Phurpa Tashi Rinpoche
When doing the preliminary practices, don't just pay attention to the number of accumulations. You should not neglect the visualizations or contemplations needed for each practice.
Try your best to make each step of the practice clearer and purer. In the Generation Stage of deity practice, it is said that the three qualities of (1) clear appearance, (2) recollection of purity and (3) stable divine pride are needed. Therefore, each stage of practice must be done properly. We should not try to get it over with in a careless and slipshod manner. The purer the practice, the better it is.
We may imagine that realization will happen all of a sudden if we just receive the higher practice. These are just fantasies. Realizations or attainments in the more advanced practices depends on how well you put effort in the earlier stages of practice. Each effort in the preceding practices adds up gradually to bring the final result.
I have met many students in many places who were very slipshod in their study and practice of the preliminary teachings. They were just eager to get through it and reach the more advanced teachings which they imagined would bring them their desired accomplishments. These students invariably end up with no results at all even after they have finished receiving all the advanced teachings. They end up like people who have not received any teachings in the first place. Usually, what happens is that these students wander to other teachers and start all over again receiving another set of teachings.
Many students say, "I have received the Dzogchen from others but I have not received the Dzogchen pith instructions from this teacher," and they come to receive these instructions all over again. This is completely unnecessary.
Today, when you practice any instruction, you are not very serious about it. You go through the process carelessly, doing it in a superficial and muddled manner. For the sake of completing some numbers or just to complete the task, you go through the motion of practicing in a mechanical way. You think that when you reach a higher stage of practice, your hoped-for results will suddenly dawn upon you like magic.
Remember this! Many practitioners who thought this way had a very bitter ending. They ended up with nothing at all. They might then go for a second or third round of teachings. Even if they come for a hundred rounds of teaching, I'm afraid nothing much will change.
Instead of this, why not regard whatever practice you are doing with total seriousness and make sure you do it well and properly. We have to remember that whatever meditative view or insight you gain in the end is always the cumulative result of every drop of effort you used on the path from the beginning. It is not that the realizations drop from the sky the moment you receive the higher teachings. This will never ever happen. Never!
Whether you are doing the preliminaries or the main Dzogchen practice, each step of the practice has to be viewed with full seriousness and done properly... the methods for each step of the practice must be fully understood and mastered. Otherwise, a slipshod approach to Dharma practice will not end well...
Whether you practice meticulously or in a slipshod manner, time passes by nonetheless. So why not value your time more? Use more effort in your practice. If all of you had practiced in a careful and precise manner, I am sure your meditative view and insight today would not merely be at its present level.
