The View That Only the Mind Consciousness Exists Is a Manifestation of the Lack of Wisdom

Nowadays most people's practice falls upon the mind consciousness, with everything centered on the mind consciousness and judged solely by the mind consciousness. Not only can they not distinguish the eighth consciousness from the seventh consciousness, they cannot even clearly distinguish the five sense consciousnesses. Yet even so, quite a few people claim to have awakened, but what they awakened to is the combined state of the eight consciousnesses, or the mixed state of the four consciousnesses—not at all the eighth consciousness operating on its own. This is no different from not awakening at all. To clearly distinguish the essential natures of all eight consciousnesses amid the lively activities of the five aggregates and eighteen realms—this is great wisdom. If everything is bundled together and said to be awakened to all at once, it is meaningless, equivalent to saying nothing and awakening to nothing.

If someone bundles the five sense consciousnesses, the seventh consciousness, and the eighth consciousness together with the mind consciousness when speaking of them, such that apart from the mind consciousness they cannot clearly explain the essential natures and characteristics of the other consciousnesses, it shows that this person can only observe the mind consciousness and cannot observe the other consciousnesses—their wisdom is too shallow. If one claims that all essential natures belong to the mind consciousness, and that the essential natures of the other consciousnesses are bestowed by the mind consciousness, this is consciousness-only-in-terms-of-the-mind-consciousness doctrine; such a person has hardly any wisdom at all.

This mind-consciousness-only doctrine has resulted in streets full of "sages" who claim to have severed the three fetters and attained enlightenment. If someone thinks this is easy and nothing remarkable, they have certainly misunderstood the method of seeing the Path, and will surely regret it at the time of death. Sentient beings are truly pitiable: lacking experience in study and practice, they mistakenly trust some untrue teaching and refuse to believe what the Buddha taught, and so they end up like this. Who should bear this responsibility, and how? The three evil destinies are truly not a fun place; everyone should carefully weigh themselves. Nowadays the Buddha-dharma is severely misunderstood. Even when many people read the sūtras and believe the Buddha's words, they may not necessarily read them with understanding, yet they believe they have understood—let alone when relying on what other people say.

Practitioners of every method are very confident in the correctness of their own method and direction of practice, and very confident in the correctness and authenticity of what they have awakened to. In short, they trust themselves and the people and teachings they follow, and never bring forth the mind to deliberate in accordance with reason—this is the karmic force of sentient beings. When Yuanyin's teacher probed and tested his wisdom and realization, he too respectfully held up with both hands a nonexistent moon and presented it to his teacher, meaning that this was the self-natured pure mind, suchness—not knowing which consciousness this actually was. It was exactly the same as the Zen repartee of the Chan patriarchs. It can be seen that many people's "awakening" looks the same on the surface, but what is the actual substance within? Because sentient beings lack wisdom, they are often blinded by appearances and fail to recognize Mount Lu's true face. Sentient beings are indeed dull, yet no one admits to being dull; everyone thinks themselves exceptional—this is the self-nature of sentient beings.

So many people's self-confidence ultimately harms themselves and harms others as well. Even when karmic retribution arrives, they may fail to recognize this point—let alone when the conditions for that retribution are not yet ripe. How could such dull sentient beings, in the very moment of hearing the Dharma, with only a slight deliberation of the mind consciousness, eliminate the view of self, or even see their true mind and attain enlightenment? How could countless people attain the fruits merely by organizing and digesting theory? This age of the Dharma's ending is truly terrifying!