Yogācārabhūmi, Volume 34 (72)

Original text: 终不求请外道为师。亦不于彼起福田想。于他沙门婆罗门等。终不观瞻口及颜面。唯自见法得法。知法得法。证法源底。越度疑惑。不由他缘。于大师教。非他所引。于诸法中得无所畏。终不妄计世瑞吉祥。以为清净。终不更受第八有生。具足成就四种证净。如是行者。乃至世第一法已前。名胜解作意。

Explanation: One will never take refuge in non-Buddhist paths (tīrthikas) as teachers, nor regard them as fields of merit. Toward other śramaṇas and brāhmaṇas and so forth, one will never look up to their faces, watch their countenances, value what they say, or obtain the Dharma from their mouths; one only sees the Dharma and attains the Dharma by oneself, alone. Seeing the Dharma and attaining the Dharma on one's own, one realizes the very source and foundation of the Dharma, resolves all doubts, and this is not accomplished through external conditions. Being able to realize the foundation of the Dharma is due to the teachings of the World-Honored One, the good teacher; it is not drawn from anywhere other than the World-Honored One. The practitioner is fearless among all dharmas, will never falsely cling to the various auspicious signs and good omens of the world as being purity, and will never again undergo an eighth birth in existence, having fully accomplished the four purities of realization (the four factors of stream-entry). Such a practitioner, up until before the first of the worldly dharmas (laukikāgra-dharma), is said to be engaged in the attention of determination (adhimokṣa-manaskāra).

After the practitioner has attained the direct realization of the four knowledges, and cultivates the four applications of effort (four preparations), all contemplative practice before the fourth preparation—the first of the worldly dharmas—is called the attention of determination. This means that the deliberation and investigation done before direct, present-moment realization should all be called determination and comprehension of the Dharma; only after such determination can one observe and attain it through direct perception, which is called realization. Realization occurs from the stage of the srotāpanna fruit and above, whereas determination occurs at the stage of the srotāpanna-fruit direction or at the stage of the first of the worldly dharmas among the four preparations; only after the four preparations can one realize and see the path. Therefore one should observe one's own wisdom as it truly is: is it the wisdom of direct perception, or determination, or conjecture, inference, and analysis? Only by understanding the level of one's own wisdom can one properly plan the next step of one's practice.

A practitioner who possesses the direct realization of the four knowledges never obtains or knows the Dharma from elsewhere, and does not take what others say as the ultimate refuge; all rely on their own direct observation to attain realization. The matter of seeing the Dharma and attaining the Dharma can only be accomplished through one's own effort of investigation and contemplative practice; others cannot help, and whatever others point out or teach cannot substitute for one's own direct contemplative practice. Doubts must be resolved by oneself through contemplative practice; what others say cannot dispel the doubts in one's own mind, because it is not what one has personally seen and realized. Some people try every means to extract the fruits of others' practice; but in the Buddha's Dharma, whoever cultivates it attains it—what is extracted from others cannot become one's own, nor can it yield the wisdom of seeing the path. With the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra as a guide, the principles of the Dharma become ever clearer; as for realizing the fruits and seeing the mind, there is nothing anyone can do if they refuse to accept it—otherwise, they can go find Bodhisattva Maitreya and have a talk with Him.