The Question of Successful Transformation of the Basis after Enlightenment

Regarding the question of enlightenment and successful transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti), the one who has truly and thoroughly succeeded in transforming the basis as tathāgatagarbha's pure, unconditioned nature is the World-Honored Buddha, whose mind has already been completely and ultimately pure without remainder, with ignorance exhausted and defilements exhausted. Through cultivation over three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas, after the World-Honored Buddha saw the mind and attained enlightenment, He continuously observed, in the workings of His own and others' five aggregates of body and mind, the purity and selflessness of the tathāgatagarbha when it creates worldly conditioned dharmas. Little by little, the sixth and seventh consciousnesses were influenced and shaken by this, little by little they followed and learned from it, little by little they transformed their defiled nature into a pure nature, becoming ever more selfless. First He eradicated the attachment to self, then He eradicated the attachment to dharmas; His mind became ever more empty, ever more unconditioned, ever more resembling the tathāgatagarbha, with the transformation of the basis growing ever deeper, until He was utterly selfless and had exhausted all ignorance—only then was the transformation of the basis ultimately successful.

As for all other bodhisattvas, only after truly seeing the mind and attaining enlightenment do their sixth and seventh consciousnesses begin, little by little, to transform the basis toward the pure essence of the tathāgatagarbha. As a portion of the basis is transformed, a portion of the defiled nature is eliminated and a portion of the pure nature increases; the bodhisattva's wisdom grows by a portion, and their stage of attainment leaps forward one level, all the way until buddhahood.

If one has not truly attained enlightenment, but has only an intellectual understanding or a false enlightenment—merely learning a hidden meaning, knowing an outcome, without the process of actual practice in between—then one cannot touch upon the matter of transforming the basis as tathāgatagarbha; it has nothing to do with transforming the basis as tathāgatagarbha. Because one has not realized the tathāgatagarbha, one cannot observe its operation directly in the present, and does not know how the tathāgatagarbha is pure. When the sixth and seventh consciousnesses have found no model to emulate, they cannot follow and learn from it, and the mind will not become pure.

The power of a model is boundless. As the saying goes, one who stays near vermilion gets stained red, and one who stays near ink gets stained black; one who stays near the tathāgatagarbha will inevitably become selfless and pure like the tathāgatagarbha, with a mind unconditioned amid the conditioned. Without truly realizing the tathāgatagarbha, one stays near the five aggregates and near afflictions, and the mind cannot become pure, cannot become unconditioned, and lacks the unconditioned nature.

Why is the notion of "regression" so prevalent in Buddhism today? It is because many people lack genuine practice and realization, lack the process of investigation in between, and even more lack the process of contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) to eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa), so none of them have actual practice and realization. Moreover, most people have insufficient meditative concentration (samādhi) and poor meditative power, and they do not know how to engage in contemplative practice and deliberation (manasikāra/manana) or investigation. What they awaken to is not genuine—they only know an outcome, which they either heard from others or guessed at. None of these are true awakening, hence the talk of regression. In fact, they have never cultivated their way to the tathāgatagarbha at all, so the question of regression does not even arise, nor does the question of transforming the basis as tathāgatagarbha. If one must insist that only successful transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti) counts as enlightenment, then before the transformation of the basis succeeds, one has at most an intellectual understanding, not realized enlightenment.