Only by Attaining True Wisdom Can One Directly Achieve the Path to Buddhahood

If one savors the Buddhadharma slowly, or rather investigates it deeply, investigating a single phrase can lead into meditative concentration (samādhi)—this is called wisdom leading into concentration. Within concentration, the wisdom of investigation keeps deepening, and the meaning of the Dharma becomes ever more lucid—this is called concentration leading into wisdom. Concentration and wisdom drawing forth and augmenting each other—this is true cultivation, the most profound cultivation, the most fundamental cultivation, and also the most ultimate cultivation. What is gained is true wisdom, wisdom that one has cultivated oneself. Such investigation merely appears slow on the surface, as if the amount of knowledge acquired were rather small; in reality, it is the fastest path of cultivation, the most direct and straight route. This is because cultivation takes the attainment of wisdom as its ultimate aim—wisdom leads to buddhahood.

By contrast, those who do not understand cultivation are rather superficial, pursuing only surface-level quantities of knowledge, content with knowing much, understanding much, and learning much, unaware of the importance of true wisdom, to the point of not seeking true wisdom. Pursuing quantity and speed, what they learn and gain is not true wisdom opened up from within themselves; in reality, they are laymen in the matter of cultivation. They may appear diligent and industrious, yet their pace is in fact the slowest, because they lack true wisdom. Taking much knowing, much interpreting, and much acquiring to be wisdom is in fact the folly of beginners in Buddhism.