How to Continue Investigating the Mahāyāna Dharma After the Elimination of Self-View (ahaṃkāra-mamakāra-parityāga)

Ru Chun: These past few days I have been contemplating Mahāyāna dharma principles in my dreams, and each time just before waking there is a feeling of: "Oh, so that's how it is." Once, right upon waking, a thought arose in my mind: "So the true and the false are non-dual!" I felt overjoyed, but after becoming fully awake I could not recall the specific details, so I tried hard to search through fragments of memory and then continued contemplating. Often, in moments of absent-minded trance, I seemed to have some realization, yet the specific content felt hazy and unclear, while at the same time my entire chest surged and churned violently, as if about to split open, as if something were about to burst out, and my heart was filled with inexplicable joy.

Gradually, dharma principles I could not understand before now seem somewhat comprehensible. For example: why is it that one eats all day yet never touches a single grain of rice, and walks all day yet never touches a single patch of earth? This means that the self-natured mind, in terms of appearance, walks, stands, sits, and lies down, dresses and eats; but in terms of its essential nature it is utterly naked, untainted by a single speck of dust. It speaks of the pure and unimpeded nature of the true mind of self-nature.

It is just like dreaming: within a dream there are thousands upon thousands of worlds containing every imaginable wonder, yet they have not the slightest connection with the self after waking. But this dream also exists only because of oneself; they are not two, yet neither are they one nor different. The dream world refers to the various worldly appearances conjured up by the tathāgatagarbha, while the awakened state refers to the essential nature of the tathāgatagarbha. The mind's appearances have arising, ceasing, gaining, and losing, but the mind's essence neither increases nor decreases, neither comes nor goes. The true mind does not require the assistance of any dharma-condition to exist; it is utterly independent and natural, existing of its own accord from the very beginning. Only when spring warms can flowers bloom; only when the mind stirs can appearances arise. The formless, markless spring resides right there within that scene of flourishing spring vitality, and that spring vitality exists only because of the spring. Spring and spring vitality are neither one nor different. The silent, formless, markless (tranquil) true mind of self-nature resides right there within those vibrant, manifoldly shaped, endlessly speaking delusive dharmas (dignified bearing). The true and the false are non-dual yet also not one; they are both the same and not the same, neither one nor different.

Assessment: The Mahāyāna dharma closest to the Hīnayāna is the prajñā emptiness (śūnyatā), not the vast Yogācāra teachings. After Hīnayāna practitioners eliminate self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), the first thing they should study and accomplish is the foundational Mahāyāna dharma of the prajñā portion. Because I have taught very little of the prajñā portion and a great deal of the Yogācāra portion, many disciples find the Mahāyāna dharma very difficult to understand and enter, especially since they know very little about the prajñā dharma of emptiness; after eliminating self-view, they feel lost and inadequate when investigating Mahāyāna dharma. Ru Chun is also like this: not knowing the foundational principles of the Mahāyāna dharma, her contemplation of the dharma lacks proper sequence, and logically it appears quite disordered and rather beside the point.

This is a deficiency in my teaching of the dharma, and the responsibility lies with me. In recent years I have focused on teaching the Hīnayāna emptiness in order to prevent disciples from practicing without their feet on the ground, from being impractical, building castles in the air, shouting empty slogans, and having the name without the substance. Therefore I taught much about the foundation of practice, tamping down the groundwork firmly so that when walking one does not topple over, top-heavy. At the same time, in order to prevent the assembly from merely interpreting the Buddha-dharma and thereby falling into mistaken awakening, false awakening, and great false speech, I taught a great deal about the dharma of realizing through the manas in actual practice. In this way, I had no energy left to devote much attention to the prajñā portion. As for the Chan (Zen) portion, because I worried that everyone would merely attain intellectual understanding, the parts I taught before were never published in books due to their plain language—all out of concern that people would directly interpret them intellectually and be unable to realize them experientially. Because nowadays the trend of superficiality within the Buddhist community is rampant, the phenomenon of falseness, grandiosity, and emptiness is severe, and sentient beings all dislike keeping their feet on the ground, with heavy vanity and competitiveness, the parts I had no choice but to teach in plain language were not made public.

Under these circumstances, for practitioners who have already attained the Hīnayāna vision of the path, or who are about to attain it, if they wish to enter into the investigation of the Mahāyāna dharma, they must self-study the prajñā dharma principles in the six hundred fascicles of the Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, learning the Mahāyāna meaning of emptiness therein, and at the same time peruse some ancient Chan (Zen) koans. However, some of the Chan koans from the Tang dynasty period contain verbal entanglements and are suspect of being mere intellectual understanding; the linguistic zen repartee easily causes people to remain at the level of surface phenomena, entangled in the vines of language and words, unable to break free. Therefore, it is not the case that everything from antiquity is necessarily correct and infallible, or necessarily the standard; one must learn to think about issues dialectically. As for the prajñā dharma principles that I have taught little of, for now rely on your own practice and study, exercising your capacity for self-directed practice and reducing dependence. Later, if I have the energy, I may teach some more on the Chan school or the prajñā sūtras.