Why is it that with profound meditative concentration (dhyāna), the mind can attain great ease and freedom?

Meditative concentration (dhyāna and samādhi) is also called "focusing the mind on one point," and when the mind is focused on one point, nothing cannot be accomplished. Non-Buddhist practitioners can focus the mind on one point; arhats and pratyekabuddhas can focus the mind on one point; the great bodhisattvas can focus the mind on one point; and all the Buddhas can focus the mind on one point even more so. All of them can attain freedom of mind, can accordingly act as they wish, and can accomplish corresponding endeavors. However, because the depth of meditative concentration differs, wisdom differs, and the capacity of mind differs, the degree of freedom of the mind differs, and the endeavors accomplished also differ.

Ordinary people's understanding of meditative concentration is that samādhi is a form of bondage, a form of restraint—binding the body, head, feet, and limbs, and constraining the mind's freedom to wander in imagination. But if the body is not bound and roams about everywhere, its strength scattered in all directions, there will be no powerful force to transform and change all dharmas; if the mind is not constrained and imagines freely, scattering in the eight directions, there will be no powerful force to direct and create all dharmas. In that case, body and mind will forever be constrained by the environment, and there will be no freedom—let alone great freedom.

In the initial stage of cultivating samādhi, the body does feel bound and the mind does feel constrained. But as meditative concentration gradually deepens, the four great elements of the body undergo change, the vital energy and blood flow smoothly, and one feels very comfortable, no longer constrained by the four great elements of earth, water, fire, and wind, becoming ever more tranquil, at ease, and free. At the same time, the mind is no longer bound by the physical body and sense objects, becoming ever more serene and joyful, ever more free, and ever more powerful. Which mind is it that attains freedom and liberation? At the beginning, it is the mind of the six consciousnesses: the five sense consciousnesses are no longer bound by the five sense objects of the body's internal and external environments and thus do not feel suffering and pain; the mind consciousness is no longer constrained by mental objects and thus does not feel afflictions. Gradually, the manas is no longer bound by the internal and external objects of the physical body, and no longer casually grasps at sense objects, gradually gathering at one point, with strength concentrated and mental power enhanced. At that point, whatever state the manas desires, that state will manifest; the tathāgatagarbha follows and supports Him, and the manas can then utilize the six consciousnesses and the tathāgatagarbha to change all dharmas and transform all worlds. However, the deeper the meditative concentration, the smaller the functions and roles of the six consciousnesses; eventually one can dispense with the six consciousnesses altogether, and the manas, carrying the tathāgatagarbha along, can roam freely through the heavens and the earth, through the ten ages and ancient and modern times, unconstrained by anything, attaining great freedom—this is liberation. Therefore, liberation cannot in the slightest be separated from meditative concentration, nor from great wisdom. At the very beginning, it also cannot be separated from the precepts. Although the precepts at first can constrain body and mind, making them no longer as free to act as they wish as before, that kind of free-wheeling indulgence is precisely not freedom—it can create evil karma and invite bitter retribution. Once body and mind become accustomed to the precepts and no longer create evil karma, body and mind will no longer feel the constraint of the precepts, but will feel free at all times and places, no longer sensing the existence and constraint of the precepts.

It is like when traffic rules were first established requiring driving on the left side: sentient beings, accustomed to acting willfully, walked on the left, right, or middle as they pleased, unwilling to keep to the left side, and at that time they felt constrained and unfree under the traffic rules. Once they became accustomed to the traffic rules, they naturally kept to the left side, feeling no constraint whatsoever—only then is there true freedom, and safety of passage can be guaranteed. The so-called freedom of previously not obeying traffic rules was in fact not freedom, and could not guarantee personal safety. For any rule or principle, when one is not accustomed to it, it feels like a constraint; once accustomed, one feels free, without any sense of constraint. Cultivation is to make sentient beings develop good habits and wholesome habits, in order to change past bad habits and unwholesome habits. Good and wholesome habits are a form of liberation; bad and unwholesome habits are bondage and non-liberation, and can bring bitter fruits.

Some people are unwilling to receive the five precepts, still less the bodhisattva precepts, fearing the bondage of the precepts. Yet the Buddha said that the precepts can bring sentient beings liberation—this is called the "precepts of individual liberation" (prātimokṣa): by keeping one precept, one is free with respect to that precept, creates one less kind of evil karma, and body and mind attain one kind of liberation. Once accustomed to keeping the precepts, one no longer senses the existence and constraint of the precepts, and no longer even has the notion of "keeping precepts"—this is freedom with respect to the precepts, able to follow one's heart's desire without overstepping the bounds.

The Buddhas and bodhisattvas have kept the precepts throughout long and distant kalpas and have long since ceased to be constrained by the precepts; therefore the Buddhas and bodhisattvas neither keep the precepts nor violate them. The Buddha is one beyond precepts, and thus is the one of greatest freedom and liberation. Ordinary beings must pass through the stages of receiving the precepts and keeping the precepts; once accustomed to the precepts, they too will no longer be bound by the precepts and will be as free and liberated as the Buddhas and bodhisattvas.