Commentary on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (170)

Cultivating the path is cultivating the mind. To cultivate the mind well, one must first recognize that one's own mind is illusory and unreal, and that the six sense objects one craves are illusory and unreal. Only then, by cultivating meditative concentration and contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), can one extinguish the mind's delusive craving, desires, thoughts, and feelings, and cut off the mind's afflictions and ignorance. In this way one can be free from the suffering of birth-and-death in saṃsāra—this is the Hīnayāna method of practice. The Mahāyāna method of practice is to awaken to the true mind and attain realization, to find the ālayavijñāna, to know where He operates, what functions He performs, how He functions, how He merges with the deluded mind, how He produces all dharmas, and how He manifests our conscious mind. After finding the ālayavijñāna mind, one realizes His unborn and undying nature, and at the same time comes to know that it is He who produces the five-aggregate body of self. Therefore, the five aggregates that He gives birth to are empty, illusory, and conjured; the eighteen realms that He gives birth to are empty, conjured, and unreal. At the same time, this also realizes the Hīnayāna fruit of emptiness. At the moment of our enlightenment, we not only attain the Mahāyāna fruit, but also attain the Hīnayāna fruit—both fruits are attained simultaneously. Whereas realizing the Hīnayāna fruit of emptiness does not necessarily mean simultaneously realizing the Mahāyāna bodhisattva fruit, when we realize the Mahāyāna bodhisattva fruit, we certainly at the same time attain the fruit of the Hīnayāna first fruit, and likewise the karmic seeds of the three evil destinies are extinguished.