In Actual Practice, Always Check Results

Observing the breath is for the purpose of transforming one's mental thoughts, mental activities, and mental disposition. In daily life, has your own mental activity undergone any change? Has your attitude toward people, affairs, and things shifted? Have your thoughts become somewhat purer? Has your grasping (upādāna) at form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas lessened? Have you become more accommodating to conditions? Less picky? Have your interpersonal relationships improved somewhat? Has your mental disposition improved somewhat? Has your state of mind become more peaceful? Have the people and affairs that occupy your mind decreased somewhat? Have you become more kind and honest? Do others find you more approachable? In short, you must examine your own mental activity from every aspect, make timely summaries, know what is wholesome and what is unwholesome, maintain and consolidate good results, and improve bad habits. In this way, your roots of goodness and merit will accumulate ever more deeply, and your precepts, meditative concentration (samādhi), and wisdom will advance more and more.