Profound Meditative Absorption: Right Contemplation, Insight Practice, and Thorough Investigation as the Sole Path to Realizing the Dharma

Truly, everywhere and in every place, green mountains fill the eyes without a single blade of withered grass. A single stem, a leaf, a blade of grass, a strand of silk — all are real and not illusory, yet they leave no trace. Searching for him high and low a thousand times over, suddenly turning my head, there in the dim lamplight, everywhere and in every place — where is it not? Words fail me, choked with emotion; once the heart was blind and the eyes even blinder, but now the eyes are filled with golden light. This is the lament of one who has attained enlightenment.

When the conditions for attaining the fruit of enlightenment and awakening the mind are complete, encountering any cause and condition, regardless of what it is, can lead to attaining the fruit and awakening the mind. If one encounters the Buddha expounding the Dharma, it is even more conducive to attaining the fruit and awakening the mind to perceive true nature, for the Buddha’s majestic virtue and blessing power are exceedingly great; the magnetic field effect of the Dharma assembly where the Buddha expounds the Dharma is remarkably potent. Moreover, practitioners in the Buddha’s time generally possessed profound meditative concentration, their minds were pure, they all had renunciation minds, their afflictions were slight, and their virtuous roots and merit were deep and abundant. Therefore, upon hearing the Dharma, they could immediately engage in contemplation and reflection following the Buddha’s voice and instantly attain the fruit and awaken the mind.

We sentient beings in this Dharma-ending age cannot compare to the beings of the Buddha’s time. Our virtuous roots are shallow and scarce, our merit is meager, our minds are restless and agitated, and we lack meditative concentration. No matter how subtle the Buddha Dharma is, it cannot enter our minds. Therefore, we cannot genuinely realize any fruition; at best, we can understand it a little, which is already quite good. Precisely because sentient beings generally lack meditative concentration and are unable to attain it, a notion has arisen: that one can directly contemplate the Buddha Dharma without cultivating concentration. But without meditative concentration, how can one possess the capacity for contemplation? What can one contemplate? How long can one contemplate? To what degree can one contemplate? Each person can test this for themselves: the difference in effectiveness between contemplation before attaining meditative concentration and contemplation after attaining it is immense — fundamentally, they are not the same thing at all.

When contemplating a single Dharma principle, the difference between contemplating it with meditative concentration and without meditative concentration is like heaven and earth. Therefore, many people contemplate the Buddha Dharma but cannot truly understand it; there are far too many misunderstandings and misinterpretations, and they fundamentally fail to grasp the true meaning. To actually realize it and engage in direct, experiential contemplation is exceedingly, exceedingly difficult. Even so, many people place great faith in their own understanding, readily quoting a passage of scripture to prove their point. In reality, the meaning of the scripture and their own view are not consistent; they misinterpret much without even realizing it.

Many who study the scriptures cannot thoroughly and accurately comprehend the true principles of the scriptures, yet they consider themselves quite capable. In truth, the Buddha Dharma absolutely cannot be realized through mere research; it requires contemplation, investigation, and reflection based on profound meditative concentration and proper reasoning to truly understand and genuinely realize it. Research cannot lead to realization.

Some often see in the Buddhist sutras records of sentient beings attaining the fruit and awakening the mind instantly upon hearing the Buddha expound the Dharma. It seems those people did not cultivate meditative concentration but directly attained the fruit, as if merely hearing the Dharma and reflecting slightly could lead to realization, without the need for specific concentration practice. This is a significant misunderstanding. They fail to realize that those who attained the fruit instantly upon hearing the Dharma had already attained meditative concentration; their virtuous roots and merit were deep and abundant, lacking only the right condition. Encountering the supremely auspicious condition of the Buddha expounding the Dharma, of course they attained the fruit and awakened to their true nature very easily.

These people only see the final result of those who attained the fruit; they do not see the long path of practice those individuals had already traversed, how diligently they worked before hearing the Buddha teach, how they generated the resolve and conducted themselves, how they diligently cultivated meditative concentration. They ignore all these necessary conditions, focusing solely on the final moment of attaining the fruit. This is the most severe case of taking words out of context.

Modern people are so restless they all want to take shortcuts — the simpler and more direct, the better. They don’t even want to walk the path the Buddha walked, thinking their own methods are more practical and direct than the Buddha’s, requiring no hardship. Could it be that an ordinary being is superior to the Buddha, wiser than the Buddha? Was the Buddha’s practice circuitous, while one’s own path is the most direct, requiring no foundation, no cost, no arduous effort to cultivate concentration and subdue one’s own mind? Can mere research yield great results? This is the talk of a fool. The fruit obtained through research is like a paper house — blown apart and ruined by the wind, melted by fire. Nowadays, the world is full of such false fruits, stamped with radish seals, unable to withstand even the slightest disturbance. The karmic retribution after death will be known only to oneself.

Due to differences in ignorance and karmic force, sentient beings attract different karmic retributions, resulting in different physical bodies (the primary retribution) and different living environments (the circumstantial retribution). After one karmic retribution ends, they enter another. Because karmic retributions differ, physical bodies differ, brain structures differ, the wisdom that manifests differs, and behavioral expressions differ.