To Conquer the Mind Is to Conquer the World

The world is established in the void, and the void is within the Tathagatagarbha, like a small cloud dotting the vast, clear sky. The Saha world (our world) and the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss are closest to each other, yet they are separated by one hundred thousand Buddha lands. How vast, then, are the great chiliocosms, countless as grains of sand! Conquer your own mind, and you conquer the universe. Conquer your own mind, and you conquer the worlds of the ten directions. Conquer your own mind, and you conquer the Dharmadhatu of True Suchness. Take out your mind, comprehend all the dharmas within it, and the immeasurable worlds will belong to you. In truth, to conquer the world is to conquer your own mind; there is no Dharma outside the mind.

Yet, every day, we still cling to trivial worldly dharmas, generating thoughts over minor matters, which seems utterly insignificant. Observing from the perspective of cosmic emptiness, what worldly affair can truly be considered significant? When will you expand the capacity of your mind to be as vast as the Tathagatagarbha? When you do, you will possess the ocean of worlds in the ten directions. The Buddha said: "It is as if one were to disregard the clear waters of hundreds of thousands of great oceans and instead recognize only a single bubble as the entirety of the ocean tides, exhausting the vastness of the seas. You are precisely those who are doubly deluded." Hearing these words of the Buddha, we should truly awaken quickly and cease our deluded attachments.