To what degree must the mind's cognition reach before it can be called wisdom?

The cognitive faculty's cognition of the Dharma is divided into different levels or degrees. Cognition heavily obscured by afflictions is often wrong knowledge and wrong view; cognition with somewhat lighter afflictive obscuration is sometimes correct, but only relative to one's previously mistaken cognition—it is not yet completely correct. Its views have merely been turned somewhat in the correct direction, and the cognitive faculty has gained some power of wisdom (prajñā-bala), but it still cannot be called wisdom (jñāna). Wisdom is correct cognition after the afflictive obscuration has been removed; because there is no afflictive obscuration, the cognitive faculty's cognition is free from the defiling nature of afflictions, and can very clearly reveal its pure nature of wisdom. What it creates is all wholesome karma and pure karma, and it will not create unwholesome karma. At this point, wisdom is almost free of error, or has extremely little error, and is worthy of trust and reliance—only then can it be called wisdom.

When the Buddha was about to enter parinirvāṇa, He instructed sentient beings of later generations to rely on wisdom, not on consciousness. This wisdom is not the wisdom of ordinary intelligence, nor is it the wisdom of the acceptance of non-arising that arises just after attaining the fruits and seeing the mind; rather, it is the wisdom of the acceptance of the non-arising of dharmas free from afflictive obscuration, the wisdom that comes after transforming consciousness into wisdom, the wisdom of the wisdom of the varieties of paths. Just after attaining the fruits and seeing the mind, although one's wisdom is somewhat deeper than that of ordinary beings, because of afflictive obscuration, the wisdom is still rather shallow, and the defilement of the mind-ground is also quite evident; sometimes one will even create some unwholesome karma due to afflictions—this is not yet wisdom. Therefore, cognition of the Dharma at this stage can only be called wisdom-in-training, not wisdom. As long as the outcome has harmful effects, it is unwise and cannot be called wisdom; only when the outcomes are all wholesome is the action a wise one, and only then can it be called wisdom and be relied upon.

Whatever the mind consciousness of ordinary beings thinks and contemplates belongs to the nature of consciousness; the discerning and decision-making functions that arise relying on the momentum of afflictions all belong to the nature of consciousness—there is no wisdom. For noble persons who have attained the fruits and seen the mind but have not eradicated afflictions, their thinking and contemplation possess a certain degree of wisdom; the strengthening of the cognitive faculty's power of wisdom is called wisdom-in-training, but it is not yet wisdom, and on the whole it still falls within the scope of the nature of consciousness, and cannot be fully trusted and relied upon. Therefore, many people, after learning some Dharma, consider themselves how superior and transcendent—all of this falls within the scope of cognition belonging to the nature of consciousness, in which the proportion of error is still very great. So do not trust your own mind too much; such self-confidence is almost mistaken trust, a result induced by the mental factor of conceit. For many people, what they themselves consider to be non-doubt is not really non-doubt either. When wisdom is insufficient, even when there is doubt, one cannot detect it through introspection; what one takes to be fact is often not fact at all, but merely a mistaken judgment.