The Same Outer Representation Can Manifest Different Inner Representations

Answer: Since they are looking at the same river, the outer representation must be the same; only the inner representations differ for each, and this difference in results is caused by the power of karma. If a hungry ghost sees a river in the world of the hungry ghosts, then it is certainly not the same as the river in the human world that humans see—the outer representations are different. If a hungry ghost sees things in the world of the hungry ghosts, that has nothing to do with us humans, so the outer representations are different. But if it is looking at the mountains, rivers, lands, and rivers of the human world, although what it sees differs from what humans see, the outer representation is the same—what it sees is still a river in the human realm.

Although the ghost realm has its own way of life and its own material environment (the sentient world of ghosts), there are still differences from the human realm. But when it sees people and things in the human realm—for example, when a ghost sees a human, is it a person in the ghost realm or a person in the human realm? The person it sees is the same person that others see—can the outer representation be the same? It certainly is the same.