Are Cultivating Meditative Concentration and Eliminating the Five Hindrances Contaminated Dharmas (sāsrava-dharma)?

Some people say that sitting in meditation to cultivate samādhi and cultivating the elimination of the five hindrances are both grasping at signs and discriminating, which is the same method of practice as that of the non-Buddhists; that this belongs to primarily cultivating non-definitive dharma, and therefore true-suchness samādhi cannot be brought forth; that this should be treated as a major leakage, and should be abandoned and not practiced. This view is extremely perverse and gravely contradicts the Buddha's teaching and the Bodhisattvas' teaching—it is hardly something a disciple of the Buddha should say. Such a view shows that this person simply does not understand the main content of cultivating the Path, does not know what exactly should be cultivated and how to cultivate it, does not know the stages and process of cultivating the Path, does not know the transitions of cultivating the Path, and also cannot directly reach the result of practice and the final goal; the result is that they have no Path at all, amount to nothing, talk loftily with empty words, and have an empty belly. 

If cultivating samādhi and cultivating the elimination of the five hindrances are grasping at signs and discriminating, then studying the Buddhadharma is even more so grasping at signs and discriminating. If one does not grasp at signs and discriminate, then one should not even study the Buddhadharma, need not cultivate even wholesome dharmas, and should not cultivate the four stations of mindfulness, the thirty-seven factors of the Path, the Bodhisattva's six pāramitās, or the threefold training of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom. Studying Buddhism is itself grasping at signs and discriminating—otherwise why not go study qigong or Christianity? Why not go preach the Dharma in a Christian church? Why not sleep all day instead of going to work? Who can avoid grasping at signs and discriminating? Apart from the Buddha and the tathāgatagarbha—but when the Buddha saves sentient beings, is that not grasping at signs and discriminating? Teaching the four noble truths to śrāvakas, teaching the twelve links of dependent arising to pratyekabuddhas, and teaching the six pāramitās and myriad practices to bodhisattvas—are these not grasping at signs and discriminating? Not teaching Consciousness-Only to beginners—is that not grasping at signs and discriminating? Was the Buddha's not handing over the leadership of the Saṅgha to Devadatta not grasping at signs and discriminating? Was the Buddha's renouncing the throne, his wife, and his son to leave home and cultivate the Path not grasping at signs and discriminating? Was eating one hemp seed and one grain of wheat a day in the mountains not grasping at signs and discriminating? Was teaching the five bhikṣus at Deer Park not grasping at signs and discriminating?
Apart from the tathāgatagarbha, both sentient beings and Buddhas cannot avoid grasping at signs and discriminating. If all grasping at signs and discriminating were leakage, then the grasping at signs and discriminating of bacteria would be the lightest—they can hardly discriminate anything and cannot grasp that many signs, because of their extreme foolishness. Could it be said that humans have more and greater leakage than bacteria? All kinds of taking up and letting go are grasping at signs and discriminating; in the mundane world and in all Buddha-lands, one cannot do without taking up and letting go. There is no one who does not take up and let go, including all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas; it is only a matter of how to take up and let go, involving the question of what to take up and what to let go. Being skilled at taking up, letting go, and discriminating is an immense wisdom; without wisdom, one cannot correctly take up, let go, and discriminate. 

As for bringing forth true-suchness samādhi: one kind is samādhi purely of the nature of meditative concentration, and one kind is true-suchness samādhi of meditative concentration plus prajñā wisdom. Apart from meditative concentration, no samādhi of even the slightest degree exists.

Sitting in meditation to cultivate samādhi and eliminating the five hindrances are methods of cultivating the Path that the Buddha taught as indispensable; whether students of the Great or Small Vehicle, none can skip over them without cultivating them. Without cultivating samādhi, one cannot realize the Path; without eliminating the five hindrances, one cannot sever ignorance and afflictions. To advocate not cultivating meditative concentration and not eliminating the five hindrances—is this wanting to stand in opposition to the Buddha, defying the Buddha and the Buddhadharma, or is it thinking oneself superior to the Buddha, more brilliant and more versed in cultivating the Path? Do you hope to become a Buddha while forever carrying a scattered mind of superficial thinking and inference, carrying the five hindrances and all afflictions and ignorance? If the dharmas the Buddha stipulated as mandatory to cultivate are dharmas with leakage, then what dharma has no leakage? The tathāgatagarbha has no leakage, but are your seven consciousnesses and five aggregates the tathāgatagarbha? Can the tathāgatagarbha represent the five aggregates and seven consciousnesses? How are the leakages of the seven consciousnesses and five aggregates to be dealt with? Can a superficial, scattered mind of emotional thought and intellectual interpretation deal with so many and such great afflictive leakages? In the Dharma-ending age, there are truly so many strange people and strange things in the mundane world and in Buddhism that they simply exceed human imagination—and yet there are still so many people who flock after them, who knows for what. Time flies like a shuttle, gone in the blink of an eye; better to rely on the Dharma and no longer rely on persons.