Thought and No-Thought of Suchness

One who is without all thoughts has the true suchness mind (tathatā-citta), not the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses. Only true suchness is without thoughts, not mindful of any dharma. The deluded minds of sentient beings are with thoughts, because as long as the six consciousnesses exist, they must face the realms of the six sense objects, and there will certainly be thoughts. Although the Buddha is the unsurpassed awakened one, His mind of the seven consciousnesses also has thoughts. The Buddha will observe which world's sentient beings' karmic conditions have ripened, so that He can manifest a Nirmāṇakāya Buddha to save and liberate them—and observation and deliberation are thoughts. Without thoughts, He would not observe sentient beings' indriya and their karmic conditions; without thoughts, the Buddha would not teach according to beings' capacities and expound immeasurable dharmas. When Śākyamuni Buddha delivered sentient beings in the Sahā world, He never departed from thoughts—unless the Buddha entered meditation, or when there was nothing to do, when there were no sentient beings to be delivered, only then were there no thoughts.

But from another perspective, true suchness also has thoughts. Apart from not being mindful of the realms of the six sense objects that the six consciousnesses are mindful of, true suchness is mindful of everything else. After enlightenment, one will gradually come to understand the "with thoughts" and "without thoughts" of true suchness; that is content that can only be known through the wisdom acquired after enlightenment (post-enlightenment wisdom), the wisdom of specific characteristics, and the wisdom of the varieties of paths. Therefore, one must not take the "without thoughts" of true suchness as the "without thoughts" of the conscious mind, nor take the "without thoughts" of the conscious mind as the "without thoughts" of true suchness; before enlightenment, one often misinterprets the Buddha's words and the patriarchs' words. Nowadays it is common that the true and the false are not distinguished—taking the nature of the deluded mind as the nature of true suchness, while expecting the deluded mind to cultivate and attain the nature that true suchness inherently possesses—how could that possibly be achieved? In short, sentient beings today have far too many inverted views: they do not know the true as true, do not know the false as false, and mix them all together in their talk.

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