50 Demonic States of the Five Aggregates

When you practice the Dharma of turning hearing inward to hear your own nature (turning the faculty of hearing inward to recognize your own true nature), you eliminate all false thoughts. When all false thoughts have been completely extinguished, there are no longer any discriminating thoughts in the mind. This pure, lucid state, full of wisdom and meditative concentration, will abide in the mind. When movement and stillness no longer alter the mind, and remembering and forgetting are both the same, the mind does not change, whether remembering or forgetting, that state remains the same, without difference or distinction. The hearing nature has nothing to do with external phenomena. The movement and stillness of phenomena cannot alter the hearing nature. The hearing nature also has nothing to do with consciousness. Whether consciousness remembers or forgets has nothing to do with the hearing nature. Even if consciousness suddenly recalls an object, the hearing nature is like a bright mirror, with the object appearing as a reflection and then disappearing. The mirror remains unmoving. The Chan school calls this “becoming one single piece.” This is the point where thoughts are extinguished, and concentration and wisdom are balanced. When a person attains the great Śūraṅgama samādhi, the true great samādhi, the demon armies tremble in fear. They will come to obstruct you. In the later part of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, 50 demonic states of the aggregates, or 50 forms of obstruction that arise when you practice, are discussed

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The Form Aggregate Manifesting False Phenomena

The form aggregate manifests false phenomena by itself, not because an external demon manifests a form to cause harm. The form aggregate shakes and agitates the demonic mind. The demons become alarmed and begin their activity, because you have only just begun to purify your mind, but there is a slight deviation, not in accordance with right understanding and right view. Therefore, you fall into wrong views. If right understanding and right view are not truly correct (not in accordance with the true Dharma), then you will become attached to demonic states. This is a kind of demonic state arising from consciousness itself. Or it is one of the ten kinds of demons arising from the form aggregate, which likewise arise from the mind.

When you achieve a little result in cultivation, if you do not give rise to the thought that you have attained sagehood, then that is a good state. But once you think that you have attained sagehood, you immediately fall into wrong views. When sitting in meditation at night, your eyes may be able to see everything as clearly as in daylight. Like a person with good eyesight recognizing himself in a dark place. Like a person with clear, bright eyes living in a dark house, although his inherent nature is pure, luminous, and wondrous, his mind has not yet radiated the clear light of wisdom. Although the true nature is pure, luminous, and wondrous, the mind has not yet given rise to the illumination of true, lucid wisdom. This is called the realm of the form aggregate.

If the form aggregate has not yet opened, and the light of the mind has not yet become clear, with boundless darkness, then it is only empty purity. Yet the meditative state of empty fusion is very comfortable. Those who do not understand often retreat and fail to advance. If one knows that one is within the form aggregate, like being trapped within the walls of a dark prison, then how could one ever be willing to become attached to the pleasure of meditative concentration. When the power of concentration develops, the light of the mind shines unobstructedly, and one no longer uses the eyes to see, then the darkness ends, seeing clearly through the five organs and hundred bones within, and through the mountains, rivers, and great earth without, while in heaven and among humans everything is seen as clearly as seeing one’s finger in daylight.

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Feeling Aggregate Summoning External Demons

The feeling aggregate summons external demons, secretly entering the body and mind. When the form aggregate has been exhausted, one clearly sees the wondrous enlightened bright mind but has not yet manifested its function freely. The Sutra gives the analogy of someone suffering from sleep paralysis: the arms and legs are clearly present, seeing and hearing are not mistaken, but the mind is touched by an external evil guest and cannot move. Our mind is originally not confined within the body. Because of beginningless delusion and attachment, while alive we confine ourselves to the present aggregates, and when we die we confine ourselves to the intermediate state. There is never a time when we enjoy freedom apart from the body. Now that the feeling aggregate is exhausted, one can immediately leave the body, see faces, and come and go freely. Cultivating samadhi, that is, cultivating right concentration, means cultivating the perfect penetration through the ear faculty, that is, cultivating the practice of “turning hearing inward to hear one’s own nature,” directing the faculty of hearing inward to recognize one’s own original nature, a practice for attaining perfect wisdom through the ear faculty. When cultivating the shamatha method to purify the mind and thoughts, transforming all false thoughts in order to concentrate on contemplation. When all the form aggregates have been completely eliminated, one can see the minds of the Buddhas as reflections appearing in a mirror.

This state occurs as a result of the practitioner’s efforts during cultivation. It is only a state, and it does not mean that one has attained the state of a Sage. That state is not attainment of Sainthood. This kind of demon is one of the kinds of wild, arrogant, conceited demons. It slips into your mind, takes possession of it, controls your mind-nature, and you are possessed by it. Once it has taken possession, the demon king will move your hands and feet as you would use them. Nowadays many people meditate without understanding or having read the Shurangama Sutra, so they do not pay attention to guarding against this. When meditating, the consciousness may leave the body, and they think they have attained a spiritual fruition, consider themselves living Buddhas, and call themselves enlightened beings online. If they think they have attained some transcendent state, then the lowly demons, the most inferior, degenerate, and disgusting kind of demons, transform the nature of feeling satisfied, immediately entering the mind, and they will feel satisfied, in any situation, immediately entering the mind, that demon will cling to the mind, taking the body and mind as its possession. It drives the person’s spirit out of the body. Everything remaining is merely the deluded physical body, but that person still does not realize it.

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Only the Thought Aggregate Has Heavenly Demons, Ghosts, and Spirits of Strange Influence

When cultivating the samadhi method, when the feeling aggregate has dissolved. Although delusion has not yet been completely exhausted, that person’s mind can leave the body like a bird escaping from a cage. With the feeling aggregate, one can emerge from the body. At the stage of the thought aggregate, you attain the fifth supernatural power, namely the knowledge of past lives. And at this time you can transcend the affliction turbidity. Its source is the free interpenetration of false thoughts. Extremely subtle false thoughts are in the sixth consciousness, and the coarse false thoughts are eliminated completely. Because these various subtle thoughts in the sixth consciousness have been eliminated, these coarse deluded thoughts are also eliminated along with them. This awakened and luminous mind is the eighth consciousness. Now it is clear that the eighth consciousness has purified all the defilements of the false objects of consciousness.

There are many practitioners at temples who, wishing to universally save sentient beings, therefore crave having skillful speech. Once a practitioner gives rise to a false thought, the power of concentration is no longer firm, and a heavenly demon immediately has an opportunity to attach itself. Thus it is said that the demon gets a favorable opportunity. That person lectures on the Sutras, but the Dharma that person teaches is actually deviant Dharma. One can only pity the Buddhists who do not know, taking it to be orthodox Buddhist Dharma. Therefore, when you have not clearly and thoroughly understood genuine Buddhist Dharma, you should not allow yourself to be turned around by the states you have seen, no matter what those states may be. Do not become shaken by those states

Thought has the ability to merge and transform, causing the mind to follow the state, like hearing that plums are sour and the mouth immediately watering. Therefore the thought aggregate is called the interpenetration of false thoughts. When the thought aggregate is exhausted, there are no dreams in sleep, no thoughts while awake, the mind remains constant, and not a single thought arises. Thought is also called deluded and mistaken thought. Delusion occurs when demons and ghosts come and manifest themselves as bodhisattvas. Sometimes even when someone honors them as bodhisattvas, they do not acknowledge it. When consciousness can leave the body, they encounter the spirits of demons and ghosts, so they then wish to gain even more supernatural powers of transformation. Where do these states appear from? They all occur because the thought aggregate and the mind’s cultivation efforts intermingle, created through the combination of applying the mind to cultivation and contemplation. These are transformations that occur while eliminating the thought aggregate, as the result of applying effort to the utmost. When you apply yourself to cultivation to the maximum degree, a state like this will arise. But when it arises, do not foolishly mistake the thief for your child, do not become deluded by these states. The most important thing is that if you can assess the state that is occurring, then you will not be turned by demons.

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The Aggregate of Volitional Formations Has Only Demonic States of Mind

The aggregate of volitional formations has only demonic states of mind, arising from habitual tendencies from the past, which now, upon encountering circumstances, easily give rise to delusion. Sentient beings within the Three Realms undergo incessant arising and ceasing; the root cause is the aggregate of volitional formations. The aggregate of volitional formations is the root of segmented birth and death, the fundamental basis of aging, death, drifting, and decay. The aggregate of perceptions is like great waves. The aggregate of volitional formations is like small waves. Arising and ceasing never stop, karmic momentum secretly shifts; today one takes the body of a cow, tomorrow the body of a buffalo, called the turbidity of sentient beings. Although constantly changing, the world has never awakened to recognize it, so it is called obscure, hidden deluded thought. When the aggregate of volitional formations is stabilized, gathering the rippling waves back into the tranquil sea of consciousness, that is the complete cessation of the aggregate of volitional formations. During proper concentration practice to still the aggregate of volitional formations, demons cannot disturb one because form, feeling, and perception have already been extinguished. But due to wild interpretations, many practitioners fall into attachment to annihilation, attachment to permanence, attachment to existence, attachment to nonexistence, proclaim themselves to have attained sagehood, and commit great false speech.

At this point you may sleep or remain awake as you wish, and the two states are completely the same. What kind of state is this? You actually sleep very little, only needing to restore vitality by dozing for a moment. It belongs to the subtle movement aspect of the seventh consciousness and the sixth consciousness. At this time, the aggregate of perceptions has been dissolved, and the practitioner has reached the aggregate of volitional formations. Once it has settled and become clear, the pure nature manifests, and when the nature manifests, habitual tendencies dissipate like waves becoming still. Thus, the source of arising and ceasing is revealed. When your practice reaches this level, you still have deluded thoughts, but they are not too obvious, being concealed within a dark and obscure interval, making it not easy to contemplate and know clearly and thoroughly what those deluded thoughts are. This extremely subtle kind of deluded thought is the source of the aggregate of volitional formations.

When reaching this state, you can know the future and the past, but you still have a little ignorance, so you can only see within 80 million eons, thus having views of the kinds of sentient beings in the ten directions of this world from 80,000 eons ago, becoming sentient beings without a cause. Nowadays people say that the world began according to the theory of the Big Bang or “Bing Bang thoery”. They fall into the four views of change and permanence, attachment to permanence, attachment to annihilation, attachment to existence, and attachment to nonexistence, Never changing or transforming at all. If speaking of nature, these are the Nature of Universal Discrimination and the Nature of Dependent Arising.

When this state occurs, the practitioner immediately becomes confused and panicked. If one does not encounter a good spiritual teacher or read the Shurangama Sutra, one will fall into this aggregate of volitional formations

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The Aggregate of Consciousness Reveals Demonic States

When the practitioner, who is practicing within the scope of the aggregate of volitional formations, practices samadhi to the point of dissolving the aggregate of volitional formations. The sky of nirvana is about to shine brilliantly. That is the sky of the nirvana of one’s own nature. The practitioner is already right at the threshold of enlightenment. The practitioner is about to attain great liberation. This means that the transformations, flowing, disturbances, and restless movements of the aggregate of volitional formations have also come to an end. The restless disturbances, drifting transformations of the aggregate of volitional formations are like waves continuously following one another without ever stopping, but now they have completely settled down, no longer extending outward. At this point, when only the aggregate of consciousness has not yet been extinguished, you see a very profound and wondrous stream of light emanating from both within and without. That light does not sink away, the light flowing forth from this wisdom does not disappear. What was previously hidden and secret is revealed. The most mysterious and difficult-to-understand, most difficult-to-express states from before are now laid bare in an obvious, clear manner. This state is called the realm of the aggregate of consciousness, and the practitioner is entering into the realm of the aggregate of consciousness.

The ten directions of the world and the inside and outside of the practitioner’s body and mind are transparent like lapis lazuli. Like the transparent blue color of lapis lazuli. This is the cessation of the aggregate of consciousness. When you reach this state. This is the cessation of the aggregate of consciousness. Thus all five aggregates are transformed. But before reaching this level, the aggregate of consciousness has not yet been extinguished. When practice reaches this stage, you must return to the source, which is the Tathagata-store nature.

Consciousness is the deluded image of awareness, arising from inversion. But when it has not yet been quiescently extinguished and made manifest, while still within the domain of the aggregate of consciousness, it is still governed by the illusory images and empty phantoms of ignorance. Why? Because the notion of the realm of arising and ceasing has been completely extinguished, but the wondrous, perfect nature of quiescence has not yet been attained. You have not attained the joy of quiescence, because the aggregate of consciousness has not yet been dissolved. “Consciousness” is a subject that still has arising and ceasing. Whereas “suchness” no longer has arising and ceasing. In the practice of the Perfect Penetration of the Ear Faculty, both the emptiness of the subject and the emptiness of the object are quiescent, yet the notion of ‘cessation’ still remains, and as long as there is cessation, there is still arising, so one must continue cultivating the practice, until both the characteristic of arising and the characteristic of ceasing are completely eliminated, only then can the sixth knot concerning the notion of ‘cessation’ be opened. The phrase “neither emptiness nor the emptiness of the object ceases” is then grasped as there being an empty void within the perfectly luminous nature. Therefore one gives rise to the thought of living a long time, being immortal. Clinging to the source of one’s life faculty, making that false cause firm, hoping to attain immortality, fearing that the body will be destroyed, and becoming intoxicated with oneself in sensual pleasures and worldly afflictions.

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Some states of demonic influences from outside come to you, and some states arise from within your own thoughts. External demons are very easy to subdue, whereas internal demons within the mind are very difficult to eliminate. For whenever you give rise to deviant knowledge and deviant views, it is very difficult to free yourself from those deviant views. As soon as you recognize an external demon, you must immediately cleanse those defilements from your own mind. What are defilements? The most important defilement in the mind is greed. We will speak about this issue very often. Greed becomes very serious when combined with sexual desire. If you do not have a single thought of lust, then you have cleansed your mind of defilement, and your mind will no longer give rise to deviant views.

If you do not purify your mind and free it from thoughts of sexual desire, then many obstacles and difficulties will come to you. All those problems arise because of greed in the mind. All kinds of afflictions and ignorance arise from there. You immediately become entangled in deviant views. Only if you have the ability to immediately cleanse these false thoughts can you escape from deviant views.

When practicing according to this Dharma method in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, the mind awakens and realizes the unsurpassed Way. This is the path that practitioners must go through. Now we also wish to study this Dharma method. Only by practicing this Dharma method completely can one hope to become a Buddha. I hope you will respect and cherish the wondrous Śūraṅgama samādhi, the Dharma method of “perfect penetration through the ear– turning the hearing inward to recognize your own self-nature,” and also the Śūraṅgama Mantra, the Buddha-Crown Dhāraṇī . It gathers (totalizes) all Dharmas, and upholds (retains) limitless meanings. This is the mind, this is the nature of all Tathāgata Buddhas throughout the ten directions. It is the mother of all Tathāgata Buddhas. This mantra is the ultimate culmination, utterly complete, and the supreme wondrous Dharma method for advancing in practice. It is the ultimate model for cultivation and realization of the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, the most important Dharma method, taught by the Buddha in the final period. It is the essential model; it is the method, the instruction for the path that you must closely follow in order to cultivate and realize the Buddha’s knowledge and vision.