Learning and Practicing Buddhism Is a Long Journey

The master was in his room admiring flowers, and then said to himself: "The red flowers are very beautiful." At that moment, the parrot nearby heard it and followed suit, saying: "The red flowers are very beautiful." Was what the parrot said truthful speech? Was it direct perception? Had it realized the redness of the flowers and their beauty? None of these—the parrot was merely mimicking speech, knowing nothing of the meaning of the words, and perhaps not even knowing what it was saying. Therefore, just because someone can say something does not necessarily mean they have cultivation and genuine realization.

The Buddhist sūtras say that sentient beings at the stage of the ten faiths have already been studying Buddhism for several great kalpas and have encountered many Buddhas; it takes cultivation over one incalculable kalpa of studying and practicing Buddhism just to reach the level of a first-bhūmi bodhisattva. A bodhisattva at the abode stage who has awakened and seen the mind still has two-thirds of the cultivation time and kalpas remaining before reaching the first bhūmi, having already completed one-ninth of the path to Buddhahood—and this already represents an extremely long, extremely distant span of kalpas of study, which is by no means easy. It is clear that studying and practicing Buddhism is not an easy matter; for every advancement of one level on the path, the time and energy that must be expended are incalculable. Therefore, no one should take this lightly, thinking that merely understanding something means they have attained some fruit or stage—there is no such simple thing. If one has not walked that path and cannot see the road ahead, then of course, relying on imagination, one would think it is very simple and that becoming a Buddha is easy; only those who have already become Buddhas truly know what the path to Buddhahood is like, and only what they recount from their own experience is reliable.