The Buddha's warning label in the previous post seems a very difficult prescription: we are to learn and "know for ourselves" which "qualities" are to be abandoned and which are to be "adopted and carried out" by "entering and remaining in them". Learning and applying all this looks like a long, hard slog.
Fortunately, the lam rim breaks this up into small steps, and each step builds on what you have learned in previous steps. But why bother? The Buddha gives us the Four Assurances:
"...one who is a disciple of the noble ones — with a mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, and pure — acquires four assurances in the here and now:
"'If there is a world after death, if there is the fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then this is the basis by which, with the break-up of the body, after death, I will reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.' This is the first assurance.
"'But if there is no world after death, if there is no fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then here in the present life I look after myself with ease — free from hostility, free from ill will, free from trouble.' This is the second assurance.
"'If evil is done through acting, still I have willed no evil for anyone. Having done no evil action, from where will suffering touch me?' This is the third assurance.
"'But if no evil is done through acting, then I can assume myself pure in both respects.' This is the fourth assurance."
"Kalama Sutta: To the Kalamas" (AN 3.65).
Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight, 30 November 2013
Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Access to Insight, 30 November 2013
NEXT: Why Bother? (2) What The Bible Says
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