The Difference Between Dharma-Ending Age Practitioners and Practitioners of Ancient Times

The closer we get to the Dharma-ending age, the thinner sentient beings' merit becomes and the shallower their good roots, so that in the cultivation and realization of the Buddha's Dharma, gradually there are many who talk about principles but few who comprehend them, many who speak of the Way but few who walk it, and those who can genuinely attain realization through practice are as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. Liezi said: “大道以多歧亡羊，学者以多方丧生。” When the study of the Dharma is too scattered and chaotic, one cannot go deep, and thus sees neither the main thread nor any coherent structure. In practice, the more one knows, the less one realizes, because without meditative concentration (samādhi), there can be no genuine realization; whereas broad hearing and extensive learning do not require samādhi—one can come to know and understand a great deal of the Buddha's Dharma that way—but actual realization is out of the question. Modern people are unable to cultivate samādhi, and if we do not expound more correct principles to sentient beings, they will everywhere engage in broad hearing and extensive learning, picking up theories that are not in accord with the Dharma; when even the principles that should guide realization are wrong, realization becomes all the more impossible.

What we should most go and study are the practitioners of ancient times: we should investigate how they cultivated the Way and how they applied effort. Did they all pile up heaps of theory and then, with eloquence pouring forth like a river, debate everywhere, or with the same torrential eloquence preach everywhere, taking on the role of teachers of others? Without having any realization oneself, how could one teach others to realize? And why would one wish to be a teacher of others? Is there not that mind of self-display in it? We see that the ancient sages and worthies, even after attaining the Way, remained humble and low-key, continuing their own cultivation, and would not lightly occupy a mountain stronghold or accept the staff of Dharma transmission handed down by their masters. Because they were without self, and had self-knowledge: with so many sages and worthies already propagating the Dharma, sentient beings could surely be delivered; if one's own Way was not yet firm, why insist on forcing oneself to the fore? Modern people are just the opposite—never mind whether it is the Way or not, so long as one can come out on top, that is good enough.