A person of great wisdom always looks at problems from an overall perspective.

A person who has not yet stepped onto the proper track of cultivation has a scattered mind, paying much attention to novel things in the external world, frequently turning along with sense objects in a disorderly way, without even noticing their own inner mind. Regarding the minds of sentient beings, I previously gave an analogy: the mind of sentient beings is like a dog—whenever someone casually throws out anything, it barks and rushes toward that thing; when the wind blows the grass and a slight sound arises, it thinks something remarkable has happened and barks wildly toward where the sound came from. The dog is simply idle with nothing to do, having no great matter of its own to pursue. Many sentient beings are like this too: whatever happens in the world is a big matter to them, and they crane their necks and rush toward it, accomplishing nothing life after life.

Paying attention to sense objects is fine too—if one can see clearly, within those objects, their substance and essence, that is wisdom. In the video mentioned above, why did many people at first see the image as convex, but later see it as concave? That is because ordinary people focus on details and discard the whole picture; when the mind is captivated by details, they no longer have the energy or wisdom to contemplate the overall picture and the whole—a typical case of dropping the watermelon to pick up sesame seeds. Only a person who can survey the whole picture is a person of great wisdom; only a person who can look far ahead is a person of great wisdom, and no person or matter can delude them. As for one who can attend to and observe both the whole and the details, such a person is no longer merely an ordinary person of wisdom.

For ordinary people, worldly dharmas are just worldly dharmas—they are deluded and sunk into the sense objects—whereas for one who has realized enlightenment, all worldly dharmas are seen as the tathāgatagarbha and the functions and attributes of the tathāgatagarbha, or all worldly dharmas are seen as aggregates of the seeds of the seven great elements. The seeds of the seven great elements are without mark, so how could worldly dharmas have marks? Whether the mind is settled on details or settled on the whole picture, both are meditative concentration (samādhi), yet the results are vastly different. Therefore one must not settle the mind arbitrarily and carelessly; if one settles on the wrong target, it becomes wrong concentration.

When examining an issue, one should first grasp it from the whole, starting from the overall picture, and then look at the details to help elucidate the whole. If one looks at it in reverse, the result may be the opposite. For example, in observing a person speaking and doing things, if one looks only at the surface of the matters, one will feel this person is very kind and very wise. But if one looks at this person's overall intentions and conduct from beginning to end, at this person's plans and schemes, one will see from the overall picture that this person has great sinister schemes and tricks, and the various small good deeds done are precisely for the purpose of realizing his great evil. If sentient beings all approve of and comply with him, letting his scheme succeed, it will gravely harm the interests of extremely many people. Sentient beings without wisdom see this person as good; those with wisdom see this person as a greatly evil person. What those with wisdom and those without wisdom see are completely opposite results—and it is precisely because people without wisdom are extremely many, while people with wisdom are few, or none, that the evil of evil people can be carried out.