Someone asked about the steps for entering the inner path of practice.

Why some people can't sit in meditation at all The teacher explained that beginning practitioners face a great deal of inner impurity. Some find it unbearable — the moment they close their eyes, they feel crushed and pressured, unable to sit at all. This happens because their proportion of wholesomeness isn't strong enough at that stage of their journey, which relates to the perfections (paramis) they've built up over lifetimes. Wherever a perfection is weak, building it further is hard, so that weak spot needs "repairing" — deliberately, repeatedly doing more than usual to strengthen it.

Building the ten perfections in daily life The teacher distinguished "seeking merit" — traveling to a source of merit on a special occasion, where the gathered group's collective field helps refine everyone's merit and purify it before returning it to each person — from "building perfections," which must be done continuously from the moment you wake, since the perfections function like an inner reactor driving the whole of your life through samsara.

He then sketched each perfection in turn. Generosity aims to root out stinginess, both material and Dhamma-giving; the more we give, the more people trust us, until we're accepted as a leader who can set the rules that keep a community peaceful — which is why virtue (sīla) follows as the second perfection, for safety and mutual trust. Renunciation is the gradual withdrawal from sensuality into inner dimensions, which gives rise to wisdom that sees problems clearly. Wisdom itself begins as "wisdom from hearing" (memorized through repeated attention) and "wisdom from reflection" (understanding), before reaching "wisdom from meditation" — knowledge not found in ordinary memory at all, accessible only through purity connecting with the inner knower.

When understanding becomes clear enough to produce a vision, that vision fuels inspiration, which carries over into the perfection of effort. But effort alone has limits once real suffering appears, which is why endurance is needed — endurance carries a kind of armor that shields against torment. Each time we push through a barrier of suffering, a stronger layer of that armor forms, ready for the next barrier, until we reach a point ordinary human strength cannot cross alone. There, truthfulness connects us with the Triple Gem and Nibbana; once the mind becomes one with that ultimate truth, the perfection of determination bears fruit as intended. Loving-kindness follows — the Buddha taught that even a finger-snap's worth of loving-kindness carries more merit than giving alms continuously for seven days and nights, since it directly nourishes wholesomeness itself. Equanimity comes last: the capacity to hold the mind in balance, neither delighting nor resisting, which is what finally opens the way to liberation.

The sequence of experience in meditation Practice, the teacher said, always depends on how much wholesomeness we currently carry. Too little, and sitting is agonizing to the point of being impossible; push through anyway, and it moves from unbearable to merely difficult, then gradually the hindrances thin out until sitting is no longer tormenting at all. From there the mind enters the inner dimension — dim at first — before brightness and happiness appear, sometimes one before the other, sometimes together, growing clearer over time until it can be controlled: shrunk, expanded, moved forward or back. Once these inner spheres merge into one, they rise to what's called the seventh base, entering in turn the sphere of virtue, of concentration, and finally the inner sphere of Dhamma itself — a process that depends entirely on sustained, unwavering awareness.