Contemplation: Practice is required

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your object of contemplation:

The conscious mind is dark and depressed; it has wandered from the right path and does not improve.  The nature of the mind is to be noisy and cluttered, and it rejects the jeweled vehicle instead of accepting it.  This is due to the dominance of cravings which obstruct the sun of wisdom like a dark cloud, and the prevalence of the cycle of birth and death, which causes the boat of contemplation to sink in the sea of suffering.  Thus the three wisdoms are hidden of themselves, and the three virtuous qualities are not manifest because of this.  Therefore practice is required.

Gishin, The Collected Teaching of the Tendai Lotus School, p. 119