ศีล สมาธิ ปัญญา คือ 3 ใน 6 ดวงธรรมภายในตัวที่ต้องศึกษาให้เข้าใจเพื่อนำไปสู่ความบริสุทธิ์หลุดพ้น คือวิมุตติและวิมุตติญาณทัศนะ ซึ่งมรรคมีองค์ 8 ทั้งหมดก็บรรจุอยู่ในดวงศีล สมาธิ ปัญญานี้เองPrecepts, concentration, and wisdom are three of six inner spheres of Dhamma to be studied and used as tools for purifying our inner elements, leading to liberation and the knowing that follows — and the entire Noble Eightfold Path is contained within these three.
Is the Threefold Training the Core Structure of Practice
Someone noted that a revered teacher had divided the Noble Eightfold Path into precepts, concentration, and wisdom, and asked whether this threefold training is indeed the core structure of practice.
The teacher explained that we know it's the core structure because within each of us there are six spheres of serving as tools. Each sphere has three components: a subtle-element component, a Dhamma or "software" component, and a component of merit-and-demerit energy. The Dhamma component consists of the spheres of precepts, concentration, wisdom, liberation, and -and-vision-of-liberation, layered concentrically around the same center, differing only in subtlety, which is why they can coexist. Each sphere is a tool for automatically refining and purifying our inner elements. To use these tools we must first learn and understand them — which is exactly what the threefold training is for: training in precepts, training in concentration, and training in wisdom. Understanding these leads to purification and liberation, reaching the spheres of liberation and knowledge-and-vision-of-liberation.
Liberation here means freedom from the defilements that cloud the mind — laziness, fear, irritability, jealousy — not liberation as in full arahantship. Once liberated, the sphere of knowledge-and-vision-of-liberation carries one toward a better, more excellent life.
Although the teaching spans 84,000 sections, we're asked to study just precepts, concentration, and wisdom, because they are the essential tools — everything else is contained within them.
How Precepts, Concentration, and Wisdom Refine the Inner Elements
Precepts mean normalcy. We train in precepts to live in accordance with what is normal for wholesome nature. Nature has three sides — wholesome, unwholesome, and neutral — each with its own kind of normalcy. Someone dwelling in unwholesome precepts thinks, speaks, and acts badly, drawing in a current of demerit that clouds the mind. Someone dwelling in neutral precepts drifts, aimless, unable to develop anything. Someone dwelling in wholesome precepts thinks, speaks, and acts well, with a clear anchor for the mind that inclines toward the four foundations of mindfulness.
When we undertake precepts — the five precepts, for instance — the sphere of precepts brightens, drawing in a current of pure merit that carries purification and liberation from one subtle level to the next. Different degrees of in keeping precepts yield correspondingly different results. Keep precepts to full purity, and one can feel purity spreading outward from a point as fine as a needle's tip until it surrounds the whole body. From there, recollecting the purity of one's precepts develops into concentration, clearing away until the mind is settled by the of equanimous balance, unshaken by unwholesome or neutral influences. Once concentration becomes bright and clear, it leads to the inner knower, who points toward what is right and good, opening up knowledge — and from there to wisdom, which lets us see the danger in what's wrong and gives rise to the wish for liberation. That, in turn, depends on the sphere of liberation to free us from defilement, and then the sphere of knowledge-and-vision-of-liberation to carry us to a better life.
Where the Noble Eightfold Path Fits Within Precepts, Concentration, and Wisdom
The questioner followed up on how a teacher's mapping of the Eightfold Path onto the threefold training works. The teacher explained: the sphere of precepts holds right speech, right action, and right livelihood. The sphere of concentration holds right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. The sphere of wisdom holds right view and right intention — all eight factors present within the spheres of precepts, concentration, and wisdom of each body (the human body and its subtle counterpart, the celestial body and its subtle counterpart, the form-Brahma body and its subtle counterpart, the formless-Brahma body and its subtle counterpart), each layer more refined than the last.
The sphere of precepts maintains the normalcy of wholesome precepts for each body through right speech, right action, and right livelihood, guarding against unwholesome influence leading to wrongdoing in speech and action — right livelihood especially, since it concerns habitual, occupational behavior. The sphere of concentration clears the hindrances through right effort, , and . The sphere of wisdom is right view and right intention — thinking free of greed, ill will, and harming — which guards against unwholesome influence twisting liking and disliking, arising through the six senses, into greed or resentment.
Development through the spheres of precepts, concentration, and wisdom of each body proceeds in stages. Those whose proportion of wholesomeness isn't yet strong enough tend to get stuck at the level of the form-Brahma or formless-Brahma body, and must keep cultivating merit until they can move forward, eventually reaching .