宗鏡錄 36.2

36.2

Now, the approaches to contemplation are briefly of two kinds. First, relying on the Chan school and the Perfect Teaching: persons of the highest capacity directly contemplate mind-nature, neither establishing subject and object nor formulating mental conceptions; contemplation encompasses both concentration and distraction, and internal and external are entirely equal—that is contemplation without contemplation, wherein numinous awareness silently shines. Second, relying on methods of contemplation: one contemplates the mind as resembling an object appearing before one; although provisional characteristics are provisionally established, they all transform from the mind. For example, in the Contemplation Sūtra, sixteen approaches to contemplation are established, such as the sun contemplation and the water contemplation; in the Sūtra on the Upward Rebirth, one contemplates the inner court of Maitreya in Tuṣita Heaven palace, and so forth. The explanations in various treatises and commentaries state: Regarding the single word 'contemplation' (guan), in principle there are two kinds: first, gazing (guanzhu); second, investigative contemplation (guancha). As for the first, gazing: it is like the first five consciousnesses taking the objects of the five dusts as their conditions, gazing upon and facing the objects before them, manifest and distinct, without deduction, because they are subsumed under actual perception and the realm of the thing itself. As for the second, investigative contemplation: setting up an archetype upon one's own consciousness, because one examines, deduces, and seeks out the delineation of the object. The approach to contemplation now established corresponds to this second kind, investigative contemplation. In terms of the contemplating mind, its substance is expounded under four headings: 1. Disclosing substance by isolating its nature: it is solely the discernment of the particular state. This discernment can select and discard distraction, defilement, the indeterminate, and so forth, because it selects and retains the transformed objects that are wholesome and pure. 2. The substance of the inducing and the induced: concentration induces discernment. 3. The associated substance: the five aggregates excluding form. 4. The substance with its retinue: the five aggregates including form.