釋禪波羅蜜次第法門 7.19

7.19

How does one cultivate actual contemplation? In the concentrated mind, the practitioner uses the mind's eye to truthfully contemplate the subtle incoming and outgoing breath in this body, visualizing it like wind in the empty sky, and the skin, sinews, bones, flesh, and thirty-six substances as unreal like a plantain tree, internally and externally impure, and deeply loathsome. He further contemplates that feelings such as joy and pleasure in concentration all have the characteristic of destruction, being suffering and not pleasure. He also contemplates that the mental consciousness in concentration is impermanent, arising and ceasing, not abiding for a kṣaṇa, with nowhere to attach. He further contemplates that dharmas such as wholesome and unwholesome in concentration all belong to causes and conditions, entirely devoid of self-nature. When contemplating like this, one can destroy the four inversions; finding no person or self, on what could concentration rely? This is called cultivating contemplation.