The right way of seeing things and the power of discerning the true aspect of all things is wisdom—the last of the Six Perfections. … [Wisdom is the ability both to discern the differences among all things and to see the truth common to them. In short, wisdom is the ability to realize that anybody can become a buddha. The Buddha’s teachings stress that we cannot discern all things in the world correctly until we are completely endowed with the ability to know both distinction and equality.]

We cannot save others without having wisdom. Let us suppose that there is an impoverished young man lying by the road. And suppose that we feel pity for him and give him some money without reflecting on the consequences. What if he is mildly addicted to some drug? He will grab the money given to him and use it to buy drugs. In this way he may become seriously, even hopelessly, addicted. If we had handed him over to the police instead of giving him money, he would have been sent to a hospital and could start life over again. This is the kind of error we may commit in performing donation without wisdom. Though this is an extreme case, similar cases on a smaller scale occur all the time. Thus, even though we may do something useful for others or practice good conduct in order to save them, none of our mercy or kindness is effective unless we have true wisdom. Far from being effective, our mercy may have a harmful effect. Therefore wisdom is an absolutely indispensable condition in practicing the bodhisattva-way.