Intellectual Understanding by the Conscious Mind Will Lead to the Rapid Demise of the Buddha's Dharma

When the mind consciousness alone knows and realizes the tathāgatagarbha, that is intellectual understanding/interpretive awakening of enlightenment and realization of the tathāgatagarbha. The mind consciousness will certainly realize it, but realization by the mind consciousness alone does not count as true realization; the manas must also realize it at the same time. If only the mind consciousness realizes it, that is intellectual understanding/interpretive awakening. If only the mind consciousness realized it, then merely hearing someone else tell you which one is the tathāgatagarbha, where it is, and what function it performs would already count as enlightenment. If that counted as enlightenment, then we could simply tell all sentient beings which one the tathāgatagarbha is and what function it performs, and there would be no need for sentient beings to study and cultivate the Mahāyāna dharma, no need to investigate Chan; all sentient beings would directly become enlightened and become bodhisattvas. Then the hidden meanings at each and every juncture and each and every level could also be told directly to sentient beings, and all sentient beings would directly realize them—how fast becoming a Buddha would be that way! Why did the World-Honored One not adopt this method, and instead even forbid explicitly revealing the hidden meaning?

For all dharmas, the mind consciousness first understands and first realizes, and only then can the manas understand and realize. Because the manas lacks sufficient wisdom, it must rely on the mind consciousness's capacity for deliberation (manana). For many dharmas, the mind consciousness already knows them, yet the manas does not know them; the manas does not easily understand or realize them.

Modern people's mind consciousness is too clever and easily grasps any principle, while the manas's afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion are too heavily obscuring, creating a stark contrast. If one is satisfied with the mind consciousness's understanding, problems will arise, and Buddhism might thereby perish quickly. Before the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch appeared, all Buddhist practitioners engaged in genuine cultivation, all cultivated meditative concentration (samādhi) and investigated Chan, never indulging in mere verbal Chan. After the Platform Sutra appeared, the direction changed: whenever people gathered together, it was all verbal Chan, because having read the contents of the Platform Sutra, they all felt they understood the Chan dharma, that there was no need to labor at investigating Chan any longer, that there was nothing left to cultivate; so they would gather together and talk glibly, without any actual cultivation. People today are even more so.