Lip Service Is Not Equal to Practice and Realization

Pre-enlightenment practice has many stages, and post-enlightenment practice likewise has many stages. If one practices before enlightenment using the methods intended for after enlightenment, it is futile and useless, for one who has not yet entered the gate cannot do the work inside the gate. For those who have just attained enlightenment or have not yet attained it, if they try to practice according to the methods of bodhisattvas on the bhūmis, it will be even less effective. Holding lofty theories in one's hands and believing one has already realized them, imagining oneself to be like a sage or like the tathāgatagarbha—this is purely self-deception. Many people, upon seeing the statement "afflictions are themselves bodhi," assume that regarding afflictions as illusions manifested by the tathāgatagarbha is equivalent to practice, rather than seeking ways to subdue their afflictions. As a result, afflictions remain afflictions, and bodhi remains bodhi; after death they still sink in the cycle of birth and death—what benefit is there in that?

Some people, understanding that the tathāgatagarbha is beyond cultivation and beyond realization, assume that the seven consciousnesses and the five aggregates should also be beyond cultivation and realization, and that since the tathāgatagarbha is originally a Buddha, they might as well just be a Buddha at home. Others hear that all dharmas arise from discrimination, and so they no longer wish to discriminate either, believing that as long as they do not discriminate, the mind will be empty and there will be no dharmas. Since the tathāgatagarbha does not discriminate, they too will not discriminate—then even if they go hungry for seven days, they should have no complaints about it.

All dharmas are indeed like illusions and transformations, but this is the realization level of bodhisattvas at the tenth abode stage and above. If one has not reached this level of practice and does not possess this actual realization, then one should not keep the words "illusion and transformation" on one's lips every day, turning them into mere lip-service Chan. The tathāgatagarbha does not keep precepts, so some people think they too should be like the tathāgatagarbha and need not keep precepts, freely roaming about in unrestrained abandon. They do not realize that their own mind is replete with all greed, hatred, and delusion—how could they indulge in unrestrained abandon? Empty talk often ruins a nation. Those who can talk a foot high but act not even an inch had best practice earnestly and practically, and stop holding forth loftily with eyes high and abilities low.