When a person arouses bodhicitta and genuinely benefits others, eventually realizing how joyful it is when the grip of the "self" begins to loosen, they will engage in such practice spontaneously. At that point, it would actually be impossible to stop them from giving rise to genuine bodhicitta, because benefiting others truly brings joy to the mind. The mind is happiest when there is no "self."
Here it is important to emphasize one essential point: the "self" is a fabrication of the mind; the mind does not belong to the self. Self-grasping is likewise fabricated by the mind. Seeking happiness, the mind invents a "self" to pursue that happiness on its behalf. Ironically, this only causes the mind to suffer even more. We often say, "my mind," but this expression is actually inaccurate. In most cases, what we call the "mind" refers to consciousness, whose root is the manas consciousness. In other words, what we are really referring to is "my consciousness."
Chan Buddhism often speaks of "letting go at the edge of a cliff" and "abandoning the self." But what does it truly mean to "abandon the self"? Answer this through your own practice—not by reciting what you have read.
In reality, there is no inherently existent "self" to abandon. So what is there to let go of? When the mind clearly sees that within the mental continuum there is no entity called ‘self’--that is the abandonment of self. The "self" is nothing more than a manifestation of ignorance.
Self-grasping drives the mental faculty into ceaseless conceptual activity. It can even construct the concept that "there is no self." Yet this is still operating under the influence of the very self. The first step in abandoning the self is therefore to allow conceptual consciousness to come to rest and return to the level of the ālaya-consciousness . At that point, there still remains a non-conceptual awareness. Once this awareness directly sees that the self is merely an illusion, the self truly disappears.
This may sound simple, but it is extremely difficult in actual practice, just as we discussed yesterday regarding the realization of the nature of mind. One cannot merely use a fabricated conceptual consciousness to investigate the past mind, present mind, and future mind, conclude that they are all "unfindable," and then claim to have attained realization.
Instead, conceptual consciousness must come to rest, and the mind itself must directly investigate. Only when it non-conceptually realizes that "the past mind is unfindable, the present mind is unfindable, and the future mind is unfindable" does genuine awakening suddenly dawn.
If you practice and realize in this way, you will certainly not go astray. The real question is: can you actually do it? For most people, the answer is no. Almost everyone tries to search using conceptual consciousness, and many do not even know how to proceed once conceptual thinking has ceased. They are unaware that, when conceptual consciousness falls silent, a non-conceptual awareness still remains, nor do they know how this awareness can turn back and illuminate itself.
This is one of the essential pith instructions of Chan. Chan masters describe the attempt to seek reality through conceptual consciousness as "the thief crying, 'Catch the thief!'" In the practice of meditative concentration , we cultivate stillness precisely so that conceptual consciousness may cease, allowing the mind itself to directly investigate its own nature.
—Excerpted and adapted from Genuine Bodhicitta and Conceptual Bodhicitta.
This article is a preliminary translation draft and has not yet been reviewed or proofread by the speaker.
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