Do you know what it means? Old Buddhist question, do you understand the words and do you understand the meaning?
The great Indian prince Naropa was tops in his field, of high renown, and everybody granted him great respect and obedience, no one wanted to tangle with him because he was the greatest of the scholars at Nalanda University and he would decimate their puny arguments, yeah, he had proven himself a great scholar and great teacher, all that.
One day he was sitting in his room and a really ugly woman appeared before him. He was revolted by her, she was that ugly!
She asked him, “Do you understand the words and the meaning of what you are reading?”
He answered, “I understand the words,” and stopped there.
An amazing thing happened! The woman began to laugh and suddenly she transformed in Naropa’s eyes to not being ugly at all, yeah, she looked rather beautiful all of a sudden.
Naropa thought to himself, “This is amazing! If she’s this happy with my answer then I should make her even more happy!”
And he said to the woman, “AND, I understand the meaning!”
Now another change occurred. The woman stopped laughing, the corners of her mouth turned down, and she began to weep, and she became even more ugly than before.
Naropa was perplexed! And even more perplexed when the woman accused him of lying, the reason for her sadness.
Long story short, Naropa realized the woman was right. He left Nalanda University, left his high seat of prestige and sought a teacher who could help him understand the meaning. Well that’s a whole other story, Naropa’s meeting with the crazy Tilopa.