The Content of Cultivation After Enlightenment

For practitioners of the Chan school, after seeing the mind and attaining enlightenment through Chan investigation, continuing onward in practice is called "cultivating after enlightenment." Before enlightenment, because one has not realized the true mind, the tathāgatagarbha, one's wisdom has not arisen, and one cannot truly cultivate anything. After enlightenment, because one has realized the tathāgatagarbha and wisdom has arisen, one knows what content one needs to cultivate. Having entered the gate after enlightenment, one discovers that the Buddhist teachings requiring cultivation are extremely numerous, and thus one eagerly wishes to devote all one's time to the Dharma, unwilling to expend energy and waste time in worldly affairs. Some people choose to go into retreat for practice. At this stage, one's practice generally will not go astray, for one has developed a certain degree of discernment regarding the Dharma's meaning; as long as one applies effort, one's progress on the Path can advance.

What Dharma is cultivated after enlightenment? Cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi) after enlightenment is one such content—cultivating the four dhyānas and eight samādhis to strengthen one's power of concentration and power of the Path. Attaining the first dhyāna enables one to sever afflictions, attain liberation of mind, and gain the ability to pass through the three checkpoints of the Chan school, entering the house of the Tathāgata and becoming a true son of the Buddha. All the various contemplative practices (vipaśyanā-caryā) after enlightenment are inseparable from meditative concentration; otherwise one cannot pass the three checkpoints or realize the deeper Buddhist teachings. Furthermore, after enlightenment one needs to read the Buddhist sūtras and study the scriptures; the Tripiṭaka and twelve divisions of the canon must gradually be thoroughly understood. Because one has realized the tathāgatagarbha, one can understand the sūtras more easily than before, and through reading them one increases one's prajñā wisdom and gives rise to subsequent wisdom (post-enlightenment wisdom). After enlightenment, one must cultivate up to the ten stages of devotion, the ten stages of conduct, and the ten stages of dedication, pass the three checkpoints of the Chan school, or enter the first bhūmi—all of these are contents of cultivating after enlightenment.

The Dharmas to be cultivated after enlightenment are extremely numerous. Chan patriarchs generally choose to go into retreat only after enlightenment, not before. Before enlightenment, they go to various monasteries to seek good spiritual teachers for investigation, doing everything possible to seek enlightenment. They do not choose retreat, because without knowing the ins and outs of the Buddha's teachings and not understanding Chan investigation, retreat is useless and only a waste of time.

Only after enlightenment do they choose retreat, because having attained the general-characteristic wisdom of the Buddha's teachings, they have the wisdom to observe and investigate the tathāgatagarbha, and their practice will not go astray. During retreat and quiet cultivation, they observe the tathāgatagarbha's functioning in various dharmas in order to attain deeper specific-characteristic wisdom, and they also study the sūtras to improve and advance their wisdom. As for the content of post-enlightenment practice: having passed the first checkpoint, there is still the second, and the third checkpoint of the Chan school—all of these require calm, focused cultivation after enlightenment. Especially the Mahāyāna sūtras, the Tripiṭaka and twelve divisions of the canon, require retreat for quiet cultivation, requiring dedicated time for practice, so as to be undisturbed by worldly dharmas.

After the Sixth Patriarch was enlightened, because he was uneducated and could not study the Tripiṭaka and twelve divisions of the canon, he chose to cultivate meditative concentration. For fifteen years among the hunters' band he cultivated samādhi, while also performing contemplative practice in samādhi on the combined functioning of the tathāgatagarbha and the five aggregates (pañca-skandha), his prajñā wisdom growing ever deeper. After cultivating for fifteen years, his meditative concentration was accomplished and his supernatural powers manifested. At that point, the Sixth Patriarch felt the conditions for propagating the Dharma had arrived, and only then did he emerge from the hunters' band.

In the fifteen years after his enlightenment, when the Sixth Patriarch delivered that Platform Sutra, he never mentioned anything about needing to "sustain and protect" (the realization) after enlightenment, because his sitting meditation was not about sustaining anything—making the consciousness mind cease conceptualizing so the mind would be pure. Quite the contrary: the Sixth Patriarch knew the true mind is intrinsically pure and need not be made pure again—that would be superfluous.

Moreover, the true mind is just as it is; external force cannot change Him—only the deluded mind can be changed. The Sixth Patriarch never said anything about sitting in meditation and entering samādhi in order to sustain and protect the tathāgatagarbha, because the tathāgatagarbha does not need to be sustained. After he was enlightened and realized the tathāgatagarbha, once he firmly confirmed the true mind of the tathāgatagarbha, he would never regress again—what would there be to sustain? No sustaining is needed. What the Sixth Patriarch cultivated was the four dhyānas and eight samādhis, along with observing the functioning of the tathāgatagarbha, perfecting specific-characteristic wisdom, and then passing the three checkpoints of the Chan school—this was what the Sixth Patriarch cultivated. The contents cultivated by other Chan patriarchs each differed, with variations among them, but broadly speaking all were for the sake of attaining deeper wisdom.