The Reason for Being Eager to Engage in Contemplative Practice

Question: It is clearly known that insufficient meditative concentration is unfavorable for investigating Chan, yet in actual practice one especially enjoys contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), treating meditation merely as an auxiliary means, and the time spent on contemplative practice is actually more than the time spent on cultivating concentration. Why does this psychological phenomenon arise?

Answer: This psychology is very common, and there are three reasons for it. First, most sentient beings have studied Buddhism for only a short kalpa, their roots of goodness are not deep enough, and they have not given rise to the aspiration for the Path. With regard to the Buddha-dharma, their interests and preferences outweigh deep-seated discernment; they are rather superficial, so they lack long-term resolve and are unwilling to spend time and energy cultivating meditative concentration step by step. Second, the wisdom and cognition that arise from contemplative practice and deliberation are extremely attractive; people all want to know more, longing to know all dharmas, and once they know the dharma their minds feel satisfied, so they neglect meditative concentration. Third, there is a sense of urgency, an eagerness to know the final result, without paying attention to the actual process of cultivation and realization. Fourth, one is accustomed to using the shallow deliberation of the mind consciousness, and is not accustomed to the deep and subtle deliberation (manasikāra) and investigation of the manas.

That is why many people do not like to follow along and learn the parts I teach on cultivating the mind, on actual practice, and on building foundations; they feel it is too slow and dull, lack the patience to cultivate step by step, and so offer me criticism, or gradually fall away. But for the long-term and true benefit of sentient beings and Buddhism, I cannot merely accommodate everyone's psychology and abandon the part on actual practice, teaching only the principles that sentient beings find interesting, leaving sentient beings able only to stand by the water's edge coveting the fish without going to weave a net.

The long-term benefit for sentient beings should be: having a solid foundation, a transformation of one's disposition, and mastery of the methods of cultivation, so that in the future, even if one does not encounter a suitable teacher, one still knows how to cultivate on one's own, has the ability for self-cultivation, and has the ability to discern right from wrong. This ability can be carried into future lives for countless kalpas—nothing could be better. Such a person is a true talent of Buddhism. To be a responsible Dharma-transmitting master is to cultivate talents with genuine practice and genuine learning, not to cultivate theorists of book knowledge. Talents can be passed down from generation to generation, whereas knowledge and theory, passed down for only one or two generations, will disappear and cannot go far, because there is nothing real to transmit.