Can One Attain Bodhi Without Severing Afflictions

Some people say that when one awakens to the true mind and realizes the first fruit, if afflictions have not been eliminated and body and mind have not transformed, with no noticeable change, this is normal. Yet in worldly matters, when the manas truly comes to know something, one becomes extraordinarily excited, with great changes in the body—the mind stirred to the utmost, perhaps with eyes brimming with tears, perhaps with body and mind trembling, or with a solemn expression, and so on. During the process of cultivating the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment before realizing the fruit, body and mind will change little by little, differing greatly from before. If the difference becomes very evident and the five grades of afflictions of the desire realm have been eliminated, one has entered the stage of stream-enterer candidate. If body and mind never undergo any change, then one has not cultivated in accordance with the Dharma—the direction of practice is wrong, or one is simply not diligent, or one has merely remained at broad learning and much hearing, indulging in emotional speculation and intellectual interpretation, without the Dharma principles ever truly entering the mind.

The Abhidharma-kośa states that as long as one genuinely cultivates the path, cultivating it in accordance with reason, one will inevitably subdue the afflictive delusions and then eliminate them. Such is the process of cultivating the path, and even more so its result. Only then can one become a stream-enterer candidate, and subsequently a stream-enterer. If not a single thread of afflictive delusion has been eliminated, and body and mind have not transformed, one still remains a bound ordinary being, tied up hand and foot by afflictive delusions, unable to move. How could such a person advance along the path of bodhi and transform their status? If one forcibly claims such a status, it can only be in name but not in substance—a mere counterfeit.

Many people believe that as long as one can expound the Dharma, one has already realized it, but the facts are not so. If one expounds the Dharma without having realized it through actual practice, it carries no true guiding significance. If one has not walked that stretch of the road oneself, one cannot guide others on how to walk it concretely. If one's own mind is blazing with the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, there is no way to guide others in subduing and eliminating afflictions—leaks appear at every turn.

There is a Zen koan about the "one-finger Chan": the master awakened instantly when someone raised an index finger. The little novice saw this and thought, "So this is what enlightenment is!" Thereafter, whenever the master was absent and someone came asking about the Dharma, the little novice would likewise raise his index finger, telling the person that this was that true suchness—imitating like a parrot, and quite convincingly at that. People's "enlightenment" nowadays is no different from this little novice's. Although they can gesture and pose, quite resembling the mannerisms of the patriarchs, appearing like Zen repartee and seemingly able to guide people, the layman watches the spectacle while the expert sees the subtleties—such tricks can only deceive some laypeople. All Zen repartee involves the harmonious functioning of the eight consciousnesses, containing both the true and the false. If one cannot distinguish the true from the false and takes the false as true, then no matter how one gestures, it is not Zen repartee.

One hundred years after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, Ānanda heard a little novice reciting conditioned dharmas of arising and ceasing as "water crane." He corrected him, but the little novice asked his master which was right, and his master said, "Don't listen to Ānanda; he has become senile with age. Just recite it as I taught you." So the little novice continued reciting as before. Hearing this, Ānanda thought: the Buddha has been gone only a hundred years, and the Buddha's Dharma is already being transmitted erroneously—sentient beings are far too foolish. Grieved, Ānanda resolved to enter parinirvāṇa immediately and depart, unwilling to witness the tragic scene of the Dharma being gradually destroyed. Even back then the Dharma had already begun to degenerate—how much more so today, thousands of years later! The present age is certainly not an age where sages fill the streets; many people have severely misunderstood the cultivation and realization of the Buddha's Dharma.

Nowadays, neither the Mahāyāna nor the Hīnayāna Dharma is treasured; they are no longer rare teachings. One merely needs to hear the Dharma and reflect on it a bit, and the fruit is obtained—no need for precepts, samādhi, or wisdom, no need to cultivate the six pāramitās and myriad practices; those who keep precepts and cultivate concentration are fools. Now every fruit can be easily obtained. For instance, even the fruit of the ten dedications stage with its illusion-like and dream-like contemplations is no longer difficult; the method of contemplative practice and realization of the tathāgatagarbha, once passed along by word of mouth, allows one to bring the fruit home. The foolishness and perversity of sentient beings has already left one speechless.