Without Precepts and Meditative Concentration (Samādhi), There Can Be No Talk of Realization

Precepts are the prerequisite and foundation of meditative concentration (samādhi). Cultivating concentration without keeping the precepts is like trying to steam sand and stones into rice—it will never become rice. In the Dharma-ending age, those who keep the precepts have become very, very few, and those who have obtained the essence of precepts have become very, very few, because those who confer the precepts on others themselves lack the essence of precepts, or have lost it through breaking the precepts; thus others cannot obtain the essence of precepts from them.

Therefore, nowadays few Buddhist practitioners can attain meditative concentration, and the wisdom of contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) is even harder for them to possess. Most people can only read books and form intellectual understanding, imagining that they have gained something and realized something. Without meditative concentration as the foundation and the necessary and sufficient condition for contemplative practice, genuine realization is simply out of the question—they can only, like three-year-old children, play at "Chan of the mouth" and utter grand principles.