The Cultivation and Realization of Buddhadharma Require Profound Virtuous Roots and Merit

The Dharma is difficult to realize and cultivate, requiring sentient beings to practice for three great immeasurable kalpas. If the Dharma were easy to understand, realize, and cultivate, sentient beings would not need to practice for three asamkhyeya kalpas to attain perfect Buddhahood; if the Dharma were easy to understand, the Buddha would not have emphasized that sentient beings must possess a considerable degree of virtuous roots, merit, precepts, meditation, and wisdom. Some people have read the Tripitaka and the twelve divisions of scriptures five times, yet they do not even touch the periphery of the Dharma, nor do they catch the faintest glimpse of the shadow of enlightenment. Sentient beings have been deluded and inverted for immeasurable kalpas, immersed in the illusory worldly dharmas; it is truly not easy for them to comprehend the profound Dharma.

The Buddha taught the Dharma for forty-nine years, yet at the time of his parinirvana, countless sentient beings still had only a partial understanding of the Dharma, and some did not even have that. It was precisely because Ananda witnessed the difficulty of liberating sentient beings from their ignorance and their misinterpretation of the Dharma that he had no choice but to leave the Saha world one hundred years after the Buddha's parinirvana. Originally, through the power of his samadhi and merit, he could have remained in the world for a very long time, teaching sentient beings in place of the Buddha. After the Buddha's parinirvana, an old monk taught a young monk, mispronouncing the Dharma of the liberation path as "water old crane." Ananda corrected him, but the old monk refused to change, instead saying that Ananda was old and confused, unable to remember the Dharma taught by the Buddha. Thus, Ananda, heartbroken and sorrowful, departed from the Saha world.

Repeatedly, it has been emphasized that everyone should cultivate much merit and nurture virtuous roots and merit. Yet few are willing to cultivate merit and nurture virtuous roots and merit. Not understanding the Dharma is therefore entirely normal, for the Dharma is not something easily understood or realized by those lacking merit who refuse to cultivate it. Realizing the Dharma requires great merit; only with great merit can one attain great wisdom. Small roots and small wisdom are indeed incompatible with the profound Dharma. Even achievements in worldly dharmas require merit, let alone the great matter of transcending life and death, let alone the great matter of liberating oneself from afflictions accumulated over immeasurable kalpas, and even more so the supremely great matter of attaining Buddhahood, which is beyond conception. How can those whose minds are filled only with themselves, who think only of self-benefit, be compatible with the great Dharma of the Tathagatagarbha, which is selfless in nature?