Only by Perfecting the Conditions for Seeing the Path Can One Attain Accomplishment in Cultivation

Speaker A: In the age of the Dharma's decline, those who achieve results are all ones who have returned on their vows. Those without results can only lay a solid foundation for practice, establish good and correct habits of cultivation, and plan for the long term. 

Speaker B: Even a returning bodhisattva needs several years of practice before producing results again. It is not that returning bodhisattvas need to spend even more time—ten, twenty, or thirty years; accomplishment cannot come in a short span of time. Each person can only compare with themselves; if one can make a relatively big improvement compared with one's present self versus one's past self, then the practice is effective. One cannot become fat with a single bite. In the intermediate transitional stage, one needs to fulfill the various causal conditions for seeing the path, which is extremely difficult. Of course, the mind consciousness seeing the path is very simple and easy—it requires no intermediate process, no fulfillment of the conditions for seeing the path; one only needs to have a good brain.