Is the Understanding of Dharma Through Consciousness’s Sole Acts of Thinking, Analysis, Comprehension, and Reasoning Considered Pratyakṣa-Prajñā?

Conclusions derived from conscious reasoning and inference are not empirically verified, not personally realized, and lack genuine, usable evidence to support them. The doubts within the mind remain unresolved. When encountering facts that contradict these conclusions at some point, one will regret and overturn their previous judgments. Yet, the deep-seated doubts within the mental faculty (manas) are fundamentally undetectable when the conscious mind lacks wisdom. Therefore, inferences made by consciousness cannot dispel doubt or cause the mental faculty to generate faith, rendering them neither practical nor beneficial.

Even if the result of reasoning is entirely correct, one hundred percent accurate, it remains non-phenomenal cognition (non-pramāṇa). Why? For example, suppose you reason that I must have stolen your belongings, and in reality, I did indeed steal them. However, since you did not witness it firsthand or catch me in the act, your reasoning is useless. A court will not convict or sentence me based on your reasoning or anyone else’s. Even if I confess to the theft myself but cannot provide compelling evidence to prove it, the court still cannot convict me. Some people, seeking to absolve those connected to them of karmic retribution, willingly take on the punishment themselves. Yet, without genuine and persuasive evidence, even if they go to court to confess, claiming they personally committed the act and that it has nothing to do with others, the court cannot convict based solely on their testimony.

In the context of the Dharma, if one has not attained meditative concentration (dhyāna), and through the activities of the five aggregates and eighteen elements deduces the existence of the Eighth Consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), imagining that it possesses certain functions, such reasoning still yields no meritorious benefit or practical use because it lacks personal realization. Nothing changes; self-view still persists, the three fetters still bind one, and one cannot avoid the karmic retribution of falling into the three lower realms at life's end. Even if you correctly deduce the Eighth Consciousness, even if you imagine it with fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty percent accuracy, great wisdom still will not arise. There will still be no samādhi state, no meritorious benefit, and one remains an ordinary being. One will never eliminate ignorance and afflictions through such imagination and reasoning.

The cultivation methods and paths used by patriarchs throughout countless kalpas and generations are absolutely correct, conforming to direct perception (pratyakṣa). Their achievements are genuine and trustworthy, exerting immense positive influence and driving force within Buddhism. The teachings of the patriarchs all reveal the truth of cultivation and realization; they are genuine knowledge born from practice. Sentient beings in later times, due to their meager merit and deep karmic obstacles, cannot exert effort and practice the path like the patriarchs did, sacrificing their body and mind. Most are driven by opportunistic mindsets, all seeking shortcuts. Cultivation requires relinquishing the self, sparing no cost—where is there any shortcut to take? Taking one less step means gaining one less portion of merit, experiencing one less part of the path, and suffering one more loss. In reality, this is a practice of deceiving oneself and others. If a shortcut existed, wouldn’t the Buddha have told us and guided us? Sentient beings suffer so greatly—wouldn’t the Buddha wish for them to attain Buddhahood swiftly, avoiding detours?

Any practice that does not accord with the Buddha’s teachings, that violates the Buddha’s fundamental intent and harms the benefit of sentient beings, will ultimately be destroyed and expunged from Buddhism—it is only a matter of time.