The Meaning of Direct Realization

Question: Is personal realization a process of constantly persuading oneself to break through attachment to self and attachment to dharmas? Or can one truly see with the naked eye a living tathāgatagarbha? By tathāgatagarbha I mean the empty tathāgatagarbha apart from the five aggregates and eighteen realms.

Answer: Personal realization means, through investigating Chan, realizing that tathāgatagarbha which functions within the body of the five aggregates, and discovering what functions the tathāgatagarbha performs—just as, by seeing the effects of a great wind blowing, one realizes the existence of the great wind and the place where it is.