Why Is the Human Mind Not at Peace

The human mind is uneven, full of disputes and gossip—why is it uneven? Because the four marks dwell in the mind; marks have good and bad, protrusions and indentations, and they reside in the mind, hence the mind is uneven. The mind is inherently even; what is uneven is the mind that perceives marks. How can the mind be made even? By smoothing out the marks. How to smooth them out? Contemplate the marks as equal and nondual, and see through the substance and essence of marks. What is the substance and essence of marks? They are nothing but combinations of the seven intrinsically existing great seeds (earth, water, fire, wind, space, seeing, consciousness), nothing but what the tathāgatagarbha has created—how could there be any real marks for us to see? When the eyes suffer from cataracts, one sees high and low, up and down, beautiful and ugly; diseased eyes gaze at flowers in the sky, and when the disease is gone, the sky-flowers vanish. Cultivation is precisely to remove the disease and see the real marks—apart from this, there is nothing else! This is to encourage others, and also to encourage myself.