Eradicating the View of Self Is No Easy Task

Beginners in Buddhism all have doubts. If doubts are not resolved, they will obstruct progress on the path. One should therefore find ways to resolve them: first, by asking others to dispel one's doubts; second, after asking, by thinking it through oneself, searching for evidence, and personally resolving the doubts.

When there are clearly so many doubts, instead of resolving them, one merely covers them up by cultivating meditative concentration—how can doubts then be dispelled and wisdom be attained?

In order not to take the body as self, one goes imagining that insentient objects are one's own body—various imaginings—yet never contemplates why the physical body is not the self. In this way there is still a self of the physical body, and one remains bound, unable to attain liberation. Then, without having eradicated the view of self regarding the physical body, one goes imagining that the functions and activities of the conscious mind are not the self. These imaginings are still craving for pleasant feelings—replacing the present feeling of suffering with another imagined feeling of pleasure. One does not carefully contemplate and practice contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) on why all feelings are not the self, are not real, and why they arise, cease, change, and are impermanent. Not contemplating thus in accordance with reality, but instead escaping reality and indulging in imagination, is also a form of craving and bondage. Everything that follows is like this—imagination and intellectual speculation, without contemplative practice, experience, or process. This is not genuine cultivation; it is escaping from reality.

Those who are good at mathematics, physics, and chemistry have excellent logical thinking, which can be put to practical use in the contemplative practice of the Buddha-dharma. Whereas literati and scholars study Buddhism entirely through research and intellectual speculation; they do not understand contemplative practice and cannot think in accordance with reality. As a result, because literati have good comprehension, good research ability, and good writing skills, although they have realized nothing at all, theoretical essays emerge one after another, dazzling people's eyes and bewildering them all.

How many people in this world have opened their eyes, possessing eyes like Sun Wukong's fiery golden gaze that can see through all disguises and restore all truths? Studying Buddhism and cultivating the path is not about pursuing some fruit of attainment, seeking some fruit to eat, but about genuinely attaining the wisdom of liberation, so that the mind-ground reaches liberation—this is the fundamental goal and purpose of cultivation. Pursuing stages of attainment and empty fame is abandoning the root in pursuit of the branches: originally there was no liberation, and now an additional bondage is added, tying another rope around oneself—why suffer this? Pursuing vanity—is that not still a self? How could the view of self be eradicated? In the Dharma-ending age, sentient beings have meager merit (alpa-puṇya), and their cultivation is all done in an inverted way. Clearly one is supposed to break the view of self, yet at every moment one increases the view of self; clearly one is supposed to be without self, yet everywhere there is self. The essential meaning of cultivation has not been understood, nor is there any desire to understand it. Studying Buddhism is still for the sake of a self—"I want this and that"—which runs counter to the Way: the more one pursues, the faster one runs; the more one fabricates, the farther one strays from the Path. Eradicating the view of self is truly difficult, not an easy thing. It is not like some people who read a few books, mull things over a bit, and then stuff the fruit of no-self into their pocket. It is still far too early, still far away—the long march of eighty-four thousand li has only just begun. Being anxious to attain the fruit is still a self, not beyond my own mind. "I want to realize the fruit, I want to realize the fruit"—with this self, how can the fruit be realized? "I want to become a sage, I want to become a sage"—with this self, how can one be a sage?