What Is Awakening?

No matter whether you have committed either the ten evil deeds or violated the five precepts, if you turn back your mind and enlighten yourself, you are a Buddha instantly. But do not commit transgressions and expect to be saved by enlightenment from the effects of your own actions. From neither enlightenment nor a Buddha nor a patriarch can save a person who, deluding himself, goes down evil ways. Without self-realization one cannot understand such things as these.