What Constitutes a Mere Intellectual Adherent?

In modern society, with advanced information access, obtaining sutras is easy, and intellectual comprehension is strong. When someone explains that the five aggregates arise and cease, are impermanent and without self, fifty percent of people can intellectually understand that the five aggregates are without self, knowing that the physical body is not real but an illusory, false shell. Even some non-Buddhists often say that the physical body is a false shell, a foul bag of skin, subject to arising and ceasing, impermanent. Yet, despite saying so, none have severed the view of self or the view of "I"; each still clings heavily to self.

If intellectual understanding that the five aggregates are without self meant severing the view of self, then attaining the fruition would be too easy. More than half of Buddhist practitioners could sever the three fetters, be freed from the suffering of the three evil destinies, and become noble sages. Then why would Buddhism have any worries? Sentient beings would have nothing to fear. Śākyamuni Buddha could rest assured about the Sahā world, without concern for Buddhism's decline. Yet the reality is not so.

Those who merely intellectually understand non-self and then believe they have severed the view of self, further considering their afflictions to be slight and claiming to have attained the second fruition, will face great trouble at the time of death, and their next life will be one of great distress. It is best that in their remaining time in this life, they consider how to remedy this, adopt some effective and feasible measures, and once again carefully contemplate the five aggregates to truly sever the view of self and eliminate the grave karma of false speech.

Currently, it is difficult to say how many second-fruition practitioners exist in the Buddhist community; it seems like an era of sages emerging in abundance. But what is the reality? Utter chaos. If the third fruition were not constrained by the requirement of the first dhyāna or the marker of severing desire, who knows how many would claim to have attained the third fruition. Already, some are promoting that attaining the third or fourth fruition does not require the first dhyāna, and that first-ground or second-ground bodhisattvas need not cultivate the first dhyāna beforehand. What such claims portend is easy to imagine. If this continues, there will be no boundary between ordinary people and sages; anyone who understands some Buddhist teachings will be considered a sage. These so-called sages are, in reality, merely intellectual adherents.