The Mark of Accomplishment in Studying Buddhism Is the Emptiness of Mind

If one believes that all dharmas truly exist, the mind cannot be empty, and that is ignorance. If there is a single dharma you believe to be real, that dharma will obstruct you and become the dust in your mind; this mental concept is the delusion of ignorance. Even to say one likes becoming a Buddha, believing that the dharma of attaining buddhahood is also real—this is still ignorance. Only when all ignorance has been completely broken through, everything emptied, with not a single dharma remaining in the mind, can one be equal to the tathāgatagarbha and attain buddhahood. If, at the end of cultivation, there remains a mind that wants to become a Buddha, with the dharma of attaining buddhahood in the mind, one still cannot become a Buddha. Only when one cultivates until all dharmas are empty within, with no signs, no wishes, and no contrivance, is that true accomplishment.

Before the eighth bhūmi, the bodhisattva's mind has a large conditioned component; at the eighth bhūmi the mind becomes unconditioned and empty, and only then is the mind truly unconditioned and non-acting. When making offerings to the Three Jewels and working for sentient beings and for Buddhism, the mind is also empty—only then does the Buddha confer the prediction of buddhahood. When the mind is not empty, before the seventh bhūmi, no matter how many conditioned wholesome dharmas one has cultivated, however diligently one makes offerings to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha, the Buddha will not confer the prediction of buddhahood, because the mind is still conditioned and not empty, not according with the unconditioned nature of the tathāgatagarbha; ignorance is still heavy, so the Buddha does not confer the prediction. Even if you make offerings to the Buddha life after life, offering all the jewels of the trichiliocosm to the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha, the Buddha will not confer the prediction—let alone engaging in those worldly conditioned dharmas.

However, through performing these conditioned dharmas one can increase one's own merit, and the provisions for obtaining the wisdom of buddhahood are thereby increased, enabling wisdom to grow. Therefore one cannot say, "Since all dharmas are empty, I will cultivate no merit at all"—then your mind still cannot be emptied, and there is still a self. Without the support of merit, the wisdom of true emptiness will not appear. Even if you believe a certain dharma is empty, you cannot actually realize it; it is not true emptiness, and in conduct and action there is still no emptiness.

Since cultivation is about recognizing and realizing the emptiness of all dharmas, when we do things we should not think that the more we do, the more merit we gain—it is not so. When saving sentient beings, we should not think that the more beings we gather in, the more merit we gain—nor is it so. In fact, through these bodhisattva endeavors of doing things and saving sentient beings, on the one hand we increase our own merit, on the one hand we grow our own compassionate mind, and on the one hand we continuously eliminate the self and extinguish the mind of self, making our own mind increasingly empty, increasingly able to see through things, increasingly unattached to signs. Only when the mind is empty to a certain degree is there true accomplishment, and only then is there great capacity for action.

The amount of merit does not necessarily correspond to the amount of things done, nor to the number of sentient beings saved. The key is: in doing these things, to what degree has the mind been emptied, and to what degree of unconditionedness has one attained. Therefore, one who is truly on the path will not rack their brains all day over how many followers to gather in and influence, thinking that this is the greatest accomplishment—it is not so. Rather, in this process, it is the degree of understanding of all dharmas and the degree to which the mind has been emptied that truly represents the extent and depth of your realization of the Buddha's Dharma. Measure your merit by this standard, and judge your bodhisattva stage by it. Therefore do not look at signs or attach to signs. The emptier and more unconditioned the mind is with regard to signs, the deeper the realization of Dharma and the higher the stage. One must observe the underlying intention through the signs; therefore in cultivation, never cling to any sign or grasp at any sign.

Even if you hold a hundred Dharma assemblies in a year, gather in a hundred thousand or a million sentient beings, write a hundred books, or offer a hundred million or a billion to the Three Jewels in a year—all of these are conditioned dharmas. If you thereby give rise to attachment and arrogance in the mind, that is the sign of self. If you are attached within signs, the more the mind clings, the less empty it is, and the lower the stage and realization. If you do not understand this principle, you will engage in frantic contrivance and comparison in conditioned dharmas: "I am stronger than everyone, more capable than everyone; I am the first, I am the only one." All these so-called accomplishments fall entirely onto signs, are entirely conditioned, entirely attached; the mind is not empty in the slightest. This is the karma of birth and death—the more you contrive, the less empty the mind, the heavier the ignorance, and the further from liberation.

Some people, though they do not do so many things, possess the wisdom of emptiness; they can see through the essence of all matters, are not deluded by appearances, and do not fall into phenomena unable to extricate themselves. Having profound wisdom of emptiness themselves, they naturally lead those around them also to empty their minds and not attach to signs; thus the quality of their saving of sentient beings is high. If the bodhisattva's mind is not empty, how can the minds of the disciples who follow and learn be empty? If the bodhisattva attaches to signs, those behind will attach to signs even more; thus they run counter to the Path and do not accord with the Way. Therefore cultivating the Way means breaking through signs and breaking through the ignorance of one's own mind. Attachment to signs is dharma-grasping, and dharma-grasping is also a root of birth and death.

The scope of dharma-grasping is extremely broad: any grasping whatsoever is dharma-grasping, including the grasping of a self with regard to the five-aggregate body. As for dharmas more subtle and broad than the five-aggregate body, attachment to any of them is dharma-grasping. How to break dharma-grasping? First one must realize the tathāgatagarbha and cultivate the seed-wisdom of Yogācāra; then one observes whether all dharmas truly exist, whether they have any self-existent, self-governing nature. Through deep and detailed observation, one discovers that all dharmas are produced by the tathāgatagarbha in dependence on certain conditions; all are arising, ceasing, illusory and transformed, without their own reality, autonomy, or self-existence. In essence they are all the functions of the tathāgatagarbha, each a single dharma within the one true dharmadhātu, all operated by the tathāgatagarbha—there is fundamentally nothing to attach to, nothing that can be grasped or seized. In this way the mind will loosen and no longer grasp, and dharma-grasping is broken.

The worldly realm has no substantial conditioned signs—so what is there left to contrive? When the mind is ultimately empty, one becomes a Buddha. When the ignorance and grasping nature with regard to each dharma are extinguished, there is nothing left to crave or cling to. The path of breaking dharma-grasping is extremely long: from the first bhūmi to buddhahood, a road of two great asaṃkhyeya kalpas must be walked. One great asaṃkhyeya kalpa to break self-grasping, and two great asaṃkhyeya kalpas to continuously break dharma-grasping. Even merely eliminating self-view requires a long road to travel—one can see how difficult cultivation is, and how deep and heavy the ignorance and attachment of the manas are.

All attachment—self-grasping and dharma-grasping—is the grasping of the manas. Such is the manas's attachment; therefore one must break the manas's attachment. First one must break the manas's self-view and dharma-view, breaking the manas's entangling thoughts; that requires eliminating the manas's self-view and dharma-view. The view that all dharmas are real must be broken through bit by bit; only afterward can attachment be reduced and extinguished. When attachment is completely extinguished, ignorance completely severed, and the mind entirely emptied, one becomes a Buddha.

The mark of accomplishment in cultivation lies in the degree to which the mind is emptied, in the degree to which ignorance and views have been broken through, and how much has been eliminated. See through the dharma-appearance of all dharmas as empty, observing how they are empty, non-self, lacking self-mastery, unreal, arising, ceasing, and transforming—then the mind is emptied. Then one no longer wishes to contrive meaningless conditioned dharmas; within the mind there are no signs, no wishes, and no contrivance, consistent with the tathāgatagarbha—this is the Tathāgata Buddha.