An Analysis of the Exact Meanings of Actual Realization and Personal Realization

Actual realization means having actually experienced it, having actually encountered it; personal realization means having personally gone through it, having personally experienced it. It is not an exercise of the imagination, not scratching an itch through a boot, not watching a fire from across the river, and certainly not making things up in one's head.

For example, actually realizing electricity and personally realizing electricity does not mean knowing that electricity exists, but actually touching electricity, feeling the flow of the current, personally experiencing the process and manner of the current's operation, personally coming into contact with electricity, so that its features, properties, states, and forms of existence are all clear, and one has even genuinely felt its influence; one will never again be vague or ambiguous about electricity, and can describe it fluently as if recounting one's own family treasures.

Hearing this, someone will immediately ask in surprise: Wouldn't that mean getting shocked? Exactly! Only by being shocked, by receiving an electric shock, can it be called personal realization; otherwise, isn't it just scratching an itch through a boot? Only by personally experiencing it can it be called personal realization—how can something merely thought or believed be called personal realization? How could personally realizing a truth of fact be bland and flat, with no feeling at all? Having experienced such a momentous event, how could the heart remain dull and flavorless? Wouldn't one be so shocked and excited as to jump up?

Then someone else will ask: Wouldn't that mean being electrocuted to death? Exactly! In actually realizing the tathāgatagarbha, one is reborn—utterly transformed, gaining new life; the former self dies and no longer exists. Is there any problem with that? If one is still the same person as before, with the mind unchanged, the body unchanged, nothing changed at all, then what was realized? What was experienced? Nothing was realized. You say that seeing the washing machine washing clothes, you know electricity is running—but did your eyes see the electricity, see the current's operation? Did your hand touch the sliding of the current? Did your body feel the stimulation of the current? None of these. You only saw the washing machine turning; you did not see the flow of the current. The eyes did not see and the body did not touch—how can that be called personal realization? You do not know how electricity operates, do not know what it looks like or its state, do not know what features it has—you know nothing at all. What meaning does your so-called realization have? What function does it serve? What can it change? What is the difference between realizing and not realizing?

The "electricity" in actually realizing electricity means electric current, representing the current, with the meaning of flowing; it is not a noun or concept. What is there to realize about a noun or concept? The tumbling of the washing machine is also not electricity, not the flow of current; it is the washing machine's own rotation. Seeing the washing machine turn, you associate it with a current passing through, but association is not the same as seeing the flow of current with your own eyes, nor is it the same as personally touching the current.

Personal realization means the six faculties have genuinely made contact, and the seven consciousnesses have genuinely perceived it. If none of the six faculties has made contact, how can it count as personal realization? It is like someone who has never been to Beijing, who looks at pictures and videos of Beijing and claims to have personally realized Beijing, to have been to Beijing. But when you look at the pictures, did you personally experience Beijing's local customs, dialects, cultural and geographical features, and the living environment of Beijing's people? Did you experience Beijing's bustle and crowding? Did you feel the busy rhythm of people's lives? You experienced none of it—so what is the difference between realizing Beijing and not realizing Beijing? At most you can say you personally realized the Beijing in pictures and the Beijing in videos, but not the Beijing in reality.

Take another example: seeing smoke rising beyond a high wall in the distance, one says one knows there is a fire, that one has realized fire. But you have not actually seen the fire with your own eyes; seeing smoke is not the same as seeing fire, and inferring that there is a fire is not the same as actually seeing fire, truly seeing fire. To truly see the fire, you must go to the site where the smoke is rising and personally see whether there are flames beneath the smoke clouds, and how the fire is raging—only then does it count as personally realizing fire and seeing fire. Imagination and inference will not do; even if you imagine or infer correctly, it still does not count.

Only when at least one of the six faculties makes contact with the object of realization can it count as personal realization. For the actual realization of material form (rūpa-dharma), besides the manas making contact, at least one of the five faculties must also make contact—eye seeing, ear hearing, nose smelling, tongue tasting, body touching—at least one faculty must make contact; sometimes two, three, four, or all five faculties must make contact before it counts as personal realization. For formless mental dharmas (citta-dharma), the manas must personally make contact and realize them; relying purely on the mind consciousness's imagination and inference is not actual realization. If the faculty does not arrive at the scene, it does not count as personal realization.