The Difference Between Understanding and Direct Realization

There is a great difference between intellectual understanding and realization. Realization means genuinely attaining it, being able to personally observe one's own true mind of suchness in the present moment; what is observed is all fact, direct perception. Intellectual understanding merely comprehends the principle, feeling that the tathāgatagarbha is just like that, but has not personally attained it, and therefore cannot observe suchness directly in the present. If one cannot engage in genuine contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) through direct observation, then one cannot truly achieve the transformation of the basis upon the principle of suchness.

To better understand where the difference between the two lies, let us use an analogy to illustrate. Intellectual understanding is like studying theoretical knowledge about apples; one may research the theory quite well, even quite exhaustively, including the apple's place of origin, variety, transportation, storage, appearance and form, color and luster, and so on. But after all, one has never personally eaten one, so one does not know what a real apple actually tastes like, does not know how sweet, moist, and pleasing it is, and thus body and mind have received no genuine benefit. Realization means having personally eaten the apple, truly knowing the sweet taste of the apple; one's experience of the apple is real 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, let alone know various information such as the apple's place of origin. Meanwhile, 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 received no real benefit for his own body and mind. It is like the dullest disciple of the World-Honored One Śākyamuni who, after realizing 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 not experience even a trace of suffering. But the ordinary people of today have flourishing theories; not only can they talk eloquently and produce works stacked as high as themselves, expressing themselves in language like a sage, yet within their minds there is not even a shadow of liberation. They speak like sages, but when they act they are utter ordinary beings; their inner greed, anger, and delusion have not been subdued in the slightest, their arrogance blazes fiercely, and others simply dare not provoke them.