Meditative Concentration (Samādhi) Is the Valid Direct Cognition Realm of the Manas (II)

White Bone Contemplation Practice Journal (2): In the morning, I sat in meditation with eyes closed and felt a slight itch on my right ankle bone. Suddenly I saw (with eyes closed) that the itchy spot on the ankle bone had festered and ulcerated. In contemplation, I swept over it with a finger, and all the flesh on the body fell away, leaving only a skeleton—but it was draped with dark-red bloodstains and shreds of flesh, not the snow-white bones that appear at the final stage of the white bone contemplation. I think this is merely an intermediate stage of the white bone contemplation: first the skin falls away, then the flesh, leaving only sinews and bones; it appears in a sequential order. You cannot go from nothing at all to directly visualizing the white bones in one step; the practice progresses step by step. This is an intermediate level, and further, deeper states will appear later, and only then will the white bones manifest. At that point, the white bone contemplation will be accomplished, and the fruit of realization will be attained.

Assessment: In the initial stage of contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), the solitary mental consciousness can enter gradually through erroneous cognition (non-valid cognition), or use the method of non-valid cognition to seek verification. When the eye consciousness and mind consciousness cannot see the white bones, it is the solitary mental consciousness that imagines the body as a skeleton—this is non-valid cognition. Using this non-valid cognition to perfume the manas, although rather difficult, because the final result is a fact, the manas will sooner or later come to see the fact. When the perfuming succeeds, the manas will regard the body as white bones, and the white bone state will manifest as direct perception (valid direct cognition)—this is what the manas directly observes. In contemplating the five aggregates (pañcaskandha), there is likewise a transition from the solitary mental consciousness's non-valid cognition to states realized by the manas through direct perception. For example, contemplating the physical body of past lives and the physical body of future lives both belong to the mind consciousness's non-valid cognition and imagination, but in the end, once the manas is successfully perfumed, it witnesses that the five aggregates of past and future are all empty, accepts that the five aggregates are without self, and thus attains the fruit of realization.

Why does the manas always manifest states of direct perception? Because all cognition of the manas is presented by the tathāgatagarbha. Whatever dharma the tathāgatagarbha presents, the manas personally engages with it; whatever it is, the manas knows it and recognizes it as such. Therefore, what the manas discerns is always a state of direct perception—there is no inference and no non-valid cognition. At this time, the solitary mental consciousness also cognizes through direct perception. When the mind consciousness engages in contemplative practice, there may be no direct perception—there may be inference and non-valid cognition—but after the manas has been perfumed, its cognition is certainly of direct-perception states.

Observing from the manifested state of the white bone contemplation, observing from the state of meditative absorption (samādhi), one should know who realizes the Dharma first: it is certainly the manas that realizes the Dharma first, and the solitary mental consciousness that discerns through direct perception afterward. The manas's realization is an instantaneous sudden awakening. After the sudden awakening, wisdom arises, completely different from its previous cognitive wisdom. At this moment, one might slap one's thigh and say: "So that's how it is!" Slapping the thigh or the forehead expresses shock—having come to know something previously unknown, overturning previous cognition. This is called sudden awakening, a sudden understanding. The realization of all dharmas is accompanied by the state of meditative absorption; at the moment of sudden awakening, the state of samādhi is manifestly present. If it is not sudden awakening but gradual understanding, it is the mind consciousness understanding bit by bit through deliberation (manana), and even then the understanding will not be exhaustive—the mysteries within the Dharma remain unclear. But when the manas realizes, it is settled in one flip: it is, or it is not—very real, without any falsity.

The samādhi state of the white bone contemplation, as well as all samādhi states, cannot be seen by the five sense consciousnesses no matter how hard they try; the mental consciousness accompanying the five sense consciousnesses (pañcavijñāna-sahagata-manovijñāna) also cannot see them; only the solitary mental consciousness can see them. What is discerned through direct perception is certainly a state of direct perception. The white bones cannot be seen by the five sense consciousnesses, nor by the mental consciousness accompanying the five sense consciousnesses; only when the solitary mental consciousness and the manas possess the wisdom of direct perception can they be seen. When the six consciousnesses cannot see the white bones, the white bone contemplation is a practice of non-valid cognition—imagining the white bones. Only when the white bones truly manifest do the solitary mental consciousness and the manas together discern them through direct perception, which shows that all realization is a state of direct perception. If the state is conjured up by inference or non-valid cognition, there is no realization and no samādhi state. Attaining the fruit of realization and seeing one's true mind (awakening to the true mind)—the realization of all dharmas follows this same principle. The relationship between actual realization and inferential deliberation should now be clear to us, and how to apply effort going forward should also be evident.