Can One Attain Bodhi Without Severing Afflictions

Some people say that when one awakens to the true mind and realizes the first fruit, without having eliminated afflictions, with no change in body and mind and no transformation, this is normal. But this is in fact extremely abnormal. Such a great matter of birth and death, overturning one's former major wrong views, with one's cognition of the world of the five aggregates going from existence to emptiness—how could body and mind undergo no change whatsoever? If one cultivates the Four Right Efforts in accordance with the Dharma, how could body and mind not change? If one cultivates the Seven Factors of Enlightenment according to principle, how could body and mind not change? If the mind does not change, how can this be realization of fruit and awakening to the true mind? Even in worldly matters, when the manas truly comes to know something, one becomes extraordinarily excited, with great changes in the body and intense agitation of mind—perhaps eyes brimming with hot tears, perhaps body and mind trembling, perhaps a solemn expression, or being unable to sleep for several days, and so on.

During the process of cultivating the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment before realizing the fruit, body and mind will change little by little, greatly differing from before. If the difference becomes very evident, and the five grades of afflictions of the desire realm have been eliminated, then one has entered the stage of stream-enterer aspiration. If body and mind never undergo any change, then one has not cultivated in accordance with the Dharma—the direction of cultivation is wrong, or one is simply not diligent, or one has only remained at broad learning and much hearing, at emotional speculation and intellectual understanding, or one has applied the mind mostly to worldly matters, and the Dharma principles have not truly entered the mind.

The Abhidharma-kośa states that as long as one truly cultivates the path and cultivates it according to principle, one will inevitably subdue afflictive delusions and then eliminate them. It is so during the process of cultivating the path, and even more so with the result of cultivating the path; only then can one become a stream-enterer aspirant, and subsequently a stream-enterer. If not even a thread of afflictive delusion has been eliminated, and body and mind have not transformed, one still remains a fettered ordinary being, bound tightly hand and foot by afflictive delusions, unable to move—how could one advance along the path of bodhi and transform one's status? If one forcibly demands such a status, it can only exist in name without substance, a name that does not match reality—this is called stealing fame and deceiving the world.

Many people believe that as long as one can expound the Dharma, one has already realized it, but the facts are not so. If one expounds the Dharma without having realized it through practice, it has no true guiding significance. If one has not walked that stretch of the road oneself, one cannot guide others on how to walk it concretely. If one's own mind has blazing afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, with leaks everywhere, there is no way to guide others in subduing and eliminating afflictions.

There is a koan about the "One Finger Chan": when a nun who was guiding the master raised her index finger, he awakened on the spot. The little novice saw this and thought: "So this is what awakening is!" So when the master was away, whenever someone came asking about the Dharma, the little novice would likewise raise his index finger, telling them that this was that true suchness—imitating like a parrot, and quite convincingly too. People's "awakening" nowadays is no different from this little novice's awakening. Although they can gesture and pose, quite resembling the masters' methods, seeming like Zen repartee, and seeming able to guide people, outsiders watch the spectacle while insiders see the craft—these tricks can only deceive some laypeople. All Zen repartee involves the harmonious functioning of the eight consciousnesses, containing both the true and the false. If one cannot distinguish the true from the false, taking the false as the true, then no matter how one gestures, it is not Zen repartee.

One hundred years after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, Ānanda heard a little novice reciting conditioned dharmas of arising and ceasing as "water crane," and corrected him. But when the little novice asked his master which was right, his master said, "Don't listen to Ānanda; he has become senile in old age. Just recite it the way I taught you." So the little novice continued reciting as before. Hearing this, Ānanda thought: the Buddha has been gone only a hundred years and the Dharma has already been mis-transmitted like this; in future ages, even further from the Buddha, what will the Dharma have evolved into? Sentient beings are truly too foolish. Grieved, Ānanda decided to enter parinirvāṇa immediately and depart, not wishing to witness the tragic scene of the Dharma being gradually destroyed. Even at that time the Dharma had already degenerated—how much more so today, thousands of years later! The present age is certainly not an age where sages fill the streets; many people have severely misunderstood the cultivation and realization of the Buddha's Dharma.

Nowadays neither Mahāyāna nor Hīnayāna Dharma is treasured; it is no longer a rare Dharma. As long as one hears the Dharma and ponders it a bit, the fruit is obtained—no need for precepts, samādhi, and wisdom, no need to cultivate the six pāramitās and myriad practices; those who keep precepts and cultivate samādhi are fools. Now any fruit can be easily obtained. For example, the dream-like contemplation, illusion-like contemplation, and the fruit of the tenth dedication stage are no longer difficult matters. As for the method of contemplative practice and realization of tathāgatagarbha, as long as it is passed on by word of mouth, the fruit can be taken home. Sentient beings have become so foolish and inverted that one is left speechless.