Realizing the Buddha-Dharma Requires Cultivating Meditative Concentration

If everyone could practice according to the method of the Great Mindfulness Sūtra (Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sūtra), the Hīnayāna path could quickly be accomplished, and meditative concentration (samādhi) would certainly be achieved. However, people's minds nowadays are too scattered to complete these contemplative practices (vipaśyanā-caryā). When the Buddha was in the world, the bhikṣus all practiced in this way.

Looking at it now, the theoretical portions of the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna teachings that we need for practice are already more or less sufficient; what is lacking is only the actual practice. Actual practice requires cultivating precepts (śīla), meditative concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā), and completing the bodhisattva's six perfections (ṣaḍ-pāramitā), especially the cultivation of merit and meditative concentration. When individual practice is difficult, group practice is needed. When the Buddha was in the world, He never led His disciples in group practice; each person sat cross-legged in meditation, contemplating and reflecting upon the Dharma the Buddha had taught, and then attained realization.

Modern people are too busy with life and work and have no time to sit in meditation, yet meditative concentration truly cannot be developed without it; their reflection is superficial and not meticulous, and they cannot realize the Dharma—this is also a fact. The difference between the concentration achieved after sitting quietly and the concentration that exists only while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down is so great that only those who have practiced sitting meditation can appreciate it. You must find your own way and take responsibility for yourself. It is not the case that understanding a pile of theory means one has the Path, or that being able to talk eloquently means one has the Path. After genuine realization, even if one is not eloquent, one still has the Path; being eloquent without genuine realization is not the Path either.

Only genuine realization can resolve the great problem of birth and death. No dharma is more important than one's cultivation of the Path. One should rather die than fail to accomplish the Path; otherwise, no matter how successful one is in worldly affairs while alive, it is of no use.