Investigation of the Reality of Things

Purpose: This short study clarifies what is meant by 'reality' from the standpoint of rigorous inner investigation and explains how that clarity shapes practice.

Threefold account of reality

The reality under investigation is best understood in three closely related senses. First, there is the constructed appearance: the world as organized by subject and object, by names and narratives. This mode is a genuine operation of the mind but it is not ultimately real; it is the field where error and reification arise.

Second, there is the relative domain in which things act and interact—causal patterns, habits, and conditioned tendencies. This is the pragmatic realm in which corrective practice must operate: here we identify what to abandon, what to repair, and what to transform.

Third, there is the perfect or ultimate aspect of reality: the undivided ground that is not produced, not destroyed, and not subject to the subject–object split. This is not a speculative metaphysic but the actual purity that remains when adventitious distortions are removed. It is both the end point of purification and the always-present depth of the mind.

How the three aspects function

Each of these three aspects has a practical place in practice. The constructed appearance must be thoroughly examined and seen for what it is; that examination dissolves reification. The relative domain must be disciplined and purified: harmful tendencies are identified and then systematically let go. The ultimate aspect requires cultivation in order that its natural purity become directly known — not as an object but as a present condition of clarity.

Purification and qualities

When the mind clears away its habitual distortions, the ultimate reality does not suddenly come into being; rather, its already-present, unfabricated nature becomes accessible. In this process the qualities of that openness are felt in practical ways: spaciousness, resilience, and a responsiveness that is neither aggressive nor withdrawn. In classical language this purity is compared to qualities that are irreducible and naturally clean—space, pure metal, and water—because their cleanliness is not produced by themselves but revealed when contaminants are removed.

Why confusion persists

Despite the simplicity of this threefold map, ordinary awareness remains confused: people persist in treating the constructed appearance as ultimately real and neglect the deeper fact. This is not merely intellectual error; it is an existential habit. The skillful practitioner therefore trains attention in order to displace the habitual misapprehension and to allow the actual affordances of insight to arise.

Practical implications for the spiritual genius

A disciplined investigator treats the three aspects as tasks rather than doctrines. She learns to recognize the mind's constructions as constructions; she disciplines the relative field through ethical and contemplative practice; and she cultivates conditions favorable to direct realization of the ultimate. The practice is neither sentimental nor speculative: it is methodical work on attention, on behavioral correction, and on the nonconceptual immediacies that disclose depth.

Takeaway: Reality is not a single thing to be claimed; it is an operation to be investigated. The work is threefold: see the construction, purify the relative, and reveal the unconditioned ground that has always been present.