Twenty-Five Doors to Meditation: A Handbook for Entering Samadhi

First published in 1998 by

SAMUEL WEISER, INC,

P.O. Box 612

York Beach, ME 03910-0612

Copyright © 1998 William S. Bodri and Lee Shu-Mei

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Samuel Weiser, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bodri, William.

Twenty-five doors to meditation : a handbook for entering samadhi / William Bodri, Lee Shu-Mei.

p.cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-57863-035-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Meditation—Buddhism. I. Shu-Mei, Lee. II. Title.

BQ5612.B63 1998

294.3′4435—dc21 97-51639

CIP

BJ

Typeset in 10.5 point Bembo

Printed in the United States of America

04 03 02 01 99 98

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets all the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48–1984.

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To Mahakashyapa, who patiently waits, and to Rahula, Pindola, and Kundupada.

To all the world's students who wish to cultivate, and who ardently seek the path to enlightenment.

Contents

Introduction

1. Union with Child Light to Realize Mother Light

2. Zen, the Method of No-Method

3. Kuan-Yin's Method of Listening to Sound

4. Watching Thoughts: Cessation and Observation Practice

5. Dazzling White Skeleton Contemplation

6. Watching the Breath

7. The Zhunti Mantra

8. The Vairocana Mantra

9. The Amitofo Mantra

10. Nine-Step Bottled Wind Practice

11. Kundalini Yoga for Opening the Sushumna Central Channel

12. Bardo Practices

13. Focusing the Vision on an Object

14. Athletic Peak Performance and Chi Cultivation

15. Ingesting Wai-Dan (Siddhi Medicine, or External Alchemy)

16. Sexual Cultivation

17. One-Pointed Visualizations

18. Bhakti Yoga

19. Prayer

20. Dream Yoga

21. Mindfulness of Peace and Mindfulness of Death

22. Meditating on the Water, Fire, Earth, Wind, and Space Elements

23. Mindfully Cultivating Virtuous Behavior

24. Concentrating on a Hua-tou, or Meditation Saying

25. Jnana Yoga, or Abhidharma Analysis

Appendices

1. The Nine Basic Samadhi Inherent in All the World's Religious Schools

2. Shakyamuni's Ten Great Roads of Cultivation Practice

3. Further Recommended Reading

4. Postscript and References for the Twenty-Five Doors to Meditation

Glossary

Index

List of Illustrations

1. Cliffside cave, Chicken Foot Mountain, China

2. White skeleton visualization method

3. The Zhunti Buddha

4. The Vairocana Buddha

5. The nine-bottled winds exercise

6. Kundalini yoga

7. Thousand-year-old Chinese recipe for siddhi medicine

Introduction

The purpose of this book is to introduce a wide variety of cultivation techniques to people who are searching for an appropriate spiritual practice. From the wide selection of techniques within, there are sure to be one or two methods which will interest any aspiring practitioner. Thus, any of these techniques can serve as the initial basis of spiritual practice.

The very first requirement of the cultivation path is to accumulate merit, for without merit it's impossible to succeed at the task of self-realization. But to succeed in enlightenment, you must also devote yourself to some form of spiritual practice, for otherwise you can't possibly attain Tao. The formula for progress in spiritual cultivation, which is valid for all other forms of endeavor as well, is Method + Effort + Time + Experience = Result. Thus you can expect the positive results of self-realization only after you put time and effort into following a proper cultivation technique (sadhana).

From your familiarity and experiences with an initial form of meditation practice, your understanding of cultivation principles will naturally grow, and from this progressive increase in wisdom and experience, your practice can be adjusted accordingly. In this way, matching experience with wisdom and theory, over time you make tremendous progress on the cultivation path. So with effort, experience, time, and practice you will definitely achieve substantial spiritual results.

It's often said that there are 84,000 different afflictions in one moment of the mind, and so there are also 84,000 various methods of cultivation practice, called dharma doors, that you can use to appropriately address these vastly different afflictions. The biggest problem in our lives is that these mental afflictions continually arise and give us no peace, thus blocking the path to attainment. Hence all the genuine cultivation methods in existence are aimed at quieting your thoughts, and when thoughts stop we attain a state of mental stillness or cessation called samadhi.

Samadhi is not a state of mental dullness or torpor, for within samadhi your mind remains clear, open and aware. It's an experiential realm where clear awareness and mental quiet are conjoined, for within samadhi the mind experiences such one-pointed concentration that the busy extraneous thoughts which normally bother us totally drop away. This is the initial stage on the path to spiritual development: a state of mental quiet within which our miscellaneous random thoughts seem to disappear. Sometimes we call this state of quiet emptiness, which is just a synonym for the absence of our discriminative monkey mind.

The samadhi of mental quiet marks just the very beginning stages of spiritual cultivation, for the ultimate attainment of self-realization requires that we develop transcendental wisdom as well. Transcendental wisdom, or prajna, is that discriminative but completely nonintellectual awareness that empowers us to perceive the true nature of the mind. Samadhi is just a stage of quiet and calm: it's still a phenomenal realm even though we say it's empty. When you attain samadhi, however, this emptiness of normal mentation allows you to realize how to detach from clinging to your mental experiences, and this is the necessary lesson we need to learn so that we can use our wisdom to turn around and perceive enlightenment.

The cessational aspect of samadhi is also important because it's through samadhi that we can purify and transform our physical bodies, and that's when all our spiritual powers and kung-fu (mind-body attainments) come out. On the spiritual path, both these aspects must be mastered—we must purify both our bodies and minds in order to reach the highest levels of attainment. But ultimately, prajna-transcendental wisdom is the factor we must rely upon for identifying and learning the enlightenment way. Without prajna-wisdom, you cannot awaken to enlightenment. Prajna-wisdom enables you to recognize the true mind.

Now, if people start practicing a particular cultivation method but don't understand the principles involved, they're likely to get lost on the path of spiritual cultivation. Unless one's beliefs are based on wisdom, practice without understanding is equivalent to being superstitious. Hence developing prajna-transcendental wisdom is all important, and to cultivate self-realization everyone must develop samadhi since samadhi is the means by which we realize our prajna.

In other words, samadhi is the pathway to cultivating spiritual wisdom; from within a quiet mind, you can develop the spiritual wisdom that lets you recognize the true mind and succeed on the path of cultivation. You can perform all the religious ceremonies you like and attend all sorts of spiritual services, perform a wide variety of meritorious acts, exercise your intellect in all sorts of ways, strictly follow religious injunctions and codes of conduct, and even memorize reams of religious dogma. These can all be extremely worthwhile activities, but no matter what you do, there is no such thing as true spiritual progress unless you attain samadhi and prajna. All these other activities are just expedient means designed to guide you to this goal.

Some methods of arriving at samadhi begin with the mundane realm of reality and apply various techniques to arrive at a state where discriminative thought disappears, where the mind is calm and still—what we call empty or void. Some methods begin by cultivating this emptiness directly. Some cultivation practices involve form; other methods involve formless doors to samadhi. Sometimes a method will involve adding burdens to the mind in order to get rid of mental chaos, other methods will involve subtracting burdens to arrive at an absence of internal mental chatter. Certain methods will involve cultivating one's jing (seminal essence) or chi (vital energy or prana), while other methods will involve cultivating one's shen (spirit). Some methods will investigate the insubstantial nature of worldly appearances, while others will abandon phenomena altogether and work solely on investigating the formless mind which is able to perceive phenomena.

There are cultivation methods which focus on elements within space and time, and methods which focus on elements outside of space and time. Some cultivation methods deal with tracing the senses back to their ultimate source, and other methods focus on mastering various realms of consciousness. But all these different cultivation methods, if they are genuine spiritual techniques, are equally aimed at giving rise to samadhi, and then to transcendental spiritual wisdom.

In cultivation practice, you first bring about a state of quiet mental cessation, or samadhi, and then use your wordless insight to look into that state of mental calm which you produce. Then you'll be able to see that both existence and nonexistence, which are our terms for the two states of mentation and emptiness (the no-thought state of samadhi), are both dualistic realms that appear in the bright, formless, clear mind of voidness which extends everywhere. We blind ourselves through fixing it in one location because we're so attached to our body, but the true mind extends everywhere. Because it's everywhere we say it's empty and formless or void. Being empty it encompasses all things. When you can identify that state, which is the true one that knows, then you will begin to truly climb the ranks of spiritual practice. But to get there you have to practice mental cessation and internal contemplation (prajna-wisdom), and these two have to be matched in practice.

Now, there are not only a tremendous number of approaches available in cultivation practice, but there are an infinite number of samadhi realms you can attain as well. However, all these possible samadhi realms can be classified into nine large nondenominational stages. The first four ranks of samadhi attainment are called the four basic concentrations, namely the first, second, third, and fourth dhyana. The next four samadhi include the samadhi of infinite space, the samadhi of infinite consciousness, the samadhi of infinite nothingness, and the samadhi of neither thought nor no-thought. Finally, there is the Arhat's nirvana, which is a state of liberation, free from the realm of birth and death, and which is only accessed through the Buddhist path of wisdom cultivation. The first four dhyanas are called Form Realm samadhis, and the next four absorptions are called the Formless Realm samadhis. This is because the four dhyanas still involve various mentalities of subtle form, but the four formless concentrations have for the most part abandoned gross form and thus are involved with great states of emptiness. For a short description of these samadhi, we've included brief details and references in the appendices of this book.

Though there are nine basic samadhi, each of these have further subdivisions, accounting for the numerous realms that people can experience in their cultivation practice. For instance, when people reach the realm in which they experience that the universe is pure consciousness, or that God is everywhere, they are not yet enlightened but have simply attained the samadhi of infinite consciousness. Sometimes one reaches a realm that can only be described as pure bliss without coarse thought; this corresponds to the third dhyana. Sometimes one can reach a mental realm that can only be described as endless empty space, and this is the samadhi of infinite emptiness that some people mistakenly take as enlightenment. Then there are the countless samadhis you can obtain by tuning your chi or shen to match with some particular state in the same manner that you would adjust the frequencies on your radio.

The characteristics of these various realms are very profound, and in this book we are only providing the initial indications for how to enter these stages of attainment. As a general rule, the amount you can ultimately achieve through your cultivation efforts and the extent of your ultimate progress will correspond to two things: the merits you accumulate on the path, and the depth and devotion of your cultivation practice efforts.

No book can possibly summarize all the various means for attaining samadhi. This book, for instance, is simply an introduction to the wide variety of methods in existence. In fact, to explain each method in detail would require an entire book for each method in turn, which is why we've designed this text for your own initial efforts at self-study and as a handbook for meditation teachers who need a textbook for leading discussions. While we can only introduce the rudimentary principles behind some of the world's most popular cultivation techniques, nonetheless we've provided many references for further study. There are sure to be one or two methods here that will suit your individual temperament and personality and be appropriate for your own cultivation practice. If you follow these practices according to the proper principles, samadhi and dhyana are sure to result.

Upon learning of a method for developing samadhi, it has always been a practitioner's responsibility to test its effectiveness in body and mind through personal practice and experience. Shakyamuni Buddha, for instance, would recommend different methods to students based upon their qualifications and potential, but the students still had to test out the techniques and adjust their practice or even change their practice based on their personal results. It's like going to a doctor for a prescription and returning for a further adjustment of the remedy. People have different illnesses so not everyone can use the same medicine, and even after you take a medicine, you might have to come back and have your prescription altered a bit. Thus, since everyone has different capabilities and attainments, not everyone will benefit through employing the same cultivation technique, or sadhana, and not everyone should practice in exactly the same way. You have to test each of these cultivation methods to see which one is appropriate to you, and you must use your wisdom in practice to maximize their effectiveness. Each method will be either more or less useful because each embodies a different degree of karmic affinity to your own personal situation.

In one famous lesson found in the Shurangama Sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha asked several of his students to recount the various dharma doors they used to attain samadhi. The various techniques that the students reported were widely different, showing that different people, because of their different karma and different innate capacities, can benefit by using vastly different cultivation practices. Twenty-five of Buddha's students volunteered twenty-five different dharma doors, or cultivation methods, by which they had achieved some level of attainment, the wide variety of which are illustrative of almost any sadhana practice and its application.

For instance, in scanning the sutra we learn that there are various dharma doors to samadhi and prajna-wisdom that focus on the six sense data:

Kaundinya attained samadhi by meditation on sound;

Upanisad attained it by meditation on the impurity of form and on the impure nature of the physical body;

Bodhisattva Fragrance-adorned attained it by meditation on contact with smells (fragrance), through which he achieved cessation-contemplation;

The Bodhisattvas Bhaisajya-raja and Bhaisajya-samudgata by meditation on taste, the process of discriminating among flavors;

Bhadrapala through meditation on touch;

Mahakashyapa through meditation on (the emptiness of all) dharmas.

Other cultivation methods for samadhi and wisdom are based on the five sense organs:

Aniruddha, who was blind, attained samadhi by meditation on the organ of sight and learned how to perceive not with his eyes but with his mind;

Kshudrapanthaka attained it by meditating on the organ of smell (the nose), while cultivating the breath to a state of emptiness;

Gavampati by meditation on the organ of taste, turning taste back to its knower;

Pilindavatsa by meditation on the body, whereby he successfully abandoned the conception of a body;

Subhuti attained samadhi by meditation on the mind;

There are also methods for attaining samadhi and wisdom based on the six consciousnesses:

Sariputra attained samadhi by means of sight perception;

Samantabhadra Bodhisattva attained it by meditation on ear perception.;

Sundarananda attained it by meditation on the perception of smell. He fixed his concentration on the (olfactory) base of his nose while cultivating the breath to cessation;

Purnamaitrayaniputra by meditation on tongue perception;

Upali by meditation on the perception of tangible objects, for he mastered control of his body in learning to observe discipline;

Mahamaudgalyayana by meditation on the faculty of mind.

Finally, meditations on the seven elements can lead to samadhi and transcendental wisdom:

Ucchusma, who was burdened with sexual lusts, attained samadhi by meditation on the fire element, employing the skeleton-method visualization in conjunction with kundalini cultivation;

Dharanimdhara Bodhisattva attained samadhi by meditating on the earth element, contemplating the identity of his body with the earth element spanning the universe;

Candraprabha Bodhisattva attained it by contemplation on the water element and its pervasive nature;

The Bodhisattva of Crystal Light attained samadhi by contemplation on the wind element that is embodied in all kinds of movement, including the arising of thoughts;

Akasagarbha Bodhisattva attained samadhi through a meditation on boundless space;

Maitreya Bodhisattva by meditating on the element of consciousness-only;

Mahasthama meditated on the element of perception to attain samadhi, which he achieved through Buddha-mindfulness.

Due to this wide variety of techniques, whether or not a method is appropriate for your own practice can only be answered through personal testing; devotedly cultivating a method for awhile is the only way to determine whether it is suited to your needs. As a warning, a method you abhor may very well be the one best suited to your needs, since bad karma tends to oppose our efforts to cultivate practice and transform karma in a positive way. Cultivation always has a positive effect on changing negative karma for the better, and thus resistance and obstacles will always arise when we sincerely start to cultivate. Conversely, a cultivation method you love may also prove ineffective despite your personal preference, for it may draw you into a realm of torpor, indulgence, self-satisfaction or laxity. Hence you are best advised to try a variety of cultivation techniques. In fact, we strongly feel that everyone should try the following meditations:

the practice of cessation and contemplation practice called shamatha-vipashyana (chapter 4);

watching the breath (chapter 6);

the white skeleton visualization practice (chapter 5);

the Zhunti mantra (chapter 7);

Kuan-Yin's method of listening to sound (chapter 3).

The nine-step bottled wind method of breath retention (chapter 10) should also become a daily part of everyone's cultivation routine, like brushing one's teeth, and all people should be taught this method for health reasons whether they are meditators or not. While the practice of breath retention and internal cleansing in the nine-step bottled winds practice may not ultimately result in spiritual progress, it will definitely lead to better health and increased longevity for every practitioner.

When people cultivate a particular spiritual practice correctly, certain phenomena are sure to arise that will manifest in accordance with the practitioner's stage of accomplishment. A discussion of such mind-body changes, or kung-fu, is beyond the scope of this book, but the reader is referred to Tao and Longevity: Mind-Body Transformation, Working Toward Enlightenment, and To Realize Enlightenment, by Nan Huai-Chin, for extensive information on such transformations. These works, published by Samuel Weiser, contain the best information available on this topic. In time, we hope to produce a further work on Measuring Meditation or The Various Stages of the Spiritual Experience that will also address these various phenomena and the stages of the path as described by the world's different cultivation schools. In the meanwhile, we've indicated further helpful reading in the appendices.

We hope this short work will lead to further understanding and advances in your current cultivation practice, or open the doorway to cultivation practice if you aren't already involved with some particular meditation technique. We also hope it reveals the highly scientific, nondenominational, and cross-cultural nature of the path. The techniques within this book represent most of the basic doorways for attaining samadhi, and we cannot emphasize enough that samadhi and prajna-wisdom are the crux of spiritual development. But since our primary purpose in writing this book is to help people ultimately reach Tao, we must also point out time and again that samadhi is not Tao, but just a stepping stone on the path.

After a person attains samadhi, he or she must still cultivate prajna-transcendent wisdom or the fruit of ultimate attainment will always stay out of reach. One who attains samadhi but doesn't cultivate transcendental wisdom is like an individual who decides to make a trip to a fabulous palace but gets sidetracked by all the pretty scenery along the way. If he ends up playing in the gardens of samadhi, he'll lose his way and never reach his ultimate destination. The greatest samadhi is absent of both samadhi and mundane mentation and that's why it's called great. That's Tao, whereas the various samadhi are simply experiential realms of rarified mentation. So if you keep thinking that samadhi is the path, but don't cultivate the wisdom that is letting you realize or be aware of the samadhis, you'll never be able to truly experience the Tao.

Thus our best wishes are extended to you for your ultimate success in cultivating both samadhi and wisdom. We hope that this book helps you attain the fruit of the path in this lifetime.

Chapter

1

Union with Child Light to Realize Mother Light

There are two types of light in the universe called mother light and child light, respectively. Mother light is the invisible, formless basis of light that can give rise to physical light, and physical light is the light we can see or measure because it has form or appearance. The images of the physical world we see with our eyes—including brightness, darkness, shades, and colors—are the light with form that cultivation schools term child light. While child light is visible, the true mother light is not something we can see with our eyes, because it is fundamentally formless. Cultivation science says that our true self-nature is akin to this mother light, but its formless radiance is something we realize with the mind rather than something we perceive through the senses.

To see any form of child light requires that we use our eyes. Because our eyes possess this inherent capacity to see, we can view all sorts of colors and phenomena—such as brightness, form, movement and depth. But the thing that ultimately enables our eyes to see all these