Contemplating the Five Aggregates and Eliminating the View of Self (Part I) (Second Edition)
Section 2: Bodhisattva Fu's Description of the First Fruit of the Śrāvakas and the True and False Minds
1. Bodhisattva Fu's verse says: 舍凡初入圣。烦恼渐轻微。断除人我执。创始证无为。缘尘及身见。今者乃知非。七返人天后。趣寂不知归。
Explanation: After sentient beings cultivate the Four Noble Truths of suffering, its accumulation, its cessation, and the path, and realize the emptiness of self, they thereby cast off their identity as ordinary beings and enter the noble stream of the first fruit (srotāpanna). On this basis, cultivating further, the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion gradually turn light and thin, and they attain the second fruit (sakṛdāgāmin). Then, by attaining the meditative concentration of the first dhyāna, they cut off the mind of sensual desire, and then cut off the mind of anger and resentment, attaining the third fruit (anāgāmin), with the mind attaining liberation. Continuing to cultivate further, their attachment to self gradually becomes slight until it is completely eradicated; they cut off the deep and subtle conceit of self, extinguish the craving and attachment to all dharmas of the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm, and attain the fourth fruit of arhatship; from then on, they have no mind for the three realms, but merely teach and transform sentient beings in accordance with conditions. When their lifespan ends, with the body reduced to ashes and wisdom extinguished, they extinguish the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) and the false self of the eighteen realms, leaving only an unborn and unceasing Ālayavijñāna mind-substance, abiding in a state of tranquil unconditionedness.
When sentient beings eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) and realize the first fruit, they look back on how, life after life, they have attached to and pursued the realms of the six sense objects, lost in and attached to them, taking the physical body as themselves, and taking the faculties of seeing, hearing, perceiving, and knowing inherent in the physical body as themselves; for the sake of this illusory, empty body, they created all kinds of karmic actions, transmigrating ceaselessly through the six destinies. Now they finally know the falsity of their own body, the falsity of bodily, verbal, and mental actions, and the falsity of all dharmas. However, he no longer cultivates diligently, being content with his present state; when his lifespan ends, he is born in the heavens of the desire realm, then returns to the human world, going back and forth seven times, and then attains the fourth fruit of arhatship; at the end of his life, he attains Nirvāṇa without remainder (Anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). After entering Nirvāṇa without remainder, only the Ālayavijñāna remains—possessing nothing, doing nothing—an empty state, a state without any state. There is no so-called arhat existing there, and he does not know to return to the human world to study and practice the Mahāyāna dharma and strive to attain buddhahood as soon as possible; departing like this is truly a pity!
2. Bodhisattva Fu's verse says: 菩提离言说。从来无得人。须依二空理。当证法王身。有心俱是妄。无执乃名真。若悟非非法。逍遥出六尘。
Explanation: Here, bodhi and "neither dharma nor non-dharma" both refer to the nature of true suchness; the nature of true suchness is free from verbal expression, yet when words are spoken, He cannot be absent. Whether or not one has awakened to the true mind and its nature, there is no person who attains bodhi, because, first, bodhi is originally complete in itself and is not obtained from outside—even if one awakens, it is merely the discovery of one's own inherent treasure; second, whether or not one attains bodhi, the person is empty.
To realize the body of the Dharma King of the buddha-ground, one must cultivate and realize in accordance with the principles of the emptiness of self and the emptiness of dharmas; only then can one ultimately accomplish the dharma-body of the buddha-ground, the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna). Among all worldly dharmas, if there is the mind's discriminating nature, or the mind's greedy and grasping nature, these are certainly all false minds; do not mistakenly take such false minds to be real and indestructible dharmas, to be the unborn and unceasing self. Only the mind that has no mind for, no attachment to, and no discrimination regarding the worldly dharmas of the three realms is the unborn and unceasing true mind. Only by awakening to the mind that bears no appearance of the worldly dharmas of the three realms, vastly different from the mind of the seven consciousnesses, can one transcend the six sense objects and bring birth and death to an end.
