Is the Dharma Affirmed in the Minds of Sentient Beings Necessarily Correct?

Not so. If it were otherwise, the Buddha would not have told sentient beings: "Your mind cannot be trusted; only when you attain the fruition of Arhatship can your mind be trusted." Here, the fruition of Arhatship refers to the ultimate fruition of the Four Fruits in the Hinayana path, while the Third Fruit still falls short. "Confirmation" means the affirmation and acceptance by the mental faculty (manas), forming an uninterrupted mental application that penetrates deep into the marrow, becoming unshakable and unfathomably deep. For example, the view of self—sentient beings' mental faculty confirms this view, making it deep-rooted and unshakable, which is called self-attachment.

To harbor unwavering faith in one's own mind and to be utterly self-assured is precisely the confirmation by the mental faculty. However, the confirmations made by ordinary sentient beings are deeply flawed and carry grave karmic consequences of birth and death. For instance, ordinary beings all confirm that the five aggregates constitute the self. Such confirmation is a wrong view, not a right view. Since beginningless kalpas, ordinary sentient beings have always confirmed their own views as correct and without error, yet throughout these beginningless kalpas, they have cycled through birth and death due to erroneous and inverted views, suffering various evil retributions and painful consequences.

"Your mind cannot be trusted"—the Buddha used this not only to admonish ordinary sentient beings but also to caution those from the First Fruit to the Third Fruit. This is because prior to the Fourth Fruit, their understanding of the emptiness of the five aggregates and the worldly realm remains incomplete and non-ultimate. The view of self within their conceptual framework has not been fully eradicated; self-attachment still remains. Only the Fourth Fruit Arhats have completely eradicated the view of self, realized emptiness thoroughly, eliminated self-attachment and self-conceit, and thus their conceptual understanding of emptiness becomes pure and trustworthy. This understanding of emptiness represents thoroughness and ultimacy within the scope of the Hinayana Dharma, yet compared to the Mahayana Dharma, it remains profoundly incomplete and non-ultimate.

Therefore, whether ordinary beings attain fruition or not, generally speaking, their wisdom is insufficient for self-verification. Firstly, their cultivation spans short kalpas, lacking sufficient experience. Secondly, they have limited exposure and learning, lacking points of comparison, making them highly prone to misjudgment and erroneous assessment. Furthermore, because they harbor a sense of self and cannot detach from affection, they tend to be biased and overestimate themselves. This easily leads to false awakenings and false speech, ultimately ensuring that the law of cause and effect never errs.