Self-Cultivation & Awakening · Mind & Practice

Practice and realization

Buddha

Awakening

Practice to become a Buddha lies in seeking

Realization to understand one’s nature lies in knowing

Practice: use action to discipline one’s nature

Realization: let one’s nature guide action

Practitioners follow external discipline, using rules to govern the mind

The awakened awaken themselves, letting rules arise from the heart

Thus

The foolish follow external discipline, painstakingly scheming

The wise follow the discipline of the heart, doing as the heart desires

Realizing the Way is

Settling

Accumulating

Reflecting and questioning

Buddha

Awakening

Can be realized, cannot be cultivated

How to practice and realize

As for the causes and conditions of this great matter, everyone inherently possesses it, each complete as they are, lacking not a hair. Yet since beginningless kalpas, the seeds of attachment, deluded thoughts, emotional concerns, and deeply ingrained habits have obscured wondrous clarity, preventing its true use. We have always made our living only among the illusory shadows of body, mind, and world, and so wander through birth and death. Buddhas and patriarchs appeared in the world with countless words and skillful means, speaking of Chan and doctrine, all merely adapting to capacities and circumstances as tools to break attachment. Originally there is no actual teaching to give anyone.

What is called practice merely follows one’s own mind, cleansing deluded thoughts and the shadows of habits. Applying effort here is called practice. If deluded thought suddenly ceases and one thoroughly sees one’s own mind—originally complete, luminous, vast, naturally pure, without a single thing—this is called realization. Apart from this mind, there is nothing else to practice or realize. The mind’s essence is like a mirror; deluded thoughts and grasping shadows are merely dirt upon the true mind. Thus it is said that imagined forms are dust, discriminating feelings grime. When deluded thoughts dissolve, the original essence appears, like polishing a mirror: dirt cleared, brightness revealed. Such is its nature.

Yet our habits accumulated through kalpas are firm, the root of self-attachment deep and hard to pull out. Fortunately, in this life, inherent prajna works inwardly as a cause, and good teachers provide the external condition that awakens it. Knowing it is originally ours, we arouse aspiration toward liberation from birth and death. Pulling up in one stroke the roots of birth and death accumulated through immeasurable kalpas is no small matter. Unless one has great strength, shoulders it stripped bare, and goes straight in with a single blade, it is difficult indeed. The ancients said it is like one person fighting ten thousand: no empty words.

Where to begin practice and realization

Generally, in this age of declining Dharma, many practice but few gain true benefit; many expend effort but few gain effective strength. Why? They have not found a direct starting point. They work only upon previously heard and seen knowledge, interpretations, and words, measuring through discriminating consciousness, suppressing deluded thoughts, and laboring at the gate of light and shadow. They first store ancient subtle sayings in their breasts, treating them as real teachings and their own understanding, unaware that none of it is useful here. This is precisely relying on others’ explanations and blocking one’s own gate to realization.

To work now, first cut away knowledge and interpretations, working solely upon this single thought. Firmly trust that your own mind is originally utterly clean, without a thread attached, perfectly luminous and filling the Dharma realm. Originally there is no body, mind, or world, nor deluded thoughts or emotional concerns. This very thought is originally unborn. Present appearances are all illusory and unreal, only shadows manifested in the true mind. Seeing through this, fix your gaze where deluded thoughts arise and cease: from where do they arise, and where do they cease? Press with effort in this way, and whatever the thought, one press crushes it, instantly dissolving it like ice and collapsing tiles. Never follow its turning or let it continue. This is what Yongjia meant by cutting off the continuing mind. The floating delusive mind originally has no roots; never treat it as a real thing lodged in your breast. When it arises, rebuke it, and with one rebuke it vanishes. Never force it down, or it will manipulate you like a gourd on water. Simply cast body, mind, and world aside and raise this single thought, like a precious sword across the sky. Whether Buddha or demon, cut everything off like tangled threads, pressing ahead with sheer force. This is the straight mind rightly recollecting suchness. Right recollection is no-thought. Observing no-thought may be called approaching Buddha’s wisdom.

At the first aspiration to practice, firmly trust the mind-only gateway. Buddha said the three realms are only mind and all phenomena only consciousness. All the Dharma explains these eight Chinese characters clearly so everyone can trust them. Broadly, the paths of sage and ordinary person are merely the two roads of delusion and awakening within one’s own mind. All good and evil, cause and effect: apart from this mind, not a single thing can be found. Our wondrous nature is natural and originally does not belong to awakening; how could it be deluded? What is now called delusion is merely failing to understand that one’s mind originally contains nothing and that body, mind, and world are originally empty, and being obstructed by them. One has always treated the arising and ceasing mind of deluded thought as real, thus taking the many transformations of the six sense objects and circumstances as real. Arousing aspiration now means turning the current upward. Entirely discard previous knowledge and interpretations; not the slightest clever view or method is useful. See through your present body, mind, and world at one glance: all are floating lights and illusory shadows in your mind, like images in a mirror or the moon in water. Regard every sound as wind through trees, every circumstance as clouds floating in space: all changing and unreal. This applies not only outside; your own deluded thoughts, emotional concerns, seeds of attachment, habits, and afflictions are also floating, illusory, and unreal.

Contemplate deeply like this, and whenever a thought arises, determine to investigate its origin and end. Never let it pass lightly or deceive you. Such work comes somewhat close to the genuine. Dragging in mysterious views and clever methods beyond this has no connection at all. Even speaking of practice is only a necessity, like warfare: weapons are inauspicious tools, used only when unavoidable. The ancients’ Chan inquiry and raising a huatou likewise were expedients. Though koans are many, the huatou of investigating the reality of Buddha-recollection is particularly easy to make effective amid worldly toil. Even so, it is only a tile used to knock on a door, ultimately to be discarded, though one must use it for a time. Working with it now requires full trust, firm reliance, and holding fast, never hesitation. Do not do this today and that tomorrow, fearing nonawakening or disliking its lack of mystery. These calculations are obstacles. Expose them beforehand so doubts do not arise at the moment.

When practice becomes effective, outside circumstances no longer enter, but inner afflictions arise wildly: desires erupt, vexation develops, or varied obstacles leave mind and strength exhausted and helpless. These are seeds of habits stored in the eighth consciousness through immeasurable kalpas, now pressed urgently by practice and appearing together. Here discernment is essential: first recognize and penetrate them. Never be enveloped, manipulated, or treat them as real. Simply rouse the spirit, exert brave vigor, and raise the original huatou. At the very arising of such thoughts, pursue directly: this matter originally does not exist here in me—ask where it comes from and what it ultimately is. Determine to see its source and end. Press ahead until spirits and ghosts weep, their traces vanish and hide. Drive them all out, leaving not a thread. Applying effort thus naturally brings good news.

If a single thought is broken through, all deluded thoughts fall away at once, like illusory flowers dropping from the sky and mirage waves settling. Passing through this brings immeasurable lightness, peace, and freedom. This is an early point of effective practice, nothing mysterious. In lightness and freedom, do not generate delight: delight invites the demon of delight into the mind, adding another obstacle. As for firmly rooted, deeply hidden seeds of attachment and habits in storehouse consciousness, where the huatou cannot exert force and observation of mind cannot illuminate, one cannot work unaided. Bow to Buddha, recite sutras, repent, and secretly maintain the mantra-heart, relying on Buddha’s secret seal to remove them. All secret mantras are Buddha’s adamantine mind-seal. Using them is like wielding an adamantine vajra that crushes all things to dust. The secret mind-seal instructions of Buddhas and patriarchs go no further than this. Thus it is said: “The Tathagatas of the ten directions maintain this mantra-heart and attain unsurpassed complete perfect awakening.” Buddha stated it openly, but patriarchal schools feared ordinary attachment and kept it unspoken, not unused. Set a daily practice; long familiarity brings much strength. Simply do not seek miraculous responses.

Intellectual awakening and realized awakening

Some practitioners awaken first and practice afterward; others practice first and awaken afterward. Yet awakening differs between understanding and realization.

Clarifying the mind through Buddhas’ and patriarchs’ verbal teachings is intellectual awakening. It often falls into conceptual views and is ineffective in circumstances because mind and objects stand opposed and cannot merge. Every encounter becomes a blockage and obstacle. This is called semblance prajna, not true inquiry.

Realized awakening comes through earnest work within one’s own mind, pressing to the end of every road until suddenly one thought ceases and the mind is thoroughly understood. It is like meeting your own father at a crossroads: no doubt remains. Like drinking water, you know its cold or warmth yourself and cannot convey it to others. This is true inquiry and genuine awakening. Then integrate mind and circumstances through that awakening, cleansing present karma and the flowing consciousness until deluded thoughts and emotional concerns melt into the single taste of true mind. This is realized awakening.

Realized awakening also has different depths. Working from the root, breaking the mold of the eighth consciousness, suddenly overturning ignorance’s lair, and directly entering in one leap with no remaining teaching is for those of the highest keen faculties, whose realization is deep. Others practice gradually and realize more shallowly.

Most to be feared is satisfaction with little; never fall at the gate of light and shadow. Since the eighth consciousness’s root remains unbroken, whatever is done remains at the level of discriminating consciousness. Taking this as truth resembles adopting a thief as one’s son. The ancients said: learners of the Way fail to know the true because they have long recognized discriminating consciousness; fools mistake the root of birth and death through immeasurable kalpas for their original person. This barrier especially must be penetrated.

Sudden awakening followed by gradual practice means awakening is already complete, but habits cannot be purified instantly. In every circumstance, raise the power of contemplation through the realized principle, testing the mind through experience. Integrate one measure of circumstance and realize one measure of Dharma body; remove one measure of delusion and reveal one measure of original wisdom. This depends entirely on continuous, meticulous work, becoming more effective through actual circumstances.

Six principles of practice and realization

When people of keen faculties, strong faith, and courageous vigor willingly practice, practical obstacles are easy to remove, conceptual obstacles difficult. A few difficulties are outlined here.

First: do not crave the mysterious

This matter is originally plain, settled, solid, and entirely ordinary, with nothing mysterious. Thus the ancients said: after awakening it is still as before awakening; the same person remains, but not the former way of walking. There is nothing mysterious. When practice matures, plainness naturally comes. Because habits of knowledge and interpretation remain impure, they inwardly perfume prajna; prajna, influenced by habits, produces illusions and clever views that cling to the mind. Mistaking them for mystery, one enters deeply and will not release them. These are precisely the reflected brightness of discriminating consciousness, roots of false discriminating views, also called the thorn of views. Unlike earlier coarse delusions, they are subtle continuous arising and ceasing, also called the obstruction of knowledge, blocking right understanding. Taking them as true generates wild views and is especially to be avoided.

Second: do not wait for awakening with the mind

Our wondrous, complete true mind is originally beyond oppositions. Delusions congealed into opposed mind and objects, faculties and sense objects, producing confusion and karma. Practitioners now need only let go of body, mind, and world in one thought, raise this one thought, and advance. Never concern yourself with awakening or nonawakening; simply work thought by thought and step by step. When practice reaches its point, the original face naturally appears. Why calculate beforehand? If the mind waits for awakening, that waiting mind is itself the root of birth and death. Waiting through endless kalpas will not bring awakening, because one fails to understand the true mind beyond oppositions and imagines something separate. If waiting remains, weariness easily arises and leads to retreat, like searching unsuccessfully for an object and deciding to stop.

Third: do not seek wondrous fruition

Beings’ deluded mind of birth and death is originally the Tathagata’s fruition-body. In delusion, Buddhas’ wondrous powers become deluded thoughts, emotional concerns, and discriminating views; the true pure Dharma body becomes karmic substance of birth and death; the pure wondrous land becomes the realm of the six sense objects. If practice brings sudden realization of one’s mind, it is like a great red furnace melting all forms. This body, mind, and world are originally the Tathagata’s fruition-body; these deluded thoughts and concerns are originally wondrous powers. The name changes, not the substance. Yongjia said: ignorance’s true nature is Buddha-nature; the illusory empty body is the Dharma body. Realizing this gateway lets feelings of grasping and rejecting vanish, delight and aversion cease: every step is the Flower Treasury pure land, every thought Maitreya descending into birth. If the mind first seeks wondrous fruition, that seeking is the root of birth and death, obstructing right understanding. The more one seeks, the farther away; exhausted seeking breeds weariness.

Fourth: do not generate doubts and anxieties

In practice, continually release body and mind, shut out seeing, hearing, and knowing, abandon old tracks, and face the dim unknown with nowhere to settle life. Forward there is no new realization; backward the old dwelling is lost. Calculating ahead and behind breeds doubt, countless reckonings of gain and loss, conjectural views, and deviant thoughts, obstructing right understanding. See through this, decide to enter directly, and cease worrying. Generally, when practice reaches the point where it seems impossible, that is precisely where it becomes effective. Increase spirit and vigor, and you will not retreat or yield; otherwise you fall to the demon of worry.

Fifth: do not generate fear

When practice’s concentrated force presses urgently, deluded thought suddenly stops and body and mind fall into emptiness. Seeing no inch of land on the earth, with limitless depth, one becomes terrified. Without seeing through this, one dares not advance. Or one regards this expansive emptiness as wondrous attainment. Taking this emptiness as real produces grave deviant views denying cause and effect. This is most dangerous.

Sixth: firmly believe your own mind is Buddha

There is no separate Buddha: this very mind is it. Buddha’s true Dharma body is like space. Understanding delusion’s original emptiness lets the inherently possessed Dharma body appear: luminous, silently illuminating, perfectly pervasive, lacking nothing and having no surplus. Do not send the mind chasing outside. Abandoning this mind to seek elsewhere makes limitless dreamlike realms arise within it. These are transformations of discriminating consciousness; never consider them extraordinary. In our pure mind originally there is not one thing, nor one thought. Any stirring of thought departs from the Dharma’s essence.

Today’s practitioners generally do not understand their mind’s deluded thoughts are originally unreal. Mistaking them for truth, they concentrate on opposing them, like children playing with lamp-shadows. The more they play, the less connection it has; continued play brings fear.

Others fear deluded thoughts and wish to seize them all at once and throw them aside. This is like catching wind and grasping shadows: struggling all day, exhausting strength, never resting for a thought. Entangled over time, faith weakens, and they say Chan inquiry has no effect, generating disparagement, fear, or retreat. This is a common beginner’s illness, arising simply from not understanding the abiding true mind and its unborn, unceasing nature, instead treating deluded thoughts as substantial truth. This must be penetrated. To pass this barrier, there is naturally a higher road: inquire apart from mind, intellect, and consciousness; seek apart from deluded realms. Whenever a thought arises, good or evil, cast it aside immediately; never oppose it. Firmly trust that this matter originally does not exist in your mind. Strongly raise the original huatou like an adamantine sword, sweeping away demons and Buddhas alike. Here great courage, great diligence, and great endurance are essential. Never calculate before and after or be timid. With a straight mind and right recollection, stand forth and advance. Naturally majestic and upright, you will not be entangled by these thoughts. Like a hawk freed from its tether, throughout the twelve double-hours you are naturally unbound by any circumstance, attaining great lightness, peace, and freedom. This is the first effective step of beginner’s practice.

These several points are much like drawing legs on a snake: temporary expedient words, neither ultimate nor an actual teaching. At the roadside, one step outside the door risks taking divergent paths, wasting effort and time. One must enter the genuinely correct gateway and emerge onto the wondrously adorned road. Thus it is said: walk evenly and rightly, swift as wind; such progress can make a day equal a kalpa.

In essence, the higher road of Buddhas and patriarchs involves no measured journey. Yet for a beginner’s expedients, one must still pass through here.

Cultivating the heart is cultivating one’s fate

Everything that goes against your wishes is the return of past conduct. There is no past life or future life, only this life.

Without cultivating the heart, life consists only in experiencing life; love those around you well and find happiness

Everything about cultivating the heart is here

My heart is everything; everything is my heart

Complaining is suffering

Gratitude is happiness

Without greed, whence deception?

Without selfishness, whence heartbreak?

View the past through cause and effect

View the present through morality and righteousness

Believing, trust, conviction, faith

1. Believing (believe): recognition and acceptance of a viewpoint, idea, or person. Believing is a judgment based on objective facts or experience. It can rest on reason and evidence, or on personal convictions or emotional experience.

2. Trust (trust): recognition and acceptance of the reliability, integrity, and loyalty of a person or organization. Trust is a relationship based on mutual respect, honesty, and responsibility, and can be built on mutual understanding and experience.

3. Conviction (belief): firm recognition and acceptance of an idea, value, or moral principle. Conviction is a conception based on inner experience and cognition, and may take the form of religious belief, moral ideas, cultural traditions, and so on.

4. Faith (faith): firm recognition and acceptance of a deity, belief system, or religious belief. Faith is grounded in the believer’s mental and spiritual feelings, and may take the form of religious belief, a philosophy of life, values, and so on.

Integrity, clarity of heart, peace of mind, craftsmanship, satisfaction, happiness, ease, enthusiasm, confidence

Look with your heart, not your eyes; the truly precious things in the world are often invisible.

The truth of life is not merely winning achievement and glory, but the courage to continue to the next stop.

A person of great awakening and great freedom is a Buddha

The foolish follow external discipline, painstakingly scheming

The wise follow the discipline of the heart, doing as the heart desires

Being yourself brings the greatest happiness

Accomplishing it brings the greatest confidence

Your confidence comes from having something unique that no one can match

And that something is valuable and needed by the world

Buddha

Awakening

Practice to become a Buddha lies in seeking

Realization to understand one’s nature lies in knowing

Practice: use action to discipline one’s nature

Realization: let one’s nature guide action

The awakened awaken themselves, letting rules arise from the heart

Practitioners follow external discipline, using rules to govern the mind

Realizing the Way is

Settling

Accumulating

Reflecting and questioning

Buddha

Awakening

Can be realized, cannot be cultivated

True cultivation comes from cultivating through action,

Doing more “Buddha’s work” matters more than believing in Buddha,

There are no masters beyond the world: away from the world, no masters exist. There is no cultivating life, only experiencing life.

Seeing through and becoming disenchanted: “the heart dies”; seeing through without disenchantment: “wisdom.”

Not complacent, yet content—happiness

Complacent, yet never content—suffering

Love those around you well and find happiness

Learn independence; learn to deliver all beings

Many say thought is used to seek truth;

Many argue over right and wrong within others’ ideas;

Many lose themselves before knowledge and ideas.

One word: “delusion”!

What is delusion? Becoming a slave beneath someone else’s ideas.

Ordinary people live under others’ ideas, arguing over right and wrong, their body, mind, and soul controlled by the outside world;

Great achievers create their own independent ideas to deliver all beings. I decide whether my heart is moved.

A Buddha is an awakened person. The moment you awaken, you are a Buddha. If you not only awaken but produce independent ideas to guide all beings to awakening, you are a Buddha lord.

Respect, learn from, and cultivate Buddhahood without believing in Buddha;

Respect, learn from, and cultivate the God of Wealth without being deluded by him.

Great achievers transcend ideas, rise above ideas, create ideas, and use ideas; strengthen the self and hold it supreme, use independent thought to help others grow, and put the energy of all things to their use.

Please free yourself from clinging to the familiar:

Many judge problems by past experience, but is the road we travel known or unknown? Why are most Chinese films historical costume dramas while Western films are science fiction? Everything stems from the focus of thought.

Ordinary people are bound by past experience; great achievers pare back past experience to explore the unknown;

Ordinary people look at the past to walk through today; great achievers look to the future and live in the present.

Please free yourself from personality:

Ordinary people are trapped by personality. Great achievers keep the whole picture in mind and have no fixed personality. They are not swayed by personality; they transcend it, rise above it, and use it, displaying whatever personality the moment requires. Without fixed nature, self, or form, they manifest the form appropriate to whatever setting they enter.

Practice means continually correcting conduct; realization means seeing the heart behind conduct.

Awakening must return to life and relationships and withstand the test of concrete situations.