When Can Cultivation Reach Home?

Feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness are all empty and without self—then who is doing the feeling, perceiving, forming, and cognizing? The seventh consciousness that can feel, perceive, form, and cognize is empty and without self. The mind consciousness that can observe that feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness are empty is empty and without self. The mind consciousness that knows the observer is empty is empty and without self. The conscious mind that knows all dharmas are empty and without self is itself empty and without self. Whatever has knowing, thought, or ideation in the mind is all empty and without self. In the chapter on Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva's perfect penetration through the faculty of hearing, all dharmas are emptied out—the dharmas that can empty and those that are emptied are all emptied out—and in the end what remains is the one thing that truly cannot be emptied, which is the tathāgatagarbha of one's own mind. Yet one does not abide on this tathāgatagarbha of one's own mind—then one's practice has reached its destination.