Bodhisattvas Constantly Roam in Ultimate Emptiness (niṣṭha-śūnyatā)

The Sarvadharmāpravṛtti Sūtra (Sūtra on the Non-Practice of All Dharmas): "practice" here means movement and operation. In truth, all dharmas have no real existence and no movement or operation. Why is this so? All dharmas are of the mark of nirvāṇa—tranquil and without action, neither arising nor ceasing, without bondage or fetters, and likewise without liberation—ever abiding in their own tranquility, like empty space. All dharmas are of the mark of the tathāgatagarbha; when one sees the tathāgatagarbha, one does not see any dharmas—this is to hide within the tathāgatagarbha. What dharma is not the tathāgatagarbha? All are the emptiness (śūnyatā) of the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore there is no worldly mark of the three realms, no marks of wholesome and unwholesome, no marks of disorder and corruption, no marks of opposition.

Bodhisattvas constantly roam in ultimate emptiness, their minds constantly abiding in meditative concentration (samādhi) without attachment. If there is attachment, then they are not bodhisattvas; if they see marks of good and bad in all dharmas, then they are not bodhisattvas. Therefore my mind is gentle and pliant, soft to the utmost, beyond words. After seeing one's true mind (awakening to the true mind), one becomes a true Mahāyāna bodhisattva. If one's mental disposition has not been genuinely transformed before seeing the true mind, and one does not yet possess the mental disposition of a qualified Mahāyāna bodhisattva, then it will be difficult, or even impossible, to become a true Mahāyāna bodhisattva.

A bodhisattva should have the character of a bodhisattva; a person should have a human character; a Buddha has the character of a Buddha. Their mental dispositions should all correspond to their respective fruitions—this is what is normal. Otherwise, they are false bodhisattvas, false Buddhas. A person who lacks a human character is not a complete person, not a person in the true sense.

Bodhisattvas receive instruction from the Buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions for countless kalpas. The parts of their teaching that are correct belong to the Dharma of the Buddhas of the ten directions; the erroneous parts belong to their own Dharma, whose realization is still imperfect. The Buddha-Dharma cannot be attributed to the possession of a single Buddha, still less to the possession of a certain bodhisattva, and ordinary beings certainly cannot possess the Buddha-Dharma. One who has the Buddha-Dharma is a Buddha; one who has the bodhisattva-Dharma is a bodhisattva; one who has the ordinary being's dharma is an ordinary being. People at each level have the dharma of their own level. Therefore everyone should make the great vow to become fully endowed with the Buddha-Dharma as soon as possible, so as to attain buddhahood sooner.