Direct Perception in the Saha World Is Not Reliable

In the Sahā world, people take the common sense of daily life as direct perception (pratyakṣa), yet all of these direct-perception cognitions may have changed and no longer apply by the time one reaches the eighth-bhūmi bodhisattva stage. Only then does one discover that nothing is really as it seemed—there is nothing unchanging, no fixed things or fixed laws. Mountains may not be mountains, water may not be water. The illusory nature of all material form (rūpa) determines the instability and unreliability of material form.

We believe fire has the property of burning and can burn up all material form; by the eighth bhūmi, one knows this is not necessarily so—the nature of fire can change, and perhaps it cannot even burn a single sheet of paper, let alone the physical body of a bodhisattva.

We believe water has the property of submerging things; by the eighth bhūmi, one knows this is not necessarily so—perhaps it cannot even soak a single sheet of paper, let alone the physical body of a bodhisattva.

We believe stones cannot be eaten—not necessarily so. A great practitioner can perfectly well boil stones and eat them as if they were taro, potatoes, or sweet potatoes.

Therefore, all those so-called direct-perception cognitions of ordinary sentient beings are wrong; they are all non-valid cognition (non-pramāṇa). It is right for sentient beings not to be too self-confident. Clay figures are all molded from clay, but without meditative concentration (samādhi), one can only be molded—what can you mold? You can only mold birth-and-death, the suffering of saṃsāra. People of the modern age delight in learning words, love to memorize, love to acquire knowledge, love to be "learned enough to fill five carts," and do not like to realize truth through personal verification within meditative concentration.