Dear fellow practitioners, hello everyone!
Today, we’ll continue exploring how to move from confusion to awakening, from the darkness of ignorance to the light of wisdom. This path of practice requires a solid foundation and a clear sequence of steps. I’ll draw from the Achama Bodhisattva Sutra, the Great Expansive Perfect Awakening Sutra, and the Great Buddha Crown Shurangama Sutra to explain how to master the Ten Wholesome Deeds, establish Right View, transform ignorance into wisdom, and ultimately break through the five skandhas to attain pure, wondrous virtue. In particular, I’ll clarify the “Three Conditions” mentioned in the Shurangama Sutra—the world, karmic fruition, and sentient beings—no longer continuing, helping everyone grasp the key to practice.
1. The Ten Wholesome Deeds: The Minimum Capital for Practice
The first step in practice is to start with the Ten Wholesome Deeds. These ten deeds are the stepping stone to transform ignorance into wisdom and enter the path of truth—they’re the minimum capital for both worldly and transcendent Dharma.
Why are they so crucial? Because when you perfect the Ten Wholesome Deeds, your body, speech, and mind become pure, and delusions have nowhere to take root. When the mind is pure, delusions naturally cease; your body and speech flow freely as you wish, unobstructed—this is the standard of the three pure karmas. On the flip side, if body, speech, and mind are still swayed by afflictions, tangled and hard to control, that’s the sign of impure karma—you haven’t even reached the starting line of practice.
What’s the fruit of the Ten Wholesome Deeds? Your senses become harmonious, your three karmas are at ease, and concentration arises naturally. With concentration, you won’t fear the challenges of practice. If you’re still afraid, it proves your concentration is lacking, your resources aren’t ready—it’s like trying to fill a broken bag with gold; it just won’t hold! So, master the Ten Wholesome Deeds first, and only then can we talk about higher resources like the Thirty-Seven Aids to Enlightenment.
2. Right View: The Root of Transforming Ignorance into Wisdom
What is Right View? The Achama Bodhisattva Sutra puts it clearly: “What is Right View? The wise and holy ones guide the world without abiding in self or other, without abiding in human lifespan, without relying on views, without abiding in existence or non-existence, without abiding in virtuous roots, without falling into wrong views or the sixty-two doubts—this is called Right View.”
Neither the Ten Wholesome Deeds nor Right View come from wishful thinking—they need to be solidified step-by-step through the Four Preliminary Practices—warming, peaking, patience, and supreme worldly attainment—or the Five Faculties: faith, effort, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. Why solidify them? Because our habit of ignorance is so strong that without vigilance, we slip back into delusion. For example, we get angry at setbacks or greedy in good times—these are all signs of ignorance at work. To transform ignorance into wisdom, anchor your mind with Right View, make the Ten Wholesome Deeds your sole standard, and let go of all stray thoughts. Master this standard, and the fruit follows: three pure karmas and stable concentration.
3. Breaking the Three Conditions to Shatter the Five Skandhas and Realize Bodhi
With Right View and the Ten Wholesome Deeds in place, we can enter the advanced practice of breaking the five skandhas. The Shurangama Sutra says: “If you simply do not follow the discriminations of the world, karmic fruition, and sentient beings—the three continuities—then with the three conditions severed, the three causes do not arise. The mad nature of your mind, like that of Yajnadatta, will naturally cease. When it ceases, that is Bodhi. The victorious, pure, bright mind inherently pervades the Dharma realm, not obtained from others—why toil and struggle to certify it?”. This is the heart of practice.
What does practice do? It stops you from following discriminations about these three. When the three conditions are cut off, the three causes don’t arise, and the mad mind naturally rests. When it rests, that’s Bodhi. This pure, bright mind is already everywhere in the Dharma realm—no one hands it to you, and no hard effort is needed to prove it.
Now, let’s look at breaking the five skandhas. The Shurangama Sutra also says: “If you abandon arising and ceasing, abide in the true and constant, then the constant light appears, and the roots of dust and the mind of consciousness instantly dissolve. Thought-forms are dust, emotional consciousness is defilement—when both are far removed, your Dharma eye becomes clear in that moment. How could you not attain supreme awareness?”. The five skandhas—form, sensation, perception, formation, and consciousness—are five forms of delusion. From the ripples of arising thoughts to the collapse into DNA information throughout the body, they’re all impermanent changes, like rogue programs wreaking havoc in our body and mind. Practice means “abandoning arising and ceasing,” letting go of these chaotic programs, and “abiding in the true and constant,” holding fast to the light of true nature. When that light shines, dust (thought-forms) and defilement (emotional consciousness) dissolve, the Dharma eye clears, and you directly realize supreme awareness.
This process is like clarifying muddy water. The impurities settle, and the water becomes clear and transparent. When you reach the exhaustion of the formation skandha, subtle bodily movements cease, the dust and defilement of the six senses settle—this is called “initially subduing the guest-dust afflictions.” Go further, remove the mud to leave pure water, and it’s “permanently severing fundamental ignorance.” At this point, you’ll see the vast wisdom of the Tathagata within yourself, no different from a Buddha. All transformations cease to be afflictions and align with the pure, wondrous virtues of Nirvana.
4. The Difference Between Contemplative Meditation and the Shurangama Practice
Contemplative meditation comes from the Great Vehicle Original Birth Mind-Contemplation Sutra—it’s a method of observing the mind, tied to the fruit of the Ten Wholesome Deeds. Only with the three karmas purified do you have the capacity to practice this contemplation. But the Shurangama Sutra’s method is about abiding in true nature, breaking the five skandhas—the key is “non-movement.” Any arising thought is a mistake, because once the water is clarified, a single stir muddies it again, undoing all progress and pulling you out of samadhi. So, if your resources aren’t ready, don’t rush into it—first solidify the Ten Wholesome Deeds and the Five Faculties.
5. Conclusion: The Sequence from Ten Wholesome Deeds to Buddhahood
To wrap up, the path to transform ignorance into wisdom has a clear sequence: First, cultivate the Ten Wholesome Deeds to purify the three karmas and gather the minimum resources. At the same time, establish Right View, anchoring the mind with the Five Faculties. Then, sever the three conditions, abandon arising and ceasing, abide in the true and constant, break the five skandhas, and directly realize Bodhi. This journey—from the basic capital of the Ten Wholesome Deeds to the highest resources of the Thirty-Seven Aids to Enlightenment—when walked steadily, takes you from breaking the five skandhas in the Shurangama Sutra to the Ten Dedications and Ten Grounds in the Flower Adornment Sutra, all the way to Equal Enlightenment, Wondrous Enlightenment, and Buddhahood.
Practice is like reformatting a virus-ridden program—discard delusions and rebuild the Buddha’s wisdom based on true nature. As long as you don’t stir the mind, the light of spirit shines naturally, and dust and defilement fall away. I hope starting today, you’ll diligently practice the Ten Wholesome Deeds, solidify Right View, and move forward step-by-step to realize pure, wondrous virtue, abiding with the Buddha!
Thank you all, Amitabha!
