How to Practice Effectively and Correctly

After passing through the initial stage of absorbing dharma principles everywhere, one enters the formal stage of practical cultivation and advancement. At this stage, the direction and steps of practice should be clear and distinct: no longer studying miscellaneous teachings here and there, no longer scattering the mind in pursuit of external objects, but focusing single-mindedly on the path with a firm resolve for the Way. The daily practice content should be as follows:

First, persist in reciting the Śūraṅgama Mantra for two hours. It can be recited in all four postures—walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. Recite slowly, seeking quality rather than quantity. Quality means a concentrated mind, a unified mind, an empty mind—without distraction and without dullness. You can recite it during sitting meditation, before sleep, or while doing tasks. Keep reciting in this way until preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) appears and you have the ability to engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and investigate the dharma meaning with single-minded focus, free from interference and obstructive conditions. If obstructive conditions arise during contemplative practice, resume reciting the Śūraṅgama Mantra. Why recite the Śūraṅgama Mantra in this way? Because the Śūraṅgama Mantra has tremendous blessing power: it can purify one's precept conduct, strengthen meditative concentration (samādhi), and increase wisdom, enabling one to walk the correct path of practice, undisturbed by māra obstructions, with smooth progress in cultivation.

Second, sit in meditation regularly, morning and evening, for at least two hours. During this time, you may sit with an empty mind in stillness, recite the Śūraṅgama Mantra, or contemplate the dharma meaning, depending on your actual physical and mental experiences and condition. Beyond this, in all kinds of daily activities, you should also maintain a mind of purity and meditative concentration, striving to remain detached from sense objects, not clinging to them, not being turned by them, and lightening afflictions.

Third, study the dharma principles and contemplate their meaning, making the dharma meaning thorough and perfectly harmonious. Compare it against your body, mind, and world, and integrate it with your experience, so that principle and practice are combined and never separated.

Fourth, regularly repent and confess. Make bodhisattva vows, cultivate actions that benefit both self and others, nurture the bodhisattva's disposition of mind, and develop the bodhisattva's compassionate mental conduct toward sentient beings. Every day, practice generosity (dāna), combining the three kinds: giving of wealth, dharma giving, and giving of fearlessness. Everyone understands the giving of wealth, so it will not be discussed here. As for dharma giving, although you have not yet realized the Way and your wisdom is not yet sufficient to deliver sentient beings, the dharma principles are still clear at the level of the mind consciousness, so you can introduce and explain them as conditions allow to those with affinity and the right spiritual faculties, forwarding the correct dharma meanings you have studied, and guiding sentient beings onto the right path. The giving of fearlessness means personally working to relieve others' suffering and fear, helping them resolve their troubles, doing meaningful things for sentient beings as much as possible, benefiting and bringing joy to them, without seeking anything in return.

Doing this, on the surface it appears that sentient beings are the ones who benefit, but in reality the tathāgatagarbha records all of your mental conduct exactly as it is, storing the seeds. In the future, when those seeds blossom and bear fruit, the one who benefits most is still yourself. Selflessly serving sentient beings ultimately turns out to be self-benefit, yielding the greatest merit. Anyone with wisdom should be "selfish" in exactly this way, taking care of themselves in exactly this manner.