Only in the State of Samādhi Can One Realize the Dharma

Weiru's contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) experience of the four foundations of mindfulness: Over the past two years I have mainly contemplated the four foundations of mindfulness, practicing the contemplation of impurity and the white-bone contemplation. In the last six months, my body has continuously exhibited various reactions. My grandmaster taught me some methods, such as tapping the head, and also taught me moxibustion and washing my hair with ginger water. Wearing the moxibustion cap has helped a lot, but I have not yet fully recovered; it feels as if wind is drilling into the crown of my head. Now there is still a small patch on the crown about the size of an egg that feels swollen and uncomfortable, as if my hair were being pulled, and it feels somewhat feverish, yet it also feels tranquil and pleasant (praśama). My eyes have also improved a great deal.

The house I lived in when I got married collapsed. At first I felt quite sad and regretful about it, but then I turned my thoughts around and considered that a house is no different from the human body—both will decay and perish—so I let go and set my mind at ease. When I went to the hospital to visit my father-in-law, I saw that all the inpatients in the hospital were elderly people, each one relying on tubes to maintain their breathing. Because lately whenever I see any kind of physical body, questioning doubt arises in me, so right then and there I contemplated the impurity of the physical body and kept questioning on and on. Suddenly I was stunned: in my mind there appeared these old people as skeletons, one after another—some lying down, some reclining. Then in my mind there appeared the crushed white bones of my father at his cremation, like dust, and afterward they vanished and were gone.

Upon careful reflection, our loved ones are only relatives of this one lifetime, yet they become obstacles to our cultivation. After recognizing this point, my family attachments immediately grew thin, and my mind could settle down to diligent practice. Contemplating with the mind, the essence of things like relatives and houses is also empty and unreal; by thinking this way I can let go, no longer clinging and no longer sad. The more I personally witness the impermanence of all people and affairs, the more resolute my mind becomes and the stronger my faith grows; the more easily my mind empties to contemplate the Dharma's meaning, without giving rise to deluded thoughts.

Around the time of the New Year, there were some things at home I was asked to help with, but I would often forget as soon as I heard them, repeatedly mishearing and doing things wrong, and could not remember—my mind felt increasingly dull and slow, and I kept delaying matters. Not only that, it also felt as if wind had entered the crown of my head; when my scalp touched water or met the wind, my head felt as if it were splitting—unbearably painful. My eyes and nose ran constantly; my eyes were dry and strained when looking at things; my ears buzzed and rang—I thought my ear faculty had broken. But strangely enough, although my body was like this and my ears kept buzzing so that I could not hear other sounds clearly, it seemed as if the sound of the Buddha's name was inside and outside my body and mind everywhere. Before, only when my mind was pure could I hear the sound of the Buddha's name in my mind; recently, the more anxious I was, the more I could not recall it and the more dazed I became, and it felt as if a force were pushing the sound of the Buddha's name in my mind, making it even clearer and louder, continuous and unbroken.

Assessment: These phenomena appearing in the body during cultivation indicate that through practicing the four foundations of mindfulness, meditative concentration (samādhi) has become very deep, abiding in the samādhi of recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti) and a mild samādhi of the white-bone contemplation. The sound of reciting the Buddha's name arises spontaneously and automatically within the mind—it would be hard to keep it from appearing. This is the manas abiding in the samādhi state of recollection of the Buddha, not under the control of the mind consciousness. At the same time there is also very deep contemplative wisdom; samādhi and wisdom are equally cultivated (samādhi-prajñā equal cultivation). At such a time, it is easy to eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa), or one may not even know when one has eradicated the view of self.

The reflections on the house and relatives belong to the understanding and analysis of the mind consciousness, not realization; the component of mind consciousness is greater than that of the manas, so it is not direct perception. The white-bone contemplation that appeared in the hospital, however, had a greater component of the manas, though also a component of the mind consciousness; the samādhi state was relatively shallow and the power of concentration not yet sufficient, so seeing the elderly still required generating questioning doubt on the spot, rather than the white bones immediately manifesting. If meditative concentration deepens further and the samādhi state deepens somewhat more, the white bones will automatically appear before one, and it will then be very easy to eradicate the view of self. Therefore, both eradicating the view of self and seeing the mind occur within profound meditative concentration, within the samādhi state, where wisdom manifests automatically, without deliberate thinking and contemplative practice, not under the control of the mind consciousness—that is the direct-perception realm of realizing Dharma; when the mind consciousness dominates, it is the realm of non-valid cognition and inference.

The phenomena in the head indicate that the qi channels are about to open through the entire head; once they are opened, the body will have no obstructions. I only do not know whether this is the opening of the Ren and Du channels, or whether the central channel is also about to open—without data I cannot judge. But this is not far from eradicating the view of self; after eradicating the view of self, meditative concentration will deepen further, and even more auspicious signs will appear.