The Cultivation and Realization of Buddhadharma Require Profound Virtuous Roots and Merit

The Dharma is difficult to realize and cultivate, requiring sentient beings to practice for three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas. If the Dharma were easy to understand, easy to realize, and easy to cultivate, sentient beings would not need to practice for three asaṃkhyeya kalpas to attain perfect Buddhahood. If the Dharma were easy to understand, the Buddha would not have emphasized that sentient beings must possess a considerable degree of virtuous roots, merit, and precepts, concentration, and wisdom. Some people have read the Tripitaka and the twelve divisions of scriptures five times, yet they still do not grasp even the periphery of the Dharma, nor do they catch even a distant glimpse of the shadow of enlightenment. Sentient beings have been deluded and inverted for countless kalpas, immersed in the illusory mundane dharmas, making it truly difficult for them to comprehend the profound Dharma.

The Buddha taught the Dharma for forty-nine years. At the time of his parinirvāṇa, there were still countless sentient beings who only partially understood the Dharma, and some did not even have that partial understanding. Ānanda witnessed the difficulty of sentient beings' stupidity and their misinterpretations of the Dharma. Consequently, one hundred years after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, he too had to leave the Sahā world. Originally, relying on the power of his meditative concentration and merit, he could have remained in the world for a very long time, teaching sentient beings in place of the Buddha. After the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, an old monk taught a young monk, mispronouncing the Dharma of the liberation path as "water old crane." Ānanda asked him to correct it, but the old monk refused, instead saying that Ānanda was old and confused, unable to remember the Dharma taught by the Buddha. Heartbroken and grieved, Ānanda then departed from the Sahā world.

Repeatedly, it has been emphasized that everyone should cultivate more merit and nurture virtuous roots and merit. Yet, few are willing to cultivate merit and nurture virtuous roots and merit. It is entirely normal for them not to understand the Dharma, for the Dharma cannot be easily comprehended or realized by those who are unwilling to cultivate merit and lack merit. Realizing the Dharma requires great merit; only with great merit can one attain great wisdom. Small roots and small wisdom are indeed incompatible with the profound Dharma. Even achievements in the mundane dharma require merit, let alone the great matter of transcending life and death, the great matter of liberating oneself from afflictions accumulated over countless kalpas, and much less the inconceivably supreme great matter of attaining Buddhahood. How can those whose minds are filled only with themselves, who seek only self-benefit, be in accord with the great Dharma of the Tathāgatagarbha, which is selfless in nature?