There are actually many different aspects of the truth that , if confronted directly , can propel you into an awakened state . The awakened state isn ' t a state of seeing the truth all the timeit ' s simply the aftermath of seeing that truth , when many mistaken views of the world , and many mistaken habits , have fallen away . In fact , people describe these various truths all the time . Pick up any dharma book and you will see in it a description of a truth that , if you were to see it directly for yourself , would wake you up . The problem is that the process of getting from the description of the truth to an experience of the truth is nontrivialit requires practice . Think of it this way suppose you live hundreds of miles from the ocean and have never been there . No matter how many words I speak to you about the ocean , you will never know what it ' s like to stand there on the beach and experience it . I can show you a photograph , and you still won ' t know . If , on the other hand , we walk together the hundreds of miles from your home to the seashore , even though the walking itself has nothing at all to do with the ocean , when we get to the beach you will immediately know what it is like to experience the ocean , because it will be there before you .