Cultivation Is Transforming the Mind

The mind is the master of delusion and karma, the master of saṃsāra, the master of birth and death, and the root of all dharmas. Only by resolving the problems of the mind can all problems be resolved. In the teaching of the twelve links of dependent origination, the Buddha tells us that the root of the cycle of birth and death is the ignorance of the mind. Because of the ignorance of the manas, there is the suffering of the world of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha). Cultivation means eradicating the ignorance and defilement of the manas; only when the defilement is removed and the ignorance is completely severed can the suffering of birth and death be utterly extinguished. Therefore, cultivation is the cultivation of the mind—it is knowing the mind and transforming the mind; apart from this, there is nothing else.

If the purpose of cultivation is not to transform the mind, then what is the cultivation for? If one is not even clear about the purpose of cultivation, how can one speak of cultivation at all? If one does not even know what causes birth and death to arise, how can one seize the thief of birth-and-death afflictions and attain liberation?