The Emptier the Mind, the Greater the Achievement

The entire process from ordinary being to buddhahood is the process of seeking to realize the emptiness of all dharmas; it is the process of continually breaking through marks, breaking through views, breaking through attachments, emptying the mind, and emptying out all dharmas. If the mind is not empty and one believes dharmas are real, this is ignorance (avidyā). If there is even one dharma you believe to be real, that is ignorance, and that dharma will bind and obstruct you, preventing you from liberation and freedom. Even believing that the dharma of becoming a Buddha is real and not empty is likewise ignorance. Only when ignorance is completely broken through does one become a Buddha. If there is still a mind that wants to become a Buddha, the mind is still not empty and still has deluded thoughts, and one cannot become a Buddha. Of course, ordinary beings and bodhisattvas at the three stages of worthiness (trīṇāni bhājanāni) should still have the mind aspiring to buddhahood and should still seek to become Buddhas—this is the foundation for solidifying one's path-cultivation. Only after passing the three stages of worthiness, when it is time to break the view of a self in dharmas and attachment to dharmas, can all deluded thoughts be gradually eliminated. When your mind has become empty and pure, there will be no fabricated mind whatsoever—no marks, no aspirations, no fabrication (animitta, apraṇihita, anābhoga)—and only then can there be true great accomplishment.

Subhūti's mind was already empty and quiescent while in his mother's womb, so he was named "Born of Emptiness" at birth. After following the Buddha to leave home and cultivate the path, his mind became even more empty; even the Buddha with marks was emptied from his mind, and he did not attach to the Buddha's marks. When the Buddha taught the Dharma in the heavens for forty-nine days, after finishing he returned from the heavens to the human world. The disciples all went to welcome the Buddha, but Subhūti alone sat in meditation in the forest, his mind recollecting the Dharmakāya Buddha, not attaching to the Buddha with marks, knowing that the Dharma assembly where the Buddha taught was also arising-ceasing and illusory. So he neither went to see the Buddha nor attended the assembly, sitting quietly in meditation. The Buddha praised him, saying: "Although you did not come to welcome me, you are the first disciple to have seen me." This "me" refers to the formless true Buddha of the Dharmakāya, not the Buddha with marks of the Sambhogakāya and Nirmāṇakāya. All dharmas are empty; the Sambhogakāya and Nirmāṇakāya Buddhas are also empty. All conditioned dharmas fabricated after the fact are entirely empty, including the Buddha's great deeds of liberating sentient beings over countless kalpas—all are empty.

Before the eighth bhūmi, bodhisattvas fabricate many conditioned dharmas. At the eighth bhūmi, the mind becomes empty; the mind that makes offerings to the Three Jewels and undertakes works for sentient beings and for Buddhism all becomes empty. Only when one acts effortlessly and spontaneously (anābhoga) in all beneficial works for sentient beings will the Buddha confer the prediction of future buddhahood. If the mind is not empty and one fabricates conditioned dharmas with a conditioned mind—including making offerings to the Three Jewels with a conditioned mind—believing this brings great merit and great virtue, with the mind grasping dharmas as not empty, the Buddha will not confer the prediction of buddhahood. Although some bodhisattvas make offerings to immeasurable Buddhas life after life, giving up everything of their own bodies to make offerings, using the jewels of the three-thousandfold great world to make offerings to the Buddha, the Buddha still does not confer the prediction—let alone fabricating worldly conditioned dharmas, which even less merit a prediction. However, through these conditioned dharmas one can increase virtue; when virtue increases, wisdom can grow, the mind can become ever more empty, and finally one can become the Honored One Perfect in Both Merit and Wisdom. Therefore one cannot say that since all dharmas are empty, no wholesome dharmas need be cultivated. Without cultivating wholesome dharmas, without the support of virtue, the wisdom of emptiness will not appear, and the mind even less can be emptied completely.

While cultivating merit, the mind should also be as empty as possible. Cultivating merit with the practice of a mind that attains nothing makes the merit even greater. For example, when liberating sentient beings, do not think that the more beings you liberate, the more merit and virtue you have. In fact, it is through the matter of liberating sentient beings that virtue is continually increased, and then the merit of the empty mind appears; the mind becomes ever more empty, and when the emptiness reaches a certain degree, cultivation is accomplished. The key to measuring the amount of virtue is to see, in the process of liberating sentient beings, to what degree the mind has become empty and to what degree of non-action (asaṃskṛta) it has attained. Only an empty, non-active mind determines a bodhisattva's wisdom realization and rank.

Therefore do not focus on external marks. If you revolve on the level of marks and attach to marks—even if you write a hundred books in a year, gather hundreds of thousands of sentient beings in a year, and give away hundreds of millions—these are all conditioned dharmas, within which there is obvious attachment to self and attachment to dharmas. Attached to marks with a mind not empty, you will not attain wisdom realization or the bodhisattva rank you should have. Only when great virtue is complete can one attain realization and enlightenment. After realizing the tathāgatagarbha, when you observe your various actions, including meritorious formations (puṇyābhisaṃskāra), you will know how these actions arise and cease and are unreal, and how they are all the functions and operations of the tathāgatagarbha. In the actual ground of reality, these conditioned dharma-marks do not truly exist. In this way the mind will become ever more empty, and the accomplishment of cultivation will grow ever greater.

The path of breaking attachment to dharmas is extremely long. From the first bhūmi bodhisattva until buddhahood, throughout two great asaṃkhyeya kalpas of cultivation, one is constantly breaking attachment to dharmas. The preceding great asaṃkhyeya kalpa is spent breaking attachment to self, so the path of cultivation up to the complete severance of the view of self is also very long. The ignorance of the manas is extremely deep and heavy, with great attachment. To break the manas's attachments, one must first break the manas's views—break its ways of thinking—which is the severance of the manas's view of self. After the view of self is severed, attachment to self is gradually broken; then one breaks the manas's view of a self in dharmas and attachment to dharmas. The views that all dharmas are real must be broken bit by bit, until finally ignorance is extinguished, the mind is entirely empty, and one becomes a Buddha. The magnitude of cultivation's accomplishment lies in the degree to which ignorance has been broken and the degree to which the mind has become empty. To empty the mind and break through marks, one must personally realize the tathāgatagarbha, and then observe the unreality of all dharmas.

When the Buddha dissolved the karma of King Ajātaśatru, who had committed the evil deed of killing his father, he used the principle of emptiness, making him understand the principle so his mind became empty, thereby extinguishing his sinful karma. King Ajātaśatru killed his father and afterwards was filled with remorse, believing he would certainly fall into hell after death, and his mind was in unbearable agony. Why did he suffer so? Because he took his father as real, took himself as real, took the act of killing his father as truly existent, and took hell as truly existent. These so-called truly existent dharmas then bound his mind, making him unable to break free from his sense of guilt, and at the end of his life he would inevitably receive evil retribution. So the Buddha explained to King Ajātaśatru the emptiness of the three wheels in the matter of killing his father: the person of the father is empty, the person of oneself is empty, the act of killing the father is empty—there is no such person and no such deed. Finally, King Ajātaśatru developed the faculty of faith in emptiness; the intrinsic nature of the sin of killing his father was extinguished, and at the end of his life he was reborn in the land of bliss (sukhāvatī), not falling into hell to receive retribution.

By the same principle, attaining the fruits and enlightenment—these things are also empty, including the matter of liberating sentient beings; none of them is real. When you see all dharmas as empty and there is no such person or such deed in the mind, you are liberated. If in a dream you killed someone, and after waking you still think you killed a person, your mind is still in the sleep-state, not yet awake. As long as a dharma exists in your mind, that dharma will bind and obstruct you. Only when there are no dharmas in the mind can no dharma become an obstruction, and nothing can have any effect on you. The power of emptiness is immense; it can break through all ignorance and karmic obstructions, and break through all suffering and the bonds of birth-and-death. Only when the mind is empty can there be liberation, and only then can one become the King of Emptiness, the Dharma King.