3-8-2011 The Three Stages in Meditation

The Art Of Meditation 

By Master Sheng-yen Lu
Translated and published by Lei Zang Si Singapore

This was translated from Grandmaster Lu's 45th book, 坐禪通明法.

CHAPTER 9 - The Three Stages in Meditation 
By the time you have no thought ever arising in your meditation, all of your affinity and causation have completely disappeared. You can not even know where you are yourself. This is a first stage in meditation. It is called "the Heaven entering the Earth", or "everything returning to its root". The responses both in body and in mind come and go alternately, sometimes rising and sometimes falling, like in the void, your boundless body ascending to Heaven. Sometimes you feel that you are surrounded by thousands of layers of clouds. In the dark, you come and go without a trace, even your shadow nowhere to be found.

The Taoists would say that this is "true air stream going up to the brow point". When your spiritual lights gather at the top, right at the brow point, you naturally feel triumphant and complacent. This is the kind of state you are in during the first stage of meditation, which comes by itself. This is a great liberation of the body and mind--which is, in fact, "initial quietitude" of "concentrated spirit entering the air stream". The longer you stay at this stage, the more spiritual lights go to Huang Ting (three centers of mind, heart and spleen) as nourishment, the more the invisible lights accumulate. Gradually, the practitioner can go into "initial quietituded" as soon as he sits straight. As far as I know, the Taoist "initial quietitude" is roughly identical with the Fourth Dhyana Heaven in Buddhism.
When you have cultivated well enough in the first stage, you enter the second "absolute quietitude". By now, as an enormous amount of the spiritual lights has accumulated, they can move, which is called "the self-motion of spiritual lights" or "self-motion of brow point". The self-motion, however, is different from self-motion after death.
Their difference is:
Practitioner >> spiritual lights >> motion when alive >> living spirit >> go to Heaven
Ordinary people >> soul >> motion when dead >> dead soul >> go to Hell
For people who practice meditation and who have realized the spiritual lights beginning to move when they are still alive; this is living original spirit. Original spirits with self-mastery certainly will go to Heaven. For ordinary people, the souls are dead when they are alive, and start moving when they die. So they are not masters of themselves and will certainly go to Hell. Such is the essential difference between practitioners and laymen. This is also what I meant when I said "Without cultivation, one remains a ghost." in the Preface.
During the second stage, in the state of "self-motion of the brow point", you can understand what Lao Tzu meant by "doing without action". Since the brow point moves by itself, not by any action, it is self-motion without action, or "motion without intention". Doing without action" by Lao Tzu is not intelligible to ordinary people.
When you reach that state, however, understanding comes by itself--the brow point lights start moving without our asking them to do so, so it it intent without intention, "doing without action". I believe my readers understand by now. This motion is the cream of the 5000 Word Moral Text by Lao Tzu. No one can understand it without meditation.
When the spiritual lights at the brow point move, your whole body is luminous. Even if you sit meditating in the darkest room at night, it will be bright as day. The Taoist teachings describe it by "Direct the eyes to the palace of water to receive the best from the Sun." At this point, without your intent, the spiritual lights dazzle everything--the sun and the moon can be reversed, time is turned backward--you can see your previous lives. You acquire the five transcendental faculties of a Buddha--the ability to know the former lives of yourself and others, the Divine Eye, capable of seeing anything at a distance, the Divine Ear, capable of hearing any sound at any distance, the ability to know others thoughts, the ability to go anywhere at will and to transform oneself of objects into anything at will. There is nothing strange about the appearing of these five transcendental faculties. Some monks try to find faults with transcendental powers. There is nothing wrong with transcendental powers, for they are generated by themselves in meditation when the spiritual lights at the brow point start moving. They are "doings without action", "intent without intention" by self-motion of the spiritual lights. Some monks criticize them for two reasons:
One, they are afraid that laymen will cultivate these powers, "putting the cart before the horse".
Two, these monks are unqualified monks who know nothing about transcendental powers as they have not reached this stage.
I tell my readers honestly that the Buddha says: "The mind is generated when it is free from any thought of attachment." That means "doing without action". "The mind is generated when it is free from any thought of attachment." is an important teaching in the Diamond Sutra, which means the same thing as "the self-motion of spiritual lights at the brow point". By now, my readers probably have understood everything.
I am not foul-mouthed by nature; much less do I want to curse monks, since they represent the Buddha, one of the Three Jewels. They are also said to represent "cleanness". I should not use abusive language about them in any event. However, there are times when I could not curtail myself and I do let loose a torrent of abuse. I am not going to curse the high-ranking monks or true Taoist priests; I respect them and prostrate before them. It is the secular monks and heretic priests that I want to curse. There are unpromising monks who also practice sorcery and play dirty tricks. I simply cannot stand that, because they are defecating on the Buddha's head! My comments on and curses of them are not sinful, but meritorious!
These secular monks and heretic priests should read this book. If there is anything they don't understand, they should come and ask me. They should cultivate sincerely and honestly. They should not go round asking for huge sums of money, alms-book in hand, just on account fo their bald head, instead of on account of the merit of their practice. They are only interested in building temples, or concerned with business from morning til night. They renounced home life, but don't keep the precepts. All this is infuriating! The secular monks should be pushed down on the floor before the patriarchs and given a sound beating of 500 planks, naked. It makes one sick to see these sanctimonious monks running wild everywhere.
There are also cross-eyed heretics, such as Lin Yun and Cai Cao-qi and the like, and offsprings of masters and demons with some supernatural tricks, who should read this book as they are totally ignorant of meditation for luminosity. They should cleanse their heart, repent and stop fooling people with witchcraft and sorcery. They should wake up, stop harming people, and start practicing genuine teachings to avoid karmic retributions. My reprimand stems from my profound loving kindness. If you stubbornly cling to your evil practice, you are unworthy of my repeated persuasion with good intentions to save suffering beings. If you have any questions, please contact me by correspondence, and I will certainly give you detailed instructions to guide you to realization.
Honestly, I don't want to use such abusive language to them, and I could have let them go in the endless cycle of life and death. But a Bodhisattva has the aspiration for supreme enlightenment for the welfare of all. If I don't succor them from the karmic cycle, who will? This is our meditation for luminosity, a doctrine for salvaging the dead and protecting the living. If I don't teach them, or don't save them, my Bodhicitta will never be at ease. Is this my selfishness? If I concealed the doctrine today, I would not be a Bodhisattva! I used bad language, at the risk of my life, in order to save them.
Going further for "self-motion of the brow point" and "doing without action", you reach the third stage of meditation: the "amalgamation of Heaven and Man". At this stage, your mind is attached to nothing; it is called "brow point bathing". "Bathing" here is wondrous, meaning that the individual is completely merged with Heaven and Earth, realizing all Dharmas. By now all your karmic hindrances are expelled by the illumination of Heavenly lights, and as a result, you attain full enlightenment. This is the ultimate revelation from meditation. This chapter tells practitioners everything about "meditation for luminosity". Whether it is the Taoist "ultimate void", the "correct thought" of the Pure Land Sect or the "spiritual lights" of the Esoteric school, they are all realized without exception. I have disclosed the secret of secrets. If sentient beings do not wake up after this, there will be nothing else that can cure them.
I make the following distinctions once again:
Stage I: Initial tranquility, when the spirit is concentrated at the brow point.
Stage II: Absolute tranquility, the brow point moves by itself--doing without action
Stage III: Amalgamation, the brow point bathes and everything is realized.
By Stage II, you begin to have transcendental powers. By Stage III, when all karmic hindrances are eradicated, you begin to have the ability to destroy all evil passions. Now you are a fully qualified Buddha, never to return to the six lower states of existence.

Amituofo

Lotuschef

Pure Karma

True Buddha School