The Observational Wisdom of Seeing the Path in the Great Vehicle

In the process of Chan investigation with strong meditative concentration and deep questioning doubt, one gradually eliminates the five aggregates and the eighteen realms, denying their reality, and thereby confirms their selflessness, eliminating the self-view and attaining the pure Dharma eye of the Small Vehicle. With the obscuration of the five aggregates and eighteen realms removed, the path to seeing the Way of the Great Vehicle is then not far off. When the mind consciousness and the manas, through investigating Chan, realize the tathāgatagarbha, one can observe the simple functioning of the tathāgatagarbha, which has no discriminating nature toward the six sense objects; in this way one obtains the prajñā wisdom of seeing the Way of the Great Vehicle.

With this wisdom, one observes that the tathāgatagarbha is a mind-substance that neither arises nor ceases and is without self, yet can give birth to the five aggregates—the arising-and-ceasing body possessing self-nature—and at the same time one can also observe how the tathāgatagarbha gives rise to the five aggregates. One realizes that the five aggregates are indeed empty and selfless, and clearly knows why they are empty and selfless. Such wisdom is far deeper, sharper, and more ultimate than the wisdom of eliminating self-view in the Small Vehicle. As for eliminating the fundamental afflictive obstructions and the obstruction to the knowable (jñeyāvaraṇa), that is a matter of subsequent cultivation, a matter that comes after the arising of the first dhyāna, and also a matter for after the tenth conduct bhūmi and the tenth dedication bhūmi.