Attaining the Fruit through Consciousness Is Extremely Unreliable

Question: Some people say that after enlightenment one may forget the content of the enlightenment; if one forgets it, one no longer counts as an enlightened person, right? How can enlightenment still be forgotten?

Answer: Recollection and forgetting are functions of the mind consciousness, and the mind consciousness is dependent origination (paratantra), arising and ceasing, changing and mutating; when the conditions are not complete, the mind consciousness weakens and disappears. For example, if the brain has a pathological change, or is stimulated, or the mind is traumatized, or in old age the brain atrophies, the function of the mind consciousness declines and cannot operate normally, and one can no longer recall many of the people, events, things, and principles of the past—this is called forgetting. 

When the mind consciousness has disappeared, one even less can recall any people or events of the past; for example, after falling asleep, falling into a coma, dying, or undergoing rebirth, the mind consciousness has ceased, and the people and events one experienced in the past are temporarily or permanently eliminated and extinguished. In the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava) there is a faint mind consciousness, but its function is limited, controlled by karmic power, and it can exercise no autonomy whatsoever.

If one's enlightenment is merely the mind consciousness awakening to and understanding certain principles, this is far too insecure, because the mind consciousness arises from causes and conditions, mutates extremely fast, and under some influence can change at a moment's notice—turn hostile in an instant, forget something and be unable to recall it, and in the space of a doze the mind becomes a blank. Therefore, without going through the arduous process of investigating Chan (canchan), delusively hoping to ascend to heaven in a single step by directly knowing the rough result, without permeating and conditioning the manas, this result can vanish just like that, and there is no merit or benefit to be gained from it. 

Without passing through the concrete stages of cultivating the Path, and without painstakingly investigating Chan, the manas receives no permeation; one can only rely on the mind consciousness's inference, imagination, guessing, and conjecture, with not a bit of direct perception—all of it is non-valid cognition. The content of such conjecture will naturally be unrecallable at any moment, will not function, cannot guide bodily, verbal, and mental actions, and cannot become an uninterrupted, continuous state of thought; it cannot even last a few minutes, and its extinction is only a matter of time.

But through the arduous process of investigating and probing in Chan, with the manas participating in it, awakening to the true mind and self-nature is a state of wisdom of direct perception; meditative concentration/meditative absorption (samādhi) appears, bodily, verbal, and mental actions are in purity (viśuddha), and it becomes uninterrupted seeing of the Path. In that case, even if the mind consciousness wants to forget, it cannot forget; even if it wants to lose it, it cannot lose it; even if it wants to regress, it cannot regress. This matter is decided by the manas: once the manas is awakened, the mind consciousness must accord with the manas, receiving the manas's direction and control; even if it forgets, it cannot help but recall it. In fact, it does not depend at all on whether the mind consciousness wants to remember or not; even if the mind consciousness ceases, it does not matter—the manas is awakened, and so it is awakened forever. Whether asleep, in a coma, or dead, in the neutrino-body (antarā-bhava), one is still awakened. 

In studying Buddhism and cultivating practice, using only the mind consciousness will incur great loss. Relying on the arising-ceasing, mutating, impermanent mind consciousness to resolve the great matter of birth and death—that is absolutely failing to think through the matter of cultivation. When you eat your own meal, you yourself are filled; if one always relies on external conditions, those conditions will cease—one cannot keep relying on them until immeasurable kalpas later. Therefore a person of wisdom must not place the weight on the mind consciousness, which constantly arises, ceases, and mutates and offers no guarantee; the same is true of any matter in the world or beyond the world. To summarize once more: any fruit realized by the mind consciousness is a fruit made of paper, and things made of paper are the easiest to rot and decay.