Attaining the Fruit through the Mind Consciousness Is a Wrong Path of Cultivation in the Dharma-Ending Age.

There are many, many wrong paths in spiritual practice in the Saha world. Without great roots of goodness and merit, it is truly difficult to discern the right direction, especially in subtle matters. If one has never walked that path, one can truly go astray; even a small wrong path is enough to waste an enormous amount of practice time, and extricating oneself from it is not easy—let alone major wrong paths, which are even harder to discern and escape from. As for attaining the fruits and seeing the mind—is it enough for only the mind consciousness to attain the fruits and see the mind, or must the manas together with the mind consciousness also attain the fruits and see the mind? Is this question a small wrong path or a big wrong path? Attaining bodhi without eradicating afflictions—is that a big wrong path or a small wrong path?

The question of realizing the Dharma is the most weighty issue for individual sentient beings and for Buddhism as a whole; it is the crucial issue and turning point of life and death, of survival and extinction. Therefore, any other Dharma may be mistaken, but on this question one absolutely must not be wrong. If one is wrong on this question, it becomes a major problem of fundamental principle, a great issue concerning the destiny of sentient beings and Buddhism.

The closer we come to the Dharma-ending age, the more wrong paths there are in the practice and realization of the Buddha's teachings. In ancient times, studying Buddhism was called cultivation and practice; for most modern people studying Buddhism, it can only be called study, rarely involving cultivation and practice. Yet among the ancients who cultivated and practiced, enlightenment was slow and rare, whereas among the learners of the Dharma-ending age, enlightenment is fast and plentiful—is this not highly abnormal? Of course it is highly abnormal. The Buddha's teachings will perish in the future, and they will perish precisely here—perishing from the very root of practice and realization. Without genuine realization, the Buddha's teachings will be hard to sustain. That is why for many years I have been teaching that the manas attains the fruits and the manas sees the mind, and I have written several books on the manas, out of fear that the Buddha's teachings will quickly be fiddled into extinction. 

I have taught the manas attaining the fruits from every angle, three hundred and sixty degrees with no blind spots, yet there are still dull-facultied scholars and masters who refuse, come what may, to accept this principle, and dare not accept it—because once they accept it, their fruits of the Great and Small Vehicles would be ruined, vanish, and disappear, and they would become mere ordinary beings. How unwilling they are to accept this! But such people are acting very irrationally; they are not people who regard the Path as paramount, not people who take the Dharma and truth as their refuge. Evading facts is not the conduct of a great man; it is a manifestation of self-attachment.

If sentient beings have deep roots of goodness and abundant merit, then even if they encounter a wrong path, they will ultimately, by means of their own roots of goodness and merit, walk out of it and return to the correct path. Therefore, every Buddhist practitioner should cultivate more merit and plant more roots of goodness, so as to ensure that in this life and future lives they do not enter wrong paths, that they possess the Dharma-selecting eye and discernment, are not misled, and do not fall into evil destinies. The closer we come to the Dharma-ending age, the more opportunities there are to cultivate merit and to plant roots of goodness. Those who truly wish to attain the Way and those who make great aspirations and vows must seize every opportunity well, planting more roots of goodness and merit—not only benefiting endlessly life after life, but also accelerating the progress of their cultivation and realization of the Buddha Way, attaining liberation through wisdom sooner, benefiting themselves and benefiting others.