Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom
Justin S. Whitaker, Douglass Smith
Oxford Handbooks Online April 5, 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198746140.013.31 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | The chapter argues that the Three Trainings—ethics, meditation, and wisdom—can be analytically distinguished but are mutually reinforcing in practice, with the development of each reciprocating the others. Citing a Pāli Canon illustration that omits meditation, it proposes that ethics and wisdom act 'like one hand washing the other.' |
Abstract
The Pāli Canon presents a number of summaries of the Buddha’s teaching, one of the most concise being that of the Three Trainings (or Three Disciplines): ethics, meditation, and wisdom. The purpose of this chapter is to explicate the various formulations of these Three Trainings as well as to discuss their relationship to one another and other Pāli Buddhist teachings. Its focus is on the Pāli material of early Buddhism and Theravāda in particular. It discusses the Three Disciplines and their interrelations, along with analyses of what comes before the discipline, namely the ordinary worldling or person, and what comes after, namely the awakened person. The Three Trainings can be analytically divided, but the development of each reciprocates the development of the others. An illustration from the Pāli Canon, leaving out meditation, suggests that ethics and wisdom act ‘like one hand washing the other’.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |