The Equal Enlightened Nature of True Awakening and Deluded Awakening

Awareness includes true awareness and false awareness. False awareness is the mind of the seven consciousnesses, while true awareness is the tathāgatagarbha. The mind of the seven consciousnesses can often perceive the worldly dharmas of the six sense objects; it will feel that it has wandering thoughts, that it has greed, anger, and delusion, that it has committed violations of the precepts, and after feeling this, it corrects itself, believing that this correction constitutes awakening. In fact, this awakening is still the awakening of the mind of the seven consciousnesses, and is of course false awareness, not true awareness. True awareness is the true suchness tathāgatagarbha; He never awakens to the realms of the six sense objects, does not know whether the five aggregates at this moment have wandering thoughts, whether mistakes have been made, whether there is greed, anger, or delusion, and will not go about correcting them—true awareness does none of these things. He never discriminates among the various realms and dharmas of the six sense objects. Therefore, when the six sense objects manifest, true awareness is always pure and non-active (asaṃskṛta); only false awareness is conditioned or impure. We should carefully and clearly distinguish between these two kinds of awareness in order to cultivate practice well.

The awareness-nature of equality also has two kinds. One refers to the awareness-nature inherently possessed by the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha; the other is the awareness-nature of equality of the knowing mind that appears later through cultivation. The true awareness-nature of equality is innate from the beginning, never changes or varies, and never disappears or perishes. No matter how much sentient beings are afflicted by greed, anger, and delusion, the awareness-nature of the tathāgatagarbha neither disappears nor becomes hidden. If unenlightened sentient beings believe there is a self and engage in defiled karmic actions, their awareness-nature of equality will not disappear, because the tathāgatagarbha fundamentally cannot disappear or perish.

It is only that sentient beings, by clinging to the false, do not see the true, or overlook the true, and are temporarily unable to discover that there exists an awareness-nature of equality that has been continuously functioning all along—this is the ignorance (avidyā) of sentient beings. Because sentient beings have ignorance, their tathāgatagarbha seems to be hidden; in reality it is not hidden, and even less is it the case that there is no tathāgatagarbha—it is simply that sentient beings themselves have ignorance and obscurations that prevent them from seeing it. For those who have realized the Way, the tathāgatagarbha does not manifest by itself either; rather, because sentient beings have broken through beginningless ignorance and their minds are no longer deluded, they can constantly observe the functions and utilities of the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, the hiddenness or manifestation of the awareness-nature of equality of the tathāgatagarbha differs from person to person.

The awareness-nature of equality of the knowing mind cultivated later is the awareness-nature of the mind of the seven consciousnesses after removing a portion of defilement; it is subject to arising, ceasing, change, and variation—sometimes present, sometimes disappearing and perishing, because whatever arises must necessarily cease. The realization of no-self is likewise the mind consciousness, through observation, feeling that the five aggregates are without self; this is a realization-feeling of the mind consciousness, not the inherent no-self realization-feeling of the tathāgatagarbha mind.

The no-self of the mind consciousness or the no-self of the manas must be realized through deep cultivation of meditative concentration (dhyāna) followed by contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and investigation. When the sixth and seventh consciousnesses, through contemplative observation, see that there is no self within the five aggregates, no self within the eighteen realms, and no self in all the dharmas derived from the combination of the aggregates, sense bases, and realms, and confirm the no-self nature within these dharmas, they thereby attain the fruits of the Great and Small Vehicles, and in the future will attain liberation and ultimately become a Buddha. The innate awareness-nature of equality and the later-cultivated awareness-nature of equality—both of these awarenesses of equality are extremely precious. Without the first kind, there would be no second kind; and with the second kind of realization-feeling, one can attain liberation and achieve the fruit of Buddhahood.