The Mind-Body Problem and Buddhist Cultivation and Realization

Question: The Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment says that all sentient beings falsely take the four great elements as the image of their own body and the conditioned shadows of the six sense objects as the image of their own mind. Once this riddle is solved, the Buddha's teaching would be complete. But how are the seeds of love and hate accumulated over many lives and many kalpas to be eliminated?

Answer: Even when the problem of body and mind is resolved, the Buddha's teaching is not yet complete; there remain the extremely numerous and extensive issues of Yogācāra seed-wisdom, which require study and cultivation. After eliminating self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), one then awakens to the true mind and sees one's nature; possessing the seed-wisdom of Yogācāra and entering the first bhūmi, the defiled seeds will gradually be cleared away. When the seeds of love and hate are completely severed, one becomes a Buddha. When the conditions present themselves, one must clear away the afflictive habitual tendencies within the mind, and thereby the defiled seeds are severed.

However, when the problems of body and mind are completely, thoroughly, and ultimately resolved, one has already become a Buddha. The Buddha's teaching exists precisely to resolve the problems of body and mind. "Body" includes the inner body, the physical body, and also the outer body, the material world (the cosmos and the vessel-world, the living environment); "mind" refers to the seven consciousnesses. When all seven consciousnesses are transformed into wisdom, the world of body and mind completely drops away and is transformed; the Sambhogakāya Buddha (saṃbhoga-kāya-buddha) and the Nirmāṇakāya (nirmāṇakāya) are both accomplished, and the world becomes a pure Buddha-land.