Consciousness Attaining the Fruit Is Still a Fetter-Bound Ordinary Being

Attaining realization through the mind consciousness is extremely quick and easy: it requires paying little price, does not demand exhausting mental effort in investigating Chan, and most importantly does not require cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi). It is simply too convenient. The hurdle of meditative concentration is the hardest to pass—especially arduous, time-consuming, requiring painful leg-sitting, and delaying many worldly affairs. Attaining realization through the mind consciousness does not require much observance of precepts; even the three refuges and five precepts can be waived. The most troublesome thirty-seven factors of enlightenment need not be cultivated, saving an enormous amount of time and energy. Merit need not be particularly good either; the first five of the bodhisattva's six perfections can all be waived—so convenient. One only needs to use the mind consciousness to learn some theoretical knowledge, then deliberate, understand, analyze, speculate, infer, integrate, and summarize. None of these operations require much concentration, nor do they tax the brain or weary the mind. These tasks are like the daily work of a junior secretary—anyone of average intelligence can handle them.

How cheap such realization is! It costs little, and a pile of theoretical knowledge can even attract attention and win admiration. There is no need to abandon wife and children to leave home and cultivate the path, no need to part from relatives and sever attachments. One can engage in romantic relationships and call it "liberating sentient beings," continue one's worldly career, accept offerings from the public, become a Dharma master bodhisattva, become a "supreme-meaning monastic" overshadowing home-leaving monastics, and reap the benefits of both monastic and lay life—maximizing worldly benefits. With so many advantages to realizing fruition through the mind consciousness, who would be willing to give it up?

But after such "realization," one cannot sever even the tiniest bit of afflictions, being no different whatsoever from a fettered ordinary person. Some people make excuses for themselves, saying that only third-fruit and fourth-fruit practitioners sever afflictions, while first-fruit and second-fruit practitioners still have afflictions, so this is nothing surprising—that first-fruit people have afflictions as many and as heavy as ordinary people is also nothing surprising. But if the first fruit is the same as a fettered ordinary person, then it shows that a first-fruit person is essentially an ordinary person complete with all afflictions, and the first fruit is a name without substance. How could such a person be a first-fruit srotāpanna who has eradicated the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa)? If the Buddha-dharma continues like this, how can Buddhism not perish?

Although there are many worldly wrong dharmas and wrong teachers in the world, those wrong dharmas are all very shallow and low, incapable of destroying the foundation of Buddhism or shaking its roots. For example, a certain Dharma master's teachings on tathāgatagarbha are utter nonsense, but he can never influence the mainstream development of Buddhism. The sentient beings he liberates all have extremely shallow faculties; even if painstakingly drawn out, they accomplish nothing and pose no threat to Buddhism. Another example is the tantric practice of dual cultivation with a partner, which is fundamentally a non-Buddhist path of a very low and inferior level. Anyone with a bit of wisdom can discern it and will not enter it; those who do enter are mostly people of heavy karmic obstructions and shallow roots of goodness. Even if one exerts great effort to rescue and deliver them out, they will never amount to anything and cannot possibly become the mainstay of Buddhism. What can destroy Buddhism will never be non-Buddhist paths or their teachings; Buddhism is always destroyed from within—this is what is meant by "the worms within the lion's body devour the flesh of the lion's body."

Therefore, the foundation and focal point of Buddhism throughout the three periods lies in the extremely critical link of attaining realization and seeing the mind and seeing the nature. As long as nothing goes seriously wrong at this link, the future development of Buddhism will be safe. Thus the fundamental dharma of eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) and of seeing the mind and seeing the nature is not something just anyone can transmit; it absolutely must not be done recklessly. If one recklessly transmits it and thereby harms the Dharmakāya and wisdom-life of sentient beings, then in the future even wishing to be a wild fox for five hundred lifetimes would be wishful thinking—the evil retribution one undergoes will be countless times more severe than that. Protecting and supporting those who recklessly transmit the dharma is tantamount to abetting a tyrant, and the karmic retribution is likewise quite bad. Therefore, I sincerely ask everyone to deeply contemplate cause and effect, to treat the Buddha-dharma with seriousness, and to maintain a highly responsible attitude toward sentient beings and Buddhism.