Commentary on the Sutra of the Parent-Child Compendium (132)

Contemplating the Faculties as Illusory and Realms as Dreamlike in Meditation

The faculties are like illusions, and realms are like dreams. To contemplate these dharmas requires profound meditative concentration. Within various states, amidst the contact of the six faculties with the six dusts, one must experience the illusory nature, unreality, lack of mastery, and absence of inherent substance of the faculties and dusts. Calm abiding (śamatha) and insight (vipassanā) must be combined, fully integrated. Contemplate meticulously: when the eye sees form, observe how the eye faculty lacks autonomy, how the form dust is illusory, how it resembles a shadow; when the ear hears sound, observe how this realm of sound is like a dream, how the ear faculty appears as illusory, how it arises and ceases, and how the function of hearing operates. When contemplation is accomplished, one can realize the emptiness and illusoriness of the five aggregates, attaining stillness and non-arising.

Initial intellectual understanding of these dharmas is not equivalent to realization. Understanding is relatively easier; the conscious mind (mano-vijñāna) may feel it has comprehended after some contemplation, but this is not realization. Realization requires meditative concentration, requires profound contemplation, requires conclusive evidence, and must penetrate deep into the manas (the underlying mind). Only when the manas acknowledges it can it be called realization (the fruit of practice). What the sixth consciousness (mano-vijñāna) understands belongs to knowledge; without evidence or insufficient evidence, it is not realization. One must undergo deep and meticulous contemplation until the manas genuinely acknowledges that principle deep within, only then can it be considered realization.

At that time, because one has truly realized and acknowledged the selflessness of the five aggregates and the illusoriness of the six faculties, mental formations change, and the view towards all phenomena transforms. When one truly regards oneself as illusory, the mind inevitably undergoes change; it cannot remain the same as before. However, with mere intellectual understanding without realization, the mind does not truly know that the five aggregates are indeed without self. The perception of self does not change; the view of the five aggregates remains merely theoretical. Mental formations continue as before, afflictions remain just as heavy. If one cannot sever the three fetters (self-view, doubt, and clinging to rites and rituals), one cannot avoid the three evil destinies.

This principle is the same as the worldly saying that "seeing is believing, hearing is uncertain." Hearing what others say is equivalent to the understanding of the conscious mind; it is unverified, and one's mind remains uncertain, not daring to be conclusive. Afterwards, only upon seeing with one's own eyes does one truly know, exclaiming: "Ah! So it is like this!" Only then does one know how to handle people and matters. Seeing with the eye corresponds to the realization by the manas; hearing with the ear corresponds to the understanding by the conscious mind. These are two entirely different levels. Understanding by the conscious mind is heard from others; realization by the manas is seen with one's own eyes; it is direct perception (pratyakṣa), it is seeing what is truly real.