How to Determine Realization and Non-Realization

Question: When the hand touches an electric current and gets shocked into numbness and trembling, does this count as realizing the electric current? When a blind person touches a light bulb with the hand, does he realize the lamp but not the lamplight?

Answer: Whether it counts as realization depends on the specific circumstances and varies from person to person. For example, when a scientist gets an electric shock, he knows the principles of electric current one hundred percent; his realization is very profound, comparable to the seed-wisdom (bīja-jñāna) of Consciousness-Only in Buddhism. When a child gets an electric shock, he does not necessarily know why this phenomenon occurs; even if he knows he was shocked and will avoid it next time, he does not necessarily understand the principles of electric current, nor necessarily understand the functions of electric current. When a blind person's hand touches a light bulb, he does not necessarily know it is a light bulb; first he must have the relevant concept of a light bulb—he must have seen a light bulb before going blind, or someone must have told him what a light bulb looks like—only then can he know it is a light bulb. Otherwise, no matter how many times he touches the light bulb, he will not know what it is. Sentient beings have been dealing with the tathāgatagarbha since beginningless kalpas; they live within the tathāgatagarbha and use it at every moment, yet they do not know that the tathāgatagarbha exists, nor do they know what the tathāgatagarbha looks like.

The Sixth Patriarch heard one sentence and attained enlightenment; other people hear a hundred sentences of explanation of that sentence, yet enlightenment remains far out of reach. The key lies in the person himself; wisdom and spiritual faculties (indriya) are extremely important. An arhat hears a single sentence spoken by a worldling studying Buddhism and realizes the fourth fruit; a worldling may study the Āgamas for a hundred years without attaining even the direction toward the first fruit. There is no basis for comparison between one person and another.