How to Practice Rightly and Effectively

After passing through the beginner 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 everywhere, no longer scattering the mind in pursuit of external objects, but focusing single-mindedly on the path of cultivation 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 of walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. Recite slowly—seek quality, not quantity. Quality means the mind is concentrated, unified, and empty, neither scattered nor drowsy. You can recite it during meditation, before sleep, or while doing tasks. Keep reciting in this way until preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) appears, when you have the ability to contemplate and investigate dharma meanings with single-minded focus, free from interference and obstructive conditions. If obstructive conditions arise during contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), resume reciting the Śūraṅgama Mantra. Why recite the Śūraṅgama Mantra in this way? Because the Śūraṅgama Mantra has immense blessing power: it can purify one's moral conduct, strengthen meditative concentration (samādhi), increase wisdom, enable one to walk the correct path of practice, protect one from interference by demonic obstructions, and make one's cultivation go smoothly.

Second, regularly meditate at least two hours in the morning and evening. During this time, you may sit with an empty mind, recite the Śūraṅgama Mantra, or contemplate dharma meanings, depending on your actual physical and mental experiences and condition. Beyond this, in all kinds of daily activities, you should also maintain a concentrated and pure mind, striving to remain separate from sense objects, not attaching to them, not being turned by them, and reducing afflictions.

Third, study dharma principles and contemplate dharma meanings, making them thorough and perfectly integrated, comparing them against your body, mind, and world, and merging them with your experience—combining principle and phenomena without separation.

Fourth, regularly repent. Make bodhisattva vows, cultivate actions that benefit both self and others, nurture the bodhisattva's mind-nature, and develop the bodhisattva's compassionate mental conduct toward sentient beings. Every day, practice generosity (dāna), combining the three kinds: giving of wealth, giving of Dharma, and giving of fearlessness. Everyone understands giving of wealth, so it will not be discussed here. As for giving of Dharma: although at this stage you have not yet realized the Path and your wisdom is not yet sufficient to deliver sentient beings, the dharma principles are still clear at the level of the consciousness, so you can introduce and explain them as conditions allow to those with affinity and the right spiritual faculties (indriya), share the correct dharma meanings you have studied, and guide sentient beings onto the right path. Giving of fearlessness means personally relieving others' suffering and fear, helping them resolve their troubles, doing meaningful things for sentient beings, 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 has faithfully recorded all of your mental conduct and stored it as seeds. In the future, when these 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 this way, taking care of themselves in this manner.