Pain Points of Buddhist Practitioners

The Buddha said to Ananda: Although you retain in memory the pure and wondrous principles of the twelve divisions of the sutras spoken by the Tathagatas of the ten directions, as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, this only increases frivolous debate. Through kalpas of accumulated hearing and habituation, you still cannot avoid the predicament of Matangi. Recalling and upholding the Tathagata’s secret and sublime majesty for countless kalpas is not equal to cultivating undefiled karma for a single day.

This passage from the Shurangama Sutra precisely points out the pain point in practitioners' cultivation: remaining solely in the intellectual learning of the conscious mind without engaging in genuine Dharma practice. If the root consciousness remains uncultivated, no amount of cultivation through the conscious mind can lead to liberation. In the Dharma Ending Age, the phenomenon is far more severe than this. The most prominent example is mistaking the conscious mind's hearing and habituation for genuine realization—a grave misunderstanding. Without self-reflection, when death arrives, regret will come too late.