The Difference Between Dharma-Ending Age Practitioners and Practitioners of Ancient Times

The closer we come to the Dharma-ending age, the thinner sentient beings' merit becomes and the shallower their good roots, so that in the cultivation and realization of the Buddha's Dharma, gradually there are many who talk about principles but few who comprehend them, many who speak of the Way but few who walk it, and those who can genuinely attain realization through practice are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. Liezi said: “大道以多歧亡羊，学者以多方丧生。” When one's study of the Dharma is too scattered and disordered, being unable to go deep, one cannot see the thread or the structure of it. In practice, the more one knows, the less one realizes, because without meditative concentration (samādhi), there can be no actual realization; whereas broad hearing and extensive learning do not require samādhi to acquire intellectual knowledge of much Buddhadharma—but actual realization is out of the question. Modern people are unable to cultivate samādhi, and if we do not expound more correct principles to sentient beings, they will everywhere engage in broad hearing and extensive learning, picking up theories that are not in accord with reason; when even the principles meant to guide realization are wrong, realization becomes all the more impossible.

What we should most go and study are the practitioners of ancient times: we should investigate how they cultivated the Way and how they applied effort. Did they all learn piles and piles of theory and then, with eloquence pouring forth like a river, debate everywhere, or preach everywhere with glib tongues, taking up the role of teachers of others? Without any realization of one's own, how could one teach others to realize, and why would one wish to be a teacher? Is there not, in this, that mind of self-manifestation? We see that the ancient sages and worthies, even after attaining the Way, remained humble and low-key and continued their own cultivation; they would not readily occupy a mountain stronghold or accept the staff of Dharma transmission handed down by their masters. Because they were without self, and possessed self-knowledge: with so many sages and worthies already propagating the Dharma, sentient beings could be sufficiently delivered—since one's own Way was not yet firm, why insist on forcing oneself to the fore? Modern people are just the opposite: regardless of whether it is the Way or not, so long as one can come out on top, that is good enough.