Why does one need literary, contemplative, and real mark prajña? Sakyamuni Buddha spoke four lines of verse which those who study the Vajra Sūtra should regularly recite:

All conditioned phenomena
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows,
Like dew drops and a lightning flash:
Contemplate them thus.

Everything is conditioned phenomena. Eating, wearing clothes, walking, standing, sitting, lying down, running a business – all activities are conditioned phenomena. Those are examples of external conditioned phenomena. There are also the Five Skandhas – form, feeling, thought, activities, and consciousness – which are conditioned phenomena. The four principal elements – earth, water, fire and wind – are conditioned phenomena. The six roots, the six dusts, the twelve places, and the eighteen realms are all conditioned phenomena. All those phenomena, whether external or internal, are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows.

What is a dream? No one knows. If we knew then we would not dream. People are in a perpetual dream. When you fall asleep and dream, you are unaware of the things which exist in your ordinary waking state, and when you awaken from the dream, you usually cannot remember the events of the dream. In the same way, we are unable to remember the events of our former lives, because they have disappeared in this present life’s dream.

Someone may have a dream in which he becomes wealthy, is appointed an official, and is on the verge of becoming president, when suddenly someone else says to him, “Sir, you are actually having a dream.” But in the midst of his dream of riches and position, the person cannot believe what he is told.

“Everything that is happening to me is real,” he says, “I am wealthy, I am an official, I am a candidate for president. How can you say that I am dreaming?” However, when he awakens from his dream, he will know without being told that all those events happened in a dream.

So too we people are as if in a dream. Now I will tell you: this is a dream. Although I have told you, surely you will reply, “What do you mean, a dream? This is all real. These things are actually happening. How can you say it is a dream? You cheat people.”

When your cultivation is accomplished, you will awaken from this dream and know without being told that everything you did in the past was a dream. The reason you do not believe me when I tell you that you are dreaming is that you still have not awakened from your dream. When you awaken you will agree, “Yes, it was all a dream.” …

When you understand the Buddhadharma you know that everything is empty and illusory. The world is empty and illusory, realized from a conflux of conditions which only seem to be real. When you do not understand the Buddhadharma, you are like the child or the fool who considers everything to be real. This is not to belittle people! It is a simple fact. People who do not understand the Buddhadharma think that being wealthy is real and think that official positions actually exist. In actuality, everything is one. A person is the same whether he is rich or impoverished. If you understand that everything is empty and illusory, then you cannot be confused by anything. You will not become attached to unreal states.

When the Vajra Sūtra tells you not to consider the Buddha as either sitting, lying, coming, or going, it is telling you not to make such distinctions. When you no longer make discriminations, your wisdom can appear. Your prajña will manifest in direct proportion to the degree you have cast out discriminations. In the minds of most people there are so many discriminations that they entirely fill the field of the eighth consciousness, which is basically pure, with filth and defilements. Once you are rid of all that garbage, your wisdom will appear.

After having spoken the previous section of text, Śākyamuni Buddha realized people might have doubts and become attached to the mark of the Tathagata’s comings and goings. Therefore he said to Subhūti, “If someone were to say the Tathagata either comes or goes, either sits or lies down, that person would not understand the meaning of my teaching.” It seems as if the Tathagata, the Thus Come One, comes and goes but the coming and going is only illusory. Anyone who thinks he really comes or goes has failed to understand the principle the Buddha teaches. The Tathagata has no place from which he comes and no place to which he goes; therefore he is called the Thus Come One. That means the Buddha’s dharma body neither dwells nor does not dwell. It pervades all places. If it fills all places, from where could it come? Since it fills all places, to what place could it go? Therefore it is said not to dwell and not not to dwell.

If you understand the Buddhadharma, the mountains, rivers and great earth are all the Tathagata’s dharma body. If you do not understand, you see the Tathagata but do not recognize him. If you understand the Buddhadharma, you can recognize the Buddha without even having seen him, and once you recognize the Tathagata, it is very easy to rely on the dharma to cultivate. If you don’t recognize the Tathagata and do not even know what the Buddha is all about, how can you study the Buddha? To fail to recognize yet to proceed to study is called the blind leading the blind. If you are blind you may make a mistake and choose to follow someone who is also blind. Although your leader realizes that he himself is blind, he may want to be followed and so pretends he can see. The two of you then fumble along, running hither and yon, until eventually you both fall into the sea and are drowned. It is essential from the start to recognize the Buddhadharma and to understand how to cultivate. Then you can study.