The Observing Wisdom of Seeing the Path in Mahāyāna

In the process of Chan investigation with strong meditative concentration and deep questioning doubt, one gradually eliminates the five aggregates and eighteen realms, denies the reality of the five aggregates and eighteen realms, and thereby confirms their selflessness, eradicating the view of self and attaining the pure dharma eye of the Small Vehicle. With the obscuration of the five aggregates and eighteen realms removed, the Mahāyāna path of seeing is then not far away. 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 the Mahāyāna path of seeing.

With this wisdom, one observes that the tathāgatagarbha is a mind-substance that neither arises nor ceases and is without self, yet it can give birth to the five-aggregate body, which arises and ceases and possesses a self-nature; at the same time, one can also observe how the tathāgatagarbha gives rise to the five aggregates, realizing that the five aggregates are indeed empty and selfless, and clearly knowing why they are empty and selfless. Such wisdom is far deeper, sharper, and more ultimate than the wisdom of eradicating the view of self in the Small Vehicle. As for eradicating the fundamental obstruction of afflictions and the obstruction of the knowable (jñeya-āvaraṇa), that is a matter of subsequent cultivation, a matter that comes after the first dhyāna is attained, and also a matter for after the stages of the ten conductivities and the ten dedications of merit (pariṇāma).