An appeal to the analytical understanding is never sufficient to thoroughly comprehend the inwardness of a truth, especially when it is a religious one, nor is mere compulsion by an external force adequate for bringing about a spiritual transformation in us. We must experience in our innermost consciousness all that is implied in a doctrine, when we are able not only to understand it but to put it in practice. There will then be no discrepancy between knowledge and life. The Buddha knew this very well, and he endeavoured to produce knowledge out of meditation, this is, to make wisdom grow from personal, spiritual experience. The Buddhist way to deliverance, therefore, consisted in threefold discipline: moral rules (_śīla_), tranquillisation (_samādhi_), and wisdom (_prajñā_). By Śīla one’s conduct is regulated externally, by Samādhi quietude is attained, and by Prajñā real understanding takes place. Hence the importance of meditation in Buddhism. That this threefold discipline was one of the most characteristic features of Buddhism since its earliest days is well attested by the fact that the following formula, which is culled from the _Mahāparinibbāna-Sutta_, is repeatedly referred to in the Sutra as if it were a subject most frequently discussed by the Buddha for the edification of his followers: “Such and such is upright conduct (_śīla_); such and such is earnest contemplation (_samādhi_); such and such is intelligence (_prajñā_). Great becomes the fruit, great the advantage of intellect when it is set round with earnest contemplation. The mind set round with intelligence is set quite free from the intoxications (_āśrava_), that is to say, from the intoxication of sensuality (_kāma_), from the intoxication of becoming (_bhāva_), from the intoxication of delusion (_dṛishti_), from the intoxication of ignorance (_avidyā_)[f40].”