The study and practice of the Buddha-dharma follows a sequential order

Question: Everything learned in the Buddhadharma must have practical value for actual cultivation. If one can only study theory without being able to practice it, it cannot be passed down. The Dharma Characteristics Yogācāra school has a method of cultivation called the "Fivefold Contemplation of Mere Consciousness," yet very few people practice it—I wonder why?

Answer: Studying and practicing any dharma gate is for the sake of realization, growing wisdom, and attaining liberation, and this requires actual practice. Some theories are merely theories; they cannot guide actual practice and thus cannot lead to realization. Left sitting there, they are mere ornaments—decoration for the facade. Studying and practicing the Dharma Characteristics Yogācāra school is like graduate and doctoral coursework in worldly learning—extremely profound. This is a dharma gate that bodhisattvas begin to cultivate before attaining the bhūmis. Ordinary Buddhist learners lack a foundation in the Buddhadharma; even the Hīnayāna elimination of self-view is beyond their hope—how could they possibly study and understand it clearly?

That is why during the Tang dynasty the Yogācāra school lasted only two generations before it could no longer be transmitted. One reason was that Buddhist learners lacked the cultivation and realization of foundational Buddhadharma, so the profound Dharma Characteristics Yogācāra was even more impossible to practice in actuality. With theory and practice thus derailed from each other, how could Yogācāra be passed down? Without the realization of bhūmi-attained bodhisattvas, the Yogācāra school also cannot be transmitted. The Buddhadharma is indeed divided into levels and stages of cultivation. Even worldly learning, so shallow by comparison, is divided into elementary, middle school, and university curricula; the profound Buddhadharma is all the more divided into levels. The three incalculable kalpas of cultivation required to become a Buddha mean that only by realizing the foundational dharmas first can one actually practice the later Buddhadharma. It is like a foot that must first step onto the next stair before the other foot can lift to step onto the following one—one cannot skip levels; otherwise one will fall and be unable to ascend the stairs.