How Is Segmented Birth-and-Death Eliminated?

All birth-and-death arises because of ignorance. Where there is ignorance, there must be corresponding karmic actions of ignorance and karmic seeds, and the karmic seeds of ignorance inevitably lead sentient beings into segmented birth-and-death and transformational birth-and-death. If one wishes to end segmented birth-and-death, one must break through ignorance; after the mind becomes pure, one must eliminate afflictions and the habits of afflictions, and dissolve the karmic seeds of ignorance. In this way, segmented birth-and-death is eliminated, and one enters the stage of transformational birth-and-death. 

What is the prerequisite for the transformation of karmic seeds? Only when the mind is transformed and one's bodily, verbal, and mental actions are transformed will the karmic seeds be transformed. What is the prerequisite for the transformation of the mind? When ignorance is broken through and afflictions are eliminated, the mind is transformed. What is the prerequisite for breaking through ignorance? Only when the cultivation of the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment, the cultivation of the bodhisattva's six pāramitās, and the cultivation of precepts, meditation, and wisdom reach a certain level will ignorance be broken through and afflictions be eliminated. Only afterward can the mind be transformed, bodily, verbal, and mental actions become pure, and karmic seeds be transformed. Only when the self-grasping of persons is eliminated and exhausted, and the self-grasping of dharmas is eliminated, can the ālayavijñāna be transformed into the vipākavijñāna (the consciousness of retribution), and segmented birth-and-death be transformed into transformational birth-and-death. 

To whatever degree one cultivates, one will break through ignorance to that degree, eliminate afflictions to that degree, purify the mind to that degree, transform one's bodily, verbal, and mental actions to that degree, transform one's karmic seeds to that degree, and one's karmic retribution will also transform accordingly to that degree. Therefore, cultivation always involves a process, and every stage of that process is necessary and indispensable; the time may be long or short, but the process is absolutely essential—without the process, there can be no talk of the fruit. So do not harbor the delusion that a bound ordinary being, still laden with all afflictions, can realize bodhi; nor should you harbor the delusion that after realizing bodhi one can continue walking the path of bodhi without eliminating afflictions. Afflictions are not the Path.