In Learning Buddhism, Never Engage in Personality Cults

The unconditioned dharma refers to the eighth consciousness; it is not a provisionally established dharma posited in relative opposition to conditioned dharmas. It is a real dharma, originally existent, neither arising nor ceasing, not a provisional dharma. The eighth consciousness, in contrast to the false self of the five aggregates and the seven consciousnesses, is spoken of as the true self. At the stages of ordinary beings and bodhisattvas, there are still arising-and-ceasing seeds, so it is not yet a completely and utterly true self. When the Buddha stage is reached, the defiled, arising-and-ceasing, mutable seeds are eliminated, and it becomes the true and genuine self that is permanent, blissful, self, and pure.

When the fundamental point is seriously wrong, whether the branches and leaves are right or wrong no longer matters. Teaching Yogācāra without enlightenment is a laughingstock; even the wisdom of one who is enlightened cannot fully expound Yogācāra well—without personal realization and cultivation of Yogācāra, how can one teach it? If the Yogācāra of today's world is passed down to later generations, and if such a person has fame and authority, later generations will prostrate themselves in worship, and who knows how many vast numbers of genuinely practicing Buddhist sons will be misled. People in the world often mistakenly assume that the works of famous and renowned virtuous masters are all correct and without error, and that anyone who can teach Yogācāra must be a person of realization. The ignorance of sentient beings lies precisely here—it is beyond remedy.

If one promotes and studies this kind of Yogācāra, the more one promotes it, the greater the culpability; the more one studies it, the further one is from liberation. Each of you had better take heed! The path of cultivation is perilous, and all kinds of traps will be encountered. Cultivating merit abundantly and increasing wisdom is most essential. In later generations, these teachings will all become classical texts. People tend to venerate the ancient; if they worship such erroneous classical texts, would that not harm people? How many people in the world have opened their eyes and can discern the right and wrong, the true and false, of classical texts?