Cultivating on False Appearances to Perfect All Merits

All dharmas in the mundane world are illusory appearances conjured forth by the tathāgatagarbha, but illusory appearances have their own functions; if one skillfully employs these appearances, one attains true and genuine bodhi. We must not, upon hearing that everything is an illusory appearance, reject and discard them all. Setting aside whether we even have the ability to extinguish illusory appearances, consider this: if all illusory appearances were extinguished, how would bodhi, the true reality, walk the path? Bodhisattvas in their practice should skillfully make use of illusory appearances to perfect all merits, transforming the defiled into the beautiful, and the evil into the pure. Some people feel that mundane dharmas are greatly unsatisfactory, that their living environment severely obstructs them, and so they wish to escape and extinguish all mundane dharmas in order to attain purity. But these mundane dharmas correspond to one's own karmic seeds; only by changing one's karma and changing one's mind can everything around one become agreeable and satisfactory.

When one's practice reaches a certain level, mundane dharmas will no longer obstruct oneself, nor will they affect oneself, and the mind will gradually become free from the bondage of these illusory appearances. Through effective practice, we can also transform these illusory appearances of the six sense objects, turning evil into good, ugliness into beauty, and the disagreeable into the agreeable. When the mind changes, both the inner and outer representations change simultaneously; because the mind-ground changes, the karmic seeds change, and the object-aspect can then change accordingly.

The inner and outer representations of the six sense objects can be completely transformed. As long as one's mental power is sufficient, turning stone into gold is not a difficult feat. Great bodhisattvas possessing meditative concentration can perform myriad transformations, turning the great earth into gold and lapis lazuli; an eighth-bhūmi bodhisattva can even manifest a trichiliocosm (three-thousand great-thousand worlds) to benefit and bring joy to sentient beings. When one's practice reaches the point of vast mind-capacity and powerful mental strength, one can alter the proportional structure of the four great element seeds—earth, water, fire, and wind. When the proportions of the four great elements change, the structure of matter changes; when the structure changes, the properties of matter change. Then white snow can be turned into white sugar, and dust can be turned into gold powder. When one cultivates to a certain point, changing the inner and outer representations of all dharmas is not a difficult matter.