What Is Called "Direct Realization and Actual Verification"?

Original text of the Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment (Yuanjue Jing):善男子。云何我相。谓诸众生心所证者。善男子。譬如有人。百骸调适。忽忘我身。四肢弦缓。摄养乖方。微加针艾。则知有我。是故证取。方现我体。

Explanation: The Buddha said: "Sons of goodness, what is the mark of self? The mark of self is what the minds of all sentient beings have realized and verified. Sons of goodness, it is like a person whose whole body, from head to toe, is in harmonious comfort, who suddenly forgets the existence of his own body; his four limbs are completely relaxed, body and mind are tranquil and extremely still, and he does not know the orientation of where his body is. At this moment, if someone lightly pricks his body with a needle, he immediately knows in his mind that there is a self; thus he realizes and grasps the self, and the notion of self arises."

This is the state of the body having dropped away, and the realization of the self after the body has dropped away. At the very moment of realizing the body, one also realizes the self: the body is the self, the awareness is the self, the five aggregates are the self. Once one has realized and verified the existence of the self, the view of self appears. This involves the matter of the body's energy channels (qi channels), showing that there is a certain connection between the energy channels, the emptiness of mind, and the eradication of the view of self. Only after the energy channels are unobstructed does the body no longer have obvious awareness; only then can the mind become empty, and thus the body drop away. After the body has dropped away, if awareness arises again, one will directly and tangibly realize and verify the existence of the body, the awareness, and the self.

What is the mark of self that the minds of sentient beings realize and verify? It is the body, the awareness, and the five aggregates that the mind comprehends, personally experiences, personally feels, directly observes, and perceives in direct perception. Because one feels that one can genuinely experience and perceive them, one believes without doubt that this body is the self, and that which can be aware is the self. There is a subject and an object, and thus the mark of self appears.

The Buddha gave an example to illustrate what the mark of self in sentient beings' minds is. When someone's entire body, inside and out, is completely comfortable and extremely comfortable, and the body's energy channels are all flowing smoothly without the slightest obstruction, at that time one no longer perceives the body and forgets that there is such a thing as a body; in other words, neither the perceiver nor the perceived exists anymore. At this time the four limbs are extremely relaxed, without the slightest application of intention, without deliberately tightening or moving them; the mind no longer pays attention to the four limbs, forgets that there is such a thing as four limbs, does not know the state one is currently in, does not know one's present condition, does not know which direction one is facing, does not know whether one is lying down or sitting, and does not know what posture or position one's four limbs and torso are in. This is called the body dropping away and being forgotten. When the body has dropped away and been forgotten, of course there is in the mind no perceived body, nor any awareness that perceives the body—both subject and object are empty.

When one has forgotten the physical body as self in one's mind, and there is no obvious awareness, if someone slightly and lightly pricks his body with a needle, this person immediately has perception and knows there is a self; the mark of self of the aggregate of form and the aggregate of feeling then emerges. This is provisionally called the mark of self that verifies the existence of self through realization—realizing that there is a self. Realizing that there is no self likewise requires going through this personally, knowing it through one's own verification, not knowing it through the mode of thinking, and not working it out through the conscious mental functions of inference, guessing, analysis, imagination, and so on—just as one genuinely perceives that there is a body. One should actually, genuinely, and in direct perception realize no-self. What is called realization through verification—shouldn't everyone now be very clear about it? Measured by this standard, how many people in this world can realize no-self through verification? Carefully contemplate how the existence of self is realized and verified in your own mind, and then, in this same way, proceed to realize no-self. The principle of the two is the same; there is no difference.