What were the practices for the Perfect Teaching which enabled a person to follow the Direct Path to enlightenment? One of the earliest and most common classifications of Buddhist practice was the threefold learning (sangaku) or the practices of precepts, meditation, and wisdom. In Hinayāna Buddhism the threefold learning was usually regarded as a progression of practices which led to the final goal of liberation. The precepts provided the moral basis for meditation; meditation provided the basis for wisdom; and wisdom led to liberation. Although the precepts served as the basis for the entire structure, they were ranked lower than the other two types of learning.

The Chinese Ssu fen lü master Daoxuan (596-667) had used the classification of Buddhism into three types of learning to argue that the precepts were the basis of all Buddhist practice. He criticized the tendency of many Chinese monks to concentrate on meditation or lecturing on the sūtras (wisdom) while they ignored monastic discipline (precepts). Such one-sided practice could not succeed because it overlooked the most basic practice of all, the observance of the precepts.

Daoxuan also criticized monks who ignored the Ssu fen lü precepts because of their Hinayāna origins. These monks argued that they were Mahāyāna monks and should not be bound by Hinayāna precepts. Daoxuan defended the Ssu fen lü precepts by arguing that they were, in fact, partially Mahāyāna (buntsū daijō). T’ien-t’ai monks such as Chan-jan (711-782) noted that the attitude of the practitioner, not the origin of the precepts, determinined whether a person’s practice was Hinayāna or Mahāyāna. Thus T’ien-t’ai monks almost always advocated adherence to the Ssu fen lü precepts.