The Process and Result of Contemplative Practice

The Process and Results of Contemplative Practice (Vipaśyanā-caryā) When contemplating the breath until the mind settles down, one will discover that the respiratory system is like an automated program, almost the same as an inanimate object, and unrelated to oneself. This is progress in cultivating the Path—this is precisely the effect we want. There will be many more new discoveries afterward, and through this quantitative change a qualitative change will come about. The qualitative change is the discovery that the body of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) is all false and illusory, impermanent, without self.

Gradually the mind will detach from the physical body and detach from sensation; oneself divides into two parts: one is the observed, inanimate physical-body organizational system, like a dull, unresponsive machine; the other is the observing conscious mind, which moves more and more slowly, with fewer and fewer emotions and emotional attachments, the mental state becoming increasingly fixed and calm, with less and less feeling—just a pure observing and knowing—yet the power of awareness grows ever stronger, the mind becomes ever more subtle and meticulous, and more and more truths are discovered. Later on, one will find that the observer and the observed become increasingly empty, increasingly mechanized, increasingly without self, and ignorance becomes thinner and thinner; only in the end can ignorance be broken through and the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) be eradicated. 

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