Visualization Generally Proceeds from Non-Valid Cognition to Direct Perception

In the dharma gate of contemplative visualization, since the objects visualized are not things that can be observed directly in the present, are not existing before one's eyes, and are realms that one's current wisdom cannot reach, they are therefore not realms of direct perception. One must rely on the sacred teachings to imagine and deliberate, or to fantasize, or to visualize relatively similar realm-marks, so as to make them something one can presently cognize and see, thereby turning them into one's own realm of direct-perception wisdom.

What is called contemplative visualization is observing while imagining. "Imagining" carries the meaning of imagination and fantasy, so this adopts the method of non-valid cognition as the point of entry. After meditative concentration and wisdom have grown, the imagining of non-valid cognition gradually decreases, and the component of direct perception gradually increases, until finally direct perception is completely achieved: the visualized object vividly presents itself in one's own mind—or we may say before one's eyes—becoming one's own sublime subjectively imagined realm. One's own mind abides in meditative absorption (samādhi), awakened clarity manifests, the light of the mind-ground emerges, and there is the equal cultivation of Samādhi and Prajñā.

For example, in the contemplation of the white skeleton (white-bone contemplation), at the beginning of contemplative practice, neither oneself nor others can see the material body as a pile of white bones; rather, it is a living, animated physical body. For oneself, the white skeleton is non-valid cognition. Therefore one can only rely on imagination, following the Buddha's instructions, striving to construct and imagine in the mind, comparing the reference images against one's own body or the bodies of others. As time goes on, meditative concentration strengthens, and the mind consciousness gradually permeates and influences the manas, leading it along. The manas gradually becomes familiar with the white skeleton, and without the mind consciousness's effortful fabrication, only the image of the skeleton remains, and the form of the white skeleton will gradually appear in the mind. At a certain moment, when the first dhyāna's meditative concentration is complete, the wisdom of contemplative practice is also complete, and the conditions are also complete, the white skeleton instantly manifests in the mind, crystal clear, vividly before one, as if right in front of one's eyes, impossible to dispel. This is then a pure realm of direct-perception wisdom: one attains purity of the dharma eye, eradicates the view of the body and the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi), and realizes the fruit of anāgāmin or arhat of the fourth fruit.