The Prerequisites for Investigating the Hua Tou

In investigating a huatou, once the investigation is penetrated, one sees the mind and attains enlightenment, thereby obtaining the great wisdom of prajñā and becoming a true bodhisattva with actual bodhisattva realization. The attainment of the great wisdom of prajñā is the result of cultivating the six pāramitās of the bodhisattva. Therefore, before investigating a huatou, one must have cultivated and fully perfected the six pāramitās of the bodhisattva. If the precepts have not been received and upheld, if the merit of the bodhisattva's generosity has not been perfected, if diligence in cultivation is insufficient, if the pāramitā of patience toward worldly circumstances is lacking, if one's acceptance of the tathāgatagarbha dharma is inadequate, if meditative concentration (samādhi) has not been developed, and if the principle of the tathāgatagarbha's prajñā has not been thoroughly understood, then investigating a huatou becomes a source of affliction—one may investigate for an entire lifetime and still accomplish nothing.

Before becoming a true bodhisattva, examine whether your mental conduct, disposition, and capacity of mind are in accord with a bodhisattva's, and whether you can shoulder the great undertaking of a bodhisattva. If meditative concentration is insufficient, so-called huatou investigation is merely reciting the huatou—repeating the words of a single phrase—while the mind cannot rest at the head of the phrase, instead circling around within the words and their tail. What meaning is there in such cultivation? If Buddhist practitioners study and cultivate solely for their own sake, harboring a selfish and self-serving mentality with no thought of benefiting others, such selfishness and narrow-mindedness absolutely cannot accord with the bodhisattva's disposition, and the merit a bodhisattva should possess cannot be accumulated. In that case, one cannot become a bodhisattva in the true sense.