The Difference Between Intellectual Understanding and Realization

The difference between intellectual understanding and direct realization: there is a great difference between understanding through study (jiěwù) and realization through awakening (zhèngwù). Realization means genuinely attaining it, being able to personally observe directly the true suchness of one's own mind; what is observed is all fact, and it is direct perception. Intellectual understanding merely comprehends the principle, feeling that the tathāgatagarbha is just like that, but without having personally attained it; therefore one cannot directly observe true suchness. If one cannot engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of true suchness as it really is, then one cannot truly achieve the transformation of the basis upon the principle of true suchness.

To better understand where the difference between the two lies, let us use an analogy. Intellectual understanding is like studying theoretical knowledge about apples. The theory can be studied quite well, and perhaps quite exhaustively, including the apple's place of origin, variety, transportation, storage, appearance and shape, color and luster, and so on. But after all, one has never personally eaten one, so one does not know what the real apple tastes like, does not know how sweet and palatable it is, and thus body and mind have not received any real benefit. Realization means having personally eaten the apple, genuinely knowing the apple's sweet flavor; one's experience of the apple is true and not false, and body and mind have already received its benefit.

However, it is possible that the person who has eaten the apple cannot yet express the apple's taste very well, and knows even less about the apple's place of origin and other such information. The person with intellectual understanding may know all the theories about apples, yet has not tasted a single bite of one; then all his theories are merely theories, and he has gained no real benefit for his own body and mind. It is like the dullest disciple of the World-Honored One Śākyamuni who, after attaining the fourth fruit of arhatship, could not expound the dharma principles of the path of liberation, yet he had already attained genuine liberation, could truly end birth and death, transcend the cycle of birth and death, and in the future would no longer have the slightest experience of suffering. But the ordinary beings of today are extremely strong in theory: they can not only talk eloquently and produce writings stacked as high as themselves, expressing themselves in language like a sage's, yet within their minds there is not a shadow of liberation. They speak like sages, but when they act they are utter ordinary beings; the greed, hatred, and delusion in their minds have not been subdued at all, their arrogance blazes fiercely, and others simply dare not provoke them.

Intellectual understanding and direct realization are two levels, and the distance between them may be very great. It is like many people who are clear about the concept, connotations, place of origin, and varieties of apples, and can even write papers about apples, yet have never eaten one, and therefore do not know the concrete, real taste. Meanwhile, someone else has already eaten the apple, though much information about apples is still unknown to him for the time being, yet he can personally enjoy the apple and has genuinely tasted its sweet, fragrant flavor. The difference between intellectual understanding and realization is just like this.

In the Buddha's time, Cūḍapanthaka was an arhat of the fourth fruit, yet he could not expound the dharma principles of the path of liberation; whereas the ordinary beings of today have countless papers and books, yet do not even have a shadow of the first fruit. Nowadays there are very many people who study Buddhist theory and can expound one grand theory after another, but after all they have not attained realization; they merely circle outside the gate, like scratching an itch through a boot, and like the person who studies apples—only the person who has eaten the apple can accurately describe its taste. Liberation is a realm of actual realization, not something that intellectual understanding can resolve. Only one who has actual realization can receive real benefit, regardless of whether he can articulate it or not. Liberation is not on the lips but within the mind.

The difference between intellectual understanding and what is directly realized is extremely great, and others cannot see it. The one who merely understands can nevertheless express himself very well, and others will think his wisdom is very deep, but in fact it is not. One who has realized through awakening and seen the mind speaks of the tathāgatagarbha based on direct realization, whereas intellectual understanding involves an element of imagination. With intellectual understanding, it may be even worse—it would be better not to have awakened at all for the time being, and to wait until conditions ripen before attaining realization. The road after intellectual understanding is hard to walk, quite arduous; it is like picking unripe fruit—having picked the unripe fruit and then ripening it at home, it still does not taste as good as fruit that ripened naturally.