Understanding and Actual Realization Have a Great Gap

If one sees that all marks are not marks, then one sees the Tathāgata. If someone understands it this way—being able, at all times and in all places, to recognize that everything they perceive (like the content displayed on a television screen) is nothing but the illusory transformations of the substances and functions within the tathāgatagarbha (like the television screen itself)—would such a person have realized the tathāgatagarbha? Absolutely not; they are still far, far away. Hearing about it and imagining it remain vastly distant from personal realization, and the gap between them is precisely the bodhisattva's practice of the six pāramitās.

All of the above is the mind consciousness's crudest, most superficial understanding, akin to hearsay—except that it was heard from the Buddhist sutras, or from some book—and it has not been actually realized; it is not what has been observed through direct perception. No matter who says it, it still counts only as intellectual understanding. When one truly and actually realizes it, who knows what bhūmi bodhisattva one would be. Those contents are spoken of in the sutras, and others speak of them too; whatever others have articulated does not belong to one's own personal realization. With personal realization, one would know it very concretely and precisely, not in a general, approximate, or vague way. To realize what specific role the tathāgatagarbha plays in the five-aggregate body, one must go through Chan investigation, putting in real effort to inquire into it, groping and exploring bit by bit through the intermediate process. If one does not do the work, and relies only on one's own feelings and guesses to understand a little, then in fact one has no idea at all what specific role the tathāgatagarbha actually plays—one is completely in the dark. In that case, all ignorance remains intact, and no wisdom is born.

Believing that all dharmas are like the images on a television screen is merely believing, not realization or personal verification; it cannot be called realization, because there is no evidence. Believing that all dharmas are created by the tathāgatagarbha, and that we all live within the one true dharmadhātu—this is not called enlightenment. If a single sentence from the Buddha could make sentient beings become enlightened so easily, the Buddha-dharma would be far too easy: even a three-year-old child who hears this sentence and roughly understands a bit of it would count as enlightened. Then how effortless and easy attaining buddhahood would be! The karmic obstructions of birth and death over countless kalpas upon countless kalpas could not obstruct anything at all, and all that ignorance would count for nothing. In reality, nothing so easy exists.

Without having gone through Chan investigation, without having conducted investigation and gathered evidence, without having collected data and proof, how could the manas confirm that these teachings are the truth and accept them with faith? True awakening requires knowing the details of how the eighth consciousness operates—specifically how it gives rise to all dharmas, how it gives rise to the five aggregates, eighteen dhātus of sentient beings—all of this must be understood and known, and all six pāramitās of the bodhisattva must be cultivated to completion. It is not a matter of understanding some portion of the content—portions that were spoken by the Buddha or by others; no matter how one understands and elaborates on them, it is not one's own personally deliberated, investigated, and realized knowledge. Without direct perception, the mind does not settle firmly; the mind remains hollow and insecure. Between such understanding and true awakening, perhaps one year is needed, perhaps thirty years, perhaps a hundred years, perhaps ten thousand years, perhaps even one incalculable kalpa—there is no telling. What the mind consciousness understands is useless; it vanishes the moment it is said to vanish. Even the mind consciousness itself does not know or realize the details—how much less could the manas know and realize them. At the critical moment, it is still the manas that takes charge; if the manas has not confirmed it, ignorance remains, and all the mind consciousness's understanding, at the time of death, becomes like child's play, dissolving into nothing, unable to determine the destination of the next life.

Ask yourself "why" over and over in your mind, and resolve every one of those whys—perhaps then you might brush the edge of awakening, but even that is not necessarily awakening. Such is the Buddha-dharma: sacred and beyond speculation.