The distance between knowing and realizing is unimaginable

When eliminating the view of self, the mind consciousness must think and analyze thoroughly, leaving no loopholes whatsoever, so that the manas fully accepts it without doubt; only then can the view of self be eliminated. In contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) to eliminate the view of self, the mind consciousness must find every way to contemplate and observe the illusory, unreal nature of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) and the eighteen realms, successfully permeating the manas so that the manas confirms from within that the five aggregates are truly not the self. Only then does the manas have solid confidence; no matter who says the five aggregates are real, the manas will not think that way or give its assent. To achieve this, the mind consciousness must first understand the principle itself and contemplate it clearly, and it must also give the manas a period of time to adapt and confirm, allowing the manas to grow accustomed to the fact that the five aggregates are truly not the self and are not real.

When one has just encountered this teaching and just begun to contemplate it, some people genuinely feel afraid in their hearts, feeling at a loss and without support, feeling that they have lost their refuge, experiencing inner emptiness and fear. This is because, from beginningless kalpas, the manas has firmly held that the five aggregates are the self and are real; now the mind consciousness tells Him that this is not so, and the manas can hardly bear it no matter what, hence the fear and distress in the mind. Only through the mind consciousness's continuous permeation, over a long period of time, once the manas has accepted it, will this feeling gradually fade away. For the manas to be fully psychologically prepared, the mind consciousness must repeatedly and continuously permeate it, constantly reinforcing the concept of no-self; eventually, one day, the view of self can be truly and thoroughly eliminated.

If only the mind consciousness knows that the five-aggregate body and all dharmas are illusory, while the manas does not yet know it and does not accept it, then it is of no real use—it is merely a superficial understanding, not the true elimination of the view of self. From the first fruit to the fourth fruit, the manas must continuously accept that the five aggregates are subject to arising and ceasing, impermanent, illusory, and without self. When it fully accepts this, the manas eliminates all its grasping nature toward the world of the five aggregates and gains the ability to transcend the cycle of birth and death. When the manas has completely eliminated all grasping and one attains the fourth fruit, it is like watching a movie on a dome screen: no matter what happens on the dome screen, whatever states appear, the mind remains as if nothing had happened, neither dodging nor welcoming. The manas no longer directs the body to dodge anything; the mind knows that all states are unreal, that they are all on the screen and not actual reality, and so there is no more fear.

From this we can see that the psychology of sentient beings has both a surface, superficial function and a hidden, concealed function; yet what plays the decisive role is that hidden force—a force that is deeply rooted, hard to transform, and hard to persuade—and that is the inertial force of the manas. Changing this inertial force is therefore extremely important, for it can resolve the great problem of birth and death spanning countless kalpas, including segmented birth-and-death and transformational birth-and-death/subtle birth-and-death, and thereby one can eliminate the ignorance, karma, and suffering accumulated since beginningless kalpas, and ascend to the farther shore of nirvāṇa.

When the manas has completely eliminated its grasping at the five aggregates, this corresponds to the fourth-fruit arhat in the Small Vehicle, and in the Great Vehicle to the seventh bhūmi at the full mind-stage, entering the eighth bhūmi. The realization of liberation of an eighth-bhūmi bodhisattva is equivalent to that of a great arhat of the fourth fruit who is liberated in both ways; the full mind-stage of the first bhūmi is equivalent to an arhat liberated by wisdom (paññāvimutti), but a first-bhūmi bodhisattva does not take the fruit of an arhat liberated by wisdom, and must not completely eliminate all thought-delusion afflictions. The state wherein the manas has completely eliminated grasping at a self of persons is something we can know somewhat through inference and imaginative reasoning, even though we have not realized it. As for the manas completely eliminating grasping at a self of dharmas, we can contemplate it through inference and even erroneous cognition (non-valid cognition) and get a rough idea, though we certainly cannot realize it. The gap between this knowing and the actual realization may be nearly two incalculable kalpas and three incalculable asaṃkhyeya kalpas. The distance between knowing and realizing is simply unimaginable.

Some people always become arrogant and self-satisfied merely from knowing a bit of dharma principles, but in fact that amounts to nothing; even if one has genuinely realized very profound Buddhadharma, it is still not worth being arrogant and self-satisfied about. Looking across the worlds of the ten directions and the three times—past, future, and present—even if we cultivated to the level of an eighth-bhūmi bodhisattva, it would still be nothing. Only those of shallow wisdom and limited insight easily develop arrogance and self-satisfaction, and only then is their pride deep and heavy. Those with intelligence and wisdom, who are widely experienced and knowledgeable, do not easily develop pride, because they have seen or know of countless people who are superior to themselves by countless times; their horizons are extremely broad.