ABSTRACT
The trialectic interrelationship of 'behavioral discipline', 'mental training through meditation' and 'cognitive acuity' forms the bedrock of Buddhist praxis. Their relationship is trialectic since as one endeavors to improve within one aspect, the other two automatically are involved and improve as well. Scholars translate śīla as 'morality' because it involves not only a general sense of behavioral discipline, but it frequently signifies specific ethical injunctions and guidelines. The monastic rules and the rules for the laity, codified by the various schools in their respective Vinaya and Pratimokṣa, came under the rubric of śīla. Buddhists define karma as the intentional activities of body, speech and mind. The karmic guidelines designed to influence one's activities of body, speech, and mind, thereby utterly reshaping the manner in which karma is produced and its consequences. Samādhi signifies the skillful unification of mind and object, or the mental equanimity conducive to and derived from attention perfectly focused on its object.
