Questions and Answers on the Contemplative Practice of the Four Establishments of Mindfulness 19

Question: During meditation, various states arise, such as seeing images of the Buddha, etc. How should one handle them? 

Answer: All states are illusory; pay no attention to any of them. Do not welcome what comes, do not see off what goes. When you see an image of the Buddha, neither rejoice nor be afraid; if you see someone coming to kill you, pay no heed either. There is no Buddha and no māra—all are mere illusions. Just contemplate the breath. 

Question: Previously, following the deep-breathing method the Master taught, during abdominal deep breathing I would first inhale fully, then hold the breath, then exhale, pause for a moment, and repeat like this—this was active breathing. Yesterday, after actively contemplating the breath for a while, I began to observe the breath naturally entering and leaving the nostrils, and I felt the breath becoming lighter, gentler, and subtler, no longer deep and long. Is this correct?

Answer: When first contemplating the breath, if the breath is rather short and there is an obstruction, you should use the active deep-breathing method to regulate the breath. Once the breath has been regulated to be even, the mind is purified, and body and mind feel tranquil and at ease, then return to natural breathing. In this way you can enter the normal mode of contemplating the breath, and the physical body will have no obstruction. 

Question: This afternoon when I sat down on the cushion, the qi-mechanism quickly stirred into motion. I felt my body floating lightly, as if merging with empty space, with no inside and no outside; places like the body, eyes, and chest all seemed to be breathing—an open, expansive kind of breathing—and I was floating in the air. With a single thought in my mind I returned to my old home; a force was pushing me, and I flew backward in retreat. A thought arose in my mind: "I'm dead—never mind it, dead and never mind it" (in my mind I meant to hand it over to the seventh consciousness to deal with). Later I stopped retreating, and I saw the moonlight bright, shining over the whole earth; still I paid it no heed. Finally I got off the cushion, and my body felt light and floating the whole time. 

Answer: All the bodily sensations and states are states of meditative concentration. Once the mind becomes still, the four great elements of the body will naturally undergo changes, and the body will feel tranquil and at ease, as if floating in the air; the changes in the physical body in turn prompt changes in the mind. The mind turning within these states—that is a state of meditative concentration, which appears only after the mind has emptied. Not paying attention to it is right. Do not stay in the state of concentration too long or too often; take contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) within concentration as the main focus, with contemplative practice as the main thread.