Sila, Samadhi, and Prajña Are the Key Factors for Accomplishing All Dharmas

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. When the training of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom is cultivated in balance, the mind can become untainted (anāsrava): observing the 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 stages of realization advance from bhūmi to bhūmi. After 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 the further intensified cultivation of untainted precepts, samādhi, and wisdom, one can advance from bhūmi to bhūmi, up to the eighth bhūmi; with further intensified cultivation, one can cultivate up to the tenth bhūmi and the stage of waiting for enlightenment (bodhisattva in the final stage); and with further intensified cultivation, after the threefold training of precepts, samādhi, and wisdom is fully and completely perfected, 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's path. Among the bodhisattva's six pāramitās are also included the three perfections of 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 training of wisdom comes after the training of samādhi. The Buddha said that wisdom arises from samādhi; the attainment of true great wisdom is certainly 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 conjecture. 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.