. visualization and contemplation 143
presences, and the directing of the merit produced thereby, is a central
part of Buddhist rituals of nearly every sort.
The key difference between the two general sets of practices—
visions and visual culture on the one hand and rigorous eidetic con-
templations on the other—is that the latter are components of ritual
programs explicitly directed toward personal transformation and/or
particular conceptual understanding. For an example of the first sort,
the ritual transformation of the person of the adept into the contem-
plated divinity, we may reference a famous passage from Yixing’s early
eighth-century commentary on the Mahāvairocana sūtra. In this rit-
ual prescription, the practitioner is directed to engage in a meditative
sequence anchored in the eidetic contemplation of a painted image:
When the practitioner first cultivates the skillful means of the contem-
plation (guan of the supermundane he begins by contemplating
the principal deity. Relying on a painted image (yi huaxiang
he contemplates thoroughly. At first he attains illumination with eyes
closed; later, gradually opening his eyes he perceives [the deity and the
deity becomes] fully manifest and illumined without any obscurity.^5Next, the practitioner is to deepen his contemplation until he attains
first the “stage of nonduality,” then the stage of “the apprehension of
the non-distinction between the middle and the extremes,” and then a
state characterized by the “mark of absolute equality.”^6 Having attained
this last state, he begins a process whereby he ritually transforms his
own body into that of the divinity (zishen wei benzun.
This transformation is effected through a ritual process involving the
placing of mantras and mantric syllables, in the imagination and per-
haps physically as well, upon the body of the divinity, who is now both
spiritually (that is, eidetically) and physically present to the practitio-
ner as a result of the first stage of the contemplation.^7
The states of meditative awareness that are said to be attained
along the way to this personal deification are themselves at times the
goal of the respective eidetic contemplation practice. Indeed, though
rites of deity-identification were new additions to the Buddhist rep-
ertoire brought in with the esoteric tradition, these more insight-
oriented practices were already very old in Buddhism when the newer
(^5) Da Piluzhena chengfo jing shu , Yixing (684–727), T.
1796.39:695b. Translation in Sharf 2001, 156 (slightly modified).
(^6) T. 1796.39: 695b.
(^7) Da Piluzhena chengfo jing shu, T. 1796.39:695c.