Some practitioners within Dharma communities may gradually develop their meditation skills to the point where they can sit for extended periods, abiding in a state of mental neutrality and quietude until the distinction between day and night blurs. Yet why do their afflictions always remain unresolved?
In fact, unless meditation reaches a sufficiently profound depth, it cannot truly uproot our afflictions. While sitting in practice, the mind may appear serene and undisturbed, yet once we rise, the afflictions often return with even greater force. This is a common and genuine struggle troubling many practitioners.
So what can be done? What we truly need is to cultivate bodhicitta—the mind of enlightenment. Once bodhicitta arises, even without deep meditative concentration, the heart becomes boundless and tender. Whether others perceive this openness and softness is irrelevant; what matters is that you yourself will feel a greater sense of joy and find it easier to sustain your practice. Since bodhicitta can bring such effects, why not genuinely put it into practice? We often speak of cultivating bodhicitta as if it were chiefly for the benefit of others, yet in reality the primary beneficiary is oneself.
A Buddhist practitioner should have three qualities:
1.A broad-minded disposition；
2. A spirit of self-sacrifice;
3. Perseverance—the resolve to carry through to the end.
Transforming our mental continuum does not happen overnight; it requires long and steady refinement. Bodhicitta naturally nurtures broad-mindedness and a willingness to sacrifice for others. On that foundation, perseverance becomes far easier to sustain.
Why do we often fail to persevere? Because the self-centered mind is so strong. When habitual tendencies take over, they can shatter our intention to practice. For instance: we may arrange a comfortable, supportive environment for practice—seemingly for your benefit. But sometimes I wonder, is it truly beneficial? Of course, the intention is altruistic. However, an excessively comfortable environment may diminish one's sensitivity of suffering, breeding fragility and laziness.
Some might think, “That won’t happen to me.” Perhaps it won’t—if you genuinely devote yourself to the practice. But if you treat the days of practice as mere comfortable living rather than earnest effort to transform your mind, then such an environment may not be helpful at all.
Then, how should one proceed? Above all, arouse bodhicitta. We are not asked to realize emptiness immediately though that is the ultimate aim. However, the prerequisite for realizing emptiness is the arising of bodhicitta; and one step prior to that is the cultivation of renunciation. Many fellow practitioners have left worldly life behind to commit to practice, yet without genuine renunciation, problems inevitably arise over time.
With renunciation, as the couplet at Yunmen Temple says:
Spending a fortune daily is not beyond what is fitting.
Without renunciation, however:
Even a single grain of rice eaten slowly is hard to digest.
This means: if one is awakened and every thought arises as a manifestation of the mind’s true nature, then, no matter how one uses wealth, it carries no fault. If not awakened, the consequences are as follows: “Even a single grain from a pious hand carries merit as vast as Mount Sumeru. If liberation in this life not be attained, one will reborn in animal forms,bearing horns and fur, as karma has ordained.”This is not an empty threat—it is a truthful admonition. Since it reflects reality, it truly serves as a benevolent caution on the path of practice.
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