Are the cultivation of meditative concentration and the removal of the five hindrances dharmas with outflows?

Some people say that sitting in meditation to cultivate meditative concentration (samādhi) and cultivating the removal of the five hindrances are both grasping at marks and discriminating, the same method of practice as that of the non-Buddhists; that this belongs to cultivating non-definitive dharma as the main practice, and therefore true-suchness meditative concentration (suchness samādhi) cannot arise; that this should be treated as a major leakage, should be abandoned, and should not be cultivated. This view is extremely perverse and gravely contradicts the Buddha's teachings and the bodhisattva teachings; it is simply not something a disciple of the Buddha should say. Such views show that this person fundamentally 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 sequence and process of cultivating the Path, does not know the transitions of cultivating the Path, and cannot directly reach the result of practice and the ultimate goal; the result is that they have no Path at all, are nothing at all, talk loftily with empty words, and are empty inside.  

If cultivating meditative concentration and cultivating the removal of the five hindrances are grasping at marks and discriminating, then studying the Buddha-dharma is even more so grasping at marks and discriminating. If one does not grasp at marks and discriminate, then one should not even study the Buddha-dharma, need not cultivate even wholesome dharmas, and should not cultivate the four stations of mindfulness, the thirty-seven factors of the Path, the bodhisattvas' six pāramitās, or the threefold training of precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom. Studying Buddhism itself is grasping at marks and discriminating—otherwise why not go study qigong or Christianity instead? Why not go preach the dharma in a Christian church? Why not sleep all day long instead of going to work? What kind of person can avoid grasping at marks and discriminating? Apart from the Buddha and the tathāgatagarbha—but is the Buddha's saving of sentient beings not grasping at marks and discriminating? Teaching the four noble truths to the śrāvakas, teaching the twelve links of dependent origination to the pratyekabuddhas, and teaching the six pāramitās and myriad practices to the bodhisattvas—are these not grasping at marks and discriminating? Is not teaching the Consciousness-Only dharma to beginners at the foundational stage a matter of grasping at marks and discriminating? Was the Buddha's not handing over the leadership of the saṅgha to Devadatta not grasping at marks and discriminating? Was the Buddha's renouncing the throne, his wife, and his son to leave home and cultivate the Path not grasping at marks and discriminating? Was eating one hemp seed and one grain of wheat a day in the mountains not grasping at marks and discriminating? Was delivering the five bhikṣus at Deer Park not grasping at marks and discriminating?
Apart from the tathāgatagarbha, both sentient beings and Buddhas cannot avoid grasping at marks and discriminating. If all grasping at marks and discriminating were leakage, then bacteria's grasping at marks and discriminating would be the lightest—they can hardly discriminate anything and cannot grasp so many marks, because of their extreme ignorance. Could it be said then that humans have more and greater leakage than bacteria? All kinds of taking up and letting go are grasping at marks and discriminating; in the mundane world and in all Buddha-lands, one cannot be apart from taking up and letting go. There is no one who does not take up and let go, including all Buddhas and bodhisattvas; the question is only how to take up and let go, involving 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 take up, let go, and discriminate correctly.  

As for the arising of true-suchness meditative concentration: one kind is a samādhi purely of the nature of meditative concentration; the other is the true-suchness samādhi of meditative concentration combined with prajñā wisdom. Apart from meditative concentration, no samādhi of even the slightest degree exists.

Sitting in meditation to cultivate meditative concentration and removing 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 meditative concentration, one cannot realize the Path; without removing the five hindrances, one cannot eradicate ignorance and afflictions. To advocate not cultivating meditative concentration and not removing the five hindrances—is this wanting to stand in opposition to the Buddha, defying the Buddha and the Buddha-dharma, or does one think oneself superior to the Buddha and more knowledgeable about cultivating the Path? Does one hope to become a Buddha while forever carrying a scattered mind with shallow thinking and inference, carrying the five hindrances and all afflictions and ignorance? If the dharmas the Buddha stipulated as must-be-cultivated 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 is the leakage of the seven consciousnesses and five aggregates to be dealt with? Can handling them with a shallow, scattered mind of emotional thinking 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 so many people still flock after them—who knows what they are after. Time flies like a shuttle and passes in an instant; better to rely on the dharma and stop relying on people.