Practicing and cultivating the Buddha's teachings means transforming illusory dharmas into the pure and undefiled.

All dharmas arise from the coalescence of the real and the deluded: the real is the true mind, and the deluded are the deluded minds—the seven transforming consciousnesses. All activities within the world of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) are the result of the eight consciousnesses operating in conjunction. A bodhisattva's daily life, Buddhist practice and cultivation, and propagation of the Dharma to benefit sentient beings can never be separated from the real, nor from the deluded; sentient beings forever depend on both the real and the deluded in order to exist. With the real, the deluded can be manifested, so the real is very important; if there were no deluded, only the real, sentient beings could not exist, and all dharmas would not exist either—so the deluded is also very important.

Although the minds of the seven consciousnesses are subject to arising, ceasing, and change, they cannot be extinguished. Since they cannot be extinguished, they must be transformed; when the transformation is complete, one becomes a Buddha. Therefore, our Buddhist practice and cultivation is precisely the cultivation of the deluded minds of the seven consciousnesses: exhausting all the ignorance (avidyā) of the seven consciousnesses and transforming all their defilements, so that the seven consciousnesses are transformed from the consciousness-nature of ignorance into the nature of wisdom. Once consciousness is transformed into wisdom, cultivation is brought to perfect completion. Thus, the purpose of cultivation is not to extinguish the seven consciousnesses, but to transform them; nor is it to extinguish all realms of experience, but to transform all realms of experience. All the illusory dharmas of the three realms must be transformed into what is pure, utterly pure, and without defilement—that is the realm of the Buddha.