Why Does Understanding Things Take Time?

After learning about something or studying a certain dharma, one needs a period of time to digest it—why is that? What the mind consciousness has come to know needs to slowly permeate into the manas, so that the manas can also come to understand it, deliberate upon it (manasikāra), comprehend it, and clearly recognize it. If the manas has not yet understood, then it is not true understanding, and the matter has not been digested and absorbed.

For any matter or dharma to be truly understood, digested, and absorbed, it takes some time for the manas to weigh and comprehend it—this is called buffering. The better one's meditative concentration (samādhi) and the more focused one is, the more easily the manas can understand, and the faster the digestion and absorption. Therefore, when things in the world happen too suddenly and too abruptly, the manas has no psychological preparation and cannot quickly digest these matters, and the mind will feel shocked. After encountering such things many times, over a long period, the manas becomes psychologically prepared and will accept them calmly, no longer feeling shocked.

Due to sudden accidents, one may be scared out of one's wits, deeply frightened in a way that reaches the manas, not merely frightening the mind consciousness. Because of the manas's fright, He has no countermeasures at all and is at a loss as to what to do. In milder cases, one stands dazed and stunned; in more severe cases, one becomes mentally deranged; the most extreme reaction is being scared out of one's wits to the point of being frightened to death, and after death, it is very difficult to take rebirth normally.