What Is Enlightenment?

Many people take the states of meditative concentration (samādhi) as enlightenment, and some believe that enlightenment requires extinguishing all consciousnesses, even extinguishing the manas so that it no longer functions—only then would it be a true state of enlightenment. Let us consider what error there is in this. In such an "enlightenment," who is enlightened? Enlightened to what? In that state there is no person, no five aggregates and seven consciousnesses, with only the tathāgatagarbha remaining—this is clearly the nirvāṇa state of an arhat, which has nothing to do with enlightenment. Moreover, it is impossible for an ordinary being, through cultivating meditative concentration alone, to directly extinguish the manas and realize the state of a great arhat liberated in both ways, immediately entering Nirvāṇa without remainder (Anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). Even extinguishing the five sense consciousnesses is extremely difficult, the mind consciousness is even harder to extinguish, let alone extinguishing the manas.

Some people always cling to the idea that "the faculties and objects dropping away" is the state of enlightenment. But when the faculties and objects drop away, there are no faculties and no objects; faculties and objects do not come together, and of course there is then no consciousness of the six consciousnesses either. If this is enlightenment, then who is enlightened? Some take the state of "the void shattered and the great earth leveled flat" as enlightenment, but at that moment, what exactly is one enlightened to? When one does not even know what the relationship between such a state and the tathāgatagarbha is, there is no way to prove it is a state of enlightenment. Everyone misunderstands and misapprehends the Buddha-dharma; tracing it to its cause, the fundamental problem is still that the false and the real dharmas have not been clearly distinguished or properly understood, merit and wisdom are still insufficient, and there is the severe obstruction of afflictions and karmic hindrances blocking the growth of merit and wisdom. Therefore, the true and the false dharmas cannot yet be genuinely comprehended and integrated.

The true mind and the false mind each have their own different natures. For example, regarding awareness, there is the awareness of the true mind and the awareness of the false mind; regarding equanimity, there is the equanimity of the true mind and the equanimity of the false mind; regarding purity (viśuddha/pariśuddha), there is the purity of the true mind and the purity of the false mind; regarding freedom from marks, there is the freedom from marks of the true mind and the freedom from marks of the false mind; regarding conditioned existence, there is the conditioned existence of the true mind and the conditioned existence of the false mind; regarding unconditionedness, there is the unconditionedness of the true mind and the unconditionedness of the false mind—and so on, there are many such examples. In short, when studying the Dharma, it is very difficult for everyone to distinguish the true from the false; they are often confused and mixed up, and many misunderstandings arise. This is because the conditions of the bodhisattva's six perfections are not yet complete. Once they are complete, one will have the wisdom to discern the natures of both the true and the false, and realizing the Path will come quickly.