Contemplative Practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) on the Suffering, Emptiness, Impermanence, and Non-Self of the Five Aggregates (I)

(9)如是我闻。一时。佛住舍卫国祗树给孤独园。尔时。世尊告诸比丘。色无常。无常即苦。苦即非我。非我者亦非我所。如是观者。名真实正观。如是受．想．行．识无常。无常即苦。苦即非我。非我者亦非我所。如是观者。名真实观。圣弟子。如是观者。厌于色。厌受．想．行．识。厌故不乐。不乐故得解脱。解脱者真实智生。我生已尽。梵行已立。所作已作。自知不受后有。时。诸比丘闻佛所说。欢喜奉行。

Explanation: The World-Honored One told the bhikṣus that the aggregate of form (rūpa) is impermanent; what is impermanent is a dharma of suffering; what is a dharma of suffering is not the self (the false self); and what is not the self (the false self) is also not possessed by the self (the false self). Neither self nor what belongs to self is different from this—none of it is the self. One who contemplates in this way is engaged in true contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and is a genuine contemplative practitioner. One who does not contemplate in this way is not engaged in contemplation in accordance with reality; without contemplation in accordance with reality, one cannot realize through direct experience that the aggregate of form is not the self, and cannot eliminate the identity view (ātma-dṛṣṭi).

Regarding the impermanence of the aggregate of form, there is much content for contemplative practice, which requires deliberation (manana) within meditative concentration (samādhi) that is reasonable, in accord with the Dharma, and in accordance with reality. One cannot merely think about it briefly and consider the contemplation complete, or assume that mental assent means one has passed the test, or believe that the elimination of the identity view is not far off. In fact, no matter how the mind consciousness thinks, it does not count; getting the manas to assent is the real skill. Apart from meditative concentration, the mind consciousness's thinking and deliberation cannot penetrate deeply into the manas, and the manas cannot carry out its own deliberation; therefore one cannot understand the truth that the aggregate of form is impermanent. What the mind consciousness ordinarily regards as very simple principles are not simple at all when they reach the manas. Therefore one must contemplate deeply and thoroughly within meditative concentration, striving for sufficient evidence with sound reasoning and solid grounds, and also allow the manas a certain amount of time to digest this evidence and argumentation.

Once the manas understands that the aggregate of form is truly impermanent, He will sigh with feeling: after years and months of paying such a great price for the aggregate of form, was it worth it? He will feel it was not worth it, and from then on His care and concern for the physical body will diminish and lighten. This is the change in body-and-mind experience during actual practice. When a person genuinely begins to cultivate, as long as the practice is effective, body and mind will certainly undergo change; otherwise, the practice has not been done well and is not effective—one should then find another way and be more diligent.

Without such a process of actual practice, direct realization is utterly impossible. The mind consciousness's understanding is useless; it is merely a kind of theory. Theory can be obtained by anyone, but not even one in ten thousand can be a person of direct realization. Those who have realized directly have their own unique insights, which may not win the agreement of many people, because most people have not practiced actually; they usually take things for granted, do not understand the thread of actual practice, and still less know the wisdom state of direct realization. Taking things for granted is vastly different from the thinking of actual practitioners. Theorists tend to take things for granted; having never gone through the stages and process of actual cultivation, their cognition of the Dharma is coarse and sloppy, incapable of being fine-grained; their exposition of the Dharma cannot hit the mark and cannot withstand questioning. A person of direct realization can withstand any interrogation and challenge, and always has a settled, definite standard.

After the impermanence of the aggregate of form has been contemplated successfully, the next step is to contemplate that what is impermanent is a dharma of suffering. This step cannot be done by merely taking things for granted; one must contemplate deeply within meditative concentration: why is what is impermanent a dharma of suffering? The evidence must be sufficient, without the slightest forced interpretation; there can be no vagueness and no carelessness. Only by truly contemplating out the feeling of suffering from the impermanence of the aggregate of form—and with the mind (the manas) genuinely recognizing that it is indeed suffering, without any doubt—does it count. Once the manas understands the impermanence and suffering of the physical body, it will certainly dislike the suffering, will certainly sigh over the suffering it has undergone, and will gradually and spontaneously reduce its pursuit of suffering.

In actual practice, because the manas has come to know the true characteristic of the aggregate of form and understands the true principle, it will constantly emit sighs and laments, and will make new resolutions. Otherwise, the practice has not reached the mark—theoretical sentiment and intellectual understanding exceed the actual contemplative practice.

The most crucial point below is: how can one get the manas to recognize that what is suffering is not the self? This is the most difficult step. Previously the manas had always taken the aggregate of form to be the self or to belong to the self. Now one must negate this view of His, and after a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn, have Him recognize that He was wrong before—that the aggregate of form is fundamentally not the self or what belongs to the self. This difficulty is still quite considerable.

Once the manas has assented to and confirmed that the aggregate of form is not the self or what belongs to the self, the identity view is eliminated. But is the identity view easy to eliminate? It is truly not easy at all. Let each person introspect on this very life—every year, every month, every day—the deeply rooted identity view within the mind: treating the physical body as real, as the self, as belonging to the self, craving and clinging, with every thought being the self of the physical body, maintaining and caring for it in the most meticulous way, thinking first of oneself in eating, clothing, dwelling, using, and travel, and creating countless karmic actions for the sake of the physical body. Therefore the identity view is indeed very hard to eliminate.

But theoretically, eliminating the identity view is not that difficult. Some people mull it over a bit, know that the aggregate of form is not the self, and consider that they have eliminated the identity view. Just how many people in this world have theoretically eliminated the identity view of self and self's possessions is already beyond counting. Those who hold the view that the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) are without self, on the level of knowledge alone, are called "disciples of the school of intellectual understanding." This term was first spoken by the Sixth Patriarch. The Sixth Patriarch predicted that the monk Shenhui would be a disciple of the school of intellectual understanding, and indeed the monk Shenhui spent his whole life stuck at the level of intellectual understanding, without any direct realization.