The Equal Awakened Nature of True Awareness and the Equal Awakened Nature of Deluded Awareness

Awareness has true awareness and false awareness. False awareness is the mind of the seven consciousnesses; true awareness is the tathāgatagarbha. The mind of the seven consciousnesses is often able to perceive the worldly dharmas of the six sense objects; it will feel that it has deluded thoughts, that it has greed, anger, and delusion, that it has committed infractions of the precepts, and after feeling this, it corrects itself, believing that this correction is awakening. In fact, this awakening is still the awakening of the mind of the seven consciousnesses, and is of course false awareness, not true awareness. True awareness is the true suchness of the tathāgatagarbha: He never awakens to the realms of the six sense objects, does not know whether the five aggregates at this moment have deluded thoughts or not, whether they have made mistakes or not, whether they have greed, anger, and delusion or not, and He will not go about correcting them—true awareness does none of these things. He forever does not discriminate among the various realms and dharmas of the six sense objects. Therefore, when the six sense objects manifest, true awareness is forever pure and unconditioned; only false awareness is conditioned or impure. We should carefully and clearly distinguish between these two kinds of awareness in order to cultivate well.

The equalizing nature of awareness also has two kinds. One refers to the awareness that the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, inherently possesses; the other is the equalizing awareness of the knowing mind that appears later through cultivation. The true equalizing awareness is innately present, never changes or varies, and never disappears or perishes. No matter how greedy, angry, or deluded sentient beings are, the awareness of the tathāgatagarbha neither disappears nor becomes hidden. If sentient beings who have not yet awakened believe there is a self and engage in defiled karmic actions, their equalizing awareness will not disappear from view, because the tathāgatagarbha fundamentally cannot disappear or perish.

It is only that sentient beings, by clinging to the false, do not see the true, or overlook the true, and are for the time being unable to discover that there exists an equalizing awareness that has been functioning all along—this is the ignorance of sentient beings. Because sentient beings have ignorance, their tathāgatagarbha seems to be hidden; in reality it is not hidden, and still less is it absent. It is simply that sentient beings themselves have ignorance and have obscuration, so they do not see it. For those who have awakened to the Way, the tathāgatagarbha does not manifest by itself either; rather, because sentient beings have broken through beginningless ignorance (avidyā) and their minds are no longer deluded, they can constantly observe the functions and utilities of the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, whether the equalizing awareness of the tathāgatagarbha is hidden or manifest differs from person to person.

The equalizing awareness of the knowing mind cultivated later is the awareness that arises after the mind of the seven consciousnesses has removed a portion of defilement; it is subject to arising, ceasing, change, and transformation—sometimes present, and sometimes it will disappear and perish, because whatever arises must necessarily cease. The experience of non-self is also the mind consciousness, through observation, feeling that the five aggregates are without self; this is an experience of the mind consciousness, not the inherent experience of non-self of the tathāgatagarbha mind.

The non-self of the mind consciousness or the non-self of the manas must be realized through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and investigation after deeply cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi). When the sixth and seventh consciousnesses, through contemplative observation, see that there is no self within the five aggregates, no self within the eighteen realms, and no self in all the dharmas derived from the combination of the aggregates, sense bases, and realms, and confirm the non-self nature within these dharmas, they thereby realize the fruits of the Great and Small Vehicles, and in the future will attain liberation and ultimately become a Buddha. The innate equalizing awareness and the acquired equalizing awareness—both of these kinds of equalizing awareness are extremely precious. Without the first kind, there would be no second kind; and with the second kind of experience, one can attain liberation and accomplish the fruit of Buddhahood.