The Stages and Conditions of Contemplative Practice

As for contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), before realization it is called deliberation (manasikāra) — deeply and subtly deliberating, investigating, probing, and searching with sustained examination (vitarka-vicāra); after realization it is called observation, being able to observe directly in the present — observing the operation of the eighth consciousness within the five-aggregate body, observing the mysteries of all dharmas, within which there are also even deeper and subtler activities of deliberation and investigation. Contemplative practice before realization and contemplative practice after realization must both be carried out within meditative concentration (samādhi); without meditative concentration, it is merely a learning-and-understanding activity of the consciousness alone, and the deliberation is shallow. The contemplative practice of the Four Noble Truths, the contemplative practice of searching for the eighth consciousness, the contemplative practice of the illusion contemplation, the contemplative practice of the mirage contemplation, the contemplative practice of the dream contemplation, the contemplative practice of the mirror contemplation — the wisdom of these contemplative practices advances layer by layer, and the wisdom of contemplative practice becomes ever deeper and subtler.

What is called enlightenment must be the mind consciousness and the manas personally realizing the eighth consciousness; it is not that merely understanding the principles of the eighth consciousness counts as enlightenment. Those principles can be known through various channels, but to be enlightened to the eighth consciousness, one must personally realize it through investigating Chan. Enlightenment is not knowledge and principles learned from others, but what the manas personally realizes.