Buddhadharma is like an immense mountain

with 84,000 paths leading to the peak:

enlightenment.

Choose and stick to just one path.

To reach the summit of a mountain in the most efficient manner, climbers choose one route. Depending on their abilities, some might take a safer path, others a more difficult one. Once the path is chosen, they stick to it. They do not keep trying different paths or they would end up going around the mountain instead of up it, thereby wasting time and energy.

Our practice is the same.

With the summit as our goal, we choose the path that fits our abilities and conditions. Like the climbers, we too need to stick to our chosen path. Taking our eyes off our goal, we can become enthralled by the path next to us. “It looks easier!” “It looks more challenging!” “I’ll try it!”

Becoming enamored of trying different paths, we will end up circling the mountain as we begin to lose sight of our goal of attaining the summit.