What is the significance of studying and practicing the tathāgatagarbha Dharma gate?

What is the significance of studying and practicing the tathāgatagarbha dharma gate?

The study and practice of all Buddhadharma is for the purpose of realizing the emptiness of self and the emptiness of dharmas, extinguishing the manas's view of self, view of dharmas, attachment to self, and attachment to dharmas, and eliminating the ignorance and afflictive delusions of the manas. Each person must be clear about this goal and direction in mind; only then does studying the Buddhadharma and practicing the tathāgatagarbha dharma have meaning. Otherwise, it becomes merely an academic subject, with practice and scholarship split into two separate things—scholarship is scholarship, practice is practice, and the two have nothing to do with each other. We should be clear about this point: scholarship cannot eliminate ignorance and afflictions; it will only add afflictions and bondage in vain, and may even increase the deluded karma of ignorance and birth-and-death.

Why does the phenomenon of scholarship and practice becoming two separate things arise? The fundamental problem lies in the lack of meditative concentration (samādhi) and authentic contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), the lack of correspondence and connection with one's body, mind, and world. One erroneous view—that bodhisattvas need not eliminate afflictions—is the direct root of the problem. Because the purpose of practice is unclear, although scholarship accumulates, it has no real substance. Studying the tathāgatagarbha dharma is precisely for eliminating afflictions. As long as the direction and method are correct, afflictions will gradually dissolve, and even if one does not intend to eliminate them, they will be eliminated without one's noticing. If the direction and method are wrong, knowledge and scholarship can keep increasing, but afflictions will not decrease; afflictions may even grow along with the growth of one's learning. Such study of the Dharma is truly a misunderstanding, something turned upside down.

Because sentient beings have remained in ignorance and afflictions for countless kalpas, the various sufferings of birth and death in the six realms of saṃsāra never cease. A bodhisattva is one member among sentient beings, likewise undergoing birth and death due to ignorance and afflictions, and likewise needs to practice to eliminate ignorance and afflictions, sever the bonds of birth and death, and leave suffering to attain happiness. Only when one has oneself eliminated ignorance and afflictions is one qualified to be a bodhisattva who guides the multitude to also eliminate ignorance and afflictions, leave suffering and attain happiness, and move toward liberation. If a bodhisattva is mired in the abyss of afflictions, how could he have the ability and qualification to guide others out of the abyss of afflictions?

Therefore, the view that bodhisattvas need not eliminate afflictions, and should not eliminate them, is extremely harmful. If one does not eliminate afflictions, what is the point of studying Buddhism and practicing? To deliver sentient beings without letting them eliminate afflictions—what kind of deliverance would that be? Could it be that every sentient being becoming a collector of knowledge and learning, an expert in theory, is the final destination? Can knowledge, theory, and scholarship withstand birth and death? Can they serve as merit or be eaten as food? With afflictions there is no virtue—neither merit (puṇya) nor power of merit. Sentient beings without merit or power of merit are ordinary beings bound by the karma of birth and death; what then is there to say about practice and delivering sentient beings?

Those who study the tathāgatagarbha dharma may analyze and intellectually interpret the tathāgatagarbha with perfect clarity, yet they themselves receive not the slightest benefit: their afflictions remain as before, their wisdom remains shallow, and the bonds still bind their own minds. Such study and practice, in the end, is all labor in vain. No matter how pure the tathāgatagarbha is, how selfless it is, how completely it is endowed with all precepts, samādhi, and wisdom—if the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) and the manas are not pure, cannot be selfless, and lack precepts, samādhi, and wisdom, then there is still no merit and no wisdom, boundless distress, and no hope of liberation. The tathāgatagarbha will still manifest the five aggregates and the manas in the three evil realms to suffer, bobbing up and down in the sea of suffering of the six realms.

Therefore, study and practice must accord with reason, with the Dharma, and with the Vinaya; one must not deviate from the correct goal and course. One must strictly demand of oneself the precepts established by the Buddha, and must practice strictly according to the standards of the three undefiled trainings of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom taught by the Buddha. The goal is an undefiled mind-ground; being undefiled means being without ignorance and without afflictions. Only this is the correct path of practice. Do not say again that bodhisattvas need not eliminate afflictions—this is a wrong view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi), running directly counter to practice.