The Three Steps of Practice ── Precept, Meditation, and Wisdom

　
    There is an order in the practice of Buddhism; it starts with the easiest, increases slowly, and reaches the most difficult practice, and then attains the highest perfect Enlightenment. These three steps are precept, meditation, and wisdom, that is, keeping precepts, entering meditation, and attaining wisdom.
　
. Keeping precepts
　
    Precepts are the foundation of Buddhism. Only by doing a good job of the foundation can we continue to practice deeper Buddhism; practice without precepts is like a house without a foundation, which will easily fall and collapse. The most basic precepts are Five Precepts: no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no lying, and no drinking, which can be said to be the foundation of the foundation of Buddhism. If we keep the precepts well, our practice can get twice the result with half the effort; if we don’t keep the precepts, we won’t be able to progress to the next step: meditation. The purpose of keeping precepts is to reduce greed, anger, and ignorance in daily life, and make these three negative states easier to be controlled and restrained, and then there is the possibility to calm the mind and think about the Dharma. The most common greeds are: money, lust, fame, food and sleep; we often craving these five things unrestrainedly. How to control greed? First of all, we must always stay alert in our daily lives and constantly be aware of our own behaviors and thoughts. When we find that we have greedy behaviors or thoughts, we must tell ourselves: "I have generated greed" and stop the greedy behavior or thought. For example, when we are dining and seeing delicious food on the table, we may become greedy for food —— wanting to eat this, and also wanting to eat that; we even will eat beyond our own load ; At this time, we should be aware in time that we have generated the desire of eating a big meal, and then tell ourselves: "I should not be greedy for food", and stop the idea of ​​wanting to eat a big meal, do not indulge ourselves on delicious food. This kind of practice method to control thoughts at the right time and not to indulge one's desires is ‘keeping precepts’.
　
. Entering meditation
　
    When we have been able to control our greed at the right time, we can continue our practice towards "meditation"; what is meditation? It is to calm your mind, let the mind focus on one thing, and stop thinking about worldly things chaotically. Meditation is the foundation of wisdom. Only after the mind is calm, we can think and observe the truth of all things. Sitting meditation is one of the methods of meditation. We sit on the cushion, count the number of breaths we take and observe the breathing air coming in and out when we breathe, and then the mind will slowly calm down and reach a state of concentration; when this state is deep enough , Even if we leave the cushion and no longer sit, we can still maintain a shallow concentration; this state can change our observation and cognition of all things, and gradually, we will be able to clearly observe the real phenomenon of all things
　
. Attaining wisdom
　
    The so-called "wisdom" is not exactly the same as the “intelligence'' mentioned in the world. Wisdom is the conclusion attained after in-depth observation of the universe and life; after oattaining the highest wisdom, we call the man an enlightened person. The necessary condition for wisdom is meditation, and a disorganized mind cannot gain wisdom. Wisdom in a broad sense includes thoughts such as non-self, emptiness, tathagata-garbha, Middle Way, Mind-only and so on. As our understanding of Buddhist Dharma becomes deeper and deeper, our state of wisdom will be improved step by step, and our annoyances and doubts will also gradually decrease as we improve; the body and mind will also become more and more free and easy. The "understanding" mentioned here means that one can personally and undoubtedly prove the authenticity of these theories, rather than seeing and hearing other people's point of views and then following or guessing. After we have truly personally observed the true phenomena of all things of the universe and life, we have attained the highest wisdom, that is, we have attained the state of Buddha, and we will remove birth-and-death, annoyances and doubts, and no longer suffer in reincarnation.
　
　
    “All high buildings are built from the ground”; the practice must start from the foundation, and then build up little by little. Don't aim too high or be “with great wishes and bad implementations". If the foundation is unstable, the practice will often regress and it is difficult to obtain real benefits. Avoid it, be careful!

　
　

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