The two pillars of Mahayana practice are wisdom and skillful means (upaya). The five perfections excluding wisdom are all types of skillful means. Giving, the central and all-inclusive practice, is a skillful means, and giving is based on compassion. Thus we can identify skillful means as a form of compassionate activity. Wisdom is enlightenment to the true nature of the world and humankind, the principle of causation. In Buddhism, of course, this enlightenment is not merely an intellectual understanding but an actual physical and mental experience. Giving and compassionate action are the inevitable and necessary social expressions of this enlightened view of the world. Thus wisdom and compassion, that is, both the proper understanding of dependent origination and the practice of shunyata that springs from that understanding, have been the guiding spirit of Buddhism from its earliest beginnings to its most recent developments.
Basic Buddhist Concepts