When Will One's Cultivation Finally Reach Its Destination

Feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness are all empty and selfless—then who is doing the feeling, perceiving, forming, and cognizing? The seven consciousnesses that are capable of feeling, perceiving, forming, and cognizing are empty and selfless. The mind consciousness that can observe that feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are empty is empty and selfless; the mind consciousness that knows the observer is empty is empty and selfless; the conscious mind that knows all dharmas are empty and selfless is itself empty and selfless. Whatever in the mind has knowing, has thought, has ideation—all of it is empty and selfless. In the chapter on Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva's perfect penetration through the ear faculty, all dharmas are emptied out; the dharmas that empty and are emptied are all emptied away, and in the end what remains is the one thing that truly cannot be emptied—that is the tathāgatagarbha of one's own mind. Yet one does not abide on this tathāgatagarbha either; at that point, one's practice has reached its destination.