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AI summary
In our spiritual practice and self-cultivation, we have various methods available, whether it's through zen meditation or other practices. There's a simple yet crucial key: we must actually practice – without practice, there can be no attainment.
Zen Meditation
The first prerequisite in each sitting session is to stop wandering thoughts. This is the foundation of developing the power of concentration. Without stopping wandering thoughts, there can be no power of concentration. With the power of concentration comes eighteen supernatural powers. These supernatural abilities include levitation, the ability to transform from small to large or large to small, emanating fire from the upper body and water from the lower body, and various other transformations.
Wisdom Liberation
After stopping wandering thoughts, one won't be interested in playing with supernatural powers but will instead enter into the realm of life itself. This is called the manifestation of life-awareness, which truly transcends the three realms – this is the real excellence. When life-awareness manifests, it is the realm of the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, and at this point, transcendence becomes limitless.
The current challenge is that I might fail a hundred times out of a hundred attempts. It might take ten million attempts before achieving success once. After the first success, the second time might take only a million attempts.
During one stick of incense worth of sitting meditation, if one truly applies their heart and uses the correct method, there might be hundreds of thousands of failures, all defeated and captured by wandering thoughts. During that one stick of incense, while battling with wandering thoughts, the failure rate is extremely high.
Once you successfully stop wandering thoughts and break through, experiencing one moment of life-realm manifestation, the second time might take only one-tenth as many attempts. The third time might take a hundred thousand attempts, and by the fourth time, you might experience it once during each stick of incense.
For someone practicing diligently, their state might manifest after about a year. At this point, out of ten incense sticks, they might succeed two or three times – this is called success. When eight or nine out of ten attempts are successful, this is called achievement, meaning nearly every attempt succeeds. When all ten attempts are successful, two or three of these might breakthrough to the second stage – this is called maturity.
When one can enter the second stage all ten times, two or three of these might breakthrough to the third stage – this is called transcendence, which also requires countless moments of maturity. Practice progresses from failure to success, success to achievement, achievement to maturity, and after countless moments of maturity, naturally leads to awakening and buddhahood. This is how it works.
When one method is truly penetrated in this way, all methods are penetrated. This is what it means to deeply enter through one door – one method is sufficient. If you sit in meditation without even having a questioning mind, that's called "dead wood zen" – it might feel comfortable, but it's not enough.
You must carry forward your questioning mind to verify. The key lies in this simple point: stopping wandering thoughts, and there's only one method – fixing the mind on one point. When you fix your mind on one point and maintain that questioning mind, these provide a place for your mind to settle, naturally pushing your life toward the highest and most perfect state, leading to repeated transcendence!
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