The Emptier the Mind, the Greater the Attainment

The entire process from ordinary being to buddhahood is the process of seeking to realize the emptiness of all dharmas, the process of continuously breaking through marks, breaking through views, breaking through attachments, emptying the mind, and emptying away 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 attaining buddhahood is real and not empty is likewise ignorance. Only when ignorance is completely broken through does one attain buddhahood. If there is still a mind that wants to become a buddha, the mind is still not empty and still has delusive thoughts, and one cannot become a buddha. Of course, ordinary beings and bodhisattvas at the three stages of the ten faiths, ten abodes, and ten dedications should still have the mind aspiring to buddhahood and should still seek to become buddhas—this is the foundation for solidifying one's path and practice. Only after passing these three stages, when it is time to break the view of self in dharmas and attachment to dharmas, can all delusive thoughts be gradually eliminated. When your mind has become empty and pure, with no mind of contrivance whatsoever—no marks, no wishes, no fabrication—only then can there be true great accomplishment.

Subhūti's mind was already empty and tranquil while in his mother's womb, and after birth he was named "Born of Emptiness." 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 cling 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, and all the disciples went to welcome the Buddha. Only Subhūti sat in meditation in the forest, his mind contemplating 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 in transformation. So he neither saw 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 Sambhogakāya and Nirmāṇakāya Buddhas with marks. All dharmas are empty; the Sambhogakāya and Nirmāṇakāya Buddhas are also empty. All conditioned dharmas produced later through contrivance are entirely empty, including the Buddha's magnificent deeds of liberating sentient beings over countless kalpas—all are empty.

Before the eighth bhūmi, bodhisattvas engage in many contrived conditioned dharmas. At the eighth bhūmi, the mind becomes empty—the mind of making offerings to the Three Jewels, of working for sentient beings and for Buddhism, all becomes empty. Only when one acts effortlessly and spontaneously in all endeavors benefiting sentient beings will the Buddha confer the prediction of future buddhahood. If the mind is not empty, contriving 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—then with dharmas grasped in the mind 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 themselves as offerings, offering all the jewels of the three-thousand great-thousand worlds to the Buddha, the Buddha still does not confer the prediction—let alone contriving worldly conditioned dharmas, which even less merit such a prediction. However, through these conditioned dharmas one can increase merit; only when merit increases can wisdom grow, and the mind can become ever more empty, until finally one becomes 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 anymore. Without cultivating wholesome dharmas, without the support of merit, the wisdom of emptiness will not appear, and the mind cannot be emptied completely.

While cultivating merit, the mind should also be as empty as possible. Cultivating merit with a mind of non-attainment 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 gain. In fact, it is through the matter of liberating sentient beings that merit continuously increases, and then the merit of the empty mind appears; as the mind becomes more and more empty, when the emptiness reaches a certain degree, the practice is accomplished. The key to measuring the amount of merit lies in how empty the mind has become in the process of liberating beings, and to what degree of non-action one has attained. Only an empty and non-active mind determines a bodhisattva's wisdom, realization, and stage of attainment.

Therefore do not focus on external marks. If you revolve on the level of marks and cling to marks—even if you write a hundred books in a year, gather hundreds of thousands of sentient beings in a year, and donate several hundred million—these are all conditioned dharmas, within which there is evident attachment to self and attachment to dharmas. Attached to marks with a mind not empty, you will not attain wisdom realization or the bodhisattva stage you should have. Only when great merit is complete can one attain 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 ground of actual principle, there are no real such marks of conditioned dharmas. In this way the mind becomes more and more empty, and the accomplishment of practice grows ever greater.

The path of breaking attachment to dharmas is extremely long. From the first bhūmi until buddhahood, throughout two great asaṃkhyeya kalpas of practice, one is constantly breaking attachment to dharmas. Before that, one great asaṃkhyeya kalpa is spent breaking attachment to self, so the path of practice to completely sever the view of self is also very long. The ignorance of the manas is extremely deep and heavy, with great clinging nature. To break the manas's clinging, one must first break the manas's views—break its thinking—which is severing the manas's view of self. After the view of self is eliminated, attachment to self is gradually broken; then one breaks the manas's view of self in dharmas and attachment to dharmas. The views that all dharmas are real must be broken away bit by bit, until finally ignorance is extinguished, the mind is completely emptied, and one becomes a buddha. The magnitude of one's accomplishment in practice depends on the degree to which ignorance has been broken and the degree to which the mind has been emptied. 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 karmic obstructions 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 the sinful karma. King Ajātaśatru killed his father and in the end was filled with remorse, believing he would surely fall into hell after death, suffering unbearable anguish. 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 the sense of guilt, and at death he would inevitably receive evil retribution. So the Buddha explained to King Ajātaśatru the threefold emptiness of the act of killing his father: the person of the father is empty, the person of oneself is empty, and the act of killing the father is empty—there is no such person and no such deed. In the end, King Ajātaśatru developed the faculty of faith regarding emptiness, the inherent sinful nature of the crime of killing his father was extinguished, and at death he was reborn in the land of bliss (Sukhāvatī), not falling into hell to receive retribution.

Likewise, the matters of attaining the fruits and enlightenment are also empty, including the matter of liberating sentient beings—none of them is real. When you see all dharmas as empty, with no such person and no such deed in the mind, you are liberated. If in a dream you kill someone, and after waking you still believe you have killed a person, your mind is still in the sleep-state, not yet awakened. As long as dharmas exist in your mind, those dharmas will bind and obstruct you. Only when there are no dharmas in the mind can nothing become an obstruction, and nothing can affect 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.