Commentary on the Sutra of the Compendium of Father and Son, Part 170

The Essence of Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna Practices

Cultivating the Way means cultivating the mind. To cultivate the mind effectively, one must first recognize the illusory and unreal nature of one's own mind and the illusory unreality of the six dust realms to which it clings. Only then can one cultivate meditative concentration and contemplation to eradicate the mind's false cravings, desires, thoughts, and sensations, thereby severing its afflictions and ignorance. This leads to liberation from the suffering of birth-and-death rebirth. This is the practice of Hīnayāna. The practice of Mahāyāna involves realizing the mind through enlightenment, finding the ālaya-vijñāna, understanding where it operates, what functions it performs, how it functions, how it interacts with the deluded mind, how it generates all dharmas, and how it manifests our conscious mind. Upon finding the ālaya-vijñāna mind, one attains realization of its unborn and undying nature. Simultaneously, one realizes that it gives rise to the self composed of the five aggregates; thus, the five aggregates born from it are empty, illusory, and unreal, and the eighteen elements (dharmāyatana) it produces are also empty, illusory, and unreal. This realization simultaneously confirms the Hīnayāna fruit of emptiness. At the moment of our enlightenment, we attain not only the Mahāyāna fruit but also the Hīnayāna fruit simultaneously. However, while attaining the Hīnayāna fruit of emptiness may not necessarily entail simultaneous attainment of the Mahāyāna Bodhisattva fruit, when we attain the Mahāyāna Bodhisattva fruit, we will always simultaneously attain the Hīnayāna fruit of Stream-Entry (Srotāpanna), along with the elimination of karmic seeds leading to the three evil paths.