Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamasūtra) (89)

Only by realizing the emptiness of all dharmas can afflictions be eradicated

The Buddha said that one who understands the transference of karma knows there is no doer and no receiver. The arising, operation, and cessation of karmic activity are all empty: there is no one who creates karma, no one who receives karma, and no one who undergoes retribution. If you keep emptying all the way through, you can enjoy the retribution of a noble one; such a person is no longer an ordinary being and no longer has the mental activities of an ordinary being. The afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion melt away quickly, just as boiling water melts snow. In this way, one need not expend great effort and energy to counteract all kinds of afflictions. Using various counteractive methods to fight afflictions is very exhausting for the mind; even counteracting them for many lifetimes and many kalpas does not resolve the fundamental problem, because all dharmas are taken as real things, all believed to exist—how could counteraction then be thorough and resolve the fundamental problem? If in this very moment you recognize that everything is empty and illusory, is counteraction still needed? There is no need for counteraction at all.

Therefore, following along with the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion and then counteracting them—that approach to practice is truly too roundabout, too winding, and too slow; it is neither the most fundamental method nor the fastest shortcut. We must work from the root. For example, to remove a great tree, one must start from the root: cut off the root, and the whole tree falls and will never grow again. In practice, one must not pluck at branches and leaves, slowly picking off one leaf at a time—after picking them all, they grow again, and after picking them all again, they grow again; this can never be finished. The counteractive method of practice is like picking leaves off a tree, whereas the contemplative practices (vipaśyanā-caryā) mentioned above are methods of severing the tree's root—complete and thorough. Cut off from the root, the leaves, branches, and trunk can never grow out again; there is no way for them to grow again, and they become extinct. Eradicating afflictions works the same way: directly sever the root of all dharmas and realize the emptiness of all dharmas; then, when facing all dharmas, afflictions will no longer arise.