"The True Face of Mount Lu: Why Can't We See It While Within? What Does This Mean?"

If Mount Lu is likened to mundane phenomena, the reason we fail to perceive the hypocrisy, illusion, and unreality of the mundane, or recognize the suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and selflessness inherent in mundane phenomena, is that our minds are too closely attached to them. We are even completely dissolved into mundane phenomena, leaving no gap in between, causing the mind to be entirely obscured by them. As a result, life after life and generation after generation, we experience joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure within mundane phenomena, being controlled and bound by them, with our body and mind unable to attain freedom and liberation. How, then, can we achieve liberation?

If Mount Lu is likened to the deluded mind of the seventh consciousness, how can we recognize the arising, ceasing, change, and insubstantiality of this deluded mind? To objectively observe our own mind and recognize our thought activities, we must extract the mind and then turn back to examine it from a certain distance, standing at a certain height to observe our thought activities objectively. Alternatively, we can observe it as if it were the mind of another person; this will yield a more impartial and fair assessment.

If Mount Lu is likened to the five aggregates, we have dwelt within these aggregates for countless lifetimes yet remain unaware that the five aggregates are devoid of self, ignorant of their impermanence, arising, ceasing, and changing, and oblivious to their nature of suffering and emptiness. To thoroughly reexamine the true nature of the five aggregates, we must observe them according to the Four Noble Truths taught by the Buddha. To recognize the true essence of the five-aggregate body, we must study the Mahayana Prajna and investigate the Tathagatagarbha within the five aggregates. Only then will we realize that the original nature of the five-aggregate body is none other than the Tathagatagarbha. The five-aggregate body is but an illusory manifestation conjured by the Tathagatagarbha, with the truth concealed within it, performing its magical transformations, unfathomable to the worldly mind.