The Importance of Personal Realization and Actual Verification

Before many people attain enlightenment, they form all kinds of imaginings about true suchness and buddha-nature. But after they become enlightened and personally realize it, they discover that true suchness and buddha-nature are actually like this — in the past, they had all misunderstood it. What is heard and learned from elsewhere, plus the processing and elaboration of one's own mind consciousness, differs from reality by no small margin. How many people since beginningless kalpas have imagined it correctly? I believe not even a single one. Therefore, what the manas personally verifies is the most reliable. To personally verify it, one must personally deliberate and weigh it (manasikāra); one cannot simply accept the results of the mind consciousness's thinking and take them as one's own conclusion of direct perception. This point is extremely important for studying Buddhism, cultivating practice, and seeing the mind and attaining realization.