Cultivation Is Not Accumulating Knowledge, Let Alone Doing Research.

Studying Buddhism is not about acquiring knowledge or doing research; rather, one must have the ability to investigate and to seek verification, not merely to seek understanding. If meditative concentration (samādhi) is insufficient and the various conditions for seeing the Way are not complete, then if, through cleverness, one happens to tease out the tathāgatagarbha, and the result of teasing it out is roughly accurate, it may become difficult to continue the work of investigating Chan, while one still believes oneself to have awakened—that would be real trouble. When the conditions are not yet complete, it is better to keep the tathāgatagarbha covered up and concealed for now, so that one may later investigate Chan and attain realization.

I do not want you to engage in research, because the Dharma is already quite clear. If clever people keep researching and arrive at roughly correct results, it really is troublesome. Better to investigate within meditative concentration when the conditions of a bodhisattva are complete. Among those who excelled in worldly schools, how many have become pillars of society? Knowledge can only help one survive well; it does not necessarily bring creativity. If you want to realize the truth in studying Buddhism, you should distinguish it from worldly scholarship; otherwise, studying Buddhism becomes merely acquiring knowledge, and knowledge cannot liberate anyone—only personal realization can bring liberation.

Cūḍapanthaka, one of the Buddha's great disciples, was an arhat of the fourth fruit, a great arhat. Before he attained the fruit, he was very dull, and even after attaining the fruit he could not expound the Buddha-dharma; yet he was a great arhat liberated in both ways (ubhayato-bhāga-vimukta). None of us is that dull, so when it comes to comprehending and learning knowledge, moderation is enough.