Who Needs to Attain Enlightenment and How to Awaken

Many people do not understand how to attain enlightenment, nor who it is that needs to attain enlightenment. So why do we, in studying Buddhism, need to attain enlightenment? It is because, from beginningless kalpas, we have been deluded and inverted, taking the false as true, falsely undergoing the suffering of birth and death in saṃsāra, unable to attain liberation and freedom. Therefore we need to break through ignorance, break through the illusory dharmas in the mind, and awaken to the true principle. But we must see clearly and understand who this "we" refers to—it refers to the two minds: the mind consciousness and the manas. Because these two minds possess an immense amount of ignorance and do not know the true principle of the reality of the dharmadhātu, they need to cultivate the path until they awaken to the truth. Only after awakening to the truth can they realize the falsity of all dharmas in the world of the five aggregates, exhaust all ignorance, extinguish all the suffering of birth and death, and attain great liberation. Only after realizing the tathāgatagarbha, the true reality of the dharmadhātu, can one, through cultivation over three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas, exhaust all ignorance, reach the tranquility of nirvāṇa, and be liberated from all the suffering of birth and death. Therefore, it is the sixth and seventh consciousnesses that need to attain enlightenment.

How does one realize the tathāgatagarbha? The essential substance of the tathāgatagarbha fundamentally cannot be seen, because He is empty, without any appearance or form; naturally, His essential substance cannot be seen. He can only be realized through His functions and operations. To observe, through direct perception, the operational characteristics of the tathāgatagarbha as He functions within the operation of the five-aggregate body—this is realizing the tathāgatagarbha. At that point, one will clearly understand how the tathāgatagarbha operates within the five-aggregate body. Although the essential substance of the tathāgatagarbha is empty and quiescent, His functioning is by no means empty and quiescent; His functions and operations have observable characteristics and can be contemplated. When one contemplates them, that is enlightenment.

I once used wind as an analogy: the empty and quiescent mind, like the wind, cannot be seen, and yet we can still know that the wind exists. Wind is also empty. Why is wind empty? We simply cannot see the wind, cannot smell the wind, cannot touch the wind, and yet we know that the wind has come. Why? When the wind comes, there must be all kinds of functions, and these functions operate upon objects and in space. The wind acts upon objects and within empty space; there is contact and collision among them, and various phenomena appear. At the very moment we see these phenomena, we realize the wind. Whether it is a gentle breeze, a great wind, a small wind, a fierce gale or storm, or a tornado—from the phenomena appearing on objects, we can determine which kind of wind it is.

The essential substance of the tathāgatagarbha, like the wind, is formless and without appearance, but He can only be discovered through His functions within the five-aggregate body. Then, who is it that finds the wind? It is the sixth and seventh consciousnesses. Knowing that the wind has arisen, the sixth and seventh consciousnesses together devise ways to avoid and guard against the wind disaster. The realization of the tathāgatagarbha is likewise attained jointly by the sixth and seventh consciousnesses, realized through the functions that the tathāgatagarbha gives rise to and the operational characteristics by which He runs within the five-aggregate body. What functions does the tathāgatagarbha have? All myriad dharmas are generated and sustained by Him, and all myriad dharmas have His distinctive functions within them. As for exactly how the tathāgatagarbha operates, one needs to continue investigating after enlightenment; when the investigation bears fruit, one will then clearly understand the five "how unforeseen is self-nature (svabhāva)" spoken of by the Sixth Patriarch.