The Standard of Mind Liberation

When the first dhyāna manifests, no matter what circumstances arise externally, no matter how others treat you, afflictions will not arise in the mind. Although you may sometimes feel sad, that is only on the surface and cannot enter the depths of the mind. At that time the mind is like walls of bronze and iron—nothing enters from outside, nothing escapes from within; external insults cannot truly touch the inner mind, and the mind has a layer of protective membrane. This state is called afflictions not invading the mind, the mind not giving rise to afflictions. This is the state described in the Āgama sūtras: the mind being at ease, the mind attaining liberation.

When you cultivate to this point, you will benefit life after life. Therefore, before the second fruit, the mind is neither at ease nor liberated, because it is bound up with the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion. Liberation of the mind is primarily a matter of the manas; only when the manas is replete with greed, anger, and delusion does it prompt the six consciousnesses to create karmic actions of greed, anger, and delusion. The mind consciousness is even more liberated, and the first five consciousnesses are also liberated—the eye does not crave forms, and the five consciousnesses do not crave forms, sounds, smells, tastes, or touches. As long as the seventh consciousness, the manas, has eradicated the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi), there is a portion of liberating merit and benefit to be enjoyed; after eradicating self-grasping, one is completely liberated from the bondage of worldly dharmas of the three realms, and has the ability to extinguish oneself—that is the state of arhats of the third and fourth fruits, who at the end of life have the ability to attain liberation from the three realms. True liberation of the mind is the fourth fruit, where the conceit "I am" is completely severed and all five higher fetters are eliminated, such that one can personally verify that one will have no further existence.