Disciples Who Rely on Intellectual Understanding Are Not Mahāyāna Bodhisattvas Who Have Attained the Path of Seeing

In the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch said to the assembly: "I have a thing: without head or tail, without name or word, without back or front—can you all recognize it?" The young monk Shenhui said: "It is the source of all Buddhas, the Buddha-nature of Shenhui." The Sixth Patriarch said: "I told you it has no name and no word, yet you still speak of the source and Buddha-nature. In the future you will be nothing more than a follower of intellectual understanding."

What is meant by a follower of intellectual understanding? Both knowing and understanding are the doings of the mind consciousness; the manas neither knows nor understands, and so it is not realization. Although the young monk Shenhui's mind consciousness knew it was the source of Buddha-nature, he had not realized the source of Buddha-nature. The Sixth Patriarch therefore called him a follower of intellectual understanding, and further predicted that in the future he would remain one—able only to understand the Buddha's teaching intellectually, but never to realize it, no matter how much Dharma he expounded or what Dharma he taught.

The Sixth Patriarch and all the Chan masters of his time opposed mere intellectual understanding without earnest practical cultivation and realization; they opposed emotional speculation and intellectual interpretation, and opposed showing off one's eloquence everywhere instead of earnestly undertaking the work of investigating Chan. Such a person can only be a follower of intellectual understanding and cannot become a true and genuine Mahāyāna bodhisattva. Nowadays sentient beings' spiritual faculties are even more restless and ungrounded; they simply do not cultivate meditative concentration. Modern information technology is highly developed, so many people know everything, yet can realize nothing.

This shows that no matter how much Dharma the mind consciousness knows, it is useless—one will still be scolded by the patriarchs, and it brings not the slightest benefit to liberation. One must put in real effort, genuinely cultivate and genuinely realize: earnestly cultivate meditative concentration, cultivate śamatha and vipaśyanā, earnestly investigate Chan and awaken to the Way. Do not play clever tricks or show off Buddhist knowledge. Even if you know all of the Tripiṭaka and the twelve divisions of the scriptures by heart, and can even expound them all, it is still not as practical and real as steadfastly and personally realizing the non-self.