The Difference Between Practitioners of the Age of the Final Dharma and Cultivators of Ancient Times

The closer we come to the end of the Dharma age, the thinner sentient beings' merit becomes and the shallower their roots of goodness, to the point that in the cultivation and realization of the Buddha-dharma, gradually there are many who talk about the principles but few who penetrate them, many who understand the Way but few who practice it, and those who can genuinely attain realization through practice are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. Liezi said: “大道以多歧亡羊，学者以多方丧生。” When one's study of the Dharma is too scattered and disordered, because one cannot go deep, one fails to see the thread and structure of it. In practice, the more one knows, the less one realizes, because without meditative concentration (samādhi), there can be no genuine realization; whereas extensive hearing and broad learning do not require meditative concentration to acquire a great deal of intellectual knowledge of the Buddha-dharma—but actual realization is out of the question. Modern people are unable to cultivate meditative concentration, and if we do not expound more correct principles to sentient beings, they will everywhere engage in extensive hearing and broad learning, studying theories that are not in accord with the truth; if even the principles guiding realization are wrong, then realization becomes even more impossible.

What we should most go and study are those practitioners of ancient times—we should investigate how they cultivated the Way and how they applied effort. Did they all learn piles and piles of theory and then, with eloquence flowing like a river, debate everywhere, or preach everywhere with glib tongues, taking on the role of teachers of others? Without having any realization oneself, how could one teach others to realize, and why would one wish to be a teacher? Is there not, in this, that mind of self-display? We see that the ancient sages and worthies, even after attaining the Way, remained humble and low-key and continued their own cultivation; they would not readily occupy a mountain stronghold or accept the staff of Dharma transmission handed down by their masters. Because they were without self, and had self-knowledge: with so many sages and worthies propagating the Dharma, sentient beings could already be sufficiently delivered—since one's own Way was not yet firm, why insist on forcing oneself to the fore? Modern people are just the opposite: regardless of whether it is the Way or not, so long as one can come out on top, that is fine.