You must keep this
mind balanced and equanimous,
without deluded ideas of self and others,
without arbitrary loves and hates, without grasping
or rejecting, without notions of gain and loss.
Go on gradually nurturing this for
a long time, perhaps twenty
or thirty years.
Whether you encounter
favorable or adverse conditions,
do not retreat or regress — then when you
come to the juncture between life and death,
you will naturally be set free and be not afraid.
As the saying goes, “Truth requires sudden
awakening, but the phenomenal
level calls for gradual
cultivation.”