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Three trainings

Ethical conduct, concentration and wisdom, and their relationship to the Eightfold Path.

AN 3.88 names three trainings: ethical conduct, mind and wisdom. In MN 44, the nun Dhammadinnā explains how the eight path factors belong to these three groups.

01

Ethical conduct

Dhammadinnā places right speech, right action and right livelihood in the group of ethical conduct. AN 3.90 describes a monastic practitioner undertaking the training rules, guarding conduct and taking even small faults seriously.

02

Meditative cultivation

Right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration belong to the concentration group. AN 3.90 describes this training through the four jhānas: seclusion from unskillful states, the calming of thought, equanimity, and the purification of mindfulness.

03

Wisdom

Right view and right intention belong to the wisdom group. AN 3.90 defines this training as understanding suffering, its origin, its cessation and the path that leads to its cessation.

How the trainings connect

In MN 44, Dhammadinnā says that the Noble Eightfold Path is included within these three groups. She describes concentration as singleness of mind, the four establishments of mindfulness as its themes, and the four right efforts as its requisites. Developing these qualities is the development of concentration.

AN 3.88 describes different degrees of accomplishment in the three trainings and connects them with stages of liberation. Its account culminates in a practitioner fully accomplished in conduct, concentration and wisdom, realizing release directly. The training is therefore presented as a path toward liberation, with ethical, meditative and discerning dimensions.

Related reading & listening

Recordings

Sources & notes
Sources & notes

Summaries of the linked translations by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. AN 3.88 and AN 3.90 address monastics; MN 44 is a conversation with a lay follower.

Texts & teachers

  1. MN 44 · The Shorter Set of QuestionsEarly discourse · the path and three trainings
  2. Six perfections · source notesAtlas guide to Mahāyāna bodhisattva practice