How to Avoid Intellectual Awakening

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

What is the situation of interpretive awakening? Interpretive awakening means that one has become very familiar with the meaning of the Dharma, the approach to practicing the Great and Small Vehicle teachings is 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 attained enlightenment, and they can also easily be guided and certified as enlightened. After determination there are still mindfulness, samādhi, 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, cultivated effort, power of vow, power of faith, power of forbearance, and power of compassion can one pass through it and arrive at a temporary endpoint, or what may be called the goal, the 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 achieves determination, it still does not count as enlightenment. One must form an unbroken, moment-to-moment power of mindfulness; 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, giving rise to the wisdom of seeing the path in the Great and Small Vehicles—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 while the manas has not yet seen clearly, and it is the most normal thing to deny what the mind consciousness previously understood. This kind of regression is also a regression of the mind consciousness—the mind consciousness does not acknowledge it, but the manas has not actually regressed, because the manas never entered in the first place and 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 outside the gate before seeing the path. Once one has entered through the gate, one will quiet down because of the genuine 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 samādhi—these three steps are all crucial; without the former there is no latter. Among them, the transmission of the meaning of the Dharma from the mind consciousness to the manas is an extremely critical point. Once the manas accepts 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 gained 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 eliminating self-view: one already has a rough understanding in one's mind, and the thought of no-self is more or less clear; at this point it still does not count as realization. How should one practice further from here?

At this point, some people have no power of concentration, and some have a little 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 attain enlightenment. In this way, interpretive awakening is avoided.