Speculating About the Buddha-Dharma Cannot Bring True Benefit

Without practice, merely lecturing to others is like a deaf person without the faculty of hearing playing music for others—the music may be beautiful, but he himself cannot hear it at all. It is the same for a person who does not practice the Dharma.

It is like a boatman on the great ocean who constantly ferries people across the sea, yet he himself may perish in that ocean. It is the same for a person who does not practice the Dharma.

It is like merely saying with the mouth how sweet sugar is, without ever tasting it oneself. If one does not practice the Dharma, no matter how beautifully one speaks, one cannot experience in one's mind the sweetness of the Dharma, nor taste its flavor. Therefore, if one only knows how to talk without practicing, one's own mental continuum cannot truly benefit.

Many people assume that as long as one can expound the Dharma, one has already realized it. But the fact is: it is not so. If one teaches the Dharma without having realized it through actual practice, it carries no genuine guiding significance. Having never walked that path oneself, yet telling others how to walk it, seems quite absurd—relying entirely on conjecture. How could others realize realization through that? Except for those whose spiritual faculties from past lives were exceptionally good.