What Is Needed to Attain Realization

Answer: First of all, all of this knowledge of yours comes from theoretical learning; it belongs to the category of inference, speculation, and mental conjecture, and none of it can be taken as real. Therefore, knowing these things has no substantive effect on your own mind; in fact, this kind of knowing is tantamount to not knowing. You are still completely in the dark about the operation of the several consciousnesses. When you encounter adverse conditions, your doubt will increase, and you may even deny these previous understandings, and your views may turn to the opposite. Truly seeing the tathāgatagarbha means realizing and knowing the tathāgatagarbha, not reasoning about it based on theory. Realizing the tathāgatagarbha requires many causes, conditions, and prerequisites: first, karmic obstructions must be eliminated, merit must increase, meditative concentration must be complete, faith must be perfect, the precepts must be strictly upheld, one's capacity for forbearance must be good, and one must be diligent in cultivating all these dharmas; finally, prajñā wisdom must also be complete. 

In short, realizing the tathāgatagarbha requires transforming the ordinary person's mind into the disposition of a bodhisattva; in every respect one must be a match for a bodhisattva: afflictions and innate afflictive obstructions (kleśāvaraṇa) must be lightened, the great merit of a bodhisattva must be complete, one's mental capacity must be as vast as a bodhisattva's, one must constantly accord with sentient beings, make great aspirations to benefit and bring joy to sentient beings, and one's precepts, samādhi, and wisdom must be close to a bodhisattva's. This is like being reborn with a completely new body and mind—both body-mind and world must undergo a certain transformation, with a marked difference from and great progress beyond the stage of an ordinary person. In short, one must be complete in the bodhisattva's six pāramitās and myriad practices; if one falls short, one cannot see the Path and become a true bodhisattva. From now on, you should systematically perfect and improve yourself with a plan and in steps, and wait for the ripening of causes and conditions and the proper season. Do not have an anxious, impatient mind; do not worry about gain and loss; do not have a utilitarian mindset. Let your aspiration be great: strive on the level of causes, and accord with conditions on the level of fruits.