The Terrible Consequences of Understanding the Dharma Intellectually

Answer: Let me give an example. Suppose everyone bought a book to learn driving skills, or listened to someone explain driving techniques in person, and everyone mastered the technical knowledge and all felt they could drive. Yet they had never actually driven a car, never even touched a steering wheel. Then these people went on to write books and teach others how to drive. In that case, what would driving skills become after being passed down for a while? Would such skills still have any practical, hands-on value? Would anyone still drive in the future? Would there still be anyone who could drive? After that, wouldn't the skill of driving be lost and turn into a mere armchair game of paper talk?

The Buddhadharma is the same. If everyone merely has intellectual understanding without any actual realization, and it is passed from one person to another, then in the end, even those with intellectual understanding will cease to exist, and even the intellectually understood Buddhadharma will become distorted, and the true Buddhadharma will be lost. This is a situation the Buddha could not bear to see, and as the Buddha's true disciples, we would also feel deep pain over it.

There is an essential difference between comprehension and intellectual understanding. Intellectual understanding is something like guessing the general way in which the tathāgatagarbha functions; it is not observed through direct perception/valid direct cognition, and it is not as clear as seeing an object right before one's eyes. With what is merely guessed, the manas still remains unclear, the mind is not at ease, does not settle to the bottom, and is easily swayed. Thus one cannot observe the specific workings of the tathāgatagarbha and cannot give birth to genuine great wisdom. Ordinary comprehension and understanding mean only a fairly good learning and grasping of knowledge; one has not yet entered the stage of actual deliberation (manana) and contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and investigation, and still has not the slightest knowing of the operation of the tathāgatagarbha—one is still very far from the level of intellectual understanding, and the gap from realization is even greater.