Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (200)

What is the reason we are bound and tied up by the myriad dharmas?

It is not that the myriad dharmas insist on binding us, but rather that we insist on grasping and craving them, and therefore the mind cannot separate from the myriad dharmas. For example, if the mind craves money, one ends up bound and tied by money and possessions for an entire lifetime, unable to escape from them, transmigrating within the realms of the six sense objects life after life. If we do not grasp at the myriad dharmas, the myriad dharmas cannot bind us, because the myriad dharmas have no mind that actively seeks to bind us. Material form has no mind that wants us to crave it, and money likewise has no mind to bind us; rather, our mind insists on pursuing and grasping, and as a result we become bound. Form, sound, smell, taste, and touch all have no mind of their own, yet we have minds of craving and seeking. Then how can one attain liberation? By correctly understanding the nature of the myriad dharmas as arising and ceasing, changing, and selfless—neither seeking, nor craving, nor chasing, nor clinging—when the mind does not grasp, liberation is attained.