廬山蓮宗寶鑑 2.23

2.23

The Guan Wuliangshou jing says: "The Buddha told Vaidehī: 'You and sentient beings should concentrate your minds, fix your thoughts on a single place, and reflect upon the western direction. How should one form this reflection? All sentient beings, unless blind from birth, possess eyes and can see the setting sun. You should give rise to the thought, sit upright facing west, and carefully contemplate the sun, causing the mind to abide firmly in concentrated reflection without wavering. When the sun is about to set, its shape is like a suspended drum. Once you have seen the sun, whether your eyes are open or closed, let it be clearly distinct. This is the reflection on the sun, called the first contemplation.'" When a practitioner enters this contemplation, they must cut off external conditions in a quiet place, sit upright and collect the mind, carefully contemplating the solar orb manifest before their eyes, focusing the mind on a single realm in still quiescence, as if facing a bright mirror and seeing one's own facial reflection. If the mind scatters, restrain it and bring it back. When mind and breath abide in stillness, samādhi is attained. It may be called: 'The golden crow at the bottom of the sea, the sun in the sky; the pupil in the eye, the person before one's face.'