Those who lack an unmistaken realisation of the sense of the treatise, and are faced with the maturation of habitual tendencies for real existence developed since beginningless cyclic existence, cannot bear to hear about what separates them from their cherished fixation for existence, and therefore resort to nonsense about how the world will invalidate this. Since one cannot counteract their ravings about worldly invalidation without explaining to them the many and vast ways of origination in the world, an explanation is at this point given about the principles of the two truths, in order to clarify the particular cases of worldly invalidation:

The things perceived may either be correct or false.
As such all things convey a dual character.
Correctly seen, the object is reality;
As taught, the truth is relative when falsely seen. (6.23)

In this context, the illustrious buddhas knowing unmistakenly the reality of the two truths taught that all external and internal existent things – compounded phenomena, sprouts and so forth – have a dual nature, namely the relative (saṃvṛti) and the ultimate (paramārtha). The ultimate is the actual nature accessible in the domain of superior wisdom for those with genuine vision, but which is not something established in and of itself – this is one nature. The other is the independent existence perceived owing to the false perception of ordinary beings whose mind’s eye is completely covered by the blurring cataracts of ignorance. The objects that the infantile perceive in this manner are not intrinsically established. All existent things are thereby perceived with these two natures. And with respect to these two natures, that which is the object of genuine seeing is the actual reality, which is the meaning of the term ultimate truth. Its nature will be further explained. That which is the object of false seeing is the relative truth.

Then, having in this way presented the principle of two truths, to now demonstrate that in relation to those who see falsely there are two ways of seeing, genuine and false, and hence also a duality in relation to the object and consciousness when perceiving, it was said:

As faculties may function well or be at fault,
One further reckons two types of the falsely seen.
Compared to knowledge stemming from sound faculties,
What’s known through faulty faculties is held as false. (6.24)

Those with clear faculties, free of cataracts and unimpaired by jaundice and so forth, unmistakenly apprehend external objects the way they are. The opposite is the case for those with impaired faculties. Compared to the understanding of those with sound faculties, the understanding of those with impaired faculties is considered mistaken.

In order to illustrate that, ‘Just as their understanding may be of two types, either mistaken or unmistaken, the same is the case with objects,’ it was explained:

Perceptions of the world that happens when
Six faculties have not been compromised
Are true within the world, the rest are all
Considered false according to the world. (6.25)

Internal conditions that impair the faculties are such things as cataracts, jaundice and so on, and ingesting datura and the like. External conditions that distort the faculties are oil, water and mirrors, sounds and so on made inside a cave and the like, and sunlight under particular conditions of location or time, and so on. These impair the faculties without being internal, causing perceptions such as reflections, echoes and mirages of water. Magical formulas, potions and so on, employed for instance by illusionists, should likewise be included within this category. What impairs the mind are these things, as well as mistaken philosophical systems and so on, and apparently sound inferences. These are explained in terms of the principles of dreams and so on. Therefore, the understanding that the world gains through the sixfold faculties, when none of the mentioned conditions impairing one’s faculties are present, is considered true from the worldly perspective, but not for a noble one. Reflections and so forth, appearing with the nature of objects when the faculties are compromised in a certain way, are mistaken from the worldly point of view.

To provide some examples to illustrate the sense of what has just been explained, it was said:

Ideas diverse misguided thinkers have made up
When tossed around within the sleep of ignorance,
And notions from illusions, mirages and such,
Not even worldly folk will think that these are real. (6.26)

The misguided (tīrthika), in their quest to reach the actual reality, fail to properly and unmistakenly comprehend the way of production, cessation and so on of entities well-known even to such uneducated individuals as cowherds, women and so forth. Their search for perfection resembles letting go of the lower branch before having taken hold of the higher branch when climbing a tree: their grave mistakes will send them plummeting into the ravine of faulty views. Not seeing the two truths they fail to reach their goal. Thus, the three properties (guṇa)¹ and so on that they conceive of do not exist even in the worldly relative sense.

This being the case:

Perceptions of the ones impaired by eye disease
Cannot invalidate what’s known by healthy ones.
Just so, a mind which lacks the wisdom beyond taint
Cannot invalidate a flawless intellect. (6.27)

The refutation of other-production demonstrated here is not a mere worldly viewpoint. What then? It is the accepted vision of noble ones. This refutation of production being extraordinary, just as an undistorted apprehension cannot be invalidated by someone with cataracts disease who perceives hair-strands and the like, undefiled vision cannot be invalidated by the understanding of ordinary beings lacking undefiled wisdom, and worldly ones cannot therefore invalidate that which falls within this sort of domain. They are truly laughable opponents for a noble one. We therefore have two truths, and by distinguishing between a relative and an ultimate, entities are said to have a dual essence.

In order to describe the worldly relative truth, it was said:

It’s relative, delusion, when the real is masked.
Regarding as the truth what is in fact contrived
Is relative truth, this is what the sage expressed –
And that which is contrived is simply relative. (6.28)

As it obscures sentient beings’ ability to see things for what they are, it is confusion; and this condition of ignorance superimposing non-factual inherent characteristics to things, concealing the perception of the actual, is the relative (saṃvṛti). This relative causes things to be experienced as real, and that which lacks inherent nature is seen as inherently distinct. As this is relatively true for the mistaken world, it is the worldly relative truth. It is contrived interdependence.

Certain dependently arisen things, like reflections, echoes and so forth, appear as false also to the ignorant, while certain things like blueness and the like, and such things as material form, mind and feelings, appear as true. The actual does not appear in any way whatsoever to the ignorant. The latter, as well those things that also relatively are false, are therefore not the relative truth. As such, the relative truth is a principle relevant as long as one has the afflicted ignorance involved in the links of existence.

The hearers, solitary buddhas and bodhisattvas have relinquished afflicted vision, and not entertaining assumptions about truth they experience conditioned things as similar to reflections and such, contrived in nature but not real. For the immature these things are deceptive, while for the others they are dependently originated, like illusions and so forth, and therefore merely relative. Since they relate to this with only cognitively obscured ignorance, it does appear to noble ones in the appearance-associated domain, but not while in the appearance-free domain. Buddhas have fully and perfectly realised phenomena in all their aspects, and it is therefore held that they have arrested the movement of mind and mental factors for good. The Illustrious One thus taught that there is the relative truth and the merely relative.
What is ultimate for ordinary beings is merely relative in the appearance-associated domain of noble ones, while the ultimate for the latter is its emptiness-nature. The buddhas’ ultimate is the very nature itself. As this is undeceiving it is the ultimate truth, and something they have a direct personal experience with. Since the relative truth is deceptive it is not an ultimate truth.

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.

‘But there couldn’t be any seeing of such a nature, could there? So how do they then see?’ Though that is true, it is said that, ‘It’s by not seeing it that they see.’ As indicated at length in the noble Accessing the Two Truths:

Devaputra. If ultimately the ultimate truth was a physical, verbal or mental object, it couldn’t be considered the ultimate truth; it would be the relative truth. Ultimately, Devaputra, the ultimate truth is beyond all conventions, undifferentiated, unproduced, unceasing, and beyond something expressed and an expressing, something known and a knowing. The ultimate truth, Devaputra, transcends being an object of the omniscient wisdom of those endowed with the most supreme of all aspects, and isn’t expressed by words such as ultimate truth. All phenomena are false; they are deceptive phenomena. The ultimate truth cannot be described, Devaputra. Why? No such phenomena as someone showing, something shown and someone shown to can appear ultimately. And non-apparent phenomena cannot explain non-apparent phenomena.²

Thus, distinctions such as objective entity and non-entity, own-entity and other-entity, truth and non-truth, durability and termination, permanence and impermanence, happiness and suffering, pure and impure, self and non-self, empty and non-empty, characteristics and characterised, oneness and difference, arising and ceasing and so forth cannot be found in the actual reality, because it has no observable nature. Only noble beings therefore have a valid consideration of actual reality – those who are not noble beings do not.

If one insists that the world can invalidate it, and professes that the worldly perspective is a valid way of analysing actual reality, then:

If worldly standards were correct the world would see
Reality; what need for other noble ones?
Would there be reason to traverse the noble path?
It’s senseless that the standards of a fool are sound. (6.30)

If one were to accept that the worldly perspective is valid knowledge, and that the actual reality is seen by them, one would have to accept that they have relinquished ignorance, because a fool having valid knowledge is unreasonable. Someone who lacks understanding of a certain object is considered unreliable in relation to that thing, such as someone who lacks knowledge of how to examine precious stones. If the eyes and so forth could ascertain the actual reality, then endeavouring in moral discipline, learning, contemplation, meditation and so forth in order to actualise the noble path would be pointless. Hence this cannot be the case.