What Are the Essential Cultivations a Mahayana Practitioner Should Possess?

Now many people claim to engage in actual practice, but what truly constitutes actual practice? Some say that cultivating precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom belongs to the practice of the Hinayana, while Mahayana practice does not need to adhere strictly to precepts and meditative absorption. They assert that as long as one possesses correct knowledge and right views, one can realize the Path, claiming that "only the correctness of the essential point matters, not your conduct." This touches upon the issue of actual practice in the Mahayana, which is essentially the actual practice of the Dharma. For in practicing the Dharma, there is no distinction between Mahayana and Hinayana; wherever there is ignorance, it must be eradicated. If a single instance of ignorance remains, one cannot attain Buddhahood. If the initial ignorance is not severed, how could subsequent ignorance be eliminated? Only when the preceding ignorance is severed are the obscurations removed, enabling the subsequent ignorance to be eradicated. If coarse ignorance remains unsevered, how could the subtle and profound ignorance be cut off?

How then should Mahayana be practiced? What is "actual"? What is "practice"? Is Mahayana something that exists apart from Hinayana, emerging by diverging from it? Or does Mahayana necessarily include Hinayana to exist? Must it transcend Hinayana to be Mahayana? Are all the attainments of the Hinayana unnecessary for a Mahayana Bodhisattva? Could a Mahayana Bodhisattva truly be a Bodhisattva without possessing the precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom of the Hinayana? The Hinayana aims to sever afflictions; does a Mahayana Bodhisattva not need to sever afflictions? Can one cultivate deeply while carrying afflictions and still attain Buddhahood? The Hinayana involves meditative concentration; does a Mahayana Bodhisattva not need to possess concentration? Practitioners of Hinayana abandon evil and cultivate good; does a Mahayana Bodhisattva not do the same? Are the character and cultivation of the Hinayana unnecessary for a Mahayana Bodhisattva? Should a Mahayana Bodhisattva possess inferior character and cultivation compared to a Hinayana practitioner?

The qualities possessed by a Hinayana practitioner should all be present in a Mahayana Bodhisattva. All Mahayana Bodhisattvas have progressed step by step through the study and practice of the Hinayana. The Mahayana Bodhisattva who realizes the true meaning, having realized the Tathagatagarbha and directly perceived its nature and function, possesses a mind and conduct that are more pure and non-artificial. This is something unimaginable and incomprehensible to those within the Hinayana who have not attained this realization. If a student presumes the status of a Mahayana Bodhisattva, then they ought to possess the cultivation of the Hinayana: be fully endowed with precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom; have subdued and eradicated coarse afflictions; and certainly possess meditative concentration and wisdom. Their mind must be virtuous, and their character and cultivation must absolutely surpass that of ordinary beings and Hinayana practitioners. Otherwise, they cannot convincingly claim to be a Mahayana practitioner; instead, they are merely arrogant fools who disdain the small (Hinayana) yet cannot grasp the great (Mahayana).