The Three Uncontaminated Trainings: Discipline, Concentration, and Wisdom

When the World-Honored One dwelt in the Sahā world, He frequently taught His disciples to cultivate and study the threefold training of precepts (śīla), meditative concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā), repeatedly emphasizing: precepts give rise to samādhi, and samādhi gives rise to wisdom. Through the equal cultivation of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom, the mind can become untainted (anāsrava): observing precepts can make the mind untainted, cultivating samādhi can make the mind untainted, and the growth of wisdom can make the mind untainted; when the mind is untainted, the mind attains liberation (cetovimutti) and wisdom attains liberation (paññāvimutti), and the fruits of realization advance from stage to stage. Once the three untainted trainings of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom are brought to ultimate perfection, one is certain to attain buddhahood. 

Before enlightenment, when the threefold training of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom has been cultivated to a certain degree and correspondingly fulfilled to a certain degree, one can eliminate self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) or awaken to the true mind and attain realization; thereafter, with the further intensified cultivation of the threefold training, one can enter the first bhūmi and attain an untainted mind; with further intensified cultivation of untainted precepts, samādhi, and wisdom, one can advance from stage to stage, up to the eighth bhūmi; with further intensified cultivation, one can reach the tenth bhūmi and the stage of awaiting realization (bodhisattva-mahāsattva at the final stage); and with further intensified cultivation, once the threefold training of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom is fully perfected and complete, one can attain buddhahood.

Therefore, the threefold training of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom, as well as the three untainted trainings, are extremely important; they are the key factors for accomplishing the Buddha-Way. Among the bodhisattva's six pāramitās, three are also included: observing precepts, cultivating samādhi, and prajñā wisdom—taking the observance of precepts and the cultivation of samādhi as the foundational methods of practice, and attaining the fullness of prajñā wisdom as the final result. In the bodhisattva's six pāramitās, the study of wisdom comes after the study of samādhi. The Buddha said that wisdom arises from samādhi; the attainment of true great wisdom is necessarily brought forth from deep and subtle deliberation (manana) and contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) within meditative concentration. This is wisdom realized through actual practice, not dry wisdom spun out by sentiment and intellectual speculation. From attaining the first fruit all the way to becoming a Buddha, the entire process is like this: every intermediate stage is supported by meditative concentration, and every kind of wisdom is the result of meditative concentration.