Having covered the relative truth, the ultimate truth should be described. That, however, is impossible to explicitly indicate because it is ineffable and not a knowable object. To elucidate its nature to those who are interested with something they are familiar with, an example is therefore employed:
That faulty image one presumes – those falling hairs
Which come when one is suffering from an eye disease –
Is seen for what it is by one with proper sight;
At present we may thus deduce reality. (6.29)
Witnessing how someone suffering from cataracts, through the influence of that ailment sees such things as accumulating strands of hair filling for instance the rhinoceros-bowl he is holding, and his struggle to get rid of them by repeatedly upending the bowl, the one without cataracts might wonder, ‘What is he doing?’ and approach him. And even though she directs her eyes to the area of the supposed hair she does not perceive any hairs, and will also not entertain concepts of particular attributes related to these hairs, such as being things or non-things, hairs or not, dark blue and so forth. So, when the cataract-ridden individual relates his thinking to the one without cataracts, saying, ‘I see hairs,’ the other will want to clear away these concepts. And although she will certainly reject the perspective of the one with cataracts, and say, ‘There are no hairs,’ she isn’t actually denying them. The healthy one sees the actual reality of the hair-strands; the other doesn’t.
Similarly, the nature of the aggregates, elements, sense fields and so forth perceived by those impaired by the cataracts of ignorance and unable to see the actual reality, is the relative nature of these things. But like the cataract-free individual looking at the hair-strands, when the illustrious buddhas who are free from the habitual patterns of ignorance view those very aggregates and so forth, they see their real nature, and this is their ultimate truth.
Title
Chapter 1: Pramuditā
