Your Mind Is Not to Be Trusted

When can one fully understand and clearly perceive human affairs, people, and phenomena? The Buddha said: before attaining the fourth fruit of arhatship, do not trust your own mind, for your mind is not to be trusted. The bodily, verbal, and mental actions of sentient beings are not pure; their minds are defiled and have ignorance, so when they look at problems they cannot see them clearly, and they cannot correctly know human affairs and phenomena. Consequently, what manifests is incorrect bodily, verbal, and mental actions, or even evil ones. Even after awakening to the true mind and seeing one's nature, there are still afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion within the mind, and there is still ignorance. If a bodhisattva has not attained the fruit of the third or fourth stage, he likewise still has afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion; these afflictions will still manifest, and he may still create evil karma of body, speech, and mind—but the bodhisattva's afflictions and karma are just somewhat lighter than those of ordinary beings.

Only upon entering the first bhūmi can afflictions be effectively subdued. When entering the first bhūmi, a bodhisattva must be a third-fruit or fourth-fruit person; all afflictions have been effectively subdued, wisdom has become deep and vast, the mind becomes pure, and one can reach an initial stage of the untainted. When the mind can reach this initial untainted state, one has both meditative concentration and wisdom, and only then can one see certain people and affairs clearly and distinctly. His bodily, verbal, and mental actions will certainly be purer than those of others; only at this point can one have self-confidence and trust one's own mind. Of course, in many cases this varies from person to person and cannot be generalized. Before this, we should not be too self-confident; we will make mistakes in viewing people, affairs, and problems, because we lack the wisdom to discern.

In short, when consciousness is not pure, views are not pure; when views are not pure, discernment is not pure; when discernment is not pure, perception is not pure; when perception is not pure, speech is not pure; when speech is not pure, action is not pure. Because the seven consciousnesses have defiled ignorance, the bodily, verbal, and mental actions are all impure; when bodily, verbal, and mental actions are impure, karmic seeds are impure; when karmic seeds are impure, karmic retribution is impure. The impurity of these karmic seeds causes the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the next life to remain impure, so that life after life one is never pure, and thus the cycle of birth and death continues without end. It is evident how important it is in learning Buddhism and cultivating practice to eliminate ignorance and remove defilement!