Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (165)

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 liberation gate. The dharma of emptiness has no visible, describable, or pointable-out appearance; even emptiness itself is empty—this is the signless liberation gate. Knowing that emptiness has no mark whatsoever, that even emptiness does not exist, the mind becomes further liberated. If even the mark of emptiness does not exist, and even emptiness itself does not exist, what emptiness could one still cling to? If there is no sign, there is no wishing; if not even a sign exists, what wish could we still have? There is nothing left to seek at all—this is the wishless liberation gate. Without wishing, the mind becomes even more liberated. When we have accomplished the three liberation gates of emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness, we are noble ones.

The three dharmas of emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness are practiced in accord with emptiness: they neither depart from emptiness, nor do they possess 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 formations of emptiness, becoming ever more empty, until even emptiness itself is empty—only then is the emptying clean and thorough. If there still remains an "emptiness" in the mind, then it is not true emptiness, and the mind of emptiness should still be extinguished. This is how one should cultivate and study on the path to nirvāṇa, and thereby realize nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is liberation; nirvāṇa is the unborn and unceasing; nirvāṇa is tranquil quiescence and non-action; nirvāṇa is great sovereign ease.