Therefore Buddhists should study and examine to know the dhamma and the truth that he became enlightened with, and how the latter differs from the truth as we imagine or understand it to be.

 The truth in which he was enlightened and which he taught so that Buddhists might understand and practice accordingly unto realization thereof, is that all things that appear are only dhamma of different kinds and natures, not the self, not an entity, nor a person.  All dhamma arise because there are conditions for the arising.  Greed, anger, sorrow, suffering, happiness, envy, stinginess, benevolence, beneficence, seeing, hearing etc. are all only different realities, distinct because of the diverse conditions from which they arise.

 That greed, anger, and other realities that arise are mistaken for the self, the entity or the person constitutes wrong perception and comprehension, because the dhamma arises and falls away, ends, changes ceaselessly from birth to death.  That they are misconceived as the self, entity or person is because of ignorance in the truth about dhamma.  At the moment of seeing, the seeing which is only a kind of reality is taken for the self, hence "we see".  When hearing, that reality is taken for the self, hence "we hear". When smelling, that reality is taken for the self, hence "we smell".  When tasting, that reality is taken for the self, hence "we taste".  When thinking anything, that reality is taken for the self, hence "we think", etc.

When the Buddha was enlightened in the truth about all realities, he taught Buddhists that realities are not the self, entity nor person but paramattha-dhamma, (the ultimate reality or truth); they are realities each with distinct characteristics.  None can change the characteristics of a specific reality, whether one knows it or not.  Whether one calls a reality such a word in such language or not call it anything at all, the reality remains unchangeable characteristics.  Whatever reality arises, it arises because of conditions and then falls away, as he manifested the dhamma to the Venerable ?nanda, "That which has arisen, has existed and was conditioned, [that reality] is common to destruction. 

 When ignorance leads to misunderstanding and believing the reality which arises and falls away to be the self, entity or person, it therefore leads to ever-increasing pleasure and attachment to social status, title, birth, extraction, caste etc.  In fact, what we see are only different colors that appear to the eye, and not the self, entity or person; sounds that we hear are not the self, entity or person but diverse realities that arise because of distinct conditions.

To mistake realities for the self, entity or person is parallel to travelers in a place where they see mirages before them, but as they approach the mirages disappear, since in reality there is no water.  The mirages seen are false, illusions as is the way realities are mistaken for the self, entity or person from ignorance, from memory or from attachment thereof.