What Cultivation Should a Mahāyāna Practitioner Possess?

Nowadays many people claim to be engaged in genuine practice, but what exactly counts as genuine practice? Some say that cultivating precepts, meditation, and wisdom belongs to the practice of the Small Vehicle, and that Mahāyāna practitioners need not be bound by precepts and meditative concentration; as long as one has right knowledge and right view, one can see the Path—so the saying goes, "Only care whether the seedling's eye is straight, not how you conduct yourself." This touches on the question of Mahāyāna genuine practice, which is in fact the question of genuine practice of the Buddha's Dharma, because in cultivating the Buddha-Dharma there is no division between Mahāyāna and Small Vehicle: wherever there is ignorance, it must be eliminated. If even one ignorance remains, one cannot become a Buddha. If the initial ignorance is not severed, how can subsequent ignorance be severed? When the prior ignorance is severed, the obscuration is severed, and only then can the later ignorance be eliminated. If the coarse and shallow ignorance is not severed, how can the deep and subtle ignorance be severed?

How should Mahāyāna practitioners genuinely practice? What is "genuine"? What is "practice"? Is Mahāyāna a Mahāyāna that exists apart from the Small Vehicle, a Mahāyāna that turns its back on the Small Vehicle? Or does Mahāyāna exist only by including the Small Vehicle, and is Mahāyāna Mahāyāna only because it stands above the Small Vehicle? Must Mahāyāna bodhisattvas forgo all the attainments that belong to the Small Vehicle? Can one be a Mahāyāna bodhisattva without possessing the precepts, meditation, and wisdom of the Small Vehicle? Small Vehicle practitioners must sever afflictions; do Mahāyāna bodhisattvas not need to sever afflictions? Can one carry afflictions along and cultivate deeply, and become a Buddha? The Small Vehicle has meditative concentration; do Mahāyāna bodhisattvas not need to have concentration? Small Vehicle practitioners must sever evil and cultivate goodness; do Mahāyāna bodhisattvas not need to? The Small Vehicle cultivates moral character; do Mahāyāna bodhisattvas not need to have it? Should Mahāyāna bodhisattvas actually have even poorer moral character than Small Vehicle practitioners? 

The qualities possessed by Small Vehicle practitioners should all be possessed by Mahāyāna bodhisattvas, for all Mahāyāna bodhisattvas have walked step by step through the study and practice of the Small Vehicle. Mahāyāna bodhisattvas of true meaning, having realized the tathāgatagarbha and directly observed its nature and functioning, are even purer and more effortless in their mental conduct—something that unawakened Small Vehicle practitioners cannot imagine or comprehend. If a student claims to be a Mahāyāna bodhisattva, then he should possess Small Vehicle attainments, be complete in precepts, meditation, and wisdom, have subdued and severed coarse and heavy afflictions, and certainly be endowed with meditative concentration and wisdom, with a wholesome mind. His character and cultivation must be absolutely higher than those of ordinary beings and Small Vehicle practitioners; otherwise he cannot justify calling himself a Mahāyāna practitioner, and instead he is merely a madman and fool who looks down on the small yet cannot grasp the great.