Xinyi's Contemplative Practice

Recently, this disciple has been engaged in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) on the Noble Truth of Suffering, as well as on the impermanence and suffering nature of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha), and has gained some insights. Recently, due to the pandemic in Changchun, this disciple has not left home for nearly a month. During this period, I have come to feel even more deeply the impermanence of life. In the past, I always wanted life to become "fixed," so that I could progress and study the Dharma at a rhythm familiar to myself, but things did not go as I wished. Life is impermanent; illness and calamities always arrive unexpectedly, and in this process, what one can ultimately experience is only suffering. In the past, I loved this world; I enjoyed sports, singing, and music, and had very wide-ranging interests.

But in the course of these loves and pursuits of interests, my life did not undergo any essential change, nor did I gain inner peace. Now I keep reducing my own preferences, studying the true Dharma and striving to act in accordance with its content, and only then has my disposition undergone some change. I have gradually discovered that whether it is form, or feeling, and so on, none of them is reliable. They constantly change, and if one chases after them, one only increases one's afflictions. And whatever causes oneself affliction is suffering—whether it is a pleasant feeling, a beloved thing, or pure pain.

Assessment: Theoretical contemplative reflection is never as direct and profound as the experience of real life. The tangible sensations and experiences of the five senses always have a greater impact on a person and a deeper influence than the deliberation and analysis of the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta). Therefore, when contemplative practice is implemented in real life, the realization will be more direct and profound, awakening will come faster, and wisdom will be more easily opened. Xinyi's observation and realization are very good. With this observational wisdom, the power of meditative concentration (samādhi) can be strengthened—using wisdom to lead concentration, and then using concentration to enhance wisdom. When concentration and wisdom support and accompany each other, one's practice will make great progress. Keep it up.