The Importance of Both Study and Practice by Jamgon Kongtrul

Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé’s Commentary on The Treatise on the Distinction between Consciousness and Wisdom by Karmapa Rangjung Dorje
Luminous Heart: The Third Karmapa on Consciousness, Wisdom, and Buddha Nature
Translated and introduced by Karl Brunnhölzl, pp. 260-263

Persons who wish to attain liberation and omniscience and are the support [for the path leading to such attainment] must first keep stainless ethics, the basis for [all] qualities. [Nāgārjuna’s] Suhṛllekha says:

The sage said that ethics is the foundation of qualities,
Just like the earth is for what moves and is immovable.

Those endowed with ethics must then engage extensively in study. You may wonder why that is. In order to attain buddhahood, you must realize the actuality of twofold identitylessness. In order to realize that, you need to understand the scriptures and reasonings [that allow you] to understand the meaning of the Buddha’s words and the treatises [on it]. To understand those [scriptures and reasonings], you need to study. If you don’t, you will not understand the actuality of twofold identitylessness, and if you do not understand that, you will not know how to familiarize with identitylessness. If you do not know how to familiarize with identitylessness, even if you practice meditation, the prajñā which arises from meditation will not arise. If that [prajñā] does not arise, it is impossible for the path of seeing of the noble ones to arise. If that [path] does not arise, it is impossible to attain buddhahood, which is the culmination of [said] familiarization. This is said many times, such as in [Asaṅga’s] Mahāyānasaṃgraha:

Since, without the latent tendencies for listening and so on,
It is not suitable that their result arises.

Therefore, if you lack the prajñā of studying, by virtue of not discriminating what to adopt and reject, whatever you do will have little impact. In all your births, your faculties will be dull. even if you practice meditation, the root of the clinging to identity will not be severed. [Thus,] there are many such and other shortcomings.

[On the other hand,] if you engage in studying, your mind will not be ignorant, since you will be learned in all that can be known. Through your insight expanding, you will attain the self-confidence of not fearing anything. Since your mind stream is completely liberated, your mind is happy. You will join the ranks of those called “learned ones.” In all lifetimes, you will have excellent prajñā, sharp faculties, and retain what you have studied. You will meet with buddhas and bodhisattvas and be able to teach eloquently on the meaning of the dharma. Your own cognitive obscurations will be purified, and you will unmistakenly turn the wheel of dharma for others. [Thus,] there are many such and other qualities. This is proclaimed extensively, such as in the Prajnāpāramitāsaṃcayagāthā:

Having fully realized the nature of phenomena through prajñā,
He perfectly transcended the three realms without exception.
Through turning the precious wheel, the supreme leader of humans,
In order to extinguish suffering, also taught the dharma for the world.

And the Ratnakūṭa:

Through studying, the dharma is understood.
Through studying, what is worthless is relinquished.
Through studying, evil is abandoned.
Through studying, nirvāṇa is attained.

If you engage in the meditation of fools, lacking the prajñā of studying and reflection and not understanding the actuality of twofold identitylessness, even if you attain a little bit of samādhi, due to being unable to relinquish the root of the afflictions, you will fall into saṃsāra [again and again]. An example for this is Udraka, the son of the tīrthika Rāma, who gave rise to the ultimate resting in meditative equipoise within a samādhi of emptiness for twelve years. As the Samādhirājasūtra says:

You may cultivate any samādhi in the world
and the notion of a self may not appear through that,
[But] afflictions will stir up again in you,
Just as with Udraka’s cultivation of samādhi here.

Having attained the eye of the profound prajñā of studying and reflecting, you need to intensely exert yourself in pursuing meditation. The Samādhisambhāraparivarta states:

What expands prajñā is studying.
once both it and reflecting are present,
Then you apply yourself to meditation.
From this, you attain unsurpassable siddhi.

Also, the Bodhisattvadaśabhūmikasūtra says:

O children of the victors, beginner bodhisattvas should first be enjoined to do recitations. After they have studied a lot, they should be seen off into solitude.

You may wonder what fault there is in not being endowed with meditation. Through mere studying and reflecting that is not endowed with meditation, you will not directly realize ultimate reality. The Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra states:

The sweet flavor of sugar cane
Is not tasted through explaining it,
But when you eat the sugar cane,
Its sweet flavor is tasted.

Likewise, the actuality of emptiness
Is not tasted through explanations,
But if you devotedly meditate,
It will spring forth in self-awareness.

Therefore, persons who strive for liberation first purify their three gates [of body, speech, and mind] through the ethics of renunciation. Then, they cut through doubts with the prajñā of studying. Through the prajñā which arises from reflection, by means of reasoning, they should contemplate again and again whether they are mistaken regarding the meaning of what they have studied or not, and familiarize [themselves with what is unmistaken]. Next, if they meditate on the unmistaken meaning in a way of being endowed with the three stages of preparation, main part, and conclusion, through the prajñā which arises from the mundane states of [Buddhist] meditation, they will attain the clear appearance of identitylessness on the path of preparation. Through the prajñā which arises from supramundane meditation, on the path of seeing, they will see identitylessness directly. on the path of familiarization, they familiarize with [what they saw on the path of seeing], and through the culmination of that familiarization, they will attain liberation and omniscience. The Ratnakūṭa says:

Dwelling in ethics, samādhi is attained.
Having attained samādhi, prajñā is cultivated.
Through prajñā, pure wisdom is attained.
Pure wisdom is perfect ethics.

For example, when a field, seeds, water, fertilizer, and heat come together, the fruition—a harvest—will arise. If even one [of these conditions] is lacking, the result will not arise. In the same way, when the ground of ethics, the seeds of studying, and the water, fertilizer, heat, and moisture of reflecting and meditating are all complete, the fruition—buddhahood—will easily ripen.

From Crazy Wisdom, “Intellect and Working with Negativity,”

by Choygam Trungpa, page 154 

Many people believe that if you sit and meditate a lot, you don’t have to read or study anything at all. They say that just by meditating everything will come to you. That approach seems to be one-sided. It leaves no room for sharpening the intellect or for disciplining the mind. It also does not take into account the knowledge that protects us from indulging in states of absorption, knowledge that tells us that it is necessary to let go of those particular states and bring ourselves into another frame of mind.  So study and scholastic learning play an extremely important part for us.