Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

a. The lower practitioner for him there are four stages of
Dharma-reflection:
i. He should first consider how impermanent life is, how
rare it is to receive a good birth, how difficult among all
other states it is to become a human being, and even
then how few have the chance to hear the Buddha's
teachings.
ii. He then reflects upon the miserable states of birth
lower than human: the realms of ghosts, beasts, and
dwellers in hell, and their miseries: respectively,
insatiable craving, ignorance, and tortures.
iii. Although every dharma is void, karma still has its
result and this he should ponder. If one does not realize
sunyata, then experience of karma-fruits, painful as well
as pleasant, must continue.
iv. Lastly, the lower practitioner has to confess sincerely
all his evil deeds.
b. For the middle practitioner there are two principal
subjects for reflection: the Four Noble Truths and
understanding the teaching of the Twelve Links (nidana)
of the causal chain (pratitya-samutpada).
c. Two distinct stages are shown for the highest
practitioner. First comes the Bodhicittopada, or the
arising of the wisdom-mind and its development. Then
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