The Four Right Efforts Are a Hard Indicator of Actual Practice

Ru She's contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā): Normally I feel empty and hollow inside, without a root, without flavor; I pay more attention inward and less attention outward. Now I have fewer feelings toward sentient beings than before; I speak less in daily life. Although I still enjoy studying the meaning of the Dharma, I no longer have much interest in debating Dharma principles; when discussing questions with others, I stop halfway and no longer wish to continue. In the past, when troubles arose in work and life, I would suffer insomnia; now I eat when it is time to eat, sleep when it is time to sleep, and forget things as soon as I decide to forget them. Sometimes when I enter meditative concentration (samādhi), the matter will come to mind and disturb me a little, and then I forget it again. As soon as the manas stirs, I can feel that fabrication begins. The most obvious sign of the manas stirring is when greed and anger arise; one must observe carefully—before doing anything, the manas moves first.

Assessment: When meditative concentration arises and contemplative practice keeps pace with it, the mind will undergo transformation. The difference between having meditative concentration and not having it is very great. Once one has meditative concentration, one's outward chasing of conditions diminishes, attention to trivial matters decreases, and one loses interest in many things; afflictions lighten and attachments lessen, and wisdom will gradually arise. The benefits of meditative concentration are inexhaustible. If one does not cultivate meditative concentration, then one is not practicing at all; studying Buddhism would be mere conceptual proliferation (prapañca), and realization would be impossible. Only with meditative concentration can one engage in contemplative practice, and only then can the practice be meticulous and thorough; only then can one grasp the great matters and let go of the small ones, relinquishing many unnecessary affairs. One will also become more accommodating and skillful, stubbornness will weaken, thoughts of anger will lighten, and greed will diminish.

After one has meditative concentration and cultivates contemplative practice, one is able to introspect inwardly toward the mind, so afflictions in the mind can be discovered in time and subdued at any moment. Unwholesome and evil thoughts will become fewer and fewer, while wholesome thoughts and thoughts of equanimity will increase more and more; thus the Four Right Efforts will be cultivated: unarisen wholesome states are brought to arise, arisen wholesome states are increased, unarisen unwholesome states do not arise, and arisen unwholesome states are eliminated. If some people still have very heavy afflictions, with few wholesome and many unwholesome thoughts in the mind, then the Four Right Efforts have not been well cultivated, the mental disposition has not changed, and there is no hope of eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) and attaining the fruit.

Therefore, attaining the first fruit requires the elimination of coarse and heavy afflictions (dausthulya); one's mental disposition must already be that of a sage. If someone claims to have eradicated the view of self, or claims to have attained enlightenment, yet his afflictions still appear very heavy, with no fundamental change in his mental disposition—greed, anger, jealousy, fighting everywhere, with body, speech, and mind all impure—then such a person's claimed attainment of the fruit and enlightenment is merely his own presumption; the tathāgatagarbha does not acknowledge it. If anyone does not cultivate the precepts and meditative concentration, does not engage in contemplative practice in accordance with the Dharma, and has not cultivated the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, the Eightfold Noble Path, the Four Right Efforts, and so forth, it is impossible for such a person to attain any seeing of the path of either the Great or the Small Vehicle. Therefore, the Four Right Efforts and the Thirty-seven Factors of Enlightenment are the yardstick of genuine practice.