How to Generate the Mind of Liberation

The functions of the mind are the functional operations of feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness—recognizing and discerning, grasping, feeling, and making choices, giving rise to joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, as well as sorrow, grief, suffering, and distress (śoka-parideva-duḥkha-daurmanasyopāyāsa) toward all dharmas. All these functional operations are brought forth by the consciousness seeds of the tathāgatagarbha. Once the seeds of the seven great elements are transmitted out, the mental activities of the seven consciousnesses and the realms of the six sense objects appear just like bubbles. From beginningless kalpas, the manas has always clung to these bubbles, taking the impermanent mark as a permanent mark, taking the marks of suffering, emptiness, and afflictions as marks of happiness, taking the selfless mark of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) as a mark of self, and taking the impure marks of the six sense objects and six consciousnesses as pure marks. It clings to all these bubbles as "I" and "mine," and takes the dharmas of suffering, emptiness, and impermanence as self and possessions of self.

Because the manas grasps at these dharmas, it cannot escape the three realms and attain liberation. After we understand these principles, in this life we should give rise to the mind seeking liberation, and strive to understand how all these dharmas are illusory and unreal, by what causes and conditions they arise and by what causes and conditions they cease, and no longer grasp at the illusory, conditioned dharmas that are impermanent and selfless. All feelings, even pleasant feelings, are impermanent and cannot be retained. When a sense-object realm appears, a pleasant feeling arises; when the realm of the sense object ceases, the pleasant feeling also ceases. There is no feeling, no dharma, that can exist permanently without changing and perishing.

The six sense objects are all illusory shadows presented within the brain. We grasp at these shadows and thereby produce various feelings and perceptions. The shadows are not real, and the feelings and perceptions they produce are equally unreal. All dharmas are constantly arising and ceasing moment by moment. The past has already passed; the present instantly becomes the past; the future has not yet arrived. The manas cannot hold on to any illusory mark of the past, present, or future.

In the world there are fundamentally no such people, no such affairs, no such principles, and no world at all. It is just like crying and laughing at the shadow in a mirror, giving rise to mental activity and thoughts, and performing all kinds of karmic actions, while not knowing that everything one faces is merely illusory shadows—just like a foolish dog barking wildly and ceaselessly at its own shadow in a mirror, or like a foolish monkey jumping into a lake determined to fish out the moon's reflection. Sentient beings are just this foolish. To escape this foolishness and attain liberation through wisdom, one must recognize the truth and reality, no longer grasp at any dharma, and eradicate the two attachments of self and dharma.