The whole condition which is prepared for us is enlightenment. Our life, itself, is enlightenment.
Dharmas are many kinds of phenomena. Existences are all called dharmas. The Sixth Patriarch is talking about teachings which are also dharmas. If you say “Dharma” there is only one. Truth is one and its contents are many thousand millions of dharmas, yet if you see only the differences among dharmas and not the similarities, you don’t understand the real feel of dharmas. It is because of sameness that you can be aware of differences. At the same time, without discrimination there is no oneness. Many people have said it this way. We are originally pure in our self nature. If we understand our minds and see our nature, we shall achieve Buddhahood ourselves. I would translate it, “We shall realize the Buddha way ourselves.” This term, original is very important. We don’t change human nature. When we are watching something external, we don’t separate from that thing, rather, we reflect, we accept, and thus we can understand everything within ourselves. So maybe we cannot say we are “enlightened” but what we can say is that we are sentient beings, originally pure. Original nature exists beyond time, beyond past, present, and future, always basically pure. Even if you try to throw it away, get rid of it, it is still there. Dharma, Buddha nature, self nature, all are original nature. Suffering exists. Even if I don’t suffer myself, watching a suffering person, I suffer. I suffer because people appear in me. My whole life I will work on suffering. It is a weak, negative condition, or positive, struggling condition, but it is not a bad thing. Pain is not the same as suffering. If I think I can be healthy again, I suffer. Looking at me, no one else can say I’m suffering. Trudy Dixon, the editor of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, expressed the coming and going of great pain, and a feeling of peace. Healthy people cannot feel that complete peaceful feeling. The Sixth Patriarch says, Absence of thought means to have obtained wisdom, and it is emancipation, and to be emancipated means to know your own mind.