What Is Meant by Personal Verification and Direct Realization

Original text of the Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment: 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 perfect harmony and comfort, who suddenly forgets the existence of his own body; the four limbs are completely relaxed, body and mind are in extreme tranquility upon tranquility, and he does not know the orientation of his body. At this moment, if the body is lightly pricked with a needle, the mind immediately knows there is a self; thus the self is realized and verified, and the notion of "I" arises.

This is the state of the body being forgotten, and the realization of the self after the body has been forgotten. 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 the existence of the self is verified, the self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) appears. This involves the matter of the body's qi channels, showing that there is a certain connection between the qi channels, the emptiness of mind, and the elimination of self-view. Once the qi channels are unobstructed, the body no longer has obvious sensation; only then can the mind become empty, and thus the body be forgotten. After the body is forgotten, if awareness arises again, one will directly and tangibly verify the existence of the body, the awareness, and the self.

What is the mark of self that the minds of sentient beings verify? It is the body, the awareness, and the five aggregates that the mind has comprehended, personally experienced, personally felt, directly observed, and perceived through valid direct cognition. 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 perceiver and a perceived, 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, supremely comfortable, and the body's qi channels are all flowing smoothly without the slightest obstruction, at that time the body is no longer perceived, and one forgets that there is such a thing as a body; that is to say, neither the perceiving nor the perceived exists anymore. At this time the four limbs are extremely relaxed, without any intentional thought applied, 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 limbs and torso are in. This is called the body being forgotten and lost. In the state of the body being forgotten and lost, of course there is in the mind no perceived body, nor any awareness that perceives the body—both perceiver and perceived are empty.

When the physical body as self has been forgotten in the mind, and there is no obvious awareness, if someone lightly and gently pricks his body with a needle, this person immediately has perception and knows there is a self; the marks of self in the aggregate of form and the aggregate of feeling thus appear. This is provisionally called the mark of self that verifies the existence of the self—personally verifying that there is a self. Verifying the non-existence of self likewise requires going through this kind of personal experience and personal realization; it is not known through the mode of thinking, nor worked out through the conscious functions of inference, speculation, analysis, imagination, and so on. It is just like genuinely perceiving the existence of the body: one should actually, genuinely, and through valid direct cognition realize non-self. What is called personal verification—shouldn't everyone now be very clear about it? Measured by this standard, how many people in this world can personally verify non-self? Carefully reflect on how the existence of self is verified in your own mind, and then, in the same way, come to verify non-self. The principle of the two is the same, without any difference.