Only When Causes and Conditions Are Complete Can One Awaken to the Path

If the conditions for attaining realization and seeing the mind are complete, then upon encountering the corresponding causes and conditions—no matter what kind of causes and conditions, whether artificially designed or naturally occurring—as long as they can touch the inner mind, one can attain realization and see the mind. If one encounters the Buddha teaching the Dharma, it is even more possible to attain realization and see the mind and see one's nature, for the Buddha's power of majestic blessing is extremely great, and the magnetic field effect of the Dharma assembly where the Buddha teaches is also extremely great. Moreover, practitioners in the Buddha's time generally possessed profound meditative concentration (dhyāna), their minds were very pure, they all had the mind of renunciation, their afflictions were slight, and their roots of goodness and merit were deep, so upon hearing the Dharma, they could immediately engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and deliberation following the sound of the Buddha's voice, and instantly attain realization and see the mind.

If one has studied Buddhism but has not cultivated to the proper level, without questioning doubt in the mind, without raising the mind to investigate, without keeping the matter constantly in mind, then even if one encounters many conditions that should lead to enlightenment, one will let them pass by in vain and cannot attain the Way. We sentient beings of the Dharma-ending age cannot compare with the sentient beings of the Buddha's time: our roots of goodness are scant and our merit thin, our minds are restless and agitated, and we have no meditative concentration. Even if the Buddha's Dharma is explained in the finest detail, it cannot enter the mind, so no one can truly realize any fruit of attainment; at most, one can gain some intellectual understanding, which is already quite good.

Precisely because sentient beings generally lack meditative concentration and cannot fulfill the requirement of meditative concentration, a certain claim has arisen: that one need not cultivate concentration but can directly engage in contemplative practice of the Buddha's Dharma. Yet without meditative concentration, how can one have the capacity for contemplative practice? What can one contemplate? For how long can one contemplate? Everyone can test this for themselves: compare the contemplative practice before cultivating concentration with that after cultivating concentration—how great is the difference in effect? It can be said the difference is enormous, and the results are fundamentally different.

For a single point of Dharma meaning, deliberating with meditative concentration versus deliberating without it is as different as heaven and earth. Therefore, many people who deliberate on the Buddha's Dharma cannot truly understand it at all; they misinterpret and misunderstand far too much and cannot grasp the true meaning. To actually realize it and contemplate it through direct perception is truly, extremely difficult. Even so, many people still have great confidence in their own power of understanding, readily citing passages of sutra text to prove their viewpoints. In fact, the meaning of the sutra text and their viewpoints do not accord at all; they have misinterpreted a great deal without being aware of it. Many people who study the scriptures simply cannot understand the true meaning of the scriptures thoroughly and accurately, yet they still think themselves quite capable. In truth, the Buddha's Dharma can never be figured out through scholarly research; only through deep meditative concentration, with deliberation in accordance with reality, contemplative practice, and investigation, can one truly understand and truly realize. Research cannot lead to realization.

Some people often read in the sutras that sentient beings attained realization and saw the mind at the very moment of listening to the Buddha teach the Dharma; those people had not cultivated meditative concentration, yet they directly attained realization, as if merely hearing the Dharma and deliberating a little were enough to attain realization, without needing to specifically cultivate concentration. This is a tremendous misunderstanding. They do not know that those who attained realization upon hearing the Dharma had already fulfilled meditative concentration, with deep roots of goodness and abundant merit, lacking only the causes and conditions. Encountering the most supreme of conditions—the Buddha teaching the Dharma—of course they could very easily attain realization and see the mind and see their nature. Such people only see the final result, and cannot see how long a path of cultivation those who attained realization had already walked beforehand, how they applied effort before listening to the Buddha's teaching, how they made aspirations and conducted their practice, how they diligently cultivated meditative concentration. Ignoring all these necessary conditions, they exclusively excerpt only this final segment of attaining realization—this is the most serious form of quoting out of context.

Modern people are so restless that they all want to take shortcuts—the simpler and more direct, the better. They do not want to walk the path the Buddha walked, believing their own methods are more practical and more direct than the Buddha's, not requiring such hardship. Could it be that an ordinary person is superior to the Buddha, more wise than the Buddha? Was the Buddha's cultivation all a roundabout detour, while one's own path is the most direct, requiring no foundation-laying, no payment of any price, no arduous cultivation of concentration to subdue one's own mind—just doing some research to achieve great results? This is a fool's dream. The fruits produced by research are all made of paper—scattered and ruined by a gust of wind, melted when meeting fire. In today's world there are too many fake fruits, all stamped with radish seals, unable to withstand the slightest disturbance; after death, the karmic retribution will be known to oneself.