The fundamental purpose of Buddhist practice and realization is liberation from all bondage of dharmas

The entire process of our Buddhist practice and cultivation—from ordinary being to the attainment of buddhahood—is a continuous process of realizing that all these dharmas are not real, that they are all illusory transformations, all shadows, all dreams, all without self. In the end, when all the Buddha's teachings have been fully realized, it is exactly this: all dharmas are unreal and none of them is self. At that point we awaken from the great dream of birth and death; only then is there complete liberation, only then do we become a Buddha, and there is no longer any need to cultivate. Therefore, the process of cultivation is a process of continually changing our own cognition. The deluded and ignorant mind that takes all dharmas as real is gradually changed in the course of our practice, until in the end we recognize that all these dharmas are not real, and finally we fully realize that this is indeed so—all of them are unreal. Then all the mental activities of the mind are transformed, becoming a mind without defilement, without delusion and ignorance. The seventh consciousness is then completely transformed from consciousness into wisdom, and one becomes a Buddha. Such is the process of studying and practicing Buddhism.

Throughout this process, one's own mind continually breaks free from the bondage of dharmas, continually liberates itself from the fetters of dharmas, and becomes ever more at ease. The reason ordinary beings cannot attain liberation and ease is that they take the false as real, treating the shadows conjured up by the illusions of the three realms' worldly phenomena as real; they grasp at and fabricate within them, and then are bound and constrained by karmic actions, so the mind cannot attain liberation and ease. They suffer through birth and death again and again within these three realms. Cultivation is precisely the breaking of these ignorances, so that we no longer take the false as real, breaking through all marks. Such is the principle, and it does not look difficult; yet the actual process of cultivation is extremely long, because the manas has too much and too heavy ignorance, and the grasping at self and at dharmas is also very heavy. Therefore, the time needed to break through ignorance is exceedingly, exceedingly long.