A Superficial Experience of the Emptiness of the Body

Ru Chun: This morning, as soon as I sat down, I felt my whole body stiffen up, like an iron box, with only the breath shuttling back and forth through the channel in the middle. After getting up from the evening sit, I relaxed my numb feet, found a very relaxed way to lie down, and then conversed with myself: Manas, venerable one, what do you think the breath is, and what is the body? A sentence popped up in my mind: It is nothing, and there is nothing.

Then I began to contemplate the breath. As I contemplated, I seemed to get a bit drowsy, in a half-asleep, half-awake state. Gradually I felt the room becoming higher and larger, as if I were situated in a very vast, empty space. Slowly I felt my body disappearing layer by layer, bit by bit. Gradually I felt as if I saw myself floating down to the garden downstairs—no body; the body seemed like a shadow, or as if there were nothing at all, like empty space, or as if some invisibility spell had been cast. I don't know how to describe it, but this weightless, floating feeling was quite distinct.

Assessment: This is mainly a state of meditative concentration (dhyāna), a manifestation of qi meridians moving within the body. These phenomena would not appear through meditative concentration alone; it is mixed with the wisdom of contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā). Only when samādhi and wisdom combine and mutually enhance each other do such states appear. Within these states, the mind's cognitive wisdom is also revealed: the states represent the mind—however the mind cognizes, that is the kind of state that appears. As the mind becomes increasingly empty, the body also becomes increasingly empty. When the mind regards the body as empty, these states appear. The mind can transform all things, and it can also transform the body: when the body is grasped, it exists; when the body is seen as empty, it does not exist. Existence and non-existence lie in the mind's conceptions.

These states show that your body has currently become empty; you are close to being a srotāpanna-in-training, not far from the fruit of srotāpanna.