Why Is the Human Heart Restless?

The human mind is not level, giving rise to disputes and gossip — why is it not level? Because the mind holds the four marks; marks have good and bad, concave and convex, and they dwell within the mind, so the mind is not level. The mind is inherently level; what is not level is the mind that perceives marks. How can the mind be made level? By smoothing out the marks. How to smooth them out? Contemplate all marks as equal and nondual, and see through the substance and essence of marks. What is the substance and essence of marks? They are nothing but combinations of the seeds of the seven great elements, nothing but what the tathāgatagarbha has created — how could there be any real marks for us to see? When the eyes have a film-like disease, one sees high and low, above and below, beautiful and ugly; a diseased eye gazes at flowers in the sky, but when the disease is gone, the sky-flowers vanish. Cultivation is precisely to remove the disease and see the true marks — apart from this there is nothing else! This is to encourage others, and also to encourage myself.