What Is the True Realization of the Eighth Consciousness

Realizing the eighth consciousness is like looking for a person; there is not much difference between the two. Suppose we want to find someone. After searching and deliberating, we finally determine that this person is in a certain room in a certain area, and we feel very certain about it, but we have not seen this person with our own eyes. Does this count as having found the person?

As long as you have not seen this person, have not truly come face to face with him, it does not count as having found him. Even though you are very certain he is in that place, you simply have not met him, so it does not count as finding him. Because you do not know what the person looks like, what he is actually doing at this moment, how he does it, what his state of mind is, what his cultivation and character are like—you have no knowledge or understanding of this person at all. Nor do you know whether the person in that place is the one you want to find, or whether that person is really there at all. What is not seen with one's own eyes cannot be taken as real.

No matter how certain you are in your heart that the person is in that area, in that room, and even if in fact that person really is in the room, as long as you have not seen him with your own eyes, it does not count as having found that person. And once you have found that person, you will see with your own eyes what he is doing and how he does it. This is called seeing with one's own eyes.

No matter how much you believe that the person is in the room, if you do not know what that person is specifically doing at this moment and how he does it, no wisdom will arise. Guessing what the person is specifically doing in the room and how he does it—even if the guess is correct—cannot give rise to any wisdom.

Another example: your leader tells you to find a certain person, Person A, and see what he is doing. You roughly know that Person A is far away from you, and that going to find him would be arduous. After going out and wandering around once, you do not want to go there, but you still must complete the task the leader assigned. So you inquire everywhere, and finally you find out that Person A is on the eleventh floor of a certain place, and you roughly guess that he might be sleeping. So you come back and tell the leader that Person A is on the eleventh floor, and as for what he is doing, it is probably the same things he does on ordinary days—nothing out of the ordinary. Does this count as having found Person A?

This belongs to guessing—guessing what Person A is doing. Even if the guess is correct, the inquiry is correct, and in fact Person A really is doing something, that is still not seeing with one's own eyes. Only by seeing Person A in person can you observe him face to face, can wisdom continuously arise for recognizing and discerning him, and can you learn from him. What is imagined and guessed will never give rise to such wisdom. Many people have been enlightened for N years and are still treading in place, with no increase in wisdom at all. Why? Because they have not personally realized it; it was merely understood intellectually.

Quite a few people speculate about the realm of realization of an eighth-ground bodhisattva, and some really do guess correctly. But even if the speculation is as correct and accurate as can be, it is still not personally realized, and they must continue to remain ordinary beings. The Goldbach conjecture is applied too widely and too deeply in the Buddha-dharma. Why is this so? Because realization in the Buddha-dharma is far too difficult, so people have no choice but to resort to this inferior expedient.

Now, after truly realizing the eighth consciousness, can one still regress? For example, if I tell you that Person A is in the room, at that moment you believe it very strongly, very definitely, very firmly. But it is not what you have seen with your own eyes. What will happen afterward? Surely you will become disbelieving and uncertain, and doubt will arise in your mind. But what you have personally verified through arduous effort, what you have seen with your own eyes, will not give rise to doubt or regression. Seeing is believing; hearing is unreliable. What others tell you, no matter how much you believe it, is not fact for yourself. If I have never seen an apple with my own eyes, never tasted an apple with my own mouth, then no matter how others describe it, no matter how I imagine and understand it, it is useless—I will forever not know the true situation of the apple, and I cannot absorb the apple's nourishment.

So if I hold a mass meeting of ten thousand people and expound on the operation of the eighth consciousness, I can be extremely detailed, extremely meticulous, extremely specific, and eighty percent of the assembly can believe and understand it clearly. Then I would issue certificates to these eighty percent of the people, certifying them as bodhisattvas who have awakened to the true mind. These so-called bodhisattvas who have awakened to the true mind have not seen with their own eyes the operation of the eighth consciousness; they have only listened to me, then speculated and matched things up. What will happen afterward? What will happen after death?

The claim that there can be regression after so-called awakening to the true mind and seeing one's nature means there was no true awakening to the true mind and seeing of one's nature, no process of personal investigation—it was only arrived at through hearsay and speculative analysis. Naturally, it is possible that one will no longer believe such speculation and analysis, and thus one regresses. Without going through a process of arduous cultivation, something obtained for nothing is like looking at flowers through the fog—seen unclearly, it will be rejected. To speculate an eighth consciousness into existence means one also cannot truly accomplish the transformation of the basis as tathāgatagarbha, and no subsequent merit and benefit will arise.

I was just thirsty, so I peeled an apple and ate it. If any of you had found me and watched me face to face as to how I peel an apple and eat an apple, you would follow along and learn, and you would also know how to peel an apple and how to eat an apple. Then, after seeing me peel the apple and leave the peel for the mice to eat, you would know my compassion and follow along, likewise acquiring a compassionate nature. Then, observing that during the process of eating the apple my mind does not give rise to greed, you would then also learn how to keep the mind from giving rise to the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, and thus the mind becomes pure. This is the benefit of seeing me face to face—you can learn from me. Then, following me at all times, observing how I conduct myself with others, what my moral cultivation is like, and how I specifically handle various matters, you will learn a great deal, and your mental conduct, character, cultivation, and so on will all undergo change. This is the benefit of finding me and following me, or what is called merit and benefit.

Having personally realized the eighth consciousness—not through hearsay, not through word of mouth—one can observe directly, in the present, the operation of the eighth consciousness in various dharmas, and one will learn many dharmas, and one's mental nature will become ever closer to that of the eighth consciousness. But those who rely on speculation will forever lack such merit and benefit, because they cannot observe it directly in the present.