How Can One Attain Preparatory Concentration (anāgamya-samādhi)?

To attain preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) and maintain it, in daily life the mind must be focused on what you are currently doing, and on the main matters at that; small trivial matters do not require too much attention. When doing unimportant things, you should focus on your own mind, being only slightly aware of external matters—no need to manage them or worry about them. Only by letting something go can you gain something; if you worry about everything, you will excel at nothing, and in the end accomplish nothing. You must train yourself to be able to break free from the constraints of trivial matters anytime and anywhere, and concentrate on the main matters; only when the mind has no distractions can meditative concentration arise.

If a person wants to succeed in this lifetime, they must learn to focus, choose the main things to do, and devote less attention to useless things. Once meditative concentration has been cultivated, the wisdom for doing things will increase, and thereafter whatever you do, you can do well. If you are interested in everything and put your mind into everything, although you may become a jack of all trades, you will master none. Mastery is far more important and meaningful than mere familiarity; mastery represents wisdom, and with wisdom, nothing cannot be accomplished—including the matter of becoming a Buddha.

Modern people are rather greedy: interested in everything, wanting to know everything, wanting to participate in everything. They seek too much and pay attention to too much, and the result is often that they accomplish nothing and gain nothing. Those who do not know how to make choices are just like this. If you want to gain, you must seek single-mindedly, and you must give up many unnecessary people and matters; only then can your wishes be fully fulfilled. A person has only two hands, yet wants to grab everything; the result is like a black bear picking corn—picking one ear and dropping another, and in the end, getting even one ear of corn would be good enough.

Everyone should check the various apps they have downloaded and see how much content they follow; from this, you can judge whether you can actually cultivate meditative concentration, whether your mind can have samādhi. Even if you follow those things your whole life, so what? What does it avail you to know all the novel, multifarious happenings in the world? What can you gain from them? What do you really want in this life?

There are also people who have studied Buddhism for ten or twenty years yet still have not found a Buddhadharma that resonates with them. They come into contact with every dharma and study every dharma, appearing very erudite, but in fact they have not truly learned anything and have not understood any dharma. They just bump around aimlessly, here and there, never finding a destination—how pitiable!

My habit since childhood has always been to focus on my own mind, always thinking about what was on my mind, uninterested in external people and matters. Many things happening around me I sometimes did not even know about, and I seemed a bit stiff and old-fashioned. But I was very steady, and mentally quite mature—even more mature than adults. I had my own views on everything and did not follow the crowd. At home I did not worry about anything; no matter what the group of people around me talked about, I rarely joined in. During New Year and festivals, I would hide in a corner holding a book. I was not asked to do any chores at home; I just studied. Only after becoming a monastic did I learn to cook and do other miscellaneous tasks, and once I learned many things, I did them quite well because I did them with full concentration.

Since childhood I also had the habit of being alone. I never giggled and chatted idly about everything under the sun with others; I always tried to be by myself, and no matter what I did, I preferred to do it alone. Back then I liked walking. After dinner in the evening, I would go out and walk for about an hour, at a fast pace—not a stroll; others could not keep up with me, because I did not like having someone beside me disturbing my thoughts. My mind was always focused on thinking about certain things, paying no attention to the people and matters around me, completely immersed in my own thoughts. If someone else wanted to follow along, I would twist and turn a few times and shake them off. I never took walks with anyone, because there was nothing to talk about. Only when I needed to discuss something with someone, or needed to do persuasion work with them, would I slow my pace and talk with them; otherwise I would always walk alone, quickly, and no one could keep up. In fact, this was precisely cultivating concentration—not wasting time and energy on meaningless people and matters, eliminating distracting thoughts, and focusing on one's own mind.