Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (165)

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

Emptiness without the mark of emptiness is called the door of liberation of signlessness. The dharma of emptiness has no visible, describable, or pointable-out mark; even emptiness itself is empty — this is the door of liberation of signlessness. 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, if even emptiness itself does not exist, then what emptiness is there still to cling to? If there is no mark, there is no wishing or seeking — if there is not even a mark, what wish or seeking could we still have? There is nothing more to seek; this is the door of liberation of wishlessness. Without wishing or seeking, the mind becomes even more liberated. When we have accomplished the three doors of liberation — emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness — we are noble ones.

The three dharmas of emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness proceed together with emptiness: neither departing from emptiness, nor having the mark of emptiness, and the three are not separate from one another; they progress 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 the emptiness clean and thorough. If there is still an "emptiness" in the mind, then it is not true emptiness; one should still extinguish the mind of emptiness. Cultivating and studying in this way on the path to nirvāṇa, one can realize nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is liberation; nirvāṇa is the unborn and unceasing; nirvāṇa is tranquil unconditionedness; nirvāṇa is great freedom and ease.