The Wish to Attain Enlightenment Deserves Encouragement.

Wanting to attain enlightenment is a wish, and a wholesome one at that; without such a wish, there would be no actual practice. The wish is the prerequisite, and practice is the supporting condition—through all kinds of concrete actions one perfects the causes and conditions for enlightenment and fulfills the necessary conditions for it, and only then, when the causes, conditions, and season ripen, can one naturally awaken to the Way. As long as the wish arises naturally, without harboring a mentality of luck-seeking or thoughts of opportunism, then when the thought of enlightenment arises after one has cultivated to a considerable degree, it is proper and worthy of encouragement.