The Difference Between True Realization and False Realization

A first-bhūmi bodhisattva must realize the Gate of Clarity on the Hundred Dharmas; a second-bhūmi bodhisattva must realize the Gate of Clarity on the Thousand Dharmas; a third-bhūmi bodhisattva must realize the Gate of Clarity on the Ten Thousand Dharmas. Each time a bodhisattva realizes a dharma, he breaks through one layer of ignorance, overturns one false view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi), gains one kind of insight, increases one portion of wisdom, and his thought-delusions and afflictions or habitual tendencies diminish by one portion, and his conduct becomes purer by one portion. This continues until he has realized all dharmas, broken through all ignorance and view-delusions, attained wisdom and insight like the Buddha's, utterly eliminated thought-delusion without remainder, and completed the cultivation of the Buddha Way.

The same principle applies to the Small Vehicle teachings: with regard to the principle of no-self in the five aggregates (pañcaskandha), the degree to which one realizes it determines the degree to which one breaks through ignorance, the degree of insight one gains, the degree of wisdom one increases, and the degree of thought-delusion one eliminates or severs.

To sum it up: whatever degree one's insight reaches, that is the degree one's conduct reaches. Direct realization means saying it and doing it; false realization means saying it but not doing it—mere lip service.