How to Practice in a Way That Is Truly Beneficial

Practice is like going into a cornfield to pick corn: your purpose is to pick corn, bring it back, cook it, and fill your belly—not to sightsee and wander around the cornfield. So picking corn is the primary task. Of course, before you start picking, you may take a general look at the situation in the field—which ears are ripe and should be picked, which are not yet ripe and should be left alone—and then choose where to begin. But some people are not like this. They wander back and forth in the cornfield all day, hungry, touching here and looking there, yet never getting down to picking. Such people are fools.

Buddhist practitioners are the same. After broadly browsing, reading, and immersing yourself in some Buddhist teachings, you must set about genuine cultivation and real practice, choosing the nearest and easiest point of entry, and apply yourself earnestly and solidly to the practice of the Path—gaining whatever you can, realizing as much as you can. You cannot spend years and a whole lifetime forever remaining at the stage of extensive listening and immersion, tirelessly studying the teachings of others and counting money for others; having your own wealth and treasures is what truly matters. Otherwise, you will starve to death and become a hungry ghost.

If you wish to have your own attainments on the Path and not die a hungry ghost, you must begin from the fundamentals and apply yourself solidly. Cultivate the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment a bit at a time; remove evil and cultivate good, subduing afflictions bit by bit, purifying the mind bit by bit. Even if you have not yet seen the Path, what you have cultivated in this way can be carried into future lives for your own benefit. Cultivating is far more useful than not cultivating, and far better than counting the treasures of others. Happily counting other people's money and immersing yourself in it, only when the time comes to use it do you discover that not a single coin belongs to you—and by then, regret comes too late. For the intelligent and wise, how to study the Dharma and practice should now be very clear.