The Four Foundations of Mindfulness: The Direct Path to Fruition

Question: Why did the Buddha state that diligent practice of the contemplation on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness can lead to attaining the fruition within varying timeframes, ranging from seven years to seven days?

Answer: This refers to those individuals with profound wholesome roots, slight afflictions, few obstructions, and who have cultivated the Buddha's teachings over long kalpas in past lives. If they diligently practice according to the Buddha’s instructions, they can attain the fruition within days or years. However, those who have studied the Buddha’s teachings for only a short time since beginningless kalpas, whose afflictions are deep, and whose obstructions are heavy, will require diligent practice for more than seven years to attain the fruition. Perhaps most people cannot attain it even in a hundred years; some cannot even properly observe the breath, as their minds remain unsettled no matter what, let alone attain the fruition.

Nevertheless, as the Buddha also said, regardless of who one is, as long as one diligently practices the contemplation on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, maintains continuous mindfulness of the Four Foundations, and continuously engages in contemplative practice—changing the habitual clinging to the five aggregates’ realm accumulated since beginningless kalpas, subduing afflictions and karmic obstacles—attaining the fruition is still not difficult. The difficulty lies in failing to overcome the barrier of karmic obstacles, lacking the resolve to exert oneself diligently in the path, and being unable to subdue the habit of distraction. If one can truly practice with courageous diligence, as described in the Buddhist scriptures, one will certainly attain the fruition.

This method of practicing the contemplation on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness is extremely sublime. Everyone should not disdain the practice of the Hinayana; in fact, it is a shortcut on the path. The shortcut proclaimed by the Buddha is the true shortcut for practice—complete with precepts, meditation, and wisdom, involving genuine cultivation and realization. It is not lip service, not intellectual understanding, nor is it the kind of attainment achieved merely by thinking or pondering.

From the methods of practice taught by the Buddha, we should comprehend what true cultivation and realization entail, and what price must be paid. It is not as some imagine—merely understanding with the conscious mind, paying no price, observing no precepts, cultivating no meditative stability, and considering the dry wisdom of intellectual understanding as attainment of the fruition.

We must deeply trust in the Buddha’s wisdom and follow his teachings; only then will it greatly benefit our own practice.