Better not to awaken than to awaken through intellectual understanding.

In the stages of Chan investigation and contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), it is not only the mind consciousness that must be used; most importantly, the manas must be employed. If the effort has not reached the manas, it is all just emotional thinking and intellectual understanding—even if one understands, it is the mind consciousness that understands, which is merely intellectual awakening. Any awakening that occurs without meditative concentration (samādhi) is one hundred percent intellectual awakening. Therefore, if you have no meditative concentration, or your meditative concentration is insufficient, do not under any circumstances engage in investigation, and even less should you attempt to awaken. Awakening under such conditions is intellectual awakening—it would truly be better not to awaken at all. You would spend your whole life neither dead nor alive, stuck in that state, unable to move up or down, with your progress on the Path unable to advance any further. Moreover, it would only increase your arrogance and lead you to commit unwholesome karma, and in the future you will regret it when it is too late. All of you, remember this: it is better not to awaken at all than to have an intellectual awakening. Half-cooked rice is extremely unpalatable, and even if you put it back in the pot, it is very hard to cook it through.

In the future, when we encounter the Buddha-dharma, we must learn to distinguish whether it is a method of intellectual awakening or a method of realization-awakening. A method that does not specifically cultivate meditative concentration is a method of intellectual awakening, and therefore must be avoided.

When meditative concentration is insufficient and one is guided and guided again, prompted and prompted again by others, the conditions are not complete, and generally speaking, the result is intellectual awakening.