What Is It to See Marks Yet Be Free from Marks

Seeing marks yet being detached from marks does not mean that upon seeing any mark, one leaves no mark in the mind, empties it out, and abandons it, and thereby the mind becomes pure and devoid of dharmas. Trying to avoid the disturbance of worldly marks upon one's mind—when the mind is undisturbed, it becomes tranquil. This is a method of cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi). Such tranquility is the absence of thought and conception; it is a state of meditative concentration. The non-Buddhist practitioners all cultivate this kind of concentration, cultivating all the way to the concentration of neither perception nor non-perception; at the end of life they ascend to the heavens to enjoy blessings, but when the blessings are exhausted, they fall again.

True detachment from marks, however, is that when facing worldly marks, the mind clearly knows what the essence of a mark is, knowing that a mark is not the surface appearance presented to us, and that in substance it is empty. There are two kinds of emptiness: one is the emptiness of the Small Vehicle—suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self; the other is the emptiness of the tathāgatagarbha's emptiness-nature (śūnyatā). This makes it clear that without realizing the fruits and without awakening to the true mind, one simply cannot detach from marks; one can only hide from them. Even if one can hide, it is only temporary; in the long run, one cannot hide at all and must eventually face them.

Only after realizing the tathāgatagarbha can the mind gradually detach from marks; this is a long process and cannot be accomplished in one step. This process is the process of the transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti); when the transformation of the basis is accomplished (āśraya-parāvṛtti), consciousness is transformed into wisdom, one enters the household of the Tathāgata, and possesses the seed-wisdom of the consciousness-only teachings (Yogācāra). To see the tathāgatagarbha, one must first understand its nature and characteristics, its functions and roles, and then, carrying a questioning doubt, seek and realize it within the operation of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) and the eighteen realms. In the process of investigating Chan, of course one must know or realize that the functions and roles of the five aggregates and the eighteen realms are not real, are not self, and are empty; only then can one not attach to the marks of the five aggregates and eighteen realms as self or as real, and only then can one negate the five aggregates and eighteen realms. After all the illusory dharmas have been negated, one then raises doubt about that true dharma. As one investigates back and forth, when the causes and conditions of the bodhisattva's six perfections are complete, realization and enlightenment become possible.