Only Personal Realization Can Resolve the Great Problem of Birth and Death

If everyone could cultivate according to the method of the Great Mindfulness Sutra (Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta), the Small Vehicle would quickly be accomplished, and meditative concentration (samādhi) would certainly be achieved. But nowadays people's minds are too scattered to complete these contemplative practices (vipaśyanā-caryā). When the Buddha dwelt in the world, the bhikkhus all practiced in this way.

Looking at it now, the theoretical portions of the Small and Great Vehicles that we need for cultivation are already more or less sufficient; what is lacking is only actual practice. Actual practice requires cultivating precepts, meditation, and wisdom, and completing the bodhisattva's six perfections, especially the cultivation of merit and meditative concentration. If individual practice is difficult, then group practice is needed. When the Buddha was in the world, he never led group practice; each person sat cross-legged in meditation, contemplating and reflecting on the Dharma the Buddha had taught, and then realized the fruits.

Modern people are too busy with life and work to have time for sitting meditation, yet meditative concentration truly cannot be advanced without it, and their reflection remains shallow and lacking in meticulousness, making it impossible to realize the Dharma—this is also a fact. The difference between the concentration attained after sitting quietly and the concentration of only walking, standing, sitting, and lying down is so great that only those who have experienced sitting meditation can appreciate it. Find your own way; you must take responsibility for yourself. It is not the case that knowing a pile of theory means one has the Path, or that being able to talk eloquently means one has the Path. After genuine realization, even if one is not eloquent, one still has the Path; being eloquent without genuine realization is also not the Path.

Only genuine realization can resolve the great problem of birth and death. No dharma is more important than the enterprise of the Path. Even at the cost of death, one must accomplish the Path; otherwise, no matter how successful one is in worldly affairs while alive, what use is it?