The Foolish Can Attain the Fruit of Arhat; the Clever Cannot Escape the Three Evil Destinies.

Cūḍapanthaka's consciousness was extremely dull; he could not memorize even a single sentence of Buddhist doctrine, and his power of deliberation was even weaker—he could not reason, organize, summarize, generalize, analyze, or compare. Yet merely by contemplating the breath through the nose, why was he able to realize the fourth fruit of arhatship? Literary scholars and men of letters throughout the ages, in China and abroad, have exhaustively combed through the Tripiṭaka and produced numerous writings—poems, verses, and witty sayings flowing like pearls—so why is there no trace of them realizing any fruit? The Buddha's dharma does not lie in speaking, nor in interpreting, nor in how beautiful and moving the words are; only what can be put to use is the Buddha's way. It is like an apple: eating it in the mouth, swallowing it into the stomach, and filling the belly is the greatest benefit—far more practical than studying the apple and writing an apple research paper to win awards.

For someone as dull as Cūḍapanthaka who did not understand theory, when contemplating the breath through the nose, the various faculties of the mind consciousness were basically of no use, and there was no possibility of taking shortcuts in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā). He could not analyze the momentary arising and ceasing of the breath and other volitional formations, their suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self, nor could he infer the non-self of all formations or the non-self of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha). This conveniently spared him the mind consciousness's sentimental interpretations and intellectual understanding, so the functions of the manas were able to be brought into full play. As a result, he not only eradicated the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) but also directly realized the fourth fruit of arhatship. This shows that the final realization of the Buddha's dharma does not lie in exerting effort on the mind consciousness. Not understanding theory does not matter; as long as the method and direction of practice are correct, and one can cultivate diligently, one can still attain enlightenment.

But those theorists and researchers who exhaustively comb the Tripiṭaka and are learned in five cartloads of books can only exert effort on the mind consciousness. Despite their torrential eloquence, ornate rhetoric, the admiration they receive, their boundless glory, and illustrious reputations, in the end they gain nothing—the place where one gains an advantage is precisely the place where one loses it. For instance, no matter how well Su Dongpo could interpret the Buddha's dharma or how many insights he had, he achieved nothing in actual realization. The habitual tendencies of literati are serious obstructing conditions for the Path and are not easy to overcome; the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting—all worldly arts—are conditions that obstruct the Path, yet people of the world take pride in them, which is truly inverted. Shouldn't those learners who are fond of theory and like to have attainments reflect on this?