4-7-2011 Cultivating with Contemplation and Visualization

The Aura of Wisdom 

By Living Buddha Sheng-yen Lu
Translated by True Buddha Foundation Translation Team (Cheng Yew Chung, Victor Hazen, Dance Smith)

This was translated from Grandmaster Lu's 154th book, 智慧的光環.

CHAPTER 41 - Cultivating with Contemplation and Visualization 

During the founding days of Buddhism, Sakyamuni Buddha placed the greatest emphasis on the practice of contemplation.
The disciples entered into caves and sat in meditation and contemplated.

I once visited both Venerable Ananda`s and Venerable Shariputra`s caves at Vulture?
Peak Mountain in India.
The caves where the Tantric gurus, Naropa and Padmasambhava once cultivated somehow harmonize better with the Chinese teachings of Feng Shui.
They illuminate brilliantly, and streams of pure Dharma milk flow from them, nurturing all of the Dharma realms.

There are many contemplative practices in Buddhism,
which include the Breath Counting Exercise,
Contemplation on the Impure,
the Skeleton Visualization Method,
the Consciousness Only Contemplation,
Contemplation on the Dharma Realms,
Visualization on the Sixteen Meditations of the Pure Land,
the Three Modes of Contemplation of the Tian Tai School and so forth.

When reciting a mantra, the Tantric practitioner must chant along by visualizing:
1. The perfect form of the deity.
2. The seed syllable of the deity.
3. Becoming the deity itself.
4. The seed syllable on the moon disc within one`s heart.
5. The moon disc within one`s heart lined with the mantra.

Tantric Buddhism places great importance on mantra, mudra and visualization. 

Among the visualization practices are the
Five Forms Body Transformation Contemplation,
the Five Syllables Contemplation,
the Merging of Self and Deity Contemplation,
the Moon Disc Visualization,
and the Visualization of the Seed Syllable AH.

I realize that there is no single object alone in this world which can be used to symbolize the `appearance of bodhicitta`.
Eventually, the pure and perfect appearance of the moon disc was chosen as its symbol.

Through the teachings of Tantrayana, you are taught how to form the Vajra-bandha Mudra and visualize the heart as a full moon disc appearing pure and clear, displaying a limpid quality throughout its form.
It has a nature of utmost serenity, unmatched by anything in the world.
The practitioner abides calmly in stillness, absorbed into the moon disc and finds the brilliance of light radiating through billions of cosmic worlds.

By this practice, one`s discursive thoughts shall not arise, and the body and mind shall also attain a state of purity, thereby strengthening the Great Bodhicitta.

Thus, it is:
The moon disc within one`s heart Radiates a light of pure quality
The meditative wisdom is projected into the gesture of Vajra-bandha
And one is drawn into the calm wisdom of the Tathagata

Amituofo
Lotuschef
Pure Karma Vihara
True Buddha School