How to Avoid Intellectual Understanding

Nowadays many people worry that in their practice of the Great and Small Vehicles they will only achieve intellectual understanding (jie wu), which would obstruct their future realization. So now there is a question: how can one avoid mere intellectual understanding?

What is the situation of intellectual understanding? Intellectual understanding means that one has become very familiar with the Dharma principles, the practice approaches of the Great and Small Vehicle teachings are already very clear, one almost definitively knows that it is that principle, that it is that way, as if there were no more doubts.

But this still remains at the level of determination (adhimokṣa) regarding the Dharma, and there is still some distance from realization. Although an extremely large number of people at this point believe they have become enlightened, and can also quite easily be guided and certified as enlightened. After determination there are still mindfulness, meditative concentration, and wisdom; that final true wisdom, the wisdom of the manas, still needs to be developed, and there is still a stretch of arduous road to travel. This stretch of road is extremely difficult and hard to endure; only through perseverance, effort, power of vow, power of faith, power of forbearance, and power of compassion can one pass through it and reach the temporary endpoint, which may also be called the goal or destination.

After the mind consciousness has achieved determination regarding the Dharma, there is still the need to permeate and lead the manas so that it too achieves determination. Even after the manas has achieved determination, it is still not enlightenment; one must form an unbroken, moment-to-moment power of mindfulness, and only when the power of mindfulness matures can the power of meditative concentration appear; only when the power of concentration is complete can wisdom be developed, and the wisdom of seeing the path of the Great and Small Vehicles appear—recognizing that path, realizing that path, confirming that path—so that one will never regress from the bodhi path of the Great and Small Vehicles and will never lose the merit of seeing the path. Otherwise, upon encountering conditions, one will easily regress from the bodhi path, because the mind consciousness understands but the manas has not seen clearly, so it is the most normal thing to deny what the mind consciousness previously understood. This kind of regression is also only the regression of the mind consciousness; the mind consciousness does not acknowledge it, but the manas has not regressed, because the manas never entered in the first place, never saw the path—how could there be any turning of face and denial, how could there be any regression? This so-called regression is just making a fuss at the outer gate before seeing the path. Once one has entered through the gate, one will quiet down because of the genuine meditative absorption (samādhi) state of the equal cultivation of Samādhi and Prajñā; the mind becomes empty and tranquil, and there will be no fussing at all.

Determination, mindfulness, and concentration—these three steps are all crucial; without the former there is no latter. Among them, the transmission of the Dharma principles from the mind consciousness to the manas is an extremely crucial point. Once the manas acknowledges the Dharma, questioning doubt will arise, doubting in every thought, moment after moment; at a certain point, meditative concentration will inevitably appear, and thereafter one comes to the two checkpoints of cultivating concentration and investigating Chan. Having achieved a certain degree of determination regarding the Dharma, how does one improve the power of concentration, and how does one investigate? For example, take the principle of eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa): one already has a rough understanding in one's mind, and the concept of no-self is more or less clear; at this point it is still not realization. How should one practice further from here?

At this point, some people have no power of concentration, and some have some power of concentration, but it is still insufficient. Of course, the primary task at this time is to find a way to cultivate concentration and enhance the power of concentration. After attaining preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) and having it fully complete, one must investigate within concentration, and only then can one achieve realization. In this way, mere intellectual understanding is avoided.