- Buddha-Nature
- Compassion
- Defining Bodhicitta
- Emptiness
- Equalizing & Exchanging Self and Others
- Equanimity
- History of Bodhicitta Teachings
- How to Develop Bodhicitta
- Interdependent Origination
- Lineage of the Profound View
- Lineage of the Vast Conduct
- Mahāyāna
- Mind Training
- Non-Self
- Seven-Point Instructions of Cause and Effect
- The Bodhisattva Ideal
- The Bodhisattva Path
- The Bodhisattva Vow
- The Bodhisattva's Goal
- The Four Immeasurables
- The Six Perfections
- The Three Higher Trainings
- The Two Accumulations
- The Two Truths
- Tonglen: The Practice of Sending and Receiving
- Types of Bodhicitta
The Three Higher Trainings form the foundation of Buddhist practice: ethical discipline (śīla), meditative concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā). These sequential practices create stability through moral conduct, develop focused mental states through meditation, and cultivate penetrating insight into reality's true nature, ultimately leading practitioners toward enlightenment. Each training supports and deepens the others—ethical conduct provides the stable foundation necessary for concentrated meditation, while sustained concentration enables the clear seeing that gives rise to liberating wisdom. Together, they form an integrated path that transforms both mind and character, addressing the root causes of suffering through disciplined practice.
With the commitment of the bodhisattva vows taken up, the practitioner begins the profound journey of bodhisattva conduct. This multifaceted path encompasses a rich array of practices that can be understood through several traditional arrangements. The three higher trainings (adhiśikṣātraya, ལྷག་པའི་བསླབ་པ་གསུམ་) provide one essential framework for comprehending these practices, alongside other established approaches such as the two accumulations (sambhāradvaya, ཚོགས་གཉིས་)—merit (puṇyasambhāra, བསོད་ནམས་ཀྱི་ཚོགས་) and wisdom (jñānasambhāra, ཡེ་ཤེས་ཀྱི་ཚོགས་)—as well as the systematization found in the six perfections (ṣaṭpāramitā, ཕར་ཕྱིན་དྲུག་) and their expansion into ten perfections (daśapāramitā, ཕར་ཕྱིན་བཅུ་). The present discussion focuses specifically on how the bodhisattva path unfolds through the three higher trainings, with detailed treatments of the two accumulations and perfections presented in related materials.
The Three Higher Trainings
The whole range of bodhisattva practices can be presented by dividing them into the practices of the three higher trainings—the practices of ethical discipline (śīlaśikṣā), meditative concentration (samādhiśikṣā), and wisdom (prajñāśikṣā).
The Indian master Atiśa, who brought about a revival of the Buddhist tradition in Tibet in the tenth century CE, mentions the importance of the three higher trainings in his classic work A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment (Bodhipathapradīpa):
Completely pure body, speech, and mind cause you to maintain the actual vow of engaged bodhicitta. By properly practicing the discipline of the three trainings, your reverence for these trainings grows greater. (32)[1]
Ethical discipline shouldn't be understood as rigid moralizing. Discipline is a way to simplify our minds and lives. It is a means to pacify the negative actions of our body, speech, and mind. By purifying the unconstructive actions of what we do, say, and think, we create the right environment and space for positive actions.
Concentration is a way to stop our minds from being pulled away from the objects we really wish to focus on. It helps us avoid unnecessary distractions and allows us to focus our minds completely on whatever positive object we wish to concentrate on.
Wisdom is often called discriminating awareness and is a state of understanding that comes from analysis into the real nature of things. It is a deeper way of seeing how things exist beyond their superficial appearance.
Why Are the Three Trainings Called "Higher"?
We may wonder what distinguishes these practices from very similar practices of discipline, concentration, and wisdom found in other religious traditions. In the Buddhist tradition, they are called "higher" trainings. The addition of the term higher indicates that the practices as they are done in the Buddhist tradition will lead the practitioner either to liberation from samsara or to complete enlightenment. This distinguishes them from similar practices in other religious traditions, which may lead to refined states of existence but remain within the cycle of samsaric existence.
If the practices are done in conjunction with the motivation of renunciation—a mind that sees the faults of samsara and wishes for oneself to be liberated from that condition—the final result of that will be nirvana, a state of solitary peace. If, however, those practices such as ethical discipline are supported by the motivation of bodhicitta—the wish to attain the fully enlightened state for the highest welfare of all beings—the practice will lead us to the final result of buddhahood, replete with the omniscient mind that knows all phenomena.
It must be noted that practitioners of Buddhist schools other than the Mahāyāna all practice these three higher trainings within the context of their tradition. However, from the Mahāyāna perspective, their training in wisdom will not reach the understanding of the deepest levels of reality and therefore will not be powerful enough to act as a cause to attain the fully enlightened state of a buddha.
The Sequence of The Three Higher Trainings
The practice sequence of the three higher trainings is specifically designed to include all the essential building blocks of any spiritual practice.
At the beginning, we need a stable base on which to build that practice. That base is born out of ethical discipline that helps to cool down the heat of our mentally afflictive states. If our minds are overcome by the chaos of strong afflictive states, there will be no opportunity for us to cultivate concentration.
Building upon this, when we are rooted in a strong practice of discipline, our distractions and mental disturbances are reduced. On this more stable foundation, we can build up our levels of concentration with the help of mindfulness and mental introspection, getting rid of subtler and subtler mental states of dullness or mental agitation.
This deepening mental focus lays the ground on which to develop the penetrating wisdom that helps us to gain insight into the way things really exist, beyond their superficial appearance.
We should not think of these practices as being a linear progression from the "lower" practice of ethical discipline to the "highest" practice of wisdom. These higher trainings mutually inform and support each other. With greater concentration and wisdom, there is greater mental space and awareness. This awareness helps to inform the way in which we practice and provides us with greater clarity and discernment to see what we should pursue or abandon. This clarity directly enhances our discipline, which in turn strengthens our concentration and wisdom.
Notes
- ↑ Patrick Dowd, trans., Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, by Atiśa Dīpaṃkara (Lotsawa House, 2021), https://www.lotsawahouse.org/indian-masters/atisha/lamp-path-enlightenment
