What is Freedom from Marks?

What is meant by being free from marks is to have the six consciousnesses depart from all illusory marks in the world, not taking these illusory marks as real, and thereby being able to break through the illusory view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) and recognize the true reality of both the mundane and supramundane. And the one who is truly free from all marks is the tathāgatagarbha mind-substance, which is originally free from all marks and has no appearance of any kind.

What is meant by "departing" is peeling away and excluding; what is meant by excluding is not taking the arising-and-ceasing illusory dharmas of the world as real. One observes that any dharma existing in the world is impermanent, arising and ceasing, subject to change, suffering, and illusory. Any dharma possessing these characteristics is not a real dharma, and thus the mind can no longer take these dharmas as real.

After negating these illusory dharmas one by one, we can then search among these illusory dharmas to find which dharma, exactly, is originally free from all marks, unborn and unceasing, ever-present, unchanging, and not empty yet possessing real function. If we find a dharma and believe that it is thusness (tathatā), the true self, then we must compare it with the nature of the emptiness-mind described in the Heart Sutra, observing whether this dharma has increase and decrease, whether it undergoes change, whether it exhibits arising, ceasing, and impermanence, whether it is mutable and impermanent, whether it lacks self-mastery (avaśatā), whether it is born of causes and conditions, and whether it is constrained by many causal conditions.

If it is like this, then it is an arising-and-ceasing illusory dharma. If it is not like this, and it truly accords with the nature described in the Heart Sutra—neither arising nor ceasing, neither defiled nor pure (na saṃkleśo na vyavadānam), neither increasing nor decreasing, neither empty nor existent—then it is the true, eternal, unchanging thusness, the tathāgatagarbha. Only then has one found the true mind of ultimate reality (dharmatā-citta), and only then has one genuinely realized the original mind of the tathāgatagarbha.

Therefore, the method of peeling away is not about destroying anything, but about confirming the illusory, unreal nature of worldly dharmas, not taking them as real. After all have been peeled away, what remains—unborn, unceasing, and unchanging—is the real. This method does not ask us to sit in meditation and cultivate meditative concentration (samādhi), extinguishing the perceiving mind; if the perceiving mind were extinguished, one could not know which is the true thusness tathāgatagarbha, and could not attain seeing the mind and enlightenment.

Moreover, realizing the true mind, the tathāgatagarbha, does not necessarily occur during sitting meditation and cultivating meditative concentration, when the perceiving mind becomes slightly purer and free of wandering thoughts, and one takes this to be enlightenment. Because at such a time the mind consciousness merely temporarily has no wandering thoughts and seems purified; after a while, the wandering thoughts of the mind consciousness will reappear—it is impossible to permanently maintain clarity without a single wandering thought. Even if there were never any wandering thoughts and it were forever pure, it would still be the mind consciousness; He can never become the true mind. This is a phenomenon of arising, ceasing, and change in the mental sense-object realm of wandering thoughts, not the unchanging mind of thusness. At such a time it is merely a temporary state of some meditative concentration, not a state of enlightenment, and therefore it must not be taken up and accepted as a real dharma.

Then what are the illusory dharmas of the world? Worldly dharmas are mundane dharmas—the dharmas of the five-aggregate world, including the six faculties, six sense-objects, and six consciousnesses. The six faculties are the eye faculty, ear faculty, nose faculty, tongue faculty, body faculty, and manas; the six consciousnesses are the eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, and mind consciousness; the six sense-objects are form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharma. Corresponding to the eye faculty is the form sense-object; corresponding to the ear faculty is the sound sense-object; corresponding to the nose faculty is the smell sense-object; corresponding to the tongue faculty is the taste sense-object; corresponding to the body faculty is the touch sense-object; corresponding to the manas is the dharma sense-object.

The five aggregates are the aggregate of form, aggregate of feeling, aggregate of perception, aggregate of volitional formations, and aggregate of consciousness. The five aggregates and eighteen realms constitute the entire world of the three realms, and every dharma within them is illusory, arising-ceasing and mutable, impermanent. The five-aggregate world consists entirely of conditioned dharmas—dharmas with actions and fabrications, dharmas born afterward—and that is precisely why they are illusory. The supramundane dharma refers to the tathāgatagarbha; He is not within the world of the three realms and has no dharma that stands opposed to Him, and that is precisely why He is the real dharma.