All Dharmas Are Without Self (III)

The selflessness (anātman) of the eighth consciousness refers, first, to the fact that the eighth consciousness still contains seeds that arise and cease moment by moment; these seeds are still subject to change and are not fixed, and therefore the eighth consciousness is not truly unchanging, is not permanent and eternal, and so is not yet completely and genuinely the true self. Only that which does not arise, cease, or change is the true self. Second, it refers to the fact that the eighth consciousness does not know that it is the true dharma, and it does not exercise mastery. The seventh consciousness, however, has a sense of self and can exercise mastery; it takes all dharmas as self, which is exactly the opposite of the eighth consciousness. The eighth consciousness is the true self, but this true self possesses the characteristic of selflessness. The five aggregates are a false self, yet on the surface they appear to have a self-nature; the tathāgatagarbha is the true self—this is a title we confer upon Him, but He Himself does not consider it so, nor is He aware of this matter.

All dharmas produced through the successive combination of the five aggregates and the eighteen realms are likewise manifested through the sustaining function of the eighth consciousness. If there were no eighth consciousness, there would be none of these dharmas; therefore all dharmas are selfless and illusory, and the five aggregates themselves have nothing to do with it. When one realizes in this way a small portion of the selflessness of dharmas, one attains the wisdom of the varieties of paths. After entering the first bhūmi, one must realize the selflessness of the one hundred dharmas, and there will be the accomplishment of the contemplation like a mirror image; after entering the second bhūmi, one must realize the selflessness of the one thousand dharmas, and there will be the accomplishment of the contemplation like light and shadow; after entering the third bhūmi, one will realize the selflessness of the ten thousand dharmas and of immeasurable dharmas, and one's wisdom will become ever deeper. Thus, the selflessness of all dharmas has a content that is immeasurable, boundless, and vast; only the Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, can realize it completely and thoroughly, becoming the ultimate, perfectly consummated, unsurpassed wise ones.

In the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Buddha said that the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna) at the buddha-bhūmi is called permanence, bliss, self, and purity. "Permanence" means that it is already ultimate and will never change again; the seeds it contains no longer exhibit any phenomenon of arising, ceasing, or change. "Self": the undefiled consciousness has twenty-one mental factors (caittas) and is the genuine self, the complete self, fully endowed with self-nature. The Buddhas are utterly selfless—this means that the seven consciousnesses of the Buddha have reached the ultimate, complete, and thorough selflessness. Before this, it is not yet ultimate and thorough selflessness; there remains some portion, or a small portion, of self not yet eradicated, and therefore one cannot yet become a Buddha; when it is fully eradicated, one can become a Buddha. The consciousness-mind possesses self-validating cognition (svasaṃvedana) and has the ability to introspect upon itself—that is having self-nature. The undefiled consciousness at the buddha-bhūmi can prove its own existence and can introspect upon itself, and therefore it has self-nature.

"No self, no self in any of the dharmas"—that is the dharma cultivated by the Small Vehicle. The annihilatory emptiness (uccheda-śūnyatā) of the non-Buddhists also holds that all dharmas are empty, that there is nothing real, no self, and that everything ends once and for all; they do not acknowledge the existence of the true self, the real and imperishable eighth consciousness, and therefore they are called non-Buddhists. The śrāvakas of the Small Vehicle all acknowledge that there exists a true self, the eighth consciousness; they simply cannot realize it. The non-Buddhists do not acknowledge it at all, and therefore they are called non-Buddhists.