Consciousness-Attained Fruition Remains a Fettered Ordinary Being

Attaining fruition through consciousness is extremely swift and convenient, requiring little cost. It does not tax the mind or expend effort in meditation, and most importantly, it eliminates the need to cultivate meditative concentration (dhyāna). This is incredibly convenient. The hurdle of meditative concentration is the most difficult to overcome—it is particularly arduous, time-consuming, and involves enduring the hardship of seated meditation (lit. "suffering the legs"), which delays many worldly affairs. Attaining fruition through consciousness hardly requires upholding precepts; even the Three Refuges and Five Precepts can be dispensed with. The most troublesome Thirty-seven Aids to Enlightenment need not be cultivated, saving an immense amount of time and energy. One's merit (puṇya) need not be particularly great; the first five of the Six Pāramitās can be omitted. It is simply too convenient. One only needs to use consciousness to study theoretical knowledge, then engage in thinking, understanding, analyzing, pondering, reasoning, synthesizing, and integrating. These activities do not require great concentration or taxing mental exertion; they are akin to the daily routine of a junior secretary, manageable by someone of average intelligence.

How cheap is this way of attaining fruition! It demands little cost. There is a wealth of theoretical knowledge available, which can also attract attention and garner admiration. One need not renounce family life to leave home and cultivate the path, nor sever affection for loved ones. It does not disrupt worldly endeavors, and one can still receive offerings from the public. One can even become a Bodhisattva Dharma Teacher or a Noble Saṅgha member who surpasses the ordained monastic community, reaping the benefits of both the householder and monastic life, maximizing worldly gains. With so many advantages to attaining fruition through consciousness, who would be willing to give it up?

However, after attaining fruition in this manner, one cannot sever even a trace of afflictions (kleśa) and is fundamentally no different from an ordinary being bound by afflictions (sakala-baddha-pṛthagjana). Some people make excuses for themselves, saying that only the Third and Fourth Fruitions (Anāgāmi and Arhat) sever afflictions, while the First and Second Fruitions (Srotāpanna and Sakṛdāgāmin) still have afflictions, which is supposedly not surprising. They claim it's unsurprising that a First Fruition (Srotāpanna) has as many and as heavy afflictions as an ordinary being. But if a First Fruition is said to be the same as an ordinary being bound by afflictions, this implies that a First Fruition individual is essentially an ordinary being fully endowed with all afflictions. The First Fruition would then be nominal and without substance—how could such a person be a Stream-enterer who has severed the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi)? If the Dharma is practiced like this, how can Buddhism avoid extinction?

Although there are many heretical teachings and teachers in the world, those heretical methods are very shallow and low-level. They cannot destroy the fundamental essence of Buddhism or shake its foundation. For example, a certain Dharma Teacher's explanation of Tathāgatagarbha is utter nonsense, yet he cannot influence the mainstream development of Buddhism anyway. The beings he guides have particularly shallow roots; even after great effort is expended to pull them out [of his influence], they achieve nothing significant and pose no threat to Buddhism. Another example is dual cultivation practices (sexual yoga); that is fundamentally a non-Buddhist (tīrthika) method, extremely base and inferior. Anyone with a bit of wisdom can discern it and will not fall into it. Those who do fall into it are mostly people with heavy karmic obstructions and shallow roots of goodness. Even if great effort is made to rescue them, they cannot amount to much; they cannot become pillars of Buddhism. What can destroy Buddhism can never be non-Buddhist paths or methods; destruction always comes from within Buddhism itself. As the saying goes, "It is the moth in the lion's body that eats the lion's flesh" (from the Brahmajāla Sūtra).

The foundation and focal point of the Buddhadharma throughout the three times (past, present, future) lie in the extremely crucial link of attaining fruition and seeing the true nature of mind (mingxin jianxing). As long as this link does not suffer major problems, the future development of Buddhism will be stable and without incident. Therefore, the fundamental Dharma methods for severing the view of self and seeing the true nature of mind are not something just anyone can transmit. They absolutely must not be handled carelessly. If one recklessly harms the Dharma-body and wisdom-life (Dharma-kāya and prajñā-jīvita) of sentient beings, then in the future, even wishing to be reborn as a wild fox for five hundred lifetimes would be a deluded fantasy—the karmic retribution suffered will be countless times more severe than that. Protecting those who recklessly transmit the Dharma is equivalent to abetting evildoing; the karmic retribution is also quite severe. Therefore, I respectfully urge everyone to deeply contemplate cause and effect (karma), treat the Buddhadharma with the utmost seriousness, and maintain a highly responsible attitude towards sentient beings and Buddhism.