Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra), Part 130

The three dharmas of emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness progress layer by layer toward ultimate liberation

Emptiness without the mark of emptiness is called the signless gate of liberation. The dharma of emptiness has no visible, describable, or demonstrable mark; even emptiness itself is empty—this is the signless gate of liberation. Knowing that emptiness has no mark at all, that even emptiness does not exist, the mind becomes even more liberated. If there is not even the mark of emptiness, not even emptiness itself, then what emptiness would there be to cling to?

If there is no mark, there is no wishing or seeking. If there is not even a mark, what else would we seek? What wish would remain? There is nothing more to seek at all—this is the wishless gate of liberation. Without wishing or seeking, the mind becomes even more liberated. When we have accomplished the three gates of liberation—emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness—we are noble ones.

The three dharmas of emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness are practiced in accord with emptiness: neither departing from emptiness, nor having the mark of emptiness, and the three are inseparable from one another, progressing layer by layer toward ultimate liberation. If we wish to enter nirvāṇa and attain the unborn and unceasing, we should cultivate in this way, continually producing mental activity of emptiness, becoming ever more empty, until even emptiness is empty—only then is emptiness clean and thorough. If there still remains an "emptiness" in the mind, then it is not true emptiness, and the mental activity of emptiness should still be extinguished. This is how we should cultivate and study on the path to nirvāṇa; then we can realize nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is liberation; nirvāṇa is the unborn and unceasing; nirvāṇa is tranquil quiescence and non-action; nirvāṇa is great sovereign ease.