The Surangama Sutra: Twenty-Five Means to Enlightenment, Session Three, Part 4 of 6 April 6, 2019

So, the Buddha taught him, Sundarananda, to contemplate on the tip of his nose. “‘From the first, I contemplated intently. After three weeks, I saw that the breath in my nostrils looked like smoke when I inhaled and exhaled. My body and mind became bright inside, and I perfectly understood the external world, to the point that everything became empty and pure, like crystal. The smoky appearance gradually disappeared, and the breath in my nostrils became white.’ ‘My mind opened and my outflows were extinguished. Every inhalation and exhalation of breath was transformed into light, which illumined the ten directions, and I attained Arhatship. The World Honored One predicted that in the future I would obtain Bodhi.’ ‘The Buddha asks about perfect penetration. I did it by means of the disappearance of the breath, until eventually the breath emitted light and the light completely extinguished my outflows. This is the foremost method. ’”