How is segmented birth-and-death (pariccheda-maraṇa) eliminated?

All birth-and-death arises because of ignorance (avidyā). Where there is ignorance, there must be corresponding karmic actions of ignorance and karmic seeds; the karmic seeds of ignorance inevitably lead sentient beings into segmented birth-and-death (pariccheda-maraṇa) and transformational birth-and-death (parināma-maraṇa). If one wishes to end segmented birth-and-death, one must break through ignorance; after the mind becomes pure, one eradicates afflictions and the habitual tendencies of afflictions, and eliminates the karmic seeds of ignorance. In this way, segmented birth-and-death is eliminated, and one enters the stage of transformational birth-and-death. 

What is the prerequisite for the transformation of karmic seeds? Only when the mind is transformed, and bodily, verbal, and mental actions are transformed, will the karmic seeds be transformed. What is the prerequisite for the transformation of the mind? When ignorance is broken through and afflictions are eradicated, the mind is transformed. What is the prerequisite for breaking through ignorance? Only when the cultivation of the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment, the cultivation of the bodhisattva's six perfections, and the cultivation of precepts, meditation, and wisdom reach a certain level will ignorance be broken through and afflictions be eradicated. Only afterward can the mind be transformed, bodily, verbal, and mental actions become pure, and karmic seeds be transformed. Only when the grasping at self with regard to persons is eradicated and exhausted, and the grasping at self with regard to dharmas is eradicated, can the Ālayavijñāna be transformed into the vipāka-consciousness, and segmented birth-and-death be transformed into transformational birth-and-death. 

To whatever degree one cultivates, one will break through that degree of ignorance, eradicate that degree of afflictions, purify the mind to that degree, transform bodily, verbal, and mental actions to that degree, transform karmic seeds to that degree, and one's karmic retribution will also be transformed to that degree accordingly. Therefore, cultivation always involves a process, and every stage of that process is necessary and essential; the time may be long or short, but the process is indispensable—without the process, there can be no talk of the fruit. Therefore, do not harbor the delusion that a bound ordinary being, still carrying all his afflictions, can realize bodhi; nor harbor the delusion that after realizing bodhi one can continue walking the bodhi path without eradicating afflictions—afflictions are not the Path.