What Does Spiritual Practice Cultivate?

At the ultimate stage of spiritual cultivation, is it the elimination of consciousness or the elimination of manas (the root mind) that is achieved? Eliminating consciousness is the cause, while eliminating manas is the effect. Although the ultimate goal is to eliminate manas, the starting point must still begin with consciousness. Consciousness dies every night; the consciousness of a vegetative person is almost perpetually dead, yet they still cannot avoid rebirth in the Three Evil Realms in future lives, let alone the cycle of the Six Realms. What does this indicate? It shows that the authority over life and death resides in manas. Therefore, spiritual cultivation must be grounded in manas—comprehending manas, subduing manas, and eradicating the ignorance within manas. How exactly is the ignorance of manas to be eliminated? Ignorance gives rise to all afflictive mental factors. So, to whom do these afflictive mental factors primarily belong? If the ignorance of manas leads to the sufferings of birth, aging, sickness, and death, which afflictive mental factors does manas lack? If manas does not possess all afflictive mental factors, wouldn't spiritual cultivation be effortless and joyful?

Some insist that manas is neither good nor evil. If so, would we still need spiritual cultivation? The tathagatagarbha (Buddha-nature) is neither good nor evil; thus, it never engages in cultivation and fundamentally requires none. What is there to cultivate? What is there for it to correct? It has no ignorance, no evil, and no distortion. If the tathagatagarbha were to engage in cultivation, it would likely deviate or become distorted. Both good and evil stem from ignorance; where there is ignorance, there must be good and evil. The tathagatagarbha is free from ignorance; thus, it neither creates wholesome karma nor unwholesome karma. It responds according to conditions, without deliberate intention. Only with ignorance does hatred arise, leading to the intention to kill; only with ignorance does delusion arise, resulting in the act of killing.