The Changes in the Manas Through Perfuming

Question: The disciple contemplates that the physical body is suffering, empty, impermanent, and non-self. Contemplating myself and contemplating others—birth, aging, sickness, death, eating, drinking, excreting, urinating—all beyond one's own control. When walking about normally, the contemplation is not deep; but when I sit down quietly to contemplate, I feel a joyful sensation arising in body and mind, as if entering a new world, as though body and mind had entered another realm, and I really enjoy this feeling. Is this sensation a result of the manas having been a little perfumed?

Answer: Joy that arises from the depths of the heart all comes from the manas, manifesting on the physical body and in the mind consciousness. Only when the manas is perfumed do the various changes in body and mind occur, including feelings of suffering and happiness, as well as the feeling that is neither suffering nor happiness. Because the manas has gained new cognition and its thoughts and views have transformed, it will impel the transformation of body and mind. If you frequently contemplate and observe that the five aggregates are non-self, along with other Buddhist principles, the changes in the manas and in body and mind will become greater and greater and more and more, until finally quantitative change becomes qualitative change: shedding the old self and being reborn, like a carp leaping over the dragon gate, transforming from an ordinary being into a noble one.

Question: Once, while I was driving and contemplating at the same time, at first my contemplation was rather scattered; then suddenly I felt that all distracting thoughts were gone, and I saw the surrounding environment as especially unfamiliar, as if I could no longer recognize the road. Everything I saw felt fresh, and even the air felt especially clean and fresh—and then I got lost, even though that road was actually very familiar to me. Why did I have this kind of feeling?

Answer: Because after the mind becomes focused on contemplating the Buddha's Dharma, the attention is no longer in the surrounding sense objects. The mind consciousness's focused contemplation causes the manas to gain a further impression of the Buddha's Dharma, and with inner joy, one looks at everything with delight. When the mind can transform objects, the environment turns along with the mind. This is a temporary result appearing in the course of cultivation, not yet the final result; the final result is quite sublime. Without these processes of cultivating the Path, and without the accumulation of these processes, no one should talk about what fruits they have attained—a plastic fruit is nothing to boast about.