The Chinese Buddhist text, the Shurangama Sutra, that portrays these 50 meditation states assumes some understanding about Buddhist Mahayana school of cosmology. In case you can use some basics, I want to briefly mention that the Buddhist view of the cosmos overall is that time and space are infinite, cyclical, and in multiples. There is not just one earth, one world, one galaxy, one heaven realm, one hell realm, one celestial being, one Buddha, and so on, but a plurality of each and all. This is the reason why you will see my use of “worlds”, “heavens”, “hells” or “hell realms” etc. According to this cosmological outlook, for instance, in this instant, infinite Buddhas are in infinite worlds and galaxies speaking the Dharma, infinite creatures seen and unseen in infinite realms from the heavenly to the hellish are committing actions that lead to their future incarnations that may be infinite if they do not reach a certain level of spiritual attainment.

Now, onto the aggregate that helps us classify and analyze philosophical systems but must be let go as we evolve toward enlightenment, only to return to use and reuse thinking in a fresh manner.

III. Thought

When your feeling aggregate disintegrates, your mind is freed from its container, like a bird freed from a cage.

When you are working on thought aggregate, it is as if you were talking in your sleep; while you wouldn’t be fully cognizant, your thoughts would have become words verbalized so that others hear them.

When your thoughts still, you dust off the dirt over your bright mind, lighting up the cycle of birth and death from beginning to end. When your thought aggregate decomposes, you transcend afflictions that are essentially based on thinking.

1. You covet clever ways to win over people. Magically, you may speak enchantingly in a way that is not yourself, you may transform yourself into a monastic, a celestial king, or a female who glows in the dark. Your followers mistake you for an enlightening being as you teach them to engage in sexual activity. You terrorize people by speaking about omens, signs, incarnations to come, and the onset of natural disasters. Families flee and become dispossessed.If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm.
2. You covet voyages throughout Buddhalands. Unaware, you claim that you are now awake so you may receive requests for you to travel and teach. While teaching, your audience see themselves on jeweled lotuses and glow with a golden hue. Your followers mistake you for an enlightening being and become reckless with lust. You enjoy identifying certain individuals as living Buddhas or enlightening beings, or that certain Buddhas or enlightening beings are about to become born.If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm.
3. You covet resonating with the Dharma. Unaware, you speak about the teachings of the Buddha in a way that isn’t quite yourself. You claim that you have reached ultimate nirvana. While there is no metamorphosis for you or members of your audience, your audience gain insights even before they hear you speak. They may acquire the ability to know past lives, read people’s minds, see the hell realms, understand all things good and bad in the world, or start reciting verses and scriptures. Everyone is overjoyed at experiencing what they have never experienced before. Your followers mistake you for an enlightening being and become reckless with lust. You enjoy identifying certain individuals as living Buddhas or enlightening beings, or that certain Buddhas or enlightening beings are about to become born.If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm.
4. You covet analysis. Unaware, you speak about the teachings of the Buddha in a way that isn’t quite yourself. Your followers mistake you for an enlightening being and become reckless with lust. You enjoy identifying certain individuals as living Buddhas or enlightening beings, or that certain Buddhas or enlightening beings are about to become born.If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm.
5. You covet affecting those sagely teachers you had sincerely sought out in many lifetimes. Unaware, you speak about the teachings of the Buddha in a way that isn’t quite yourself. Your audience briefly see you as a hundred or thousand-year-old teacher. Your followers become amorous of you and refuse to part with you, they willingly serve you without fatigue.They mistake you for an enlightening being and become reckless with lust. You enjoy proclaiming that you had converted people who were your wife or brother in a past life, that you are here to teach them and accompany them again in this lifetime so that you may together return to a certain world or make offerings to a certain Buddha. You may also describe a bright heaven where the Buddhas reside so that the ignorant believe your lies.If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm.
6. You covet quietude in the hopes of developing psychic abilities. Unaware, you speak about the teachings of the Buddha in a way that isn’t quite yourself. Your audience learns about their past lives. You may insist that one person in the audience is already an animal now. You command another person to step on the first person’s tail so that he cannot get up. The entire audience is in awe as you read people’s minds too. You torture patrons, slander monastics, and reveal scandals ostentatiously.
   
   You predict fortunate or unfortunate future events while remaining entirely unharmed when a catastrophe occurs.If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm.
7. You covet the ability to know past lives. Unaware, you speak about the teachings of the Buddha in a way that isn’t quite yourself. You may find a giant diamond all of a sudden. An animal may deliver a pearl or special mystical object to you. To win over faith-goers, you may hide a precious gem underground then guide a believer to discover it. You claim that you don’t eat meals but only ingest herbs, sometimes consuming only one grain of wheat a day, and yet appear plump.You enjoy disclosing buried treasures, secluded location where sages hide out. And indeed, those who follow you often see unusual people and things.If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm.
8. You covet superpowers. Unaware, you speak about the teachings of the Buddha in a way that isn’t quite yourself. You may snip flickers of light from a torch, distributing over the heads of your audience members. The flame over some of your audience may grow to be several feet tall but not at all warm or damaging. You may walk on water, levitate, enter a jar or a pouch, walk through walls, be unscathed by weaponry. You claim that you are a Buddha, receiving the worship of monastics but act as a layperson who slanders meditation and precepts, scolds your students, and reveals scandals ostentatiously.If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm
9. You covet profound emptiness. You wish to make your body disappear and reappear with ease. Unaware, you speak about the teachings of the Buddha in a way that isn’t quite yourself.You disappear and reappear before your audience with a sense of ease. You may make your body appear translucent like glass. You may lower a limb to pass scented gas or let release waste that appears to be thick honey. You slander precepts and look down on monasticism.Your refrain is that there is no cause and effect, annihilation follows death rather than future incarnations or sagely attainments. Although you have reached a still emptiness, you secretly practice sexual activity so that your partners also realize the mind’s emptiness but deny cause and effect.If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm.
10. You covet immortality. Unaware, you speak about the teachings of the Buddha in a way that isn’t quite yourself.You reach distant destinations and return to show an object you’ve collected there. You can go from location A to location B that usually requires years by foot in a few paces. Followers grow to believe that you are a Buddha.You often declare that all beings are your children, that you are the primordial Buddha who gave birth to all Buddhas and to all worlds. It’s only natural that you’ve come to the world and realized such attainment without cultivating.Depending on whether you have set your resolve on enlightenment, you may benefit or harm others further. You may harm by depleting others of their energy, including appearing as a beautiful woman to engage in sex. If you realize that this is a state you must let go, you will not transmigrate into a hell realm.