The Significance of Practicing the Tathagatagarbha Dharma Method

What is the significance of cultivating the Tathagatagarbha Dharma?

The cultivation of all Buddhist Dharma is aimed at realizing the emptiness of self and the emptiness of phenomena, eradicating the view of self and view of phenomena within the seventh consciousness, eliminating the ignorance, afflictions, and delusions of the seventh consciousness. Everyone must clearly understand this objective; only then does the cultivation of the Buddha Dharma and the Tathagatagarbha Dharma have meaning. Otherwise, it becomes merely an academic pursuit, separating practice and scholarship into two disconnected parts, resulting in scholarship being scholarship and practice being practice, with no relation between the two. We should be clear about this: scholarship cannot eradicate ignorance and afflictions; it only adds to afflictions and bondage, even increasing the delusions and karmic actions of ignorance and the cycle of birth and death.

Why does the phenomenon of scholarship and practice becoming disconnected occur? The fundamental problem lies in the lack of meditative concentration (dhyāna) and true observation (yathābhūta-praveśa), the lack of correspondence and connection with the body, mind, and world. One erroneous view—that Bodhisattvas do not eradicate afflictions—is the direct root cause of this problem. Due to an unclear purpose for cultivation, scholarship accumulates but lacks true significance. Cultivating the Tathagatagarbha Dharma is precisely for eradicating afflictions. As long as the direction and method are correct, afflictions will gradually dissolve; even without consciously trying to eradicate them, they will cease unknowingly. If the direction and method are wrong, knowledge and scholarship can continually increase, yet afflictions will not decrease; they may even grow alongside the increase in scholarship. Such an approach to learning the Dharma is truly mistaken and inverted.

Sentient beings, due to countless eons spent in ignorance and afflictions, continuously experience the various sufferings of birth and death within the six realms. Bodhisattvas are part of sentient beings; they too undergo birth and death due to ignorance and afflictions, and they equally need to cultivate to eradicate ignorance and afflictions, to sever the bonds of birth and death, leave suffering, and attain happiness. Only after personally eradicating ignorance and afflictions is one qualified to be a Bodhisattva and guide sentient beings to also eradicate ignorance and afflictions, leave suffering, attain happiness, and move towards liberation. If a Bodhisattva is mired in the abyss of afflictions, how could they have the capability and qualification to guide others out of that abyss?

Therefore, the view that "Bodhisattvas do not eradicate afflictions nor need to eradicate afflictions" is extremely harmful. If one does not eradicate afflictions, what is the point of learning the Buddha Dharma and cultivating? If one liberates sentient beings but does not enable them to eradicate afflictions, what state are they liberating sentient beings into? Are we to believe that the ultimate destination for sentient beings is for each to become a collector of knowledge and scholarship, a master of theory? Can knowledge, theory, and scholarship withstand birth and death? Can they serve as merit (punya) or be eaten as food? With afflictions, there is no virtue (guna); there is neither merit (punya) nor meritorious virtue (guṇapunya). Sentient beings without merit or meritorious virtue are ordinary beings bound by karmic obstacles of birth and death—what then is there to discuss about cultivation and liberating sentient beings?

Those who study the Tathagatagarbha Dharma may analyze and intellectually comprehend it with perfect clarity, yet derive not the slightest personal benefit. Their afflictions remain as before, their wisdom remains shallow, and the bonds still fetter their own minds. Such cultivation ultimately yields no results. No matter how pure the Tathagatagarbha is, how selfless it is, how it fully possesses all precepts (śīla), concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā)—if the five aggregates (skandhas) and seven consciousnesses are impure, cannot be selfless, and lack precepts, concentration, and wisdom, then there is still no merit, no wisdom, boundless suffering, and no hope for liberation. The Tathagatagarbha will still cause the five aggregates and seven consciousnesses to manifest in the three evil destinies to suffer, bobbing up and sinking down in the bitter sea of the six realms.

Therefore, cultivation must be in accordance with principle, Dharma, and precepts; it must not deviate from the correct goal and path. One must strictly discipline oneself with the Buddha's precepts, rigorously follow the Buddha's teaching of the threefold training of precepts, concentration, and wisdom (the threefold training leading to the exhaustion of outflows—śīla, samādhi, prajñā), and cultivate aiming for a mind free from outflows (anāsrava). To be free from outflows means to be free from ignorance and afflictions. This is the correct path of cultivation. Do not say anymore that Bodhisattvas do not eradicate afflictions; this is a wrong view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi) and runs counter to true cultivation.