Wisdom and Dharma Mismatch Cannot Be Called Contemplative Practice (2024-06-09)

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: I started practicing step by step according to the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, contemplating the body as impure. Once I happened to see thirteen images of human skin magnified a hundred million times. I looked at them carefully and repeatedly many times, and also observed my own body against them many times. It truly benefited me greatly in contemplating the falsity of the material body. I usually wake up at three or four in the morning and contemplate the Dharma teachings. At that time it is very quiet, and in meditation I carefully observe how the five aggregates combine the four great elements to form the material body, and then combine the five faculties—eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body. This material body of the five aggregates, together with the six sense objects and six consciousnesses, constitutes the sentient being of the eighteen realms. The material body of the five aggregates is composed of tiny atomic particles, arising and ceasing, and I contemplate the Dharma teachings in this simple way.

These days I have been diligently cultivating meditative concentration, carefully contemplating how the material body is assembled and how it decays, disintegrates, and disperses. In meditation I observe that the material body is composed of tiny atomic particles, and combining this with the white bone contemplation I previously practiced, I try to find ways to break the view of the body and the view of self. The deeper the meditative concentration, the subtler the mind, and the thirteen images of dissection become more clearly manifest. I also involuntarily analyzed the four great element seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind. When analyzing the earth element, I analyzed the bones, flesh, sinews, and so on of my five-aggregate body—all the hard parts are the earth element. When analyzing water, fire, and wind, I also contemplated realm by realm.

Now when I wake up in the morning, without deliberately thinking of these states, the thirteen images and the white bones gradually manifest involuntarily. When contemplating the white bones, I see the body as wood, which slowly breaks apart, shatters, and disappears. Then I contemplate how the realms of water, fire, and wind gradually drain away, the body's heat slowly dissipates, the wind element within the body also disappears, and the flesh becomes stiff. The material body of this life dissolves into atomic particles and fine dust and all disappears, and the four great element seeds return to their original place.

Now this Dharma teaching keeps repeatedly manifesting in my mind. After contemplating for a long time, I feel as if my mind and body have separated. While riding an electric bike on the road, I cannot feel the existence of my body, as if the body were suspended in the air—so light and easy. While walking, I am unaware of time, and I can no longer distinguish the comings and goings of passersby. My mind is very clear; I am just not interested in the external world and do not want to know anything.

Assessment: Overall, I feel your meditative concentration is quite deep and can be considered adequate. The preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) has long been fully accomplished, and you are close to the first dhyāna. With a bit more cultivation, the first dhyāna will arise. The sloth-and-torpor hindrance among the five hindrances has already been subdued; check for yourself how the remaining four hindrances stand.

In your contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), you have removed the Mahāyāna teachings, and the situation of mixing Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna contemplation has decreased, so your focus is somewhat more concentrated, but it is still not concentrated and orderly enough—it is still a bit scattered. You are not fixed on contemplating a single dharma and cannot go deep through one gateway; rather, you contemplate whatever you feel like contemplating, and your train of thought is not clear. In this way your contemplation is somewhat scattered, and wisdom advances slowly. If you cultivate the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, then cultivate them exclusively and single-mindedly. Perhaps you could eradicate the view of self even before reaching the later teachings. In fact, you do not need to contemplate all the dharmas comprehensively; by finding a single point of breakthrough, you can completely eradicate the view of self. Study all the dharmas once through, pick out the key and crucial points for contemplative practice, and use a point to lead to the whole—then all aspects can be eradicated. This is a sign of inexperience in contemplative practice.

Ven. Shi Ruyuan has not understood the difference between contemplative practice, observation, and thinking, nor has she understood the difference between direct perception and imagination. Contemplative practice is observation—the wise application of direct perception. When wisdom is insufficient, that is thinking, analysis, understanding, and imagination, not contemplative practice, nor observation. As for the fact that the material body is composed of subtle particles, without meditative concentration of the fourth dhyāna or above, one lacks the ability to observe it. Even with meditative concentration of the fourth dhyāna or above, if wisdom does not reach the level of bhūmi bodhisattvas, one still cannot observe it—even first- and second-bhūmi bodhisattvas probably cannot observe it, and those who have not attained enlightenment are even less capable; they would still need to cultivate for an incalculable eon before this becomes possible. Including the matter of contemplating the four great element seeds, none of this is contemplative practice or observation; it should properly be called thinking, analysis, and understanding.

Ven. Shi Ruyuan says that when a person dies, the material body dissolves into particles and fine dust and disappears. This statement is theoretically wrong. While a person is alive, the material body is already composed of particles, arising, ceasing, and changing moment by moment; it does not turn into particles and disappear only after death. Moreover, she also imagines that the four great element seeds of the material body return to their original place and are stored away. This idea is also wrong and theoretically incorrect. The correct statement is that while a person is alive, the four great element seeds arise and cease ceaselessly on the material body, being perfused from the tathāgatagarbha onto the material body, and then perfused back moment by moment, cycling back and forth—not returning only after death. Correct dharmas are not contemplative practice or observation, and incorrect dharmas even less so.

What does it mean that the four great element seeds return to their original place and are stored away? It is purely based on her own imagination. Ven. Shi Ruyuan currently cannot observe this fact at all; even if she cultivated to the first bhūmi, she could not observe it. As for the matter of the four great element seeds, through studying the Dharma, it is all her own analysis and understanding compared against what she has learned—some correct, some wrong. Many dharmas currently cannot be observed, but after studying them, they help one understand and accept that the five aggregates are false and illusory, help in eradicating the view of self, and help in reducing grasping at the five aggregates—that is all. Contemplating the Buddha's teachings with such single-minded focus can also elevate meditative concentration and deepen it, and the body's condition naturally becomes very good, with comfortable and pleasant feelings. Although your meditative concentration is deep, you still have not avoided emotional sentiment and intellectual interpretation; there is still a considerable portion of mind consciousness's thinking, and the manas has not fully played its due role, because wisdom is severely insufficient and does not yet match the Dharma.

Ven. Shi Ruyuan: Whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, I contemplate one Dharma teaching. Even when awake, I am not scattered; my mind is no longer muddled and heavy as before, when I could not even find direction when doing things. It is as if there is a force within pulling my body along. When walking, my body, legs, and feet feel very light and nimble; but if I use my eyes to discriminate, it becomes laborious—I feel so tired I cannot keep my eyes open. Turning my gaze inward is relaxed and at ease, without fatigue. I must be grateful to our great and rare good teacher, Dharma Master Shengru, who teaches us to cultivate the true Dharma and meditative concentration; we should also be grateful to our parents, who gave us the tool of the five-aggregate material body for cultivation.

Now I constantly remind myself to diligently cultivate concentration and contemplate the Dharma teachings, and it works quite well! I sleep less too—at night I can only sleep three or four hours and then cannot sleep anymore. If I keep lying down, my whole body feels uncomfortable and my mind is anxious and restless; getting up to sit and contemplate the Dharma teachings resolves it, and my mind even gives rise to joy. From time to time I smell a fragrance. In the past, whenever I read your Dharma teachings, Master, I would often smell a fragrance. These past two years, since family matters became distracting, I could no longer smell it. Now I smell the fragrance again. Whether reading sutras or contemplating the Dharma teachings, my mouth and teeth, as well as my body and hands, emit fragrance. That fragrance is hard to describe in words; deliberately sniffing for it, one cannot smell it. When the fragrance appears, it is as if it is encouraging me to diligently cultivate upward without doubt or interruption.

Now, because I am constantly in meditative concentration, the deeper the concentration, the clearer the Dharma teachings in my mind become. Cultivating meditative concentration is truly so important. With profound meditative concentration, when contemplating the Dharma teachings, external sounds do not enter the ears—I cannot hear sounds clearly. In meditative concentration, it is as if I forget there is a material body, forget there is this world and family and so on. Without meditative concentration, the mind is scattered and grasping at objects, and only then does one care about family ties. When contemplating that the material body is without self, one also needs profound meditative concentration to see through the material body's lack of self, to feel that the material body is actually a false body composed of atomic particles, and there is an indescribable stirring in the heart.

Such an important matter as cultivating meditative concentration—Master, you have earnestly and painstakingly taught us about it so many times! So now my mind is no longer on the external world. Previously, as soon as I sat in meditation I would involuntarily enter concentration, and if there was even the slightest small movement, there would be a loud boom in my ears. Like before I was tonsured, I had to tie up the bangs on my forehead; sometimes when a few strands of hair fell, the sound was like a slap beside my ears—extremely loud, with the eardrums vibrating for a long time—so I dared not sit emptily without mindfulness; lying down was fine.

Assessment: The fragrance appearing from various parts of the body is related to meditative concentration. Meditative concentration has opened up the body's energy channels, and the circulation of qi, channels, and blood is extremely smooth, without blockages, so the body is naturally fragrant. Where there are blockages, it is like stagnant river water—rottenness and foulness appear, and the smell is unpleasant. The fragrance is also related to the purity of the mind and the unobstructed flow of mind. When both body and mind have transformed to purity, fragrance naturally appears; the mouth, teeth, throat, nostrils, seven apertures, and even the pores of the whole body will emit fragrance. The purer the body and mind, the more the body is filled with fragrance; even without bathing for a long time, the body is fragrant, without any foul odor.

No matter how you contemplate, you fundamentally cannot contemplate the four great element seeds, no matter how deep your meditative concentration is, because wisdom is severely insufficient—it can only be counted as intellectual interpretation. Remove the habit of intellectual interpretation as soon as possible; honestly observe the facts that appear, and when you cannot see the facts, do not imagine. Wisdom is always more important than meditative concentration; cultivating meditative concentration is precisely for the arising of wisdom. If in meditative concentration you do not discern the useful methods of the world, and your wisdom in handling worldly affairs is very weak, that too is foolishness. Meditative concentration coexisting with foolishness is not a bodhisattva's state, and one cannot be a bodhisattva. A true bodhisattva is replete with both merit and wisdom. Wisdom includes transcendent wisdom, and equally includes worldly wisdom, including the wisdom of the manas and the wisdom of the mind consciousness—it is wisdom in all aspects.

A practitioner may temporarily be uninterested in worldly dharmas and not devote any attention to them, but cannot long remain inattentive to worldly dharmas and fail to elevate the various kinds of wisdom within worldly dharmas. If one long ignores worldly affairs and remains foolish about them for a long time, at most one is a Hīnayāna person who cares only for liberation and nirvāṇa and cares nothing else, lacking the wisdom to cope; the final outcome is entering nirvāṇa, extinguishing body and wisdom, the living being disappearing from the world, doing not a single beneficial thing for the world, wasting a precious life in vain. Not doing anything in the world, not creating the resources of merit, yet constantly enjoying others' offerings and help—one's accumulated merit grows ever less, and a person without merit or with meager merit (alpa-puṇya) likewise cannot be a bodhisattva.

With some dharmas, after studying them, when doing contemplative practice, treat them as if you had never studied them; only observe the dharmas before you that can be observed, and for those that cannot be observed, do not fill in with imagination. Studying too many dharmas, all mixed together, also hinders progress. How many people spend years and months just studying, studying everything, and after studying and studying, their lifetime comes to an end, and at death they are nothing. Some people, with several hundred books of the Tripiṭaka laid before them, study themselves into old pedants—but who has ever heard of a pedant attaining the Way? A pedant is merely a pedant, nothing more.