Understanding and Realization Are Vastly Different

Question: "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 a conjured manifestation of the substances and functions within the tathāgatagarbha (like the television screen itself)—has that person then realized the tathāgatagarbha? Is that so?

Answer: All of the above is the crudest possible understanding by the mind consciousness; there is no actual realization, and it is not something directly perceived. No matter who says it, it remains mere intellectual understanding. Because those teachings are spoken of in the sūtras and others have said the same, whatever has been spoken by others does not count as one's own personal realization. Personal realization means realizing what specific role the tathāgatagarbha actually plays in the five-aggregate body, and this requires Chan investigation—putting in concrete effort to investigate. Without any effort at all, relying only on one's own feelings and guesses, understanding just a little bit—then in reality one has no idea what specific role the tathāgatagarbha actually plays, and all ignorance remains intact.

Believing that all dharmas are like the content on a television screen is not personal realization and cannot be called realization. Believing that all dharmas are created by the tathāgatagarbha and that we all live within the one true dharma realm—this is not enlightenment. If a single sentence from the Buddha could enable sentient beings to become enlightened so easily, then the Buddhadharma would be far too easy. Even a three-year-old child hearing this sentence could roughly understand a little of it and count as enlightened. Then how effortless and easy attaining buddhahood would be! The karmic obstructions of birth and death over measureless kalpas upon measureless kalpas could not obstruct anything at all, and all that ignorance would count for nothing. In reality, nothing so easy exists.

Without having engaged in Chan investigation, without having investigated 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 realization 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 and eighteen realms of sentient beings. All of this must be understood and known, and all six pāramitās of the bodhisattva must be cultivated. It is not a matter of understanding some portion of content that was spoken by the Buddha or by others; no matter how one understands or elaborates on it, it is not something one has personally deliberated upon, investigated, and realized for oneself. Without direct perception, the mind cannot feel grounded—it remains deeply uncertain.

From this kind of understanding to realization—perhaps it takes one year, perhaps thirty years, perhaps a hundred years, perhaps ten thousand years, perhaps a measureless kalpa; there is no telling. What the mind consciousness understands is useless; it vanishes the moment it vanishes. Even the mind consciousness does not know or realize the details, let alone the manas. At critical moments it is still the manas that makes the decisions. If the manas has not confirmed it, the ignorance remains, and all the mind consciousness's understanding becomes like child's play at the time of death, dissolving into bubbles, unable to determine the destination of the next life.

Ask yourself "why" again and again in your mind, and resolve every one of those whys—perhaps then you might come close to realization, but even that is not necessarily realization. Such is the Buddhadharma—sacred and beyond speculation.