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Whatever meditation you are involved in must do what it sets out to do. The principal arbitrary divisions are: simple relaxation, reflection, concentration, absorption, penetration and contemplation.
Since Dao and Chan have direct relations with the Pure Mind, it is penetration and contemplation that we are concerned with here. All start from the same point of one-pointedness upon breathing, the generation of a total defensive Qi and the sitting within the "becoming of Consciousness". From that point the meditation strategies, tactics and techniques diverge depending upon the apparent objective.
The basic objectives of the penetrations and contemplations are the restoration of natural integrity of:
1. Awareness; which must not be confused with a mundane awareness which has an associated target (awareness of Breathing, for example).
2. Function; which is awareness of natural not mundane function.
3. Essence; which is an awareness of sensory operation, called Sensory awareness without object.
4. Undifferentiated Form.
5. Mindfulness; which, like Awareness, has no associated target such as the four mindfulnesses of body, discernment, perception, the mind and the contents of mind, for example.
Function, Essence and undifferentiated Form are however left hemisphere operational way-stations, experiences of which must be attained before the gate to Awakening opens.
Technically, when the gate of Awareness opens Awareness and Mindfulness merge becoming the state in which the Awakening makes itself apparent as an Experience.
However, none of the five can be the objective. There is but one objective in Chan, which is the liberation of the Pure Mind.
Huang-po declared, "There is just this one mind, there is nothing else at all to attain -Mind itself is Buddha. People who study the Way today do not understand the essence of this mind, so they conceive of another mind on top of this mind, seeking Buddhahood externally, cultivating practices attached to appearances. All this is wrong. This is not the way to Awakening".
A disciple of Thomas Aquinas, Josef Pieper, commenting upon Contemplation, wrote:
"It is requisite for the good of the human community that there should be persons who devote themselves to the life of contemplation.
"It is contemplation which preserves in the midst of human society the truth which is at one and the same time useless and the yardstick of every possible use; so it is also contemplation which keeps the true end in sight, gives meaning to every practical act of life."
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