前行

I. What This Concept Is About

1. The Hardest Truth

In the *Lamrim Chenmo* (《菩提道次第略论》), when discussing the "preliminary practices" (前行), it first offers a statement that is anything but self-help platitude: 「若無此二，道極難生」— "Without these two, the path is extremely difficult to generate." If you do not do these two things, the path you wish to cultivate will barely get off the ground.

These two things are: first, accumulating the conducive conditions and merit (集聚顺缘资粮), and second, purifying the adverse conditions and obstacles (清净逆缘障碍). In other words, genuine transformation has never been a matter of "once I understand it, I'm done" — it requires you to continuously add to your vessel and continuously clean out what is dirty within it. The path can only arise when both are done simultaneously and persistently.

This statement is the foundation of the entire concept of "preliminary practices."

2. The Three-Phase Structure of Each Session

In the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, each meditation session is divided into three phases: preliminary (前行), main practice (正行), and concluding practice (结行). The original outline states:

己一　前行，己二　正行，己三　結行。 *(Section One: Preliminary; Section Two: Main Practice; Section Three: Concluding Practice.)*

The preliminary comes first — it is the entire period of preparation you undertake before entering the main practice (the core meditation, contemplation, mantra recitation, etc.). Its source is explicitly attributed in the text: 「前行有六法，是金洲大師傳記所說」 — "The preliminary has six methods, as stated in the biography of Master Suvarnadvīpa."

Master Suvarnadvīpa (金洲大師, *Suvarnadvīpa*), a scholar of the Nālandā monastic system in India, transmitted the bodhisattva practices to Master Atiśa (阿底峡尊者); after Atiśa entered Tibet, this lineage became the most central transmission of the *Lamrim* (《菩提道次第》) series. The statement "as stated in the biography of Master Suvarnadvīpa" tells you: this is not an expedient device invented by some patriarch on his own, but an order of practice with a clear lineage and provenance. In the tradition, this gives the entire preliminary practice its credibility.

3. The Six Methods of the Preliminary (Six Steps That Must Be Completed in Full)

The preliminary consists of six things in total; miss even one, and the session is not properly opened:

One: Sweep and purify the meditation room; set up the Buddha image. Sweep the room clean and arrange the Buddha image. The term "quiet room" (静室) is crucial — not a living room, not a bedroom, but a place specifically for the mind to settle. "Setting up the Buddha image" is likewise not decoration, but a clear visual anchor telling the mind: "this place is not elsewhere."

Two: Arrange offerings — solemn, yet not agitating. Set out offerings that are solemn but do not distract the mind (or the person). In the tradition these are often water, incense, lamps, and flowers — all quiet, upward-tending, and stable things. The four characters "庄严而不荡动" (solemn, not stirring) are the core: offerings should settle the mind, not set it to restless appreciation.

Three: Sit on a comfortable seat; keep the spine straight; sit in full or half lotus posture. Find a comfortable cushion, sit with legs crossed or half-crossed, spine straight. This is physical preparation. The body is the vessel of practice, not an object to be ascetically tortured — "comfortable" is so that you can sit for a long time without the body distracting you; "straight" is for the free flow of the channels and winds, and to avoid drowsiness and scattering.

Four: From this preparatory action, take refuge and generate bodhicitta; give rise to the determination, and mix your mental continuum with that of the teacher. From the three preceding external preparations, naturally enter internal preparation: taking refuge (in the Three Jewels) and generating bodhicitta (the mind of awakening). "当生决定" — determine that awakening will happen in this very life, not "someday in a future life." "自续混合" — connect your own mental continuum with that of the guru and the Three Jewels. This is not self-suggestion; it is a complete redirection of the mind's orientation.

Five: Visualize the gathering of the guru and the buddhas. Imagine that in the space before you sits your root guru, surrounded by countless buddhas and bodhisattvas, śrāvakas, pratyekabuddhas, and dharma protectors as attendants. This is bringing the lineage into presence within your own mind. The text emphasizes "甚深见广大行所传承" — "the lineage transmitted through the profound view and the vast conduct" — meaning that what this guru transmits to you is not merely techniques, but the convergence of two bloodlines: the correct view of emptiness and the vast bodhisattva aspirations and deeds.

Six: The sequential practice of the seven-branch offering (七支供) — which is the "seven branches" discussed below.

4. The End of the Six Methods: The Seven-Branch Offering

The final of the six methods is the sequential practice of the seven branches — abbreviated as the "seven-branch offering." These seven branches are the focal point of the entire preliminary, because they are precisely the concrete unfolding of the two tasks: "accumulating merit" and "purifying obstacles."

The seven branches, in order:

1. Prostration (顶礼, honoring) 2. Offering (供养, presenting) 3. Exhortation (激励, self-celebration, urging oneself and others to diligence) 4. Rejoicing (随喜, delighting in the goodness of others) 5. Confession (忏悔, purifying one's own mind) 6. Requesting the turning of the dharma wheel (请转法轮, requesting the teaching) 7. Requesting the buddhas to remain (请佛住世, requesting they not enter parinirvāṇa) and dedication (回向, dedicating all virtue to all beings)

These seven branches have clearly differentiated functions; they are not seven more-or-less similar good deeds:

- The five branches of prostration, offering, exhortation, dedication, and rejoicing primarily function to accumulate merit; - Confession is specifically for purifying karmic obscurations; - Rejoicing has a special quality: it can increase the virtuous karma of both self and other; - Dedication has a special quality: it can multiply small virtue into great, and cause temporarily arisen virtuous fruits never to be exhausted.

When practicing, one should "clearly visualize and offer the mandala" (明显攀缘而供曼札) — clearly contemplating the offering mandala, in order to counteract distorted attitudes such as disrespect toward the spiritual teacher; all inner and outer obstacles should be prayed away through the forceful recitation of "息灭请加持" ("please grant blessings to pacify").

5. The Prostration Branch, Elaborated to the Extreme

Among the seven branches, "prostration" receives the most detailed expansion. It is divided into the encompassing of the three gates and the separate prostrations of body, speech, and mind:

- The encompassing prostration: gathering body, speech, and mind, focusing on all buddhas of the ten directions and three times, honoring them from the deepest part of the mind. - Body prostration: visualizing your body multiplying into as many as atoms and dust-motes, each body prostrating simultaneously. - Mind prostration: further visualizing that upon each mote of dust there are as many buddhas as there are motes, and before each buddha you are prostrating. - Speech prostration: visualizing yourself manifesting countless heads and countless tongues, praising with sublime sound.

This passage is the most baffling for contemporary people. But it is not an "imagination contest" — it is a technique for diluting the "I". Through visualization, the "I" transforms from a single, fixed, reified body into countless ones; the "Buddha" transforms from a distant object into something pervading every grain of dust. This is the preheating for the "no-self" (无我) meditation that will come in the main practice.

II. A Walk-Through in Daily Life

Let us posit a scenario: you, Lin Ran, work as a designer in a first-tier city. You have meditated intermittently for two years, but in the last three months, the more you sit, the more numb you feel — the mind is like a pot of boiling water; thoughts arise and cannot be grasped, and when they leave, more come and you grasp at them again. After every sit you say, "Next time I will be more serious," but the next time is the same.

This weekend morning, you decide to stop deceiving yourself. You will give today's sitting a real "opening." Let us follow you, step by step through the six methods of the preliminary.

Step One: Sweep the quiet room; set up the Buddha image.

You first clean off your desk — the computer you left on from last night's overtime, the pile of project documents, the half-cold cup of tea — all moved away. You open the window and let the cold morning air in. Then you stand the dust-covered copy of the *Lamrim* (《菩提道次第略论》) upright at the center of the desk, and beside it you place the small Buddha image your teacher gave you at your refuge ceremony.

The most common place to go wrong at this step: you think "cleaning" is merely ritual, even slightly formalistic. But the classic instruction "sweep the quiet room" emphasizes "quiet" and "placement." Quiet means the space is not occupied by today's affairs; placement means giving the mind a clear "this place is not elsewhere." What you sweep is not the floor — it is the mind. What you move away is not the teacup — it is the past twenty-four hours. This step is the physical establishment of the practice space.

Step Two: Arrange offerings — solemn, yet not agitating.

You pour a glass of clear water into a glass cup and light a stick of sandalwood incense — the kind you don't ordinarily burn. No flowers — there were none suitable. The smoke of the incense rises slowly, without drifting erratically.

The most common place to go wrong: contemporary people either think offerings are "food" for the buddhas and bodhisattvas (a transactional mentality), or they think it is "self-indulgent sentimentality." In fact, the core function of offerings is to give the mind a solemn external object to anchor upon. Water is level; incense smoke rises upward without wavering — this is the physical counterpart to "the mind must be stable." The four characters "庄严而不荡动" must be remembered: if the offerings are too lavish, too numerous, too changeable, they instead agitate the mind — which defeats the purpose.

Step Three: Sit on a comfortable seat; keep the spine straight.

You cross your legs on the cushion — left leg on top, half-lotus. You place two cushions behind your back so the spine can be straight without stiffness. You adjust your posture several times, confirming that breathing is smooth, with neither drowsiness nor tension.

The most common place to go wrong: either you treat posture as the practice itself — posture for posture's sake, enduring until your legs go completely numb and you still keep going; or you think posture doesn't matter — "as long as the mind is fine" — and so you sit crookedly, leaning against the wall, slumping down. The classic instruction "sit on a comfortable seat" is not telling you to pamper yourself, but to keep the body from becoming a burden to the practice. Uprightness is for the free flow of channels and winds, so the mind is not dragged down by the body. The body is the vessel, not the protagonist.

Step Four: Take refuge and generate bodhicitta.

You close your eyes. You pause for a few seconds.

Then you remember why you sit — not because "I'm in a bad mood today and need to fix it," and not for "checking in." You recall the week six months ago when your mother was hospitalized and you couldn't sit at all; you recall the sharp exchange with your colleague after last month's project failure. You remember what your teacher said to you then: "You practice this not for your own comfort, but to walk out of suffering yourself, and to be able to help others walk out of suffering too."

Silently, you take refuge: I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Saṅgha. Then you generate the aspiration: May this session today bring all beings connected to me release from suffering and attainment of happiness.

The most common place to go wrong: treating refuge and bodhicitta as a positive-psychology-style "self-motivation" — "I must try harder! I must succeed!" — which is the complete commodification of the Dharma. Refuge is turning from dependencies outside the Three Jewels (power, relationships, status) toward the Three Jewels as the fundamental reliance; bodhicitta is turning from "me" to "all beings." This is the dissolution of self-centeredness, not the strengthening of "self." "当生决定，自续混合" — "self-continuum mixing" is especially important: connect your mental continuum with that of the guru and the Three Jewels. This is not a technical maneuver; it is a complete reset of the mind's direction.

Step Five: Visualize the gathering of the guru and the buddhas.

You begin to visualize. Your root guru — the elderly master who taught you the *Bodhicaryāvatāra* (《入菩萨行论》) — sits in the space before you, wearing yellow monastic robes, his face serene. Behind him are Atiśa, Suvarnadvīpa, Tsongkhapa, Mañjuśrī, Avalokiteśvara, Kṣitigarbha — patriarchs and buddhas and bodhisattvas gathered in layered circles. You know these are not images; they are your lineage made present in your mind.

The most common place to go wrong: treating visualization as an "imagination exercise" — a kind of inner-imagery practice, somewhat like guided visualization in psychology. No. The core of visualization is making "lineage" a real presence in your mind. You are not meditating alone; you have the guru, the lineage patriarchs, and the buddhas and bodhisattvas as companions. Behind this lies a very deep worldview: the path is not something you invented yourself — it has a source; your effort is an act of continuing a bloodline that has never been cut for thousands of years.

After the visualization, you feel your body is less rigid, your mind less alone. This is the immediate effect of "accumulating conducive conditions and merit" manifesting in your body and mind.

Step Six: The seven-branch offering.

You begin to recite, following the order of the seven branches:

1. Prostration — you imagine yourself manifesting countless bodies, all prostrating simultaneously to all buddhas of the ten directions and three times; then imagine buddhas upon every mote of dust, with you prostrating before each; then imagine countless heads and countless tongues, praising the qualities of the buddhas. (You know clearly in your mind: this is not delusion — it is diluting the "I," loosening the "I" from being pinned to a single point. This is the preheating for the later "no-self" meditation.)

2. Offering — you visualize presenting celestial nectar, all manner of sublime objects, the most beautiful things in the universe, simultaneously to all buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the guru.

3. Exhortation — you recollect your past virtuous roots, recollect your vows and aspirations, and urge yourself to continue with diligence.

4. Rejoicing — you remember a friend whose project recently succeeded beautifully, and you genuinely rejoice for them; you remember an unknown person who donated a sum of money to children in Tibetan regions, and you genuinely rejoice for them too.

5. Confession — you recall last month's sharp exchange, the word you should not have said, the statement you knew was wrong but did not retract; you acknowledge it in your mind, and request purification.

6. Requesting the turning of the dharma wheel — you request the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the guru to turn the wheel of dharma for a long time, that the true dharma may not be extinguished.

7. Requesting the buddhas to remain, and dedication — you request the buddhas and bodhisattvas to remain in the world for a long time, not entering parinirvāṇa; then you dedicate all the virtue of this session to all beings.

The most common place to go wrong: treating the seven branches as a moral checklist or self-affirmation exercise — "I've completed another task, good." But each branch has a differentiated function: prostration, offering, exhortation, dedication, and rejoicing are accumulating merit (adding things to your vessel); confession is purifying obscurations (removing the dirty things from your vessel); rejoicing's special function is increasing the virtue of both self and other; dedication's special function is making small virtue great and temporary virtue inexhaustible. They are not seven similar deeds; they are seven tools with different functions.

Closing.

You open your eyes. The true "contemplative practice" of this session has not yet begun, but you already feel: your vessel has changed. The external room is clean; the offerings have given the mind an anchor; the body can sit; the mind's direction is set; the lineage is present in your mind; some merit has been accumulated, and some obstacles have been cleared.

This is precisely the purpose of the preliminary: to allow the path to arise.

III. Why Contemporary People Need It

1. Our Deepest Illusion Is That "Change Only Requires Understanding"

The greatest myth of contemporary life: as long as I become aware of it, the problem is solved. Psychology bestsellers, self-growth courses, chicken-soup-for-the-soul — all sell the same illusion: after you read that book, do that exercise, write that journal page, tomorrow you will have changed.

The classic responds with hardness: 「若無此二，道極難生」 — without these two, the path is extremely difficult to arise.

Understanding is the business of the main practice. But whether the main practice can even occur depends on whether your vessel has anything in it, and whether there is anything dirty in it. If you still have unspoken words, unacknowledged wrongs, unresolved resentments, unexhausted karma — you may sit there for a hundred years, and "understanding" will only be a flash of light that extinguishes the moment it appears.

The preliminary is the process of preparing the vessel, of doing both the accumulation and the purification.

2. In an Age of Instant Feedback, We Have Lost the Wisdom of Preparation

Our entire way of life rewards the "instant": one swipe and there is new content, one swipe and there is a new match, one request and there is an immediate response. We have lost the capacity to patiently prepare for something that will only show results after a long time.

Almost everything the preliminary does is "preparing for something that may happen later." Sweeping, offering, adjusting the body, taking refuge, visualizing, the seven branches — none of these gives you immediate feedback. Their value only manifests at the time of the main practice, or when you next face a concrete situation in life.

In a world of instant feedback, persistently doing things that give "no instant feedback" is itself a form of counter-training — it trains a capacity: I can prepare the vessel for something I believe will happen but has not yet happened.

3. We Have Lost "Lineage" and Are Left Only with "Ourselves"

One of the deepest insecurities of contemporary people is that "everything can only rely on oneself." No one transmits to you, no one receives from you, no one has walked the same road before you.

The fifth method of the preliminary directly addresses this: visualizing the gathering of the guru and the buddhas. This is not superstition — it is making real in your mind the fact that "I am not doing this alone." You sit there, and behind you runs a bloodline from Suvarnadvīpa to Atiśa to Tsongkhapa to your guru to you — thousands of years. This feeling of being "held" is the key psychological foundation that allows you to keep going.

4. It Gives You a Sense of Order

The path has sequence. Preliminary → main practice → concluding practice. Accumulation → purification → contemplation. If the foundation is not laid, the main practice cannot be entered; if the preliminary is not walked in full, the main practice is not properly opened.

The greatest temptation of contemporary life is leaping: skipping the foundation to demand results, skipping the practice to demand "enlightenment," skipping patience to demand "sudden awakening." The preliminary gives us a sense of order — of honestly completing each step in sequence. This sense of order is a scarce commodity in every field.

IV. Common Misreadings and Clarifications

Misreading One: "The preliminary is a dispensable ritual"

Clarification: The classic states plainly: "若無此二，道極難生" — without these two, the path is extremely difficult to arise. It is not a dispensable decoration; it is a precondition for whether the path can arise at all. Without it, no matter how lively the main practice appears, it is merely "sitting there."

Misreading Two: "The preliminary is only external form"

Clarification: Form is the anchor that allows the mind to settle; it is not form for form's sake. The six methods proceed from the external (sweeping, offerings, posture) to the internal (refuge and bodhicitta, visualization, the seven branches) — a complete preparation. Form and mind are undivided — whether you are genuinely settling your mind in the very act of sweeping matters more than how clean you sweep.

Misreading Three: "Refuge and bodhicitta are positive thinking or self-motivation"

Clarification: This is the easiest error of the contemporary age. Refuge is a complete reversal of direction — from reliance outside the Three Jewels to reliance on the Three Jewels; bodhicitta is turning from "I" to "all beings." This is the dissolution of self-centeredness, not its reinforcement. If, while reciting refuge and bodhicitta, what you think is "I want to be more successful, I want to be more disciplined" — that is practicing self-centeredness within the practice, completely contrary to the intent of the tradition.

Misreading Four: "Visualization is imagination"

Clarification: Imagination is "I conjure a mental image." Visualization is making a cognitive structure genuinely accessible and real in the mind. Visualizing the gathering of guru and buddhas is not "I painted a picture of my teacher in front of me," but "the teacher's lineage is truly present within my existence." These two are entirely different psychological acts. The test of visualization: after you finish, do you feel "I am not walking this path alone." If you still feel utterly solitary, the visualization has not truly occurred.

Misreading Five: "The seven-branch offering is a moral checklist"

Clarification: The seven branches are not seven similar deeds; they are seven tools with clearly assigned functions. Prostration, offering, exhortation, dedication, rejoicing — accumulating merit (adding to the vessel); confession — purifying obscurations (removing the dirty from the vessel); rejoicing — increasing the virtue of self and other; dedication — making small virtue great, temporary virtue inexhaustible. Not a single branch is there to fill a quota.

Misreading Six: "Manifesting countless bodies in prostration is delusion"

Clarification: This is the part contemporary people find most confusing. But this passage is not at all an "imagination exercise" — it is the preheating for the view of "no-self." Visualizing the "I" multiplying into as many as atoms and dust-motes is transforming the "I" from a fixed, singular, reified body into something that can divide, circulate, and disperse; visualizing "buddhas on every mote of dust" is allowing the "Buddha" to penetrate everywhere, no longer a distant object. Together, these two acts pre-loosen the grasping at self. If, while doing this visualization, what you think is "I'm opening my mind's eye," it means you are still operating from self-grasping — and you must begin again from step one.

Misreading Seven: "I can do without lineage; self-study is enough"

Clarification: The classic states plainly that this is "是金洲大師傳記所說" — "as stated in the biography of Master Suvarnadvīpa" — and the fifth method of the preliminary explicitly requires visualizing "甚深見廣大行所傳承根本上師" — the root guru of the lineage of the profound view and vast conduct. Lineage is not decoration; it is part of the preliminary. This is not to say you cannot practice without lineage; it is to say that in a practice without lineage, the preliminary breaks at the fifth method — the fact that "I am not practicing alone" cannot stand in your mind. In an age where everything can be "self-taught," this is the deepest confrontation with the times.

Misreading Eight: "The preliminary equals the Tibetan Buddhist 'ngöndro' (the 100,000-prostration type of practice)"

Clarification: These are two different concepts and must be kept apart. The "preliminary" (前行) discussed in this material is the preparatory segment at the opening of each meditation session — a short-period (minutes to half an hour) ritualized preparation. The traditional Tibetan "ngöndro" (加行, Tibetan *sngon 'gro*) is a long-term, cumulative, quantitative practice — for example, 100,000 prostrations, 100,000 mantra recitations, 100,000 mandala offerings — designed to transform the mind through long-term repetition. The two operate at different levels. This concept is the former; the latter is outside the scope of this material, but readers readily confuse them when hearing of both, hence this clarification.

Conclusion

The preliminary is placed at the very beginning of each session for a simple and profound reason: the path is not something you conjure up alone; it requires a set of conditions; if the conditions are incomplete, the path does not arise. The classic does not teach you "how to attain enlightenment" — it first teaches you "how, at the opening of every session, to assemble the conditions under which the path can arise."

This may be the wisdom this age most lacks — the willingness to prepare the vessel for something you believe in but have not yet seen.

「前行有六法，是金洲大師傳記所說。」「若無此二，道極難生。」 *"The preliminary has six methods, as stated in the biography of Master Suvarnadvīpa." "Without these two, the path is extremely difficult to arise."*

When these two sentences are remembered together, the preliminary has truly begun.