The Relationship Between Broad Learning and Specialized Expertise

When everyone's practice reaches a critical juncture, obstructive conditions will appear—this is precisely the result of practice gaining real strength. If you continue practicing, the obstructive conditions will fade away. When one's practice is not yet effective, obstructive conditions generally do not appear. So when you encounter setbacks, do not doubt yourself; press forward with courage.

The sequence of practice is first broad learning, then focused refinement. If one only pursues breadth, it can only be an accumulation of intellectual knowledge in the mind consciousness, which has nothing to do with liberation. When it is time to investigate Chan and attain realization, one should set aside all the sutras and concentrate single-mindedly on Chan investigation. If at this point one insists on emphasizing reading the sutras, it will obstruct the Path. In the past, the Chan patriarchs, upon seeing a disciple engaged in Chan investigation reading sutras, would stop and reprimand them. Nowadays no one dares say anything to disciples, not daring to stop others from broad learning and extensive hearing, for fear of being labeled by their own students. Some people practice until they are seventy or eighty years old, and their minds are still fixed on broad learning and extensive hearing; even I dare not say anything about it—each person's own birth and death is for themselves to decide. The most prominent trait of modern people is their fondness for knowledge and scholarship, and their dislike of liberation.