The Chan-Contemplating Skills One Should Possess Before Attaining Enlightenment (2025-03-30)

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: I am grateful to Master for the blessing He has given me, His disciple, these past days, so that my walking, standing, sitting, and lying down are all within meditative concentration. On the first night after meeting Master, while sitting in meditation, an inconceivable phenomenon appeared in samādhi. As soon as I sat down on the cushion, my head suddenly 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 meditative concentration. On the second and third days my body remained in samādhi and could not move—I could not come out of samādhi. On the third night I was too excited to sleep, and I grew a bit worried: if the following days were all like this, what would I become? During these days my thighs also felt 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 floaty 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 that night, in samādhi, a powerful current of air burst out from my nostrils and shook me out of samādhi. At the time I sat there to collect myself, and I recalled 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 meanings turning back and forth in my mind without cease; I could not control body and mind to come out of samādhi, and I could not perceive the six sense objects outside the mind; 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—shallow samādhi cannot perceive 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) on dharma meanings. Now the questioning doubts or answers that arise in my mind are becoming clearer and clearer. Even going to the toilet, I can sustain questioning doubt without interruption: I doubt who it is whose power drags this wooden-like five-aggregate body of mine into the toilet; I doubt how this force exercises its wondrous functions upon the sentient being's shell of form. When eating and drinking, I cannot help asking: these activities of my five aggregates—raising hands and lifting feet, dressing, eating and drinking, holding the bowl and picking up chopsticks—who is it that upholds them? 

Assessment: The spontaneously arising questioning doubt of Ven. Shi Ruyuan is very powerful. If a bodhisattva's conditions are all complete, investigation takes not the slightest effort—it is merely a matter of a layer of window paper. If the manas can continuously hang onto this question in mind, one's Chan-investigation skill is in no way inferior to the many Chan masters of the Tang and Song dynasties. Because the investigation skill before realization is the same in every case—no matter the era, there is no update or change, and the standard and level cannot be lowered. The only difference is that Ven. Shi Ruyuan has learned too much of the tathāgatagarbha dharma from me, and it is too plain and direct; she need not spend much energy organizing and systematizing it, relying more on external help, so her self-power appears very insufficient. The ancient Chan masters, by contrast, learned only a rougher version of the prajñā doctrine, far less abundant and detailed, and so they had no choice but to apply their minds more in investigation, relying more on self-power, and their wisdom developed deeply and subtly. Teaching too plainly 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 first said something: "contemplating that all dharmas born of the tathāgatagarbha are illusory." This phrase is learned language, borrowed language; it does not count as contemplation, does not belong to investigation, but 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, also called conjecture; it is the result of not knowing how to use the manas to hang onto a questioning doubt. But because Ven. Shi Ruyuan's meditative concentration is deep, the dharma meanings she understood also shook the manas powerfully. For a person without meditative concentration, even if their understanding is correct, the inner fluctuation is not great—there is no question of any shaking. 

As for the questioning doubts Ven. Shi Ruyuan later raised, they are like a layer of window paper—one poke and it breaks—pointing directly at the central point, at the target of realization, at that moon that never disappears. This depends entirely on her meditative concentration skill; the skill is very dense and continuous, impossible to pull apart; even demons cannot disturb it, and no one can interrupt it. So at this time she did not use the mind consciousness to resolve the questioning doubt through reasoning, guessing, conjecture, or analysis. If she were to employ the mind consciousness, she might resolve the result without effort and break the mind consciousness's questioning doubt, but the manas's questioning doubt could not be broken. 

Precisely because Ven. Shi Ruyuan did not use the mind consciousness to resolve the questioning doubt, but only let the manas earnestly investigate, the questioning doubt that looks like window paper to an enlightened person she herself could not see through—simply because her wisdom was insufficient, and she was too honest, never cutting corners. Within such deep and dense skill, it is not easy to cut corners; when the manas's own questioning doubt is heavy, it generally does not give the mind consciousness 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 is taught as plainly as possible, 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, to practice and realize it, and will not allow the mind consciousness to accept it through faith and understanding. In this way, as long as the skill is in place and the manas has doubt, those with prior intellectual understanding can turn it into realization: turning the plainly evident Buddha-dharma into a proof problem—knowing the answer yet requiring the process of solving it. Within the genuine process of investigation, the bodhisattva's disposition matures, thereby giving rise to the merit and wisdom of seeing the Path. 

In her own account, Ven. Shi Ruyuan inadvertently laid out clearly the entire method and process of applying effort in Chan investigation, and also pointed out the target of Chan investigation unmistakably—it almost amounts to saying 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 deficient, and their meditative concentration skill is incomplete—even guessing with the mind consciousness is difficult, and even if they guess it out, it is not accurate enough, having no effect on their own body and mind; afflictions remain afflictions as before. 

Most importantly, they lack the Hīnayāna mind of renunciation, and the Mahāyāna bodhi mind cannot be aroused. Buddhist practice and realization are only a small part of these people's lives; many affairs of the worldly realm still occupy an important place. 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, plainly 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.