NE OF THE MOST distinctive teachings of the Thai Forest Tradition is its insistence that the three parts of Buddhist training—virtue, concentration, and discernment—are intimately interconnected and have to be developed together. What this means in practical terms is, (1) you don’t have to wait for your virtue to be perfect before practicing concentration, or for your concentration to be fully mastered before developing discernment. All three have to inform one another continually for any of them to grow in the right direction. (2) When you’re practicing the higher levels of concentration and discernment, you haven’t outgrown the need to stick with the precepts. The higher levels of the
