Śīla, Samādhi, and Prajñā Are the Key Factors for Accomplishing All Dharmas

When the World-Honored One dwelt in the Saha world, He often 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 concentration, and concentration gives rise to wisdom. Through the study of precepts, concentration, and wisdom, the mind can become untainted (anāsrava): keeping the precepts can make the mind untainted, cultivating concentration can make the mind untainted, and the growth of wisdom can make the mind untainted; when the mind is untainted, the mind can attain liberation and wisdom can attain liberation, with the stages of fruition advancing bhūmi by bhūmi. After the three untainted trainings of precepts, concentration, and wisdom are brought to ultimate perfection, one is certain to become a Buddha.

Before enlightenment, when the threefold training of precepts, concentration, and wisdom has been cultivated to a certain degree and correspondingly fulfilled to a certain degree, one can eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) or see the mind and attain realization; thereafter, by further advancing the cultivation of the threefold training of precepts, concentration, and wisdom, one can enter the first bhūmi and attain an untainted mind; by further advancing the cultivation of untainted precepts, concentration, and wisdom, one can advance bhūmi by bhūmi, up to the eighth bhūmi; by further advancing the cultivation, one can reach the tenth bhūmi and the stage of anticipation (samantaka); and by further advancing the cultivation until precepts, concentration, and wisdom are perfectly and completely fulfilled, one can become a Buddha.

Therefore, the threefold training of precepts, concentration, 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 perfections are also included the three perfections of keeping precepts, cultivating concentration, and prajñā wisdom, with keeping precepts and cultivating concentration as the foundational methods of practice, and the attainment of perfect prajñā wisdom as the final result. In the bodhisattva's six perfections, the training of wisdom comes after the training of concentration; the Buddha said that wisdom arises from concentration. The attainment of true great wisdom is necessarily brought forth by deep and subtle deliberation (manasikāra) and contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) within meditative concentration (dhyāna); this is wisdom realized through actual practice, not dry wisdom produced by emotional speculation and intellectual understanding. It is so throughout the entire process from attaining the first fruit (srotāpanna) until becoming a Buddha: every intermediate stage is supported by meditative concentration, and every kind of wisdom is the result of meditative concentration.