What is Cultivation Cultivating?

In the end, does cultivation aim to eliminate consciousness or the mind-base? Eliminating consciousness is the cause, and eliminating the mind-base is the result. Although eliminating the mind-base is the ultimate goal, the starting point must still be with consciousness. Consciousness dies every night, and the consciousness of a person in a vegetative state is almost perpetually dead as well, yet in the next life, they still cannot avoid the three lower realms, let alone the six realms of reincarnation. What does this indicate? It indicates that the power over birth and death lies in the hands of the mind-base. Therefore, cultivation must be grounded in the mind-base—to understand it, to subdue it, and to eradicate its ignorance. How, exactly, should one eradicate the ignorance of the mind-base? Ignorance gives rise to all defiled mental factors. So, whose mental factors are these defiled mental factors primarily? It is the ignorance of the mind-base that leads to the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death. Which defiled mental factor does the mind-base lack? If the mind-base did not possess all defiled mental factors, wouldn’t cultivation be very easy and pleasant?

Some people insist that the mind-base is neither good nor evil. If that is the case, do we still need to cultivate? Cultivation means removing evil dharmas born of ignorance and perfecting good dharmas. If the mind-base only possessed dharmas that are neither good nor evil, sentient beings would not need to cultivate at all. The tathāgatagarbha is neither good nor evil, so it never cultivates and has no need for cultivation. What would one cultivate, and what would one correct in it? It has no ignorance, no evil, and no wrongness. If the tathāgatagarbha were to cultivate, it would likely become corrupted or deviant. Good and evil both arise from ignorance; where there is ignorance, there is necessarily good and evil. The tathāgatagarbha is without ignorance, so it neither creates good karma nor evil karma; it responds to conditions without deliberate intention. Where there is ignorance, there is anger, giving rise to the mind that commits killing; where there is ignorance, there is delusion, leading to the act of killing.