What Is View?

The "ground" (bhūmi) in "view-ground" (view and ground) refers to the levels of cultivation and realization, the status and position one has attained. In the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, Bodhisattva Maitreya divides the grounds into seventeen grounds, from the ground of ordinary beings to the ground of Buddhahood. At each ground, the identity is different and the position has risen, divided according to differences in merit, wisdom, and meditative concentration (samādhi). Among them, the desire realm has nine grounds, divided according to merit; the form realm and formless realm are divided according to meditative concentration, with wisdom also playing an auxiliary role. The grounds of ordinary beings, arhats, pratyekabuddhas, bodhisattvas, and Buddhas are divided according to realization, and realization includes merit, meditative concentration, and wisdom.

Therefore, the term "view-ground" cannot be applied to ordinary beings, because only when one's views have been actualized through realization, when one's understanding has been verified, when one has attained the patience with non-arising and the patience with the non-arising of dharmas, does one possess a certain liberating wisdom, and one's identity rises to the status and level of a sage; only then do one's former views and understanding become "view-ground."

Views, ideas, and opinions that have not been verified can only be called views, intellectual understanding, or personal ideas. If you want to verify that your views and understanding are correct, you must cultivate precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom, investigate within samādhi, personally realize it, personally see it—not merely ponder and speculate from afar or make subjective assumptions. Subjective assumptions cannot sever doubt; only what has been personally seen and verified can sever doubt. Only after doubt is severed can liberating wisdom arise, and only then can the body, mind, and world undergo a fundamental transformation, from which point one's level of thought, identity, and status all rise.