The Most Subtle Parts of the Buddha-Dharma Are Realized through Personal Attainment

If you wish to attain genuine wisdom of liberation, do not go around inquiring about the specific division of labor between the tathāgatagarbha of all dharmas and the manas. If you sort out the division of labor between the true mind and the deluded mind, and clarify their respective functions, it would be tantamount to directly pointing out which one is the tathāgatagarbha and which one is the manas. What would be the result of doing this? Is it that you want to become enlightened just like that—extremely convenient, saving worry and effort, without having to painstakingly study anything, cultivate anything, or investigate anything?

Each person's cultivation is each person's own attainment; do not expect to easily receive detailed and specific help from others. Whatever should be done by whom must be done by that person; no one can substitute for another, and substitution is impossible. If the Buddha could become enlightened and attain buddhahood on behalf of sentient beings, He would only need to tell sentient beings all the secrets and checkpoints along the path from sentient being to buddhahood, and describe to them the scenery of the buddha ground. Once sentient beings fully understood and knew it, they would become buddhas—how wonderful would that be? It would save the Buddha worry and save sentient beings effort, and everyone would be joyful. Could this actually work?

What should be done by the seven consciousnesses cannot be substituted by the tathāgatagarbha, and what should be done by the tathāgatagarbha cannot be substituted by the seven consciousnesses. Otherwise, if the tathāgatagarbha alone existed, it could solve all problems, and the seven consciousnesses could do whatever they pleased—sleeping all day long or even perishing would be fine. In reality, it is not like this at all: whoever eats a meal is the one who gets full.