The Two Layers of Meaning of Reality

"Real" has two layers of meaning: one refers to things and principles that worldly people recognize—temporarily unchanging in the world, visible, audible, tangible, imaginable, and capable of being cognized; the other refers to the supramundane principles that worldly people do not know and do not see.

The first kind of "real" includes the material universe (the inanimate world), which sentient beings feel they can contact and cognize, believing it to be unchanging, having real function, and thus calling it real; it includes the five-aggregate body, which can be seen, touched, and contacted, having real functions and effects, cognizable and unchanging; it includes the six sense-object realms, which can be contacted and cognized by the six consciousnesses, and are believed to have real function. However, these dharmas, at the level of actual principle, are not real; they are conjured up through transformation, without real function; they are virtual dharmas, and what is known of them is all illusion. Sentient beings have lived in illusion for beginningless kalpas, not recognizing the true principles and realities. Even if these dharmas have temporary, false functions, they are still arising and ceasing moment by moment, impermanent and changing—equally unreal. The wisdom of sentient beings can only reach the surface of things, never penetrating into the interior; they cannot see through surface phenomena to cognize the truth behind them.

The second kind of "real" refers solely to the root of sentient beings—the true suchness, the eighth consciousness, which gives birth to all the dharmas that sentient beings require. This alone is the truly real, unchanging principle-substance, the dharma that never arises and never ceases, the true refuge of sentient beings for beginningless kalpas. Comparing these two kinds of "real," the difference is as vast as heaven and earth—they cannot be compared, and there is no basis for comparison.