Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (135)

Someone may ask: if nothing can be attained, then what are we still cultivating for? Cultivation means first understanding the principle that all dharmas are unattainable, then realizing that all dharmas are indeed unattainable, and finally, with the mind utterly empty, attaining great liberation, no longer bound by the notion of attainment, and thereby being liberated from all the suffering of birth and death. Even though there is truly nothing to be attained, we must still attain this dharma of non-attainment; otherwise, the cycle of birth and death will not cease.

All dharmas are illusory and unattainable. The suffering retribution we undergo is unreal, yet none of us wishes to undergo suffering retribution; committing evil deeds is unreal, yet we should not commit evil karmic actions; killing is unreal, yet we should not kill; hell is unreal, yet none of us is willing to go there; becoming a Buddha is unreal, yet we all wish to become a Buddha. This is what cultivation is like: false dharmas have the function of false dharmas, and the true has the function of the true. Since they cannot all be eliminated, we must make the false dharmas better and purer. Our seventh consciousness mind is false, yet it has a great function, so we must surely make it function in wholesome ways. We cannot abandon and discard the false altogether—that would not lead to buddhahood. This dialectic may seem contradictory, but after attaining realization, one will know that it is not contradictory at all.