The Conditions for Citta-Vimutti

Question: Does attaining the first dhyāna mean mental liberation?

Answer: It is not mental liberation. The first dhyāna can only suppress afflictions but cannot eradicate them; therefore, it does not lead to mental liberation. The first dhyāna alone has no necessary connection with liberation. The conditions and criteria for mental liberation are the merit and benefit of having eradicated the view of self, combined with the first dhyāna. Both are indispensable.

After eradicating the view of self, within the first dhyāna, one can eradicate the two afflictions of greed and hatred. The mind is then liberated from the greed of the desire realm and the hatred of the form realm, no longer bound by these two afflictions. Such a person is called an Anāgāmin, a third-fruition sage with mental liberation. However, the ignorance of the formless realm remains uneradicated. Only after completely eradicating the affliction of ignorance is one an Arhat, a fourth-fruition sage with wisdom liberation. Bodhisattvas of the Mahayana who are at the third or fourth fruition will in the future qualify to become sages of the first bhūmi and beyond.

Therefore, without cultivating dhyāna and without attaining any kind of samādhi state, one cannot attain liberation, much less become a Buddha. Similarly, without eradicating the view of self, one cannot attain liberation, much less become a Buddha. These two barriers must be passed before reaching the first bhūmi and the third fruition; they cannot be circumvented or avoided, no matter what methods one cultivates.

Even if one expounds the Tripitaka and the twelve divisions of scriptures with the utmost eloquence, if one does not pass these two barriers, it has nothing to do with liberation or Buddhahood, nor with genuine realization. No matter how high one's verbal wisdom may be, even as high as the Buddha ground, not a single one of these two barriers can be bypassed; they must be traversed. Otherwise, it is merely empty talk, unrelated to liberation, Nirvana, or Buddhahood.

The condition for mental liberation is possessing a relatively good foundation in dhyāna practice. With the mental faculty abiding in a relatively good dhyāna, aided by the consciousness in performing contemplative practice, one realizes the emptiness of the five aggregates. Then, having eradicated the view of self and no longer clinging rigidly to the physical body, the mental faculty attains the most preliminary liberation, experiencing the merit and benefit of the first fruition.

Liberation is essentially the liberation of the mental faculty. It is the mental faculty that is bound by ignorance and undergoes the cycle of birth and death. If the ignorance of the mental faculty is not eliminated, and only the ignorance of the six consciousnesses is eliminated, then at the time of death, the mental faculty, pulled by ignorance, will continue to sink in the sea of suffering in birth and death. At that time, the six consciousnesses vanish without a trace and cannot proceed to future lives. At that point, whether the consciousness had ignorance or not becomes irrelevant. It is only while the five aggregates are alive that a consciousness free from ignorance can effectively influence the mental faculty, enabling it to eliminate ignorance and become free from it. If the consciousness has ignorance while the five aggregates are alive, it cannot influence the mental faculty to eliminate ignorance. Consequently, the mental faculty will still create unwholesome actions of body, speech, and mind, leaving seeds for unwholesome karmic results in future lives, suffering the cycle of birth and death.