all.

The above are the responses and experiences of those few days. Now I have recovered; body and mind are relaxed and at ease, and I can normally engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of the dharma principles. Now the questioning doubts or answers that arise in my mind are becoming clearer and clearer; even going to the toilet, the questioning doubt arises without interruption—doubting who it is whose power drags this wooden-like five-aggregate body of mine into the toilet; doubting how this power exerts its wondrous functions on the sentient being's shell of form. When eating and drinking, I cannot help asking: in these activities of my five-aggregate body—raising hands and lifting feet, dressing, eating and drinking, holding the bowl and picking up chopsticks—who is it that sustains and holds them?

Assessment: The questioning doubt that arose spontaneously in Ven. Shi Ruyuan is very powerful. If a bodhisattva's conditions are all complete, investigation takes no effort at all—it is just a matter of a single layer of window paper. If the manas can continuously hang on to this question in its mind, her Chan-investigation skill is in no way inferior to the many Chan masters of the Tang and Song dynasties. Because the Chan-investigation skill before enlightenment is the same in every era—there is no updating, no change, and the standard and level cannot be lowered. The only difference is that Ven. Shi Ruyuan cultivates under me and has learned too much about the tathāgatagarbha dharma, and too directly; she need not spend much energy organizing and systematizing it, relying more on external power, so her self-power appears very insufficient. The ancient Chan masters, by contrast, learned the prajñā principles only roughly, far less extensively and minutely, so they had to put more effort into investigation, relying more on self-power, and their wisdom developed deeply. Explaining things too directly is not conducive to disciples' Chan investigation; it easily leads to intellectual understanding, affecting the disciple's progress on the Path and the arising of wisdom.

Ven. Shi Ruyuan said a passage: "Contemplating that all dharmas born of the tathāgatagarbha are illusory." This phrase is borrowed language, learned from others; it does not count as contemplation, does not belong to investigation, and belongs to deliberation, thinking, and understanding within samādhi. Not yet having realized the tathāgatagarbha and not knowing how the tathāgatagarbha gives birth to all dharmas, one cannot possibly know specifically how all dharmas are illusory—there is no evidence for saying so. This is called taking the effect as the cause, and is also called conjecture; it is the result of not knowing how to use the manas to hang on to a questioning doubt.

As for the questioning doubts Ven. Shi Ruyuan later raised, they are like a layer of window paper—a single poke breaks through—pointing directly to the central point, pointing to the target of enlightenment, pointing to that moon that never disappears. This relies entirely on her meditative concentration skill. Her power of wisdom is insufficient, but her concentration skill is very dense and continuous—unbreakable even if you try to tear it; demons cannot disturb it, and no one can interrupt it. So at that time she did not use the conscious mind to resolve the questioning doubt through reasoning, guessing, conjecture, or analysis. If her concentration had been a bit shallower and she had put the conscious mind to use, she might have resolved the result without effort, breaking the conscious mind's questioning doubt—but the manas's questioning doubt could not be broken.

Precisely because Ven. Shi Ruyuan did not use the conscious mind to resolve the questioning doubt, but only used the manas to investigate honestly and earnestly, the questioning doubt that looks like window paper to an enlightened person was something she herself could not see through—only because her wisdom was insufficient and she was too honest, never cutting corners. In such deep and dense skill, it is not easy to cut corners; when the manas itself carries a heavy questioning doubt, it simply will not give the conscious mind a chance to resolve it.

Therefore, as long as the skill is deep and the manas's questioning doubt is heavy, even if the dharma principles are explained very directly, intellectual understanding can be avoided. Even if the hidden meaning is explicitly told, because the questioning doubt is present, the manas will still investigate and verify it, will practice and realize it, and will not allow the conscious mind to accept it through belief and understanding. In this way, as long as the skill is in place and the manas has doubt, previous intellectual understanding can be transformed into realization through verification—turning the plainly stated Buddha-dharma into a proof problem: knowing the answer but requiring the process of solving it. In the genuine process of investigation, the bodhisattva's disposition matures, thereby giving rise to the merit and wisdom of seeing the Path.

In her personal account, Ven. Shi Ruyuan inadvertently explained clearly the method and process of applying effort in Chan investigation, and also pointed out the target of Chan investigation crystal clear—just short of stating it outright; the finger pointing at the moon is shining brightly, pointing at the moon. But even so, for many people it is still useless—they cannot get a handle on it. What is the reason? They do not cultivate merit; their merit is severely insufficient, and their meditative concentration skill is not complete—even guessing with the conscious mind is difficult, and even if they guess it, it is not accurate enough, having no effect on their own body and mind; afflictions remain afflictions as before.

Most importantly, they lack the Small Vehicle's mind of renunciation, and the Great Vehicle's bodhi mind cannot be aroused. Buddhist cultivation and realization is only a small part of these people's lives; many affairs of the mundane world still occupy an important position. If the manas does not value cultivation, how can skill be developed? Each person cultivates and each person enjoys the results; no one can substitute for another. Therefore, explicitly stating the final result of Chan investigation is of no help to others—even intellectual understanding is not easy, and realization is even more impossible.