The Difference Between Fish and Fishing

Teaching a man to fish is better than giving him a fish. What does the fish represent? What does fishing represent? The fish is the fruit, and fishing is the method for obtaining the fruit. Give a man a fish, and once the fish is gone, it is gone. Teach a man to fish, and having mastered the fundamental skill, he can obtain endless fruits, free from worry about food and clothing in the future.

Fishing is the three undefiled studies of precepts, meditative concentration (samādhi), and wisdom. Through upholding the precepts, through cultivating meditative concentration, through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and investigation, through deliberation (manasikāra/manana), one obtains the wisdom of liberation. The initial wisdom is learned wisdom, wisdom acquired through study; the final wisdom is attained wisdom, the wisdom developed after contemplative practice and investigation, the wisdom drawn out from the depths of one's own mind, belonging to oneself alone, which no one can ever take away. As for learned wisdom, after death when consciousness becomes dim, it will vanish like smoke and be nowhere to be found.

Without the upholding of precepts at the beginning, there is no meditative concentration in the middle; without meditative concentration, there is no wisdom of contemplative practice; without the wisdom of contemplative practice, one cannot obtain the fish of wisdom.