The Three Uncontaminated Studies of Precepts, Meditative Concentration, and Wisdom

When the World-Honored One dwelt in the Sahā 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 meditative concentration, and meditative 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 meditative concentration can make the mind untainted, and the growth of wisdom can make the mind untainted; when the mind is untainted, the mind attains liberation and wisdom attains liberation, and one's stage of fruition advances from bhūmi to bhūmi. After the three untainted studies 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, through the intensified cultivation of the threefold training of precepts, concentration, and wisdom, one can enter the first bhūmi and attain an untainted mind; through further intensified cultivation of untainted precepts, concentration, 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 anticipation (samantaka); and after further intensified cultivation brings the precepts, concentration, and wisdom to complete fulfillment, one can become a Buddha.

Therefore, the threefold training of precepts, concentration, and wisdom, as well as the three untainted studies, 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 meditative concentration, and prajñā wisdom, with keeping precepts and cultivating concentration as the foundational methods of practice, and the attainment of complete prajñā wisdom as the final result. In the bodhisattva's six perfections, the study of wisdom comes after the study 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. This is wisdom realized through actual practice, not dry wisdom concocted by emotional thinking and intellectual understanding; it is so throughout the entire process from attaining the first fruit until becoming a Buddha. Every intermediate stage is supported by meditative concentration, and every kind of wisdom is the result of meditative concentration.