What Is Seeing Marks and Being Free from Marks?

Seeing marks yet being free from marks does not mean that upon seeing any mark, one leaves no mark in the mind, emptying out and discarding the marks so that the mind is pure with nothing in it. This is a method of cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi), trying as much as possible to avoid the disturbance of worldly marks upon one's mind; when the mind is not disturbed, it becomes pure. This kind of purity is the absence of thoughts and conceptions — it is a state of meditative concentration. The non-Buddhist practitioners all cultivate this kind of concentration, cultivating all the way up to the concentration of neither perception nor non-perception; at the end of life they ascend to the heavens to enjoy blessings, but when the blessings are exhausted, they fall again.

True freedom from marks, however, is that when facing worldly marks, one clearly knows in the mind what the essence of the marks is, knowing that marks are not the surface appearance presented to us — their substance is empty. "Empty" here has two senses: one is the emptiness of the Small Vehicle — suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self; the other is the emptiness of the tathāgatagarbha's emptiness/voidness (śūnyatā). This makes it clear that without realizing the fruits and without seeing the mind, one simply cannot be free from marks; one can only hide from them. Even if one can hide, it is only temporary; in the long run, one cannot hide at all — one will inevitably have to face them.

Only after realizing the eighth consciousness can one gradually become free from marks in the mind; this is a long process and cannot be accomplished in one step. This process is the process of the transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti); when the transformation of the basis is successful, the consciousnesses are transformed into wisdom, one enters the family of the Tathāgata, and possesses the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only (yogācāra). To see the eighth consciousness, one must first understand its essence and characteristics, its functions and roles, and then, carrying a questioning doubt, seek and realize it within the operation of the dharmas of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) and the eighteen realms. In the process of investigating Chan, of course one must know or realize that the functions and roles of the five aggregates and eighteen realms are not real and not self — they are empty — only then can one not attach to the marks of the five aggregates and eighteen realms as self or as real, and only then can one negate the five aggregates and eighteen realms. After all the illusory dharmas have been negated, then one raises doubt about that true dharma; investigating back and forth, when the bodhisattva's causes and conditions of the six pāramitās are complete, realization and enlightenment become possible.