Mie Mie's Experience of the First Dhyāna and the Elimination of Self-View

Mie Mie: In May 2024, after the preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) arose, I continued practicing. In June, inverted thoughts arose, and I began fantasizing about the state of the first dhyāna and the state of enlightenment, which resulted in the loss of meditative concentration. After losing concentration, I felt very vexed and regretful, forming a negative cycle, so that I could not sit in meditation with a peaceful mind.

By July, while transcribing the Lotus Sutra, I brought forth four kinds of repentance. 1. No longer taking the states of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas seen in the sutra text as my own. 2. No longer asking questions while already carrying the answers in hand. 3. No longer pretending to understand seeing the true mind and seeing one's nature, or prajñā. 4. Vowing to forever eliminate the pride of self. After repenting and making these vows, that very evening a wholesome state appeared during sitting meditation, and I had auspicious dreams at night. My physical and mental condition improved, and I no longer excessively expected (sought after) results from practice.

In October, I went again to pay respects to the Sixth Patriarch. When bowing, I was much more sincere than before; the little schemes in my mind disappeared, I no longer yearned for wondrous experiences, and my thirst for wisdom increased. During this time, content from the Platform Sutra arose in my mind, roughly: "If one does not practice in accordance with the teachings, why labor to come from afar?" I felt deeply apprehensive, knowing that I had previously been far too indulgent with the arising of thoughts and mental activity.

One day, while walking near the monastery, I came upon a tree, and a thought suddenly arose: "Only by regarding everything as one's own life can compassion be maximized. May I be ultimately and perfectly equal." A few days later, during evening recitation at the monastery, a tremor passed through my body. After returning, I felt very sleepy and slept for nearly 24 hours. Upon waking, I felt that many acquired, conditioned notions had disappeared. Walking down the street and seeing things, I realized that everything was just names I had given them based on shape, smell, color, function, and so on. At that moment, I understood that what I had been discriminating all along was my own five aggregates (pañcaskandha).

Assessment: Mie Mie's entire account is concise and clear, without a single word of "I," objective and plain, as if narrating someone else's affairs, without a trace of self-emotion, showing no trace of self-pride or boasting. If he had not been asked to introduce his practice, he would not have made his cultivation results public. He has no mind of self-display and is extremely modest.

Why is he so modest, preferring to remain unknown? It is the virtue of selflessness that comes from genuine realization and verification, the merit of meditation that severs afflictions, and certainly also the result of his being indifferent to fame and gain in a past life, which laid a good foundation for practice in this life. He forms an extremely sharp contrast with those falsely enlightened persons without any real cultivation—this is virtue. Because of such virtue and cultivation, he has attracted the blessings and protection of all the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Dharma-protecting deities. At every step there were pointers and hints, quietly assisting him to complete the transformation of body and mind, even to the point of being reborn anew, so that he took no wrong or deviant paths. It also helped him eliminate karmic obstructions and afflictions, gradually bring forth pure vows, and gradually weaken his self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi).

Mie Mie: In December, on the birthday of Amitābha Buddha, I practiced recollection of the Buddha (buddhānusmṛti). After about three hours of reciting, I felt I had no strength left, and a thought arose: "May all living beings be able to leave suffering and attain bliss, with eternal peace and joy; may the true Dharma flourish forever, without discord." Then my strength recovered. When I resumed reciting, I found my breath flowing inexhaustibly. I felt strange, so I held my breath for a few minutes and did not feel any discomfort from suffocation. Afterwards I recited for more than ten hours more, needing no change of breath and without any fatigue. For a period after that, I felt something flowing inside my body, as if there were an empty shell body within my body.

In April 2025, I set out on foot with several fellow practitioners and good friends toward Lhasa. After more than twenty days, we took a vehicle directly to Lhasa. Arriving at the Jokhang Temple and seeing the people there, who regarded practice as more important than making a living, I was deeply moved and brought forth a thought, feeling that it would be wonderful to practice continuously in such a place. Then, during sitting meditation, that tremorous sensation appeared again, spreading throughout the whole body; the awareness of the entire body merged into one, accompanied by a feeling of joy. Then a force seemed to be tearing my skull apart from both sides. I felt fear and withdrew.

In the days that followed, whether walking, sitting, or lying down, I felt everything around me vibrating along with me, and at all times there was a reasonless joy of body and mind. One day, while sitting in meditation at the entrance of the Jokhang Temple, a doubt arose: "These people practice so diligently and still have not succeeded—is it because they carry purposefulness?" After this thought arose, one purposefulness in my mind disappeared, and I simply sat there. At that moment, it was as if I heard a voice say to me: "Mie Mie, you must let go of your subjective notions about the Buddha, your subjective notions about people, things, and affairs—mind, Buddha, and sentient beings are not three, and there is no difference among them." Immediately afterward, I suddenly had a sense of detachment from thought, feeling, and body, and at once understood what is meant by "the five aggregates are not self, not different from self, and not mutually present."

After rising from meditation, I found that the previous sense of there being a real, substantial self had disappeared; I could not find an "I." Looking again at the surrounding environment, it felt very different. Previously I had a strong sense of participation in all of this, but now it was as if I were watching a picture—there was no purposefulness of participating in it, and no judging either. And after this sense of detachment appeared, there was boundless ease, far more easeful than the joy brought by the whole-body vibration. I suddenly understood what "contemplating feeling as suffering" means: that kind of pleasant feeling is in essence still a kind of tension (affliction), incomparable to this non-feeling state.

After returning home, the state of meditative concentration receded somewhat, but I still clearly understand that the body, or the thoughts and mental activities, are not me. My previous view that Buddhism is a kind of religion has changed; now I fully recognize that what the Buddha taught is the truth of life. From a kind of blind idol worship, it has become a verification of truth. Now my confidence in the cultivation and realization of the Buddha-Dharma is even greater.

Assessment: This account of his attaining the state of the first dhyāna is too brief and rough, not detailed enough. There may be several reasons: first, he does not like to express and narrate; second, describing things while in meditative concentration is rather laborious; third, he is personally quite modest and does not like self-display and showiness; fourth, perhaps he feels these states are normal and does not find them particularly special. Whatever the reason, his meditative state meets the conditions of the first dhyāna, and looking at the process and results of his practice as he describes them, it is evident that he has eliminated self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi); the contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) wisdom within meditation arose automatically.

First, he felt that the self that can be aware was peeled away from the form, feeling, and perception aggregates among the five aggregates—this is the meaning of "the five aggregates are not self"—and he felt that each aggregate is not different from self, nor do they mutually exist, nor merge together with one another. This is the view of eliminating self-view. Afterwards, within the joy specific to the first dhyāna, he felt that all feelings are suffering, and that the five aggregates are suffering and not self. At this point, the first step of Buddhist cultivation and realization was completed, and he steps onto the second and third steps of subsequent practice. From the course of Mie Mie's practice, cultivation is both difficult and not difficult; the key is to bring forth the resolve, to have the power of vows, to have sentient beings in one's heart, and to be willing to relieve the suffering of sentient beings. Only thus can one complete the transformation of body and mind.