When Hearing Sounds, One Should Recognize the True Mind, the Eighth Consciousness

When we hear sounds, the ear consciousness is involved, the mind consciousness is involved, and at the same time the seventh consciousness and the eighth consciousness are also involved; all four of these consciousnesses are formless and without marks. If one wishes to awaken to the Way while hearing sounds, one must clearly distinguish which is the eighth consciousness, which is the seventh consciousness, which is the mind consciousness, and which is the ear consciousness. Amid the combined operation of these consciousnesses, one must clearly distinguish the true mind from the deluded mind; after distinguishing them, one recognizes and accepts that true mind—this is seeing the mind and attaining enlightenment.

If merit, meditative concentration, and the power of wisdom are all insufficient, one will often mistake the deluded for the true, wrongly taking the mind consciousness to be the true mind, the eighth consciousness, and "awakening" to it. When one "awakens" to the mind consciousness, there is also a kind of experience of emptiness; the mind can become somewhat tranquil, one can see through some people, affairs, things, and principles as empty, one can understand a tiny bit more of the Buddhist sutras, and one can even apply the principle of emptiness to things—but one simply does not know how the eighth consciousness concretely gives rise to the five aggregates, the seven consciousnesses, and the myriad dharmas. Those who have awakened wrongly will absolutely never know this. This is the dividing line between true awakening and mistaken awakening; truly, an error of a hair's breadth leads one a thousand miles astray.

Both the mind consciousness and the eighth consciousness are formless and without marks, and they share certain similarities. Ordinary people simply make the mind consciousness a bit tranquil—free of scattered thoughts and delusions, free of the rise and fall of mental states—able to perceive all the realm-marks within and outside body and mind with clear clarity, and then they take the mind consciousness in this state of clarity to be the pure eighth consciousness that is originally without thought and without knowing. In this way they mistake the wrong one for the true master. No matter how clear the mind consciousness is, no matter how much it "does not know," as long as the mind consciousness exists, there is the knowing that knows the realms of the six sense objects; or if the mind consciousness has attained concentration, there is also the knowing that knows the state of concentration. Therefore it is not the eighth consciousness, and not true enlightenment. It is only that one's own mind consciousness is rather ignorant and finds it very difficult to introspect upon the state one is in at that moment, and so one takes this to be the "not-knowing" of the eighth consciousness, thereby concluding that one has realized the eighth consciousness—what an enormous misunderstanding.

In fact, when the mind consciousness becomes very subtle, its power of introspection (pratyavekṣā-bala) also becomes very weak; and because Buddhist practitioners do not understand the nature of the mind consciousness, the phenomenon of mistaking the mind consciousness for the true mind, the eighth consciousness, is extremely widespread. Nowadays people who consider themselves enlightened are everywhere, but after many years, their wisdom remains at its original level, still marking time in place without any advancement; they still cannot understand the Chan koans, and still cannot understand the sutras.

Therefore I urge those Buddhist practitioners who believe they have already attained enlightenment: for the sake of the great matter of your own birth and death, quickly turn back and examine what exactly your realization is. Check it against the sutras, carefully analyze and determine again the nature of the mind consciousness and the nature of the eighth consciousness, strictly distinguish the various differences between the true mind and the deluded mind, and then strive to perfectly fulfill the conditions necessary to be a bodhisattva. When all the conditions necessary for being a bodhisattva are fulfilled, then come back to investigate Chan anew, in order to truly enter the gate of Buddhism and become a bodhisattva in the true sense.