What Does "Clinging to Craving but Not Clinging to Dharma" Mean?

Lankavatara Sutra Original Text:

The Buddha said: What is called greed is grasping, rejecting, contacting, or savoring. When the mind is bound to external objects, one falls into dualistic views and gives rise to the aggregates of suffering—birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, and distress. All such afflictions arise from craving. This is due to familiarity with worldly theories and those who espouse them. I and all Buddhas designate this as greed. This is called embracing greed and desires, not embracing the Dharma.

Mahamati, what is embracing the Dharma? It means skillfully awakening to the self-aware measure of one’s own mind, realizing the selflessness of persons and the selflessness of phenomena. When conceptualizations cease, one skillfully knows the highest stages, transcends mind, mental faculty, and consciousness, and is fully endowed with the wisdom anointment of all Buddhas. Embracing the ten infinite expressions, one attains effortless mastery over all dharmas. This is called the Dharma. It means not falling into any views, any falsehood, any conceptualization, any nature, or any dualistic extremes.

Brief Explanation:

Having a mind that either grasps or rejects, contacts or indulges in all things—binding the mind to these dust-like objects—is a manifestation of greed and attachment. All such states lead to falling into the aggregates of suffering, making birth, aging, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, and distress inevitable.

All faults and calamities of birth and death entirely arise from greed and craving. Through habitual familiarity with worldly theories and close association with worldly methods, greed for worldly dharmas arises. The Buddha stated that such beings embrace greed and not the Dharma.

What is embracing the Dharma? It means skillfully discerning that all dharmas known and contacted are manifestations of one’s own mind—arising from the combined functions of the three transforming consciousnesses and born dependent on the true eighth consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), not existing inherently. The eighth consciousness is the primary mind capable of giving birth to dharmas; the seventh consciousness is the secondary mind that prompts the birth and manifestation of dharmas; the six consciousnesses are the tertiary minds that manifest dharmas. When these three unite, all dharmas function.

When encountering all dharmas, one must clearly realize the selflessness of the five aggregates and eighteen elements, and recognize that all phenomenal characteristics lack self-nature, inherent existence, and are instead born, impermanent, changing, and unreliable. Thus, one no longer generates thoughts about dharmas, the mind no longer depends on them, and no mental engagement arises toward them. One ceases to produce attachments or discriminations—such as good or evil, right or wrong, beneficial or harmful—regarding these dharmas.

Realizing that all dharmas are selfless and unreal—born from one’s own conceptualizations—one no longer engages in deliberate mental effort. This leads to freedom from attachment and the suffering of birth and death. Without mental engagement, one does not specially manage or treat phenomena. Events come, and one responds without mental involvement; events cease, and the mind retains no attachment. The mind is unbound, unobstructed, free and at ease. All dharmas arise and cease on their own, coming and going—having nothing to do with oneself. This is great liberation.