— Key Points Summarized
Altogether, I have just talked about three key points. First, one must engage in long-term hearing the Dharma and engaging in reflection in order to cultivate correct and accurate fundamental views. Second, one must persist over the long term in accumulating merit and purifying obscurations—especially accumulating merit. Why is this so? In the process of hearing and reflection, if you do not accumulate merit, you will lack strength and won’t be able to carry on; if you do not purify obscurations, once obstacles arise, you won’t be able to carry on either.
Therefore, we must persist over the long term in accumulating merit and purifying obscurations—for example, making offerings, releasing lives, practicing generosity, and so on. Moreover, every time we do these practices,we must be embraced by the Three Excellent Principles . Do you still remember the Three Excellent Principles? Before performing a virtuous action, one must make an aspiration: to aspire to give rise to renunciation, bodhicitta, and correct view of emptiness, and to perform these actions for that purpose—this is called the Excellent Aspiration. During the action itself, one focuses wholeheartedly on what one is doing—this is called the Excellent Application. Finally, after completing the action, one must dedicate the merit—dedicating it to the arising of renunciation, bodhicitta, and correct view of emptiness within oneself—this is called the Excellent Dedication.
This also applies to offering water, prostrating to the Buddha, and so forth—they must all be done in this way. Do not think these practices are useless. Every single thing you do adds to your strength. When combined with the Three Excellent Principles, they become like fur gathered from armpits, water wearing through stone drop by drop, or streams accumulating into an ocean. Only then can you sustain the practice ; only then can you sustain favorable conditions over the long term—conditions and supporting factors for hearing and reflection, as well as conditions and supporting factors for practice.
For hearing and reflection, you must be able to encounter genuine Buddha dharma and also be able to understand it. For practice, you must have an environment for practice, and when problems arise during practice, there must be people who can help you resolve them. All of these are favorable conditions, and they arise through accumulating merit, purifying obscurations, and through making aspirations and dedicating merit.
Third, one must persist in meditation, and this is something that we lay practitioners must definitely do. Why is that? Through sitting meditation—working with the breath and experiencing meditative concentration—we can establish the aspiration to seek liberation and the mental strength to overcome distraction. Please remember this. Why can meditation establish the aspiration for liberation? Because once the comfort and tranquility brought about by meditative concentration gradually take root in your mental continuum, you will no longer regard practice as something painful.
Therefore, when sitting in meditation, one should work with the breath and related methods, directly experiencing stillness and concentration. These qualities are forged through repeated training. When you first begin to meditate, forget about sitting for hours—you may not even be able to sit for three minutes. Thoughts race wildly, the body aches, and the mind becomes restless. But one must persist over the long term. This persistence, too, relies on prior hearing and reflection and on accumulating merit and purifying obscurations. Only then will meditative concentration gradually arise.
Whether you observe the breath, observe space, or observe the central channel, the point is to use various methods to allow the mind to settle and become calm. Gradually, a sense of comfort and joy will arise, and with it the aspiration to practice and attain liberation. Over time, you will discover that the mind has gained strength and clarity—it becomes easier to settle and easier to understand the meaning of the Dharma. Often, Buddhadharma does not speak only of the movement of the mind; at times it speaks of the stillness of the mind. If you have no direct experience of this, you simply cannot truly understand it—you can at best have a merely conceptual understanding. Therefore, sitting meditation establishes both the aspiration for practice and the inner strength for practice. When meditative concentration deepens over time, the willpower of your mind becomes very strong.
Let me repeat this once again: we must do these three things. First, persist in hearing and reflection over the long term. Second, persist over the long term in accumulating merit and purifying obscurations. Third, persist over the long term in meditation practice. These “three long-term commitments” are all directly related to renunciation. The renunciation I am speaking of is not about practicing the preliminary practices for six months or three months—it is about practicing until you attain liberation.
In addition, if one truly wants to practice the preliminary teachings properly, three essential conditions must be established. First, one must rely on a qualified teacher; do not think that merely reading books on your own is sufficient—it is not. To begin with, in hearing and reflection, you are bound to misunderstand things. Furthermore, without correct guidance and proper oversight, you will not be able to carry out the accumulation of merit and the purification of obscurations properly; you may even violate precepts without realizing it, quickly destroying your own merit. Therefore, it is essential to rely on a genuine teacher—especially when it comes to specific methods of practice later on, the discernment of meditative experiences, and the ways of dealing with adverse conditions. Even hearing and reflection require a qualified teacher, because they can help resolve your doubts; otherwise, your mind will remain constantly unsettled and full of uncertainty.
Second, it is also crucial to choose and join a genuine practice community. Why is this so? Relying solely on yourself to grind away at practice at home often doesn’t work—you do it for a short while and then you lose interest. As soon as a new movie comes out, you immediately want to go see it. Films today, driven by profit, are promoted with great fanfare; once you watch the trailers, they are dazzling, and the moment the music starts, your mind is stirred. Women often can’t resist romantic movies; men can’t resist war or action movies. For example, when I see films like The Avengers or X-Men, I get excited and feel compelled to watch them.
Therefore, relying solely on oneself is not enough—once the external environment changes, one can no longer endure it. This shows how necessary mutual support and mutual influence within a group truly are. The power of group practice will support and encourage you forward . However, this group must be a genuine practice community: the vast majority of its members should be oriented toward practice, and there must be a true leader within the group. Otherwise, things easily descend into chaos—people gather together not to practice, but to create confusion instead.
Third, you must have sufficient time and a relatively quiet and undisturbed place for practice. Sufficient time means that you have to give up many things and genuinely engage in hearing, reflection, and practice. For example, do you go watch a movie, or do you choose hearing and reflection? Do you go traveling, or do you choose hearing and reflection? Do you attend a worldly social gathering, or do you attend a Dharma assembly? You must have enough time to immerse yourself in the Buddhadharma. You also need a relatively quiet and pure place for practice—when you meditate, there must be a place where you are not easily disturbed. This place does not have to be excellent, but for beginners, it must be clean and quiet.
Three necessities, three things that must be done, to establish correct fundamental views—three times three makes nine, and this is called the “Nine Essentials of Renunciation.” (said humorously )
Only by doing this over the long term will you gradually come to understand the importance of practice, what life should be used for, and what this world is really about. Regarding practice as important belongs to the realm of values; understanding what life should be used for belongs to one’s view of life; and understanding what this world is about belongs to one’s worldview. These words are spoken for our group of fellow practitioners who are engaged in this kind of exchange. Some groups or some monastics may be rather special and may not speak in this way, but people like us truly need these things.
— Excerpted and compiled from The Seven Points of Mind Training, Lesson 02
This article is a preliminary translation draft and has not yet been reviewed or proofread by the speaker.
