Is the Dharma Affirmed in the Minds of Sentient Beings Necessarily Correct?

Not so. If it were otherwise, the Buddha would not have told sentient beings: "Your mind is not to be trusted; only upon attaining the fruition of arhatship can your mind be trusted." Here, the fruition of arhatship refers to the ultimate fruition of the Hinayana path, the fourth fruition, whereas the third fruition still falls short. Confirmation is the affirmation and acknowledgment by the mental faculty, forming an uninterrupted mental application that penetrates deep into the marrow, unshakable and profoundly unknowable. For instance, the view of self—sentient beings' mental faculty confirms this, deeply rooted and unshakable, which is called self-attachment.

Unquestioning faith in one's own mind and extreme self-certainty constitute the confirmation of the mental faculty. Yet, the confirmations of ordinary sentient beings are fraught with grave faults and carry immense karmic consequences of birth and death. For example, ordinary beings all confirm that the five aggregates constitute the self—such confirmation is a wrong view, not a right view. Ordinary sentient beings, since beginningless kalpas, have always confirmed their own views as correct and without error, yet throughout beginningless kalpas, they have cycled through birth and death due to erroneous and inverted views, suffering various evil retributions and painful consequences.

"Your mind is not to be trusted"—the Buddha used this not only to admonish ordinary sentient beings but also to counsel those from the first fruition up to the third fruition. This is because, prior to the fourth fruition, their realization of the emptiness of the five-aggregate world remains incomplete and non-ultimate. The view of self within their conceptual framework has not been fully eradicated; self-attachment still remains. Only at the fourth fruition of arhatship is the view of self completely severed, emptiness is thoroughly realized, self-attachment and self-conceit are eliminated, and thus their conceptual understanding of emptiness becomes pure and trustworthy. This understanding of emptiness represents thoroughness and ultimacy within the scope of the Hinayana Dharma, yet compared to the Mahayana Dharma, it remains far from complete and ultimate.

Therefore, whether ordinary beings attain fruition or not, generally speaking, their wisdom is insufficient for self-examination. Firstly, their cultivation spans a short period, lacking sufficient experience. Secondly, their exposure and learning are limited, leaving them without points of comparison, making them highly prone to misjudgment and erroneous assessment. Moreover, because they harbor self within their minds and cannot detach from affection, they become biased and overestimate themselves, easily leading to false enlightenment and vain speech, ultimately ensuring that the law of cause and effect remains inexorable.