Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (19)

Original text: 大王。云何身内风界。轻动等相。谓此内风。或时上行。或时下行。或住腹间。或胁或背。或发瘾胗。或聚成块。或如刀裂。或如针刺。出入息等。遍满身支。

Explanation: Great King, what are the marks of lightness and movement of the wind element within the body? They are the winds in the body that move from below upward; or from above downward; or from left to right, from right to left; or the winds that dwell in the abdomen, the waist and flanks, and the back; or the winds that trigger rashes and swell up into lumps; or the winds that make the body feel pain like being cut by knives or pricked by needles; as well as the winds of the breath entering and leaving the body — these kinds of winds pervade the four limbs of the body.

The characteristic of wind is lightness and buoyancy. When wind pushes, walking and riding a bicycle become fast; when the wind blows, some light things are blown upward by it. Wind also has another characteristic: movement. Wind can make objects unstable and produce motion and turning. What is it that enables our body to function? It is because there is a wind nature within the body. Without the wind nature, our limbs could not move, nor could we speak.

How is speech produced? When there are initial application and sustained examination (vitarka-vicāra) and feelings in the mind, we want to speak and express them. Then a wind arises in the body; the wind touches the navel, then moves upward, touching the heart and lungs, then further up touching the windpipe and throat opening, then touching the tongue, teeth, and lips, and after that speech is produced. Without the wind element, speech cannot arise. The wind nature is that of movement, and speech is also movement; without this wind nature, sound cannot be produced. No matter how many thoughts we have in our minds, without the function of wind, our thoughts and ideas cannot be expressed and speech cannot be produced. This shows that there must be a wind nature inside the body; when the wind moves and touches the internal organs, speech is expressed.

Speech is also illusory. Where is each sound of speech, one sound after another, stored? There is no place to store them. After we finish speaking, the speech ceases — where does it cease to? There is no place of cessation. Thus all dharmas are illusory like this, utterly unobtainable, with no logic to speak of — from nothing at all to nothing at all. Analyzing and inferring all matters and principles, everything we come into contact with is illusory and unreal like this. By engaging in much contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and reflection like this, one can realize the emptiness of all dharmas, achieve the eradication of the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa), and realize the fruit of srotāpanna; after that, there is nothing one cannot let go of.

Not being able to let go means our understanding of the principle is not thorough, or we understand a little but not penetratingly. Once the principle is thoroughly understood, sitting here and pondering, from our physical body to the entire universe, the mountains, rivers, and the great earth, the trichiliocosm, and the buddha-lands of the ten directions, you can infer according to this principle: all come from nothing at all and go to nothing at all; not a single one is real. This requires entering deep into meditative concentration (samādhi) and deeply and subtly contemplating this principle, and acknowledging this principle. Without a genuine process of contemplative practice and acknowledgment, cultivation will not be effective, and there will be no power to subdue afflictions. When encountering specific situations, one still takes all the dharmas one contacts as real, and thus grasps at them and gives rise to afflictions. With insufficient power of meditative concentration, insufficient merit, insufficient wisdom, and insufficient contemplative practice, one cannot realize the fruit of no-self.

The wind inside the body either moves from the bottom of the body upward, or from top to bottom, or from left to right, from right to left — this is the moving nature of wind. When we sit in meditation, we can feel it: when the energy channels move, we can sense it. The energy channels are wind; wherever the energy channels go, the sensations of the body appear there. Originally, when you are sitting, the body is bent; once the energy channels run to the back of the body, the back immediately straightens up — without deliberately sitting upright, the body naturally straightens by itself. This is the moving nature of wind and its governing function over the body.