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Which is more important, wisdom or method, in Mahāyāna Buddhism?
Which is more important, wisdom or method, in Mahāyāna Buddhism?
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It is a causal chain. Wisdom is not something you read, but the result of practicing the path rightly. In that regard, method is more important than wisdom initially, up through stream-entry. After that, applying that wisdom correctly is more important to reach the goal.
The paradoxical nature of this very question just made me laugh out loud, seriously.
The further along the path you get, the more you'll come to realize the many-sidedness of the teachings and that they really are more connected than we know. We think they are separate concepts, but they're all just one concept that is fragmented for our benefit; we can't understand the totality of the truth any more than the concept of the solar system, and the universe, would've made any sense to someone in the 6th century where there was no way to prove any of it. We still have to mostly just accept what we're told as to that; anyone understand fully the General Theory of Relativity, not just conceptually but as if you could see it?
The truth is like that. It takes a lot of mental evolution. We each have to change in a very specific and conditioned way, just like the human species evolved physically, intellectually and socially over the course of who knows how long. But we have to do this for ourselves, as individuals rather than an entire species, and that's the hard part.
Method and personal effort must be where we start. The effort carries us forward, practicing the path rightly sets up conditions for the mental evolution that we call the acquisition of wisdom. Don't ever let anyone tell you that enlightenment is hard, difficult, may take you until you're old or perhaps not until another life. That is utter wrong view. Enlightenment is nothing more than the result of conditions, and we can find the way to set those up through Buddhism, with our personal effort and dedication toward the goal, and to letting go of everything we think we know, leading the way forward.
If anyone should say to you that it is unlikely you will become enlightened, it is more likely that they will not. There is great hope for all of us, and only the non-self we cling to, and this same non-self within others, would try and keep us down.