The Venerable Pilindavatsa's Cultivation Experience in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Original text:我初发心，从佛入道，数闻如来说诸世间不可乐事。乞食城中，心思法门，不觉路中毒刺伤足，举身疼痛。我念有知，知此深痛；虽觉觉痛，觉清净心，无痛痛觉。我又思惟：如是一身宁有双觉？摄念未久，身心忽空。三七日中，诸漏虚尽，成阿罗汉。得亲印记，发明无学。佛问圆通，如我所证，纯觉遗身，斯为第一。

Explanation: When I first resolved to leave home and entered the Path, I followed the Buddha in cultivating the Way, and often heard the Buddha speak of things in the world that should not be delighted in or attached to. Once, while begging for food in the city, I was pondering the Dharma method of cultivation, and while walking along the road, I accidentally had my foot pierced by a poisonous thorn, and my whole body felt pain. At that moment, my mind had a knowing that knew this deep pain. Although the mind consciousness knew that the body consciousness was in great pain, it also knew that the self-natured pure mind does not feel pain—He has no sensation of pain.

I then contemplated further: could a single body of mine have two kinds of knowing? With this questioning doubt arising, I held the mind steady so it did not scatter outward. Before long, both body and mind suddenly became empty. Then, over the course of twenty-one days, all afflictions were emptied and completely severed, and I became an arhat of the fourth fruit. Later, I received the Buddha's personal confirmation and reached the stage beyond training (aśaikṣa). Now the Buddha asks about the method of cultivation through which I attained thorough penetration of the Buddha's Dharma. As I realized it, with the mind containing only initial application and sustained examination (vitarka-vicāra), contemplating a single meaning of Dharma and forgetting the existence of the physical body, abiding thus in meditative concentration (samādhi), wisdom arose, and I realized no-self and attained the fruit of arhatship.

The knowing that feels the body's pain is primarily the body consciousness; the body consciousness knows the tangible object of pain. There is another knowing, the knowing of the mind consciousness. On the one hand, the mind consciousness knows the knowing of the body consciousness—knowing that the body consciousness is now in deep pain; on the other hand, it knows the subtle aspects of the pain, mainly the distressed feeling of heartache and discomfort, and further knows the mind consciousness's own heartache—this is the mind consciousness's self-validating cognition (sva-saṃvitti-saṃvitti-bhāga), the introspective knowing of itself.

Because the Venerable was single-mindedly devoted to cultivation, although his body was in great pain, his mental state was tranquil (praśama). Within the pain, he contemplated something that does not feel pain, a questioning doubt arose, and so he abided in deep questioning doubt, and meditative concentration appeared. Within that concentration, through deep and subtle contemplative investigation, he realized the non-self of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha).

Afterwards, due to his power of concentration and awareness, the first dhyāna arose, and over twenty-one days he sequentially severed all afflictions, becoming a great untainted arhat. This is the process of cultivation that realizes the fruits and awakens to the true mind—the process of actual practice and realization. With the threefold training of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom complete, the Venerable's conduct of precepts was certainly perfect; only when meditative concentration arose could the wisdom of liberation finally be born, attaining liberation.

In his account of his cultivation experience, there is not a trace of mere intellectual understanding; it is all the realization gained from actual practice. This is unlike some people today, who rely entirely on the mind consciousness's understanding of the Dharma meanings they encounter, and take what they have understood to be enlightenment. Without even touching the edge of interpretive awakening (intellectual understanding), they consider themselves to have realized enlightenment. In such so-called enlightenment, the views after "awakening" are still products of understanding, without the slightest bit being realized through their own present observation and personal realization.

The spiritual faculties of people in the world today differ from those of cultivators of past eras by a hundred thousand miles. Without the slightest skill in meditative concentration, they talk grandly about theory as if it were all their own realization. Despite years of correction, despite years of scolding, they cannot be scolded awake; they remain the same old way, not even knowing that the scolding is directed at themselves.