Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (87)

The Conditions for Realizing the Fruits

The self-nature of the conscious mind is apart from all dharmas; it does not contain any dharma—it is empty and lacks inherent self-existence. This is called "being apart by nature." We should understand the body consciousness in this way, understand the emptiness of the body consciousness, understand in this way our own karmic actions and the emptiness of those karmic actions, and understand the consciousness that first arises in the physical body as well as the emptiness of that consciousness. The six consciousnesses of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind have no place of abode before they arise, and no place to go after they cease; therefore they are empty. If the conscious mind is extinguished, that extinguished dharma is also empty—who extinguished it? There is no agent of action that causes the conscious mind to cease. The conscious mind ceases by itself; no one extinguishes it.

Nothing in the world or beyond the world is not empty—except for the tathāgatagarbha. From beginning to end, from inside to outside, when all the dharmas of the three realms of existence have been emptied and purified, one realizes the fourth fruit: not only will one never again fall into the three evil destinies, one will also transcend the three realms. When all of one's various mental activities and all kinds of minds—the greedy mind, the hateful mind, the deluded mind, the arrogant mind, the mind that apprehends all dharmas—are completely emptied and purified, one can enter nirvāṇa without remainder (anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). The physical body is relatively easy to realize as empty, knowing it to be false, empty, and illusory; negating the various kinds of perception, feeling, thoughts, plans, and discernments of the conscious mind, and realizing the emptiness and illusoriness of the conscious mind, is somewhat more difficult. For those of sharp faculties, realizing the fruit is very easy. As long as these conditions are fulfilled and the conditions for realizing the fruit are complete, cultivation is not really that difficult.