Do Not Conflate the True Suchness Mind with the Consciousness Mind

"The Dharma is originally without dharma" means that within the dharma of the tathāgatagarbha, there is not a single dharma; it is without form and without mark, and its mind-substance is intrinsically empty. This statement is not telling us to abandon the mind aspiring to buddhahood and the thought of practicing the Dharma; if we did that, we would never escape the fiery pit of birth and death. People who do not study Buddhism have no mind aspiring to buddhahood and no thought of practicing the Dharma, yet they remain forever in the cycle of birth and death (saṃsāra).

The mind that neither thinks of good nor thinks of evil refers to the true-suchness mind (tathatā-citta); He has no function or operation of thinking about the dharmas of the three realms or the dharmas of the six sense objects. He originally does not think, and does not know good from evil, right from wrong. "Not thinking of good or evil" does not mean that when the mind consciousness also abides in a state of not thinking of good, evil, right, or wrong, it thereby becomes true suchness. When the mind consciousness also does not think, that is the state of meditative concentration (samādhi); the state of meditative concentration is still the realm of the mind consciousness, not the inherent state of the fundamental mind of true suchness. Therefore one must not take the mind consciousness in its state of not thinking of good or evil as true suchness, and think that at that moment one has attained enlightenment. If the mind consciousness enters concentration and ceases deliberation, it cannot engage in Chan investigation; without Chan investigation and deliberation, one cannot awaken to the Path.

The realms of wisdom that we realize through practice can all be expressed in words; what cannot be expressed may well indicate that there has been no true awakening. Where the tathāgatagarbha is, which one it is, and how it functions — all of these can be expressed; a few short sentences can express it clearly, and a lengthy discourse can explain it in even greater detail. The Buddha spent forty-nine years and still did not finish expounding the dharma of the tathāgatagarbha; He only spoke out an extremely tiny fraction of it, and the dharma He did not speak out is still vastly, vastly more. Therefore, as long as one has genuinely realized awakening, one can express the tathāgatagarbha, and will express it accurately.