Comparing the Speculation of Learned Theories Has Nothing to Do with Realization

Question: Take scratching an itch as an example. When the sense faculty and the sense object come into contact, if mental attention (manaskāra) is applied, consciousness arises (here, the mental faculty applies attention first, though sometimes it applies attention afterward). At this moment, the mental faculty is directing the body consciousness to operate. I then thought: since the seventh and eighth consciousnesses are interdependent (the eighth consciousness requires nine conditions), and since the mental faculty has appeared, the eighth consciousness must be nearby. Therefore, it should be that at the very moment the sense faculty and sense object contact each other and the mental faculty applies attention, the eighth consciousness manifests the body consciousness (the third transformative power). Then the mental faculty directs the body consciousness to operate and scratch the itch. Regarding the existence of the eighth consciousness described in this passage, is this merely the student's deluded thinking, or is it just a problem-solving approach, still very far from actual realization of the eighth consciousness?

Answer: At this moment, you have neither directly observed the operation of the mental faculty nor directly observed the operation of the eighth consciousness. Therefore, what you have described is not fact, but rather a process of comparing and applying learned theoretical knowledge to think, speculate, reason, and guess. These are all non-valid cognitions (non-pramāṇa), lacking direct perception (pratyakṣa). Consequently, none of it should be taken as true. This is how people without meditative concentration (dhyāna) study the Dharma: their intellectual faculty is overly active and runs ahead, essentially amounting to conjecture. Even if all the Dharma principles are guessed correctly, it remains mere speculation and cannot be counted as genuine understanding.

I have encountered many people in this state of Dharma study. They appear quite clever, able to identify the key points and focal issues of a problem. Then they take shortcuts, using intellectual thinking to analyze, summarize, organize, and guess. However, doing so obstructs their own path of practice and hinders genuine cultivation and realization. The result is that they outsmart themselves. Moreover, many mistake this kind of speculation for actual realization, proclaiming everywhere that they have attained enlightenment or sainthood. Yet this still belongs to the initial stage of learning. Meditative concentration has not yet arisen; precepts, concentration, and wisdom (śīla, samādhi, prajñā), the six pāramitās of a bodhisattva, and even the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment have not been cultivated. The causes, conditions, and prerequisites for realization are still far from being met. In the Dharma-ending Age, sentient beings have meager merit, cannot attain meditative concentration, cannot uphold the precepts, and are unwilling to cultivate merit. They can only engage in superficial intellectual understanding. It is precisely this superficial intellectual understanding that most obstructs the path and causes the greatest delay, often blocking their own gate to enlightenment.