Different Fruitions Have Different Merits and Enjoyments.

To make the Dharmakāya come alive, one must eliminate the false notion that the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) are the self, and not establish a self of the five aggregates; then the Dharmakāya will be easy to discover. However, during the process of searching for the Dharmakāya there arises the thought of investigating (canchan), which suppresses the worldly thoughts of greed, anger, and delusion. With such diligent effort, one day one will be able to see the Dharmakāya.

But as for an enlightenment that has not gone through the process of investigation—whether it truly counts as realizing the Way, and what its ultimate result will be—even the Buddha's word does not decide; it is decided by cause and condition and by King Yama. The god of death best illustrates the problem, for he holds the greatest power. If one desperately wishes oneself to be a person who has attained fruition and seen the mind, desperately wishes oneself to be a sage, while disregarding the truth of the facts, this is still a very serious self—the self that insists "I must be such and such"—and this is precisely the self. If one has truly eradicated the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) and is without self, has truly seen the mind and realized the emptiness of the five aggregates, one should fully manifest one's liberated mind; what fruition one has attained, or what fruition one possesses, does not matter at all—it makes no difference. Without self, there is no fruit; only with a self is there fruit.

Some will say that both the eradication of the view of self and seeing the mind belong to the first fruit (srotāpanna), and that a first-fruit person has not eliminated afflictions, whose afflictions are the same as those of ordinary beings, and thus has no liberating merit. Then what is the difference between having eradicated the view of self and not having eradicated it? If attaining the first fruit brings not even a bit of liberating merit and benefit, and seeing the mind and realizing the tathāgatagarbha brings not even a bit of liberating merit and benefit, being the same as ordinary beings—then what is called the virtue of fruition? Every fruit has its virtue. If after attaining fruition there is no fruit-virtue, then it is merely a name, a nominal designation, without any meaning. Even if this name were given by the Buddha, it is not something originally existent, unborn and unceasing, and therefore has no substantive meaning. But both genuine realization and false speech each have their own cause and condition.

There is a certain degree of merit and benefit from the very beginning of genuinely cultivating the path. Throughout the process of cultivating the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment, there are varying degrees of merit and benefit; it is only that at that time there is no liberating merit and benefit, because without eradicating the view of self there is no liberation. But after eradicating the view of self and seeing the mind, there is liberating merit of varying degrees: the first fruit has the liberation-virtue of the first fruit, the second fruit has the liberation-virtue of the second fruit, the third fruit has the liberation-virtue of the third fruit, and the fourth fruit has the liberation-virtue of the fourth fruit. Although eliminating afflictions is a matter belonging to the third fruit and beyond, the afflictions of a first-fruit person differ greatly from those of ordinary beings, and the afflictions of a Buddhist practitioner in the course of cultivating the path also differ to some degree from those who have not yet begun cultivating. Otherwise, what use would learning Buddhism and practicing be?

So many people love fruition—why do they love fruition and not pay attention to the facts? Because a serious self and self-grasping are at work. Even if the Buddha deliberately bestows a fruit upon someone, yet that person's virtue does not correspond to this fruit, and in fact they have not truly attained fruition, if they still care deeply about and cling to this fruit, that too is the view of self and self-grasping—they are still a self. Obtaining such a false fruit and feeling delighted in one's heart, propagating it everywhere, swaggering about everywhere—this shows that the nature of self is still very heavy, and one will not escape birth and death. This is called deceiving oneself and others.

A true practitioner should pay no heed to what fruit there is, and should instead focus on whether one's mind has changed, whether one has truly been liberated, and whether one's practice has yielded merit and benefit. If one truly has merit and benefit, even if the Buddha does not issue a certificate and no one acknowledges one's attainment of fruition, in reality you still have fruit and liberating realization, and can attain liberation. Conversely, if one has no merit and benefit, no genuine liberating realization, then even if the Buddha issues a certificate and everyone reveres you as a great virtuous arhat or bodhisattva, in reality one is still an ordinary being, still mired in the karmic obstructions of birth and death.

What everyone practicing Buddhism seeks is true liberation and true progress on the path, not vanity. What is vain is unreliable; what it brings is still vanity, like soap bubbles. We should not gaze at the beauty of soap bubbles, should not love bubbles and shadows, but should seek the actual and obtain the real. Saying this is one thing; actually doing it is very difficult. Only after the wave of "attaining fruition" has passed can the Buddhist community begin to be pragmatic. The present is a period of frenzied pursuit of fruition and glory, and true practitioners are hard to encounter. Only when the splendor fades can the truth be revealed.