Cultivating Both Merit and Wisdom to Accomplish the Path

If one does not diligently cultivate merit and does not diligently cultivate wisdom, if the faculty of faith is not complete and the roots of goodness are not complete, then as one cultivates along the way, demons will come to possess one, and the person will not even know that a demon has taken hold of them. The ninth volume of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra recounts many cases of demonic possession—compare yourself against them often. When a demon possesses someone, at first it will give you many benefits of worldly dharmas, making your body and mind feel pleasant and happy, granting you meditative concentration (samādhi), granting you wealth, curing illness so that your body becomes healthy, making it seem as though you have supernatural powers, making you feel that you are extraordinary—but in fact all of this is demonic power, not your own attainment on the Path. When the demon has finished using you and you no longer have any value to be exploited, the demon's mind grows weary and will abandon you. Then what are you? Your true form is fully exposed, and after death you fall into hell.

The Buddha said that those who attain a human body are as few as the soil in a fingernail, while those who fail to attain a human body are as many as the soil of the great earth. Is the Buddha's statement entirely accurate? Observe sentient beings today: those with roots of goodness and merit are far, far too few. Even among those who study Buddhism, countless afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion cling to their minds. Therefore, countless students of Buddhism still receive retribution in the three evil destinies when their lives end; only those who have truly eliminated self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) can be spared from the three evil destinies. Yet how many people can truly eliminate self-view? Extremely, extremely few. If one slanders the Buddha and slanders the Dharma, then it is no longer an ordinary three evil destinies—it is the Avīci hell, an extremely long stretch of years of torment, with no end in sight. Sentient beings are indeed pitiable, but the pitiable must have something hateful about them.