Theoretical Realization and Practical Realization
Chapter 8: The Role of Meditative Concentration in the Process of Cultivation and Realization
I. Enlightenment Without Sufficient Meditative Concentration Is Merely Intellectual Understanding
In the stages of Chan investigation and contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), not only is the mind consciousness needed, but most importantly the manas must be employed. If the effort has not reached the manas, it is all just emotional thinking and intellectual interpretation; even if one understands, it is the mind consciousness that understands, and it is often merely comprehension. Whenever enlightenment occurs without meditative concentration, with the manas not participating in the process of investigation, not participating in contemplative practice, and not being engaged in Chan investigation thought after thought, one can say that it is one hundred percent intellectual understanding, or perhaps merely a bit of comprehension.
If you lack meditative concentration, or your concentration is insufficient, by no means should you investigate, let alone attempt to attain enlightenment. Enlightenment under such conditions is merely intellectual understanding—truly it would be better not to be enlightened at all. After being enlightened in this way, one remains half-dead and half-alive for a lifetime, stuck in place, unable to go up or come down, with one's progress on the Path unable to advance any further; moreover, it will increase arrogance and lead to the creation of evil karma, and in the future one will regret it when it is too late.
All of you, remember this: rather than having intellectual understanding, it is better not to be enlightened at all. Half-cooked rice is very hard to eat; even if you put it back in the pot, it is difficult to cook it thoroughly. When meditative concentration is insufficient, and one has been guided and guided again, prompted and prompted again, the conditions are not complete; generally speaking, any enlightenment attained will be intellectual understanding.
Whenever we encounter any kind of Buddhist teaching, we must learn to discern whether it is a method for intellectual understanding or a method for realization-enlightenment. Any method by which one can become enlightened without specially cultivating meditative concentration is a method of intellectual understanding; therefore you must avoid it and not use such a method, for fear that in the future the losses will outweigh the gains.
II. When meditative concentration is insufficient, reading an article is like viewing flowers from horseback; when concentration is sufficient, the degree of cognitive recognition in the mind is extraordinary—it can shake the heart, shake the five organs and six viscera, and the feeling is very unusual. Some people skim through an article once, cannot contemplate it in detail, and rashly reject it, only to find in the end that they themselves were wrong. Where did they go wrong? Without meditative concentration, they cannot contemplate and practice contemplation; their minds are too shallow. Even with guidance, they still cannot practice contemplation, and their wisdom cannot gradually rise or advance day by day. Those whose wholesome roots from past lives are insufficient will not be startled by any dharma they read; it passes by flatly and blandly, as if they truly understood it.
When there is meditative concentration, contemplation is detailed, and only then can one be moved—this is called being deeply touched. Look at how rich the content of our ancient Huaxia culture is, and how precise its wording—it can describe the states of body and mind clearly and thoroughly. There is a certain scientific basis to it, a physiological basis; the Buddha-dharma is not isolated—it just depends on whether people have the wisdom to recognize it as it truly is. The "deep" in "deeply touched" means penetrating deep into the manas; only then is there a genuine feeling, not the shallow, surface-level contemplation of the mind consciousness. Ordinary contemplation produces no feeling, no sighs of emotion, let alone profound and myriad emotions.
III. When one has realized the contemplation of mirage-like appearances, upon encountering any state, one need not contemplate at all—one simply passes through it directly. When the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) has truly been eradicated, and meditative concentration is sufficient, one likewise need not contemplate—one directly lets the states pass by as empty, and will not take these so-called states seriously. But those with merely intellectual understanding, lacking meditative concentration and compounded by arrogance, may have even heavier afflictions than ordinary beings when encountering states.
It can be seen that the manas's realization and the mind consciousness's intellectual understanding cannot be mentioned in the same breath. The gap between having meditative concentration and lacking it is considerable. What does actual practice cultivate? We should know. When one has truly realized any dharma and possesses the power of meditative concentration, no problem is a problem, no matter is a matter. But once meditative concentration is lost, it is hard to say—the great flood may burst the dam and wash away the embankment against afflictions.
Whether one has cultivated or not is seen from one's actions, not from the words of one's mouth. The words spoken may sound lofty and grand, while one's conduct may be base and lowly—such is the magnitude of the gap. Language and words correspond to the mind consciousness; this does not represent cultivation. Actions directly correspond to the manas; only this represents cultivation. Therefore cultivation is the cultivation of the manas; when one has not cultivated to the level of the manas, it is not true cultivation. All views and knowledge are powerless before even moderately large afflictions, especially before birth and death—views simply cannot withstand afflictions, let alone birth and death.
IV. For ordinary people, apart from the interruption when the mind consciousness ceases during sleep and no seeds of consciousness are produced, the mind consciousness exists at all other times, and its seeds have never been cut off. It is just that the seeds of consciousness are distributed across various dharmas and are not concentrated, so the power of discriminating wisdom is poor, wisdom is poor, and contemplation is not fine and detailed. Cultivating meditative concentration makes the seeds of the mind consciousness flow onto a few dharmas or a single dharma, so the force of discrimination is great and wisdom is strong—that is one aspect.
On the other hand, it can also cause the manas to less frequently attend to and grasp at other mental sense-objects (dharma-viṣaya), settling on a few mental objects, with attention concentrated, the mind fine and detailed, deliberation (manasikāra) clear, able to give rise to wisdom and thereby realize the dharma. But to achieve the first aspect, the manas must be subdued, because whether the seeds of the mind consciousness flow in a concentrated way depends on the manas's attention (manaskāra) and its deliberation mental factor (caitasika). When the manas's attention is concentrated on one place, on few places, and its deliberation does not select and fabricate among many dharmas, the seeds of the mind consciousness will not flow in a scattered way, and the mind consciousness can then be focused and can attain meditative concentration.
For example, when the body faculty moves slowly, the mind consciousness settles on the activity of the body faculty, and the manas also attends to the activity of the body faculty, thereby tethering the manas. In this way, the manas focuses on the body faculty's activity and grasps less, so the tathāgatagarbha rarely manifests other mental sense-objects, not letting the manas's attention scatter. At this point the manas and mind consciousness will discover that the body faculty's activity is like something mechanized, like a puppet—"this is not me; such involuntariness is fundamentally not me"—and thus the view of the body can be eradicated. In fact, the mind consciousness long ago knew that the body is not the self; one need not cultivate concentration to know this—it is just that the manas cannot be certain in its heart. Cultivating meditative concentration is precisely to make the manas settled, so that it can focus its deliberation on whether the conclusion reached by the mind consciousness is actually so. The manas must observe directly (in perception, pratyakṣa) to verify the mind consciousness's conclusion. In the process of the body faculty's slow movement, the manas finally observes that the mechanized body faculty is indeed not the self and does not belong to the self—thus there is the sudden enlightenment of the Small Vehicle, a great awakening.
V. In order to eradicate the view of self, one should ordinarily practice much contemplation of the five aggregates' (pañca-skandha) activities. Whenever the six faculties contact any of the six sense-objects, distinguish the five aggregates clearly, observe their functions clearly, contemplate their nature of suffering, emptiness, and impermanence, and strive to confirm their selflessness. Practice contemplation with meditative concentration—slowly, gently, deeply, carefully, bit by bit, without haste or impatience. If you practice in this way, there will come a time when you break through the obstacles of your own mind, a time when you break through ignorance, a time when you turn around the stubborn views of the manas—at that point, cultivation has achieved initial success.
When there is time and environmental conditions permit, the activity of the body faculty should be as slow as possible—the slower the better; slowing down to the pace of a robot is best. In this process, the mind can be very tranquil and very fine; observing the activity of the body faculty and the activity of the consciousnesses, one will feel it is mechanized, not like something done by oneself, and will feel a certain unreality; the notion of self will fade, and it becomes easy to eradicate the view of the body and the view of self.
Then observe the consciousnesses within the body faculty's activity: what is the body consciousness doing, what is the mind consciousness doing, what is the manas doing? What are the auxiliary eye consciousness, ear consciousness, and nose consciousness doing alongside? How does each arise, how does it operate, how do they cooperate closely, and finally how do they shift and disappear? Observe and seek the coming and going of the consciousness-mind, then observe the arising and settling places of various mental thoughts, tracking continuously—you must get to the very bottom of it. The results: first, one can eradicate the view of self; second, one can discover the source and see the mind, attaining realization-enlightenment.
VI. The mental activities of the consciousnesses—including feeling, perception, and volition—all belong to the aggregate of consciousness. Their activity is the aggregate of volitional formations, and the aggregate of volitional formations is also the functional operation of consciousness. Find out all the functions of feeling, perception, and volition within the aggregate of consciousness, contemplate and practice contemplation on their nature of arising, ceasing, change, and impermanence, and contemplate and practice contemplation on their nature of suffering, emptiness, and impermanence. Condense these natures into a single point, hang it deep in the mind, and hand it over to the manas—while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, always keep it suspended and deeply pondered.
Meditative concentration must be good, the mind must be settled and pure, and then one can correspond with the dharma. When the conditions of time and circumstance are complete, the dull-rooted manas will have an opening: "So the consciousness aggregate, the knowing mind, is subject to arising, ceasing, change, and impermanence—it is fundamentally not me; I am not like this"—and thus the view of self is eradicated. Apart from meditative concentration, lacking meditative concentration, such cognition will not appear, and the view of self will not be eradicated.
VII. Meditative concentration does not belong solely to the realm of the six consciousnesses; it also belongs to the realm of the manas, and moreover it is mainly the concentration of the manas. Apart from the manas's concentration, the six consciousnesses have no concentration at all. If the manas has no concentration, the five universally operating mental factors cannot be concentrated where the six consciousnesses should focus; the tathāgatagarbha cannot cooperate with the manas's deliberation mental factor to flow the seeds of the six consciousnesses only where the manas attends, and there cannot be the focus of the six consciousnesses. If the manas has no concentration, it cannot engage in deep and subtle deliberation, and thus cannot realize the dharma, cannot eradicate afflictions, and cannot attain liberation.
If meditative concentration were merely a state of the mind consciousness, then since the manas simultaneously grasps at eight matters, the mind consciousness would inevitably follow the manas to discriminate those eight matters—how could the mind consciousness be concentrated? Even if the mind consciousness wants to be concentrated, the manas is unwilling to be bound—how could the mind consciousness autonomously settle down? Moreover, in the concentration of no perception (asaṃjñi-samāpatti) there is no mind consciousness—so is concentration then not a state of the mind consciousness? In the cessation attainment (nirodha-samāpatti) there is no mind consciousness—so is concentration then not a state of the mind consciousness?
It is the manas that ends birth and death; it is the manas that is liberated. Therefore, in realizing the dharma, the manas must also realize it. The mind consciousness is the advance preparation, the guide; ultimately the manas must walk the path itself.
VIII. When the mind consciousness cannot yet understand a principle, it is because the contemplative practice has not yet been thorough and deep; one still needs to do more specific, deep, and detailed contemplation and contemplation—this requires the assistance of meditative concentration. One must also accumulate merit, cultivating well the bodhisattva's six perfections or five perfections. Therefore one should frequently check what level one's cultivation of the six perfections has reached, what conditions are still lacking, and by how much—one must be clear about all this oneself. Only by developing the power of meditative concentration can one have the strength to contemplate the Buddha-dharma carefully; then contemplation will be very deep and detailed, and the profound principles within the Buddha-dharma can be understood thoroughly and penetratingly.
With concentration and without concentration, the difference in the force of thinking about problems is great. Without concentration, the mind is restless and scattered; thinking is superficial and surface-level, unable to penetrate to the essence and core of a problem, unable to recognize the root of a problem, and one will not obtain deep and detailed wisdom. When the mind consciousness has not yet understood comprehensively and thoroughly, it is because the mind consciousness has not yet comprehensively and systematically contemplated the principle of the selflessness of the five aggregates; therefore the manas is also not perfumed by it, let alone understands it. Only when the mind consciousness's contemplative practice is thorough can the manas know. Once the manas understands, it will eradicate the view of self from the depths of the mind—this force is considerable, and its mental conduct will undergo great change; then cultivation has achieved initial success.
IX. In the investigation of all dharmas, at first the manas cooperates with the mind consciousness's contemplation and analysis, assisting the mind consciousness in gathering various data and materials; when the mind consciousness has gathered the materials sufficiently for the manas to use, the mind consciousness must then cooperate with the manas's deep deliberation, cooperate with the manas's processing and integration work, cooperate with the manas's examination and filtering work—letting the manas expend more mental effort while the mind consciousness is less active—and the work of investigation can then be completed quickly.
To make the mind consciousness less actively contemplative and the manas deliberate more, one must cultivate meditative concentration; only in concentration can the manas's focused investigation be guaranteed. Although He cannot be completely settled on one place, being settled on a very few dharmas is enough. Apart from the dharma meaning that requires focused investigation, other things need only be briefly discriminated, without interfering with one's investigation. Thus Chan investigation must be done in concentration; the mind consciousness must not engage in emotional thinking and intellectual interpretation, but should make much use of the manas's deliberative nature, giving full and effective play to the manas's deliberation, and personally realize the tathāgatagarbha—this is the secret of Chan investigation. Therefore, if the manas does not realize the dharma, seeing the mind and attaining realization-enlightenment is impossible, and likewise eradicating the view of self is impossible. In Chan investigation within concentration, the use of the mind consciousness's contemplation is relatively little, while the use of the manas's deliberative nature is great—that is why realization-enlightenment comes easily. This is the secret of Chan investigation.
X. The manas believes in facts; only by seeing the truth of a matter with conclusive evidence can it confirm it in the mind—this is the nature of the manas. For the mind consciousness to instill any theory into the manas and have the manas believe and accept it, it cannot be merely a final conclusion; there must mainly be a process of contemplation and reasoning, a process of proof. Without evidence, without conclusive facts, the manas cannot confirm it in its mind.
And to have the manas observe directly in the present, realize it in direct perception, and believe in the facts, the manas must be allowed to personally observe and deliberate within the activities of the five aggregates. This requires cultivating meditative concentration, so that the manas deliberates with focus and does not scatter its attention. This is the secret and principle of cultivating meditative concentration. Even without much concentration, the mind consciousness can through study recognize the correctness of the theories it learns; but the manas cannot—He does not easily believe what the mind consciousness has learned; He must personally prove it.
Tell the mind consciousness that all dharmas are the function of the tathāgatagarbha, that all are true suchness—the mind consciousness easily believes it and quickly understands that all dharmas are true suchness, all are the function of the tathāgatagarbha. But the manas cannot experience it, cannot observe it directly in the present, cannot prove it, and therefore cannot believe it or confirm it. This requires having the mind consciousness engage in deep contemplative practice; the manas, relying on the mind consciousness's contemplative practice, engages its own deliberation, and thereby gains a cognition of the mind consciousness's contemplative results—then realization-enlightenment is possible. Realization-enlightenment must occur through contemplative practice in concentration, reducing grasping; when the manas attends to the dharma on which the mind consciousness practices contemplation, attends to the content of the mind consciousness's contemplation, only then can the manas discover the facts, discover the truth, and thereby attain sudden enlightenment. Whereas the mind consciousness understands bit by bit, slowly working it out through contemplation and analysis.
