There are ten types of practitioners who usually fall into the evil perverse ways
2025-03-13
Lecture by Master Zhiyi
There are ten kinds of practitioners who have different aspirations to practice Zen. They usually fall into the wrong path and do not enter the Zen Paramita Dharma. What are the ten?
1. Those who set out to practice meditation for the sake of profit belong to the mind set in the hells.
2. Motives of evil and hypocrisy, such as cultivating Zen for the sake of gaining fame and praise, is a mind of ghosts and gods.
3. To cultivate meditation for the sake of one's family is a mind of an animal.
4. To cultivate meditation out of jealousy and the desire to defeat others is an Asura mind.
5. To cultivate meditation out of fear of the sufferings of the evil paths and to appease one's bad karma is human mind.
6. To cultivate meditation for the sake of goodness and happiness belongs to the mind of the six desire heavens.
7. To cultivate meditation for the sake of gaining power and freedom is a Māra mind.
8. To cultivate meditation in order to gain quick intelligence is a Tirthika mind.
9. To practice meditation for the purpose of rebirth in Brahmā heaven is a mind belonging to the realm of form and the realm of formlessness.
10. To cultivate meditation in order to overcome the sufferings of old age, sickness and death and to quickly attain Nirvana belongs to the mind of the Two Vehicles (Pratyekabuddhayāna and Śrāvaka).
Among these ten types of practitioners, although there are differences in good and evil, there are differences in bondage and liberation.
Since they do not have great compassion and correct vision, their minds are perverse and they have fallen into the two extremes. If one does not follow the middle path and remain in this state of mind while practicing meditation, one will never be able to correspond with Zen Pāramitā method.
