The final road a cultivator had to walk was to correct the seventh consciousness and merge it into the eighth consciousness.
That was to store the mind away.
It was also called Earth Treasury.
Here, "earth" referred to the ground of the mind, while "treasury" meant containing and storing.
It meant storing your mind within the subconscious.
This mind referred to your consciousness. If your consciousness was stored within the subconscious, then as long as the subconscious did not perish, neither would your consciousness.
This was what was called attaining the Dao. The Dao was law and pattern. Attaining the Dao meant obtaining the innate laws.
Becoming one with those innate laws.
I knew what I was talking about was starting to get a little profound, but that was all right. Take your time to comprehend it, little by little. Don't rush.
These things could not be cultivated in a day or two, nor in one lifetime or two. They required cultivation through countless lives.
Take me, for example. I had not begun cultivating in this life. I had cultivated through countless previous lives, which was why I could enter the path of cultivation again in this life.
That was called fate—or perhaps entanglement.
There was no need to force anything. If, in this life, you could cultivate your soul to great freedom and ease, then you had genuine skill.
Humans had biological instincts, things passed down through generations in their genes. They instinctively sought life and feared death.
Like people who were drowning: in their panic, they lost the ability to think and instinctively shoved the person trying to save them underwater. In the end, not only did they fail to save themselves, they harmed someone else as well.
Only by remaining calm and rational at all times could one have the greatest chance of survival.
Cultivation was the same. People whose understanding differed from yours would instinctively drag you down. Only when you could keep your own soul from being trapped could you save the souls of others.
If you discovered that you were being assimilated, or being dragged into their understanding, you had to remain vigilant at every moment and stay awake at all times.
Cross others according to fate, but first make sure you could do it yourself—make sure you would not be trapped.
This was also a problem many cultivators faced.
Most people in society who claimed to have energy or cultivation could be seen through at a glance. You could tell whether they had real skill or not.
You did not need to listen to what they said, or whether they got angry and cursed at people. Observe whether they were truly angry, or merely putting on an outward display of anger. If their heart had not stirred with anger, then it was only a skillful means they used deliberately.
It was merely to curse others awake, or to resist being assimilated.
Don't listen to people who said that once you had cultivation, shouldn't you take nothing seriously and care about nothing?
You cultivated the Buddha, cultivated the Dao. If someone slandered the Buddha and the Dao, twisting their true meaning, were you supposed to do nothing?
If you did nothing, others would think what he said made sense, then be led by him in the direction opposite the Dao. That was committing evil.
If you indulged evil, then what difference was there between you and evil?
The best way was this: if he could understand, then let him understand. If he could not, do not force him—but try not to let him influence too many people.
Yesterday, while scrolling through a short-video platform, I came across people handling refuge certificates—some from Mount Jiuhua, some from Lotus Temple. I deliberately asked how much it cost to get one. Guess what happened?
The Mount Jiuhua one messaged me privately and said it cost 999. I was stunned. I asked him, "Why is this so much more expensive than other places?"
He told me his certificate bore the seal of some Buddhist association on Mount Jiuhua, and that it was the most authoritative one from Mount Jiuhua.
I was speechless... Hahaha. I said, "This is a little different from the refuge I understand." He immediately stopped talking.
Another one told me, "Senior brother, may you have auspiciousness throughout the six periods of the day. Have you formed an affinity with a refuge certificate?"
I asked how much it cost, and he said 130.
I said, "What use is it after you get it?"
He told me it was faith, a home for the soul. It could also get you free or half-price admission at certain temples, depending on each temple's posted details.
I told him, "I have already cultivated to the point of breaking through appearances and seeing my true self. I have no attachments and no afflictions, and I know that all sentient beings are lost within their own thoughts."
"I can achieve Every Thought Awakened, and no emotions arise in me. The moment any thought comes, I turn it around directly. Buddha is awareness. I have no faith—I only cultivate the Buddha."
"I have taken refuge in awakening rather than delusion, in righteousness rather than evil, in purity rather than defilement. In other words, the mind is Buddha. Who else would I worship?"
"If we must speak of faith, then I only have faith in the Buddha's wisdom—that is, awakening. Yet this awakening is my own true heart, my innate nature."
"I have already awakened. I can see myself and know what I truly am."
After reading that, he immediately ran off without saying another word.
Do you know why?
Because he was beneath you! Because he was using doctrines of faith to make money, while you had already cultivated away most of your suffering and emotions.
He could not fool you, so all he could do was run away and stop entangling himself with you.
I wanted nothing, so naturally he could not fool me.
If I had been attached to whether I had a refuge certificate, I would definitely have been taken for a ride.
Because refuge was not proven by that certificate. Your own heart knew whether you had taken refuge or not.
If I did not cultivate, that certificate was useless to me! If I cultivated, whether I had that certificate or not proved nothing!
So what then? It was optional, with no great significance.
Even with a refuge certificate, you would still suffer and worry. What use was it?
Without that certificate, if your heart had cultivated to great freedom and ease, no longer troubled by habitual tendencies, that was the real thing.
So cultivators did not need to obsess over what they had or did not have.
Even if they made you an abbot, what use was it if you did not act like a decent human being?
Even if they made you go begging, if you cultivated diligently and finally shattered self-attachment, shattered your habitual tendencies, and had no more afflictions, then you had still cultivated something.
The dazzling world blinded the eyes. The moment you desired even a little, someone would seize that chance to bewilder you.
If I had not cultivated and believed that getting some certificate gave me miraculous powers, or that some certificate could send me to the Buddha-land, wouldn't I have been fooled blind?
Wouldn't I have had to get certificates for my whole family and all my relatives and friends—even the pigs and dogs I raised?
If cultivation and achievement could come from getting certificates, then why not make a career out of issuing certificates myself? I could save people with certificates!
A round of photocopying, stamp-stamp, and I could stamp whatever certificate you wanted.
Surely someone would say, "The ones you issue do not count. Your stamp does not count either. It has to be some so-and-so from such-and-such place."
What a ridiculous thing to say—it was like saying they were not human.
Didn't they eat, drink, piss, shit, and sleep? Didn't they need to breathe? Did they have no legs, floating down from the sky to issue your certificate?
Or was it that his hand was not a hand, and anything that passed through it gained miraculous power?
He was the same kind of person as you! If you could not even see that, then there was no need for you to cultivate.
Even if you cultivated, it would be useless. You would cultivate your brain into a fart instead.
You were already foolish; you could only cultivate yourself into being even more foolish, foolishly believing that if you believed in someone, you yourself could somehow become something.
You did not even believe in yourself—what more did you want?
The Buddha said to seek inward and solve problems at their root. He had already told you that you were inherently complete and no different from anyone else.
Yet you did the opposite and sought outward, looking for solutions in other people.
Wasn't that simply running straight against the Buddha's path?