The Sign of Achievement in Buddhist Practice Is an Empty Mind.

If one believes that all dharmas truly exist, the mind cannot be empty, and that is ignorance. If there is one dharma you believe to be real, that dharma will obstruct you and become the dust in your mind; this mental concept is the affliction of ignorance. Even saying that one likes becoming a Buddha, believing that the dharma of attaining buddhahood is real—this is still ignorance. Only when all ignorance has been completely eradicated, when everything is emptied and not a single dharma remains in the mind, can one be equal to the tathāgatagarbha and become a Buddha. If, at the end of cultivation, there remains a mind that wants to become a Buddha, and the dharma of attaining buddhahood exists in the mind, one still cannot become a Buddha. Only when one cultivates to the point where all dharmas within the mind are empty—no marks, no vows, no fabrication (animitta, apraṇihita, anābhoga)—is that true accomplishment.

Before the eighth bhūmi, the mind has a large conditioned component; at the eighth bhūmi, the mind becomes unconditioned and empty, and only then is the mind truly unconditioned and without fabrication. When making offerings to the Three Jewels and undertaking works for sentient beings and for Buddhism, the mind is also empty—only then does the Buddha confer the prediction of future buddhahood. When the mind is not empty, before the seventh bhūmi, no matter how many conditioned wholesome dharmas one fabricates, however diligently one makes offerings to the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha, the Buddha will not confer the prediction of buddhahood, because the mind is still conditioned and not empty, not in accord with the unconditioned nature of the tathāgatagarbha; ignorance is still heavy, so the Buddha does not confer the prediction. Even if you make offerings to the Buddha life after life, offering all the jewels of the trichiliocosm to the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha, the Buddha will still not confer the prediction—let alone fabricating those worldly conditioned dharmas.

However, by doing these conditioned dharmas one can increase one's own merit, and the provisions for attaining the wisdom of buddhahood increase, which enables wisdom to grow. Therefore one cannot say, "Since all dharmas are empty, I will cultivate no merit at all"—then your mind still cannot be emptied, and there is still a self. Without the support of merit, the true wisdom of emptiness will not appear. Even if you believe a certain dharma is empty, you cannot actually realize it; it is not true emptiness, for in conduct and action you are still not empty.

Since cultivation is about recognizing and realizing the emptiness of all dharmas, when we do things we should not think that the more we do, the more merit we have—it is not so. When delivering sentient beings, we should not think that the more beings we gather in, the more merit we have—nor is it so. In fact, through bodhisattva works such as doing things and delivering sentient beings, on the one hand we can increase our own merit, on the other hand we can grow our compassionate mind, and on the other hand we can continually eliminate the self, extinguish the notion of "I," making our own mind ever more empty, ever more able to see through things, ever less attached to marks. Only when the mind is emptied to a certain degree is there true accomplishment, and only then is there great achievement.

The amount of merit does not necessarily correspond to the amount of work done, nor does it necessarily correspond to the number of sentient beings delivered. The key is: in doing these things, to what degree has the mind been emptied, and to what degree of unconditionedness has it attained? Therefore, one who truly understands will not rack their brains all day over how many thousands or tens of thousands of followers to gather in and influence, thinking that this is the greatest accomplishment—it is not so. Rather, in this process, it is the degree of understanding of all dharmas and the degree to which the mind has been emptied that truly represent the degree and depth of your realization of the Buddha's teachings. Use this as the standard to measure your own merit and to judge your own bodhisattva stage. Therefore do not look at marks or attach to marks. The emptier and more unconditioned the mind is with respect to marks, the deeper the realization of the Dharma and the higher the stage. One must observe the underlying intention through the marks; therefore in cultivation, never cling to any mark or grasp at any mark.

Even if in one year you hold a hundred Dharma assemblies, gather in a hundred thousand or a million sentient beings, write a hundred books, or offer one hundred million or one billion to the Three Jewels in a year—all of these are conditioned dharmas. If you use them to give rise to attachment and arrogance in your mind, that is the mark of self. If you are attached within marks, the more the mind clings, the less empty it is, and the lower your stage and realization. Not understanding this principle, one will madly fabricate and compete on the level of conditioned dharmas: "I am stronger than everyone, more capable than everyone, I am the first, I am the only one"—all these so-called accomplishments fall entirely onto marks, are entirely conditioned, entirely attached; the mind is not empty in the slightest. That is the karma of birth and death: the more one fabricates, the less empty the mind, the heavier the ignorance, and the further from liberation.

Some people, though they do not do so many things, possess the wisdom of emptiness, can see through the essence of all matters, are not confused by appearances, and do not fall into phenomena unable to extricate themselves. Possessing deep wisdom of emptiness themselves, they naturally lead those around them also to empty their minds and not attach to marks; thus the quality of delivering sentient beings is high. If the bodhisattva's mind is not empty, how can the minds of the disciples who follow and learn be empty? If the bodhisattva attaches to marks, those behind will attach to marks even more; thus they run counter to the Path and are not in accord with the Way. Therefore cultivating the Way means breaking through marks and breaking through the ignorance of one's own mind. Attachment to marks is dharma-grasping, and dharma-grasping is also the root of birth and death.

The scope of dharma-grasping is extremely broad: any grasping whatsoever is dharma-grasping, including the grasping of a self with respect to the five-aggregate body; grasping at dharmas even more subtle and extensive than the five-aggregate body is also dharma-grasping. How to break dharma-grasping? First one must realize the tathāgatagarbha and cultivate the seed-wisdom (ākāra-jñāna) of Consciousness-Only, then observe whether all dharmas truly exist, whether they have any self-existent, autonomous nature. Through deep and detailed observation, one discovers that all dharmas are born from the tathāgatagarbha in dependence on certain conditions, all are arising-ceasing and illusory, without their own reality, autonomy, or self-existence; in essence they are all functions and operations of the tathāgatagarbha, each a single dharma within the one true dharmadhātu, all operated by the tathāgatagarbha—there is fundamentally nothing to grasp at, nothing that can be seized or taken. Then the mind will loosen and no longer grasp, and dharma-grasping is broken.

The worldly realm has no substantive conditioned marks—so what is there left to fabricate? When the mind is ultimately empty, one becomes a Buddha. When the ignorance and grasping nature toward each and every dharma are extinguished, there is nothing left to crave or cling to. The path of breaking dharma-grasping is extremely long: from the first bhūmi to buddhahood, one must walk a road of two great asaṃkhyeya kalpas. One great asaṃkhyeya kalpa to break self-grasping, and two great asaṃkhyeya kalpas continuously breaking dharma-grasping; even merely eradicating the view of self requires a long road to travel—one can see how difficult cultivation is, and how deep and heavy the ignorance and attachment of the manas are.

All attachments—self-grasping and dharma-grasping—are the grasping of the manas. The manas grasps in this way, so one must break the manas's attachment. First one must break the manas's view of self and view of dharmas, break the manas's entanglement of thought—that means eradicating the manas's view of self and view of dharmas. The view that all dharmas are real must be broken bit by bit; only afterward can attachment be reduced and extinguished. When attachment is fully extinguished and ignorance fully severed, the mind is completely empty—one becomes a Buddha.

The mark of accomplishment in cultivation lies in the degree to which the mind is emptied, in the degree to which ignorance and wrong views have been broken, and how much has been broken. See all dharmas' characteristics as empty—observe how they are empty, selfless, lacking self-mastery (avaśatā), unreal, arising-ceasing and mutable—and the mind becomes empty. Then one no longer wishes to fabricate meaningless conditioned dharmas; within the mind there are no marks, no vows, no fabrication, in accord with the tathāgatagarbha—that is the Tathāgata Buddha.