The Realm of True Percept-with-Essence and The Realm of Non-Essence Mental-Image-Alone

Going outside to bask in the sun, the sunlight one receives belongs to the true substance realm, as it genuinely increases the body's heat and energy, supplements calcium, and provides actual functional benefits. The food and drink consumed and entering the stomach also belong to the true substance realm, as they replenish the body's energy, satisfy the stomach, and grant people vitality and physical strength. In contrast, the food consumed in dreams does not have a satiating effect; upon waking, the stomach still feels hungry. The food in dreams belongs to the substanceless shadow realm, lacking substance, and thus has no actual functional benefit. Similarly, food conjured up in the mind through fantasy also lacks satiating effects and cannot increase the body's energy; it, too, is a substanceless shadow realm.

Some people make offerings to the Buddha, but they never use actual substances. Instead, they rely on mentally imagined, insubstantial shadow-realm food for their offerings. Without any actual substance, they do not expend any real material goods or money. Without giving, naturally, there can be no return. If imagined food cannot satisfy their own hunger nor enter their own mouths, how could it possibly enter the Buddha's mouth and stomach? Using imagined food and drink to make offerings to spirits and ghosts is also deeply insincere. It involves no actual material expenditure because imagined food contains not a single bit of substance. Giving such imagined things to others is tantamount to deceiving them, and in future lives, one will suffer similar deception oneself — deceiving others is no different from deceiving oneself.