 Notice the two different elements here in the ending of Verse 30: The “appearance of the elephant” is “construction,” that is, the ongoing process of imagination that arises from the karmic causal stream. The real problem, though, “duality,” the dangerous, false distinction between self and other, is analogized to the illusory elephant itself. If I am at a magic show, I should expect to see the “appearance of an elephant.” That will make the show worth attending. But if I am not a fool, I will not imagine myself to actually see an elephant. That would be to construct duality. For Vasubandhu, this is a crucial distinction. The basic problem for living beings in his view is not that we experience an illusory world; the problem is that we are fooled into accepting the reality of our perceptions and our concepts. Once we no longer believe, once we see the falsity of the illusion, the illusion goes away and we can come to experience the truth that lies behind the illusion—the ineffable “suchness” (tathatā), the piece of wood.