The Pitiable Condition of Sentient Beings in the Dharma-Ending Age

The virtue of the Dharmakāya is our own pure and perfect Dharmakāya, which can perfectly accomplish all dharmas, with immeasurable merits contained within a single body. The virtue of prajñā is the realm of great wisdom inherent in the nature-body of suchness within us—neither empty nor existent, yet both empty and existent; true emptiness with wondrous existence, possessing both emptiness and existence. The virtue of liberation is the nature of our own mind—unobstructed within the three realms, abiding in no dharma, clinging to no dharma; though it gives rise to myriad phenomena, it is stained by not a single one of them, itself pure and bare, attached to nothing.

The virtue of the Dharmakāya is the virtue of prajñā; the virtue of prajñā is the virtue of liberation; the virtue of liberation is the virtue of the Dharmakāya.

Let me ask: are the virtue of the Dharmakāya, the virtue of prajñā, and the virtue of liberation one, two, or three? Is there a virtue of prajñā apart from the Dharmakāya? Is there a virtue of liberation apart from prajñā? The Dharmakāya is prajñā, prajñā is liberation, and liberation is the Dharmakāya—this is the principle and substance of the Dharmakāya, complete with all dharmas, and yet neither one with nor different from all dharmas.

However, the virtue of liberation that some people speak of is a conditioned, arising-and-ceasing virtue of liberation that the five aggregates and the seven consciousnesses acquire through cultivation. What I speak of is the virtue of liberation innately inherent in the true mind, the principle-substance of the Dharmakāya, the tathāgatagarbha, which is not bound by any dharma of the three realms; the difference between the two is immense. The virtue of prajñā that some people speak of is a conditioned, arising-and-ceasing virtue of prajñā that the seven consciousnesses acquire through cultivation. The virtue of prajñā I speak of is the transcendent great-wisdom prajñā innately inherent in one's own mind, the tathāgatagarbha; the difference between the two is immense.

What some people call emptiness, provisionality, and the middle are all conditioned, arising-and-ceasing emptiness, provisionality, and the middle that the five aggregates and the seven consciousnesses acquire through cultivation. The true emptiness, provisionality, and the middle are the middle-way principle-substance of emptiness, provisionality, and the middle—neither arising nor ceasing—innately inherent in the true mind, the self-nature tathāgatagarbha.

Once a passage of writing is laid out, one can know how wise this person is, whether the dharma meaning is correct or not, and how deep it goes—only then can one rely on the Dharma, not on the person. If one does not understand the writing, how can one rely on the Dharma? One can only rely on the person. When relying on the person, one will say that so-and-so is such-and-such a great master, that such a great master cannot be wrong. People in the world are all like this: they recognize only fame, only established influence, and lack the wisdom to judge the person's actual level of wisdom.

If we wish to rely on the Dharma and not on the person, we must realize the Dharma and possess great wisdom before we can rely on the Dharma; at the very minimum we must understand the Dharma before we can rely on it. If we do not understand the Dharma, we simply cannot rely on it. To truly be able to rely on the Dharma is indeed extremely difficult. How many people today loudly proclaim "rely on the Dharma, not on the person," yet nearly ninety-nine percent of them are relying on the person and cannot rely on the Dharma. They all say: so-and-so is a great master, and a great master must surely be right; one must not say the master is wrong; whatever the master teaches must be accepted in full. In reality, the master's teachings may contain many errors—perhaps extremely many and extremely grave. Who has the wisdom to discern? Moreover, how many people are shouting "do not discriminate"? This is the pitiable state of wisdom-less sentient beings in the Dharma-ending age.

The Buddha's physical body is liberated form (mokṣa-rūpa): though liberated, a physical body still exists, and with this body He benefits and brings joy to sentient beings without end; though a physical body exists, He is liberated. The arhats, however, though liberated, have no physical body—their bodies reduced to ashes and their wisdom extinguished—because their minds of compassion are thin. Although the arhats are liberated, they have only ended segmented birth-and-death; transformational birth-and-death remains unended, ignorance remains, countless obstructions to the knowable (jñeyāvaraṇa) remain unsevered, and latent afflictions and afflictive habits remain uneliminated. Therefore the arhats' liberation is not thorough or ultimate.