Only by Personally Realizing All Dharmas Can One Confirm Without Doubt

That all dharmas can be personally realized and directly observed—this is more important than anything else. Even words spoken directly by the Buddha should still be personally observed and verified before one can finally confirm them without doubt. A principle personally verified by oneself is a fact, and fact is more reliable than the Buddha's words. And what the Buddha personally spoke is more reliable than the transmitted Buddhist sūtras, because sūtras have passed through other mouths and other hands and are thus secondhand accounts. Sūtras are more reliable than the treatises of bodhisattvas of the stage of near-perfect enlightenment (sattva-sabhāga of equal enlightenment), and the treatises of bodhisattvas of near-perfect enlightenment are more reliable than the treatises of other bodhisattvas; the treatises of other great bodhisattvas are more reliable than the words of ordinary beings. In the final analysis, no matter how reliable the sūtras and treatises may be, nothing is more reliable than personal realization.

Yet now, even if the Buddha himself came to transmit the Dharma, all sentient beings could only accept and believe the Buddhist sūtras, and could not accept what the Buddha personally spoke, because they would not know that it was the Buddha who had descended into the world, and they themselves lack the wisdom to discern whether the Dharma meaning is correct or not. Then what they believe is blind faith and reverential faith, not faith based on realization, nor true faith—it is merely faith in the Buddha's fame and prestige. If sentient beings believed that the Buddha had personally come to the Sahā world to transmit the Dharma, then they would believe what the Buddha, appearing in the form of a Buddha, said, and would not necessarily have to believe the sūtras, even if the sūtras were perfectly correct. This also shows that sentient beings' faith in the Buddha and in what He taught is blind faith and reverential faith, not faith based on realization. If one believes the Dharma taught by someone appearing in the form of a Buddha, then what if Māra Pāpīyas appeared in the form of a Buddha to transmit the Dharma? How should that be treated? One would have to believe it completely, and then one would be led astray, sinking into birth-and-death, unable to attain liberation.

Therefore, of all the words that can be spoken, only personal realization is the most reliable. Believing only in facts, believing only in truth—this is the principle that everyone should follow. But realizing the truth is an extremely, extremely difficult matter, requiring immense merit and wisdom, which is why sentient beings have no choice but to believe what comes from other mouths—this is a helpless recourse. That is also why, at the time of His departure, the Buddha exhorted and instructed His disciples again and again that they must follow the four reliances and four non-reliances. This shows that these four reliances and four non-reliances must be extremely difficult to practice—almost ninety-nine percent of people cannot do it, because of their deficiency in merit, meditative concentration, and wisdom.

On the other hand, as soon as one speaks of trusting personal realization, there will be some people deeply steeped in the conceit of self who trust only their own inferences and interpretations, believing these to be what they themselves have personally realized, and no longer believing what those who have truly realized say. Their arrogance grows ever greater, to the point of self-deception and deceiving others, and in the end they still gain no benefit from the Dharma. Such is the phenomenon of learning Buddhism in the Dharma-ending age: even if the Buddha came, it would be difficult to manage. Sentient beings veer either left or right—either blindly following others or, out of arrogance, being overly confident in themselves. People lacking wisdom can hardly grasp an appropriate measure or hold to a suitable degree; one might say even the world's physicians would throw up their hands in helplessness.