When Buddha gives a preaching, it aims at dissolving people’s doubts and intransigence, breaking their erroneous habits, and bringing benefits to the present. When a Bodhisattva listens to this preaching and understands it, he or she performs it by following its teachings and obtains precious results. This is why Buddha’s preaching is called the Precious Dharma. When one reads the tripitaka of sutras and receives their teachings, one practices and performs these lessons, consequently completes the attested accomplishment, and realizes that the precious dharma is dynamic and flexible. On the other hand, if one reads the sutra without absorbing it, how can one be accomplished in either one’s practice or performance?
This Tathagata meditation sutra teaches very clearly about the essential nature. Meditating aims at awareness of meditative nature. The essential nature of meditation is not very different from the dharma nature. It indulges every false conceivability and initial illusory thought of the practitioner. Therefore, from the first-rate supreme meditative sitting, one moves on to the six heretical subjects, which are called the six doors of the meditation subject. As we mentioned, the meditative sect’s six doors are formed by initial illusory thoughts. Now the practitioner performs meditative sitting by not holding onto any particular field, absorbing and salving everything to achieve Tathagata meditation. By holding onto a specified field or immersing oneself in meditation without complete comprehension of the six sects, one gets lost in the fairy’s Tao or the deity’s Tao and is not completely liberated through solving.
