The Original Awakening and Initial Awakening of Sentient Beings

All sentient beings possess original awakening, which is the Tathāgata's wisdom and virtuous marks. Because sentient beings have ignorance, they have never discovered this original awakening. If one discovers this original awakening, one breaks through beginningless ignorance (avidyā) and begins to awaken—this is initial awakening, meaning that the knowing mind begins to awaken; it is called initial awakening. Initial awakening exists in dependence upon original awakening; the object of initial awakening is precisely original awakening. Moreover, without original awakening as a supporting condition, the knowing mind could not begin to awaken, and there would be no initial awakening. Before initial awakening, there is the non-awakening of the knowing mind: because of ignorance, the knowing mind cannot awaken to original awakening. This non-awakening of the knowing mind also exists in dependence upon original awakening—the seeds of ignorance in non-awakening are stored within original awakening, and the non-awakened knowing mind is born in dependence upon original awakening.

Original awakening means being awakened from the very beginning; throughout beginningless kalpas, it has never been deluded or confused. This is the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha. We often say: True suchness is without knowing, yet nothing is unknown to it; without awakening, yet neither awakened nor unawakened; without thought, yet nothing is unthought. True suchness is precisely original awakening—there is not a single dharma it does not know, not a single dharma it is not awakened to, not a single dharma it does not think of. If there were a dharma of which it was unaware, unawakened, and unmindful, it would be unable to manifest that dharma, nor could it deliver the corresponding seeds, and thus that dharma could not take form and would not appear.

To be unaware of even one thing is ignorance; original awakening has no ignorance—He knows everything. But this kind of knowing is not like the knowing of the mind of the seven consciousnesses; its nature is utterly different from that of the seven consciousnesses. The knowing of the seven consciousnesses is limited to the realms of the six sense objects; at most, they can know the principle of the tathāgatagarbha and the principles of the mundane and supramundane—but even this is still a mental sense object. Beyond this, the mind of the seven consciousnesses knows nothing. The knowing of original awakening encompasses all dharmas of the three realms; among mundane and supramundane dharmas, there is not a single one of which it is unaware, unawakened, or unmindful—this is truly miraculous. The more one investigates His knowing, the clearer and more lucid one becomes about the origins and workings of all existence in the three realms and the universe, the higher our wisdom becomes, and the more we accord with original awakening.