Miscellaneous Learning Is Not Right Effort (samyag-vyāyāma)

Our study of Buddhism and practice of the Path is meant to solve the actual, fundamental problem of birth and death; it is not for the sake of learning theory. As for theoretical knowledge, mastering enough to serve actual practice is sufficient—do not keep drilling deeper into it. Apply your mind where it matters. Once the wisdom of the manas is developed, the dharmas you previously did not understand will all become clear, and the knowledge you previously did not know will all become evident. Then, when you summarize it through your own wisdom and pass it on, it becomes the theoretical knowledge that others need—bringing immeasurable benefit both to others and to yourself.

After Cūḍapanthaka attained the fourth fruit of arhatship, he still could not expound the Dharma; he was clumsy of speech. Yet he had accomplished everything: he possessed the wisdom of liberation but not the wisdom of arising—he simply could not express it, and his store of knowledge was also insufficient. Even so, this did not prevent him from being a noble one. He had the wisdom to liberate himself from birth and death in the three realms—the apple had truly been eaten and was in his belly; this was real and tangible. How many times stronger is he than those glib talkers who can write a hundred books yet are ordinary beings replete with the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion?

Many people do not understand how to study Buddhism and cultivate practice. Day after day they delight in collecting knowledge everywhere, diligently gathering whatever is useful or useless alike, picking up nothing but sesame seeds, and then forgetting some of it after collecting it. They do not develop the inexhaustible treasure trove, and they do not know to take the golden key into their hands. They appear to be working hard, but in fact it is wrong effort (mithyā-vyāyāma): the more diligent they are, the farther they stray from the Path.

Some people just love studying the patterns inside a kaleidoscope. Before they have figured out the first pattern, it changes into the second; through ten thousand shifting patterns they chase each design, and in the end their eyes are dazzled and they still have not figured anything out. A person without wisdom simply does not know to study how to manufacture the kaleidoscope. With a kaleidoscope in hand, would it not be delightful to master all patterns and figures at will? Knowledge in this world is boundless and develops explosively. What can you gain by chasing it day after day? Bring forth the great bodhi mind and strive to become a repository of knowledge, with all knowledge flowing forth from your own mind in an endless, gushing stream—so that all sentient beings can draw the nourishment of knowledge from this repository of yours. How beautiful a thing that would be!

Why is it that some people, after practicing for only a short time, attain very deep meditative concentration (samādhi), with excellent contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) wisdom and meditative absorption (samādhi) never lost, while others have practiced for decades without meditative concentration ever appearing and with weak power of wisdom? It is like a foolish dog chasing thrown clods: they pay attention to and take interest in everything outside, spinning through the various platforms every day, learning every kind of knowledge, and to this day have achieved nothing. Often, the more a person has achieved nothing, the more confident they are—but on what grounds is that confidence?

If you opened up the back of some people's heads, you would find a pile of tangled threads there, chaotic and without order; their thinking has no logic at all—one sentence does not match up with the next. Yet they go out and wildly study things that lack logic, and the more they study, the more tangled threads accumulate in their brains. A person's lines and modes of thinking are subject to perfuming (vāsanā): whoever you learn from, you will acquire that person's thinking characteristics. When you lack discernment and study things indiscriminately, your own wisdom is already weak, and after being perfumed with chaotic modes of thought, your own thinking becomes even less able to run in a straight line; your speech winds round and round and never reaches the root or the point. If your line of thinking is wrong, can you realize the fruits or awaken to the true mind?

As for those who cultivate well, their strengths lie in meditative concentration and contemplative practice—let alone not studying or looking at the chaotic things outside; even when I, the teacher, am speaking, they have no mind to listen. While I speak on this side, their minds are engaged in contemplative practice. After all, doing the work is what matters most; the great matter of birth and death is what matters most. Whereas those who after decades have cultivated nothing spend every day busily absorbing all sorts of chaotic knowledge in a disorderly fashion, busy and delighted with themselves—but what exactly is there for you to be delighted about? Your brain is hopelessly clogged, without a single clear thread.