Meditative Concentration and the Direct Realization of the Buddhadharma

Take, for another example, the contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) on the manas: it requires not only meditative concentration (samādhi) but also wisdom. Without meditative concentration, even if all the teachings on the manas were told to you, you still could not carry out the contemplative practice. Once you have meditative concentration and a certain degree of wisdom, and then the teachings on the manas are given to you, you can follow the text and contemplate and observe along with the words, and you will be able to realize the manas quite quickly. After realizing the manas, if you can further observe some of its subtle characteristics, then your wisdom becomes truly remarkable. If meditative concentration is lacking, even if all the various teachings on how the manas operates were told to you, it would be useless, because without realizing the manas, you cannot observe it, and thus you cannot truly understand its characteristics; your wisdom cannot make substantive progress, and in a different situation you would again not know how the manas operates.

Therefore, without sufficient and necessary meditative concentration, the strengthening of wisdom, the cultivation and realization of the bodhisattva path, and contemplative practice at all levels are all impossible to accomplish. Apart from meditative concentration, it is impossible to have the wisdom of contemplative practice, genuine wisdom. The Buddha taught us the three unconditioned learnings of "precepts (śīla), concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā)"; we must never discard the precepts, never discard concentration, and then want only a dry wisdom or a wild wisdom—that is just about the same as drawing a cake to satisfy hunger. Some people seem to know a great deal of Buddhist knowledge and general principles, seem to have wisdom, and can talk fluently, but what they discuss is merely hollow theory; they cannot explain concretely how to operate in order to realize this principle and make phenomena accord with it. Everything is vague verbal description on the level of generalities, very unspecific and coarse, showing that they themselves have no real realization and cannot articulate the concrete issues of how to cultivate and realize it. Especially, although they can talk glibly, their mental conduct does not change and is not consistent with what they say, and they have no benefit of merit from liberation in their mental nature whatsoever.

If we do not diligently cultivate concentration and lack meditative concentration, then the increasingly profound teachings and the increasingly subtle teachings will be beyond our comprehension, let alone contemplative practice; our cultivation will gradually fall behind, and we will drop out. Then we will lose confidence and turn to study other shallow teachings, and those shallow teachings contain many errors and flaws which we will be unable to discern; even after studying for a lifetime we will not realize the Buddha-dharma, and our precious time will be wasted in vain.

For the great liberation of body and mind, for the realization of the Buddha-dharma, and for attaining buddhahood as soon as possible, we must attach importance to meditative concentration; without it, when encountering crucial and important teachings, we cannot understand and digest them, and thus cannot realize them, cannot receive the benefit of the supreme Buddha-dharma, and cannot attain liberation through it. Therefore, I sincerely urge everyone to seize the time as much as possible, make full use of existing conditions, and even create conditions to cultivate concentration. We should cultivate both the concentration in motion while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, and the concentration in stillness while sitting in meditation, training our minds to be able to settle down at any time, and cultivating them ever more finely. In this way, when we then contemplate the teachings we have studied, realization comes easily, and afterward wisdom can arise; knowledge is transformed into one's own realization and experience, with genuine benefit. Cultivating in this way, both concentration and wisdom will continuously advance and become perfect, the cultivation will be very rapid, no effort will be wasted, and the greatest attainment on the Buddha's path can be achieved.