What is the cultivation that a Mahāyāna practitioner should possess?

Nowadays many people claim to be engaged in genuine practice, but what exactly counts as genuine practice? Some say that cultivating precepts, meditative concentration (samādhi), and wisdom belongs to the practice of the Small Vehicle, and that Mahāyāna practitioners need not be bound by precepts and meditative concentration—as long as one has right knowledge and right view, one can see the Path, as the saying goes: "Only value whether your eyes are straight, not how you conduct yourself." This touches on the question of Mahāyāna genuine practice, which is in fact the question of genuine practice of the Buddha-Dharma, because in practicing the Buddha-Dharma there is no division between Mahāyāna and Small Vehicle: wherever there is ignorance, it must be eradicated. With even one ignorance remaining, one cannot become a Buddha. If the initial ignorance is not severed, how can subsequent ignorances be severed? When the earlier ignorance is severed, the obscuration is severed, and only then can the later ignorance be eradicated. If the coarse and shallow ignorance is not severed, how can the deep and subtle ignorance be severed?

How should Mahāyāna practitioners genuinely practice? What is "genuine"? What is "practice"? Is Mahāyāna a Mahāyāna that exists apart from the Small Vehicle, a Mahāyāna that turns its back on the Small Vehicle? Or does Mahāyāna exist only by including the Small Vehicle, and exist only by transcending the Small Vehicle? Must Mahāyāna bodhisattvas dispense with all the attainments of practice that belong to the Small Vehicle? Can one be a Mahāyāna bodhisattva without possessing the precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom of the Small Vehicle? Small Vehicle practitioners must sever afflictions; do Mahāyāna bodhisattvas not need to sever afflictions? Can one carry afflictions along while cultivating deeply and become a Buddha? Small Vehicle practitioners have meditative concentration; do Mahāyāna bodhisattvas not need to have it? Small Vehicle practitioners must cease evil and cultivate goodness; do Mahāyāna bodhisattvas not need to? Do Mahāyāna bodhisattvas not need the moral character and cultivation that Small Vehicle practitioners have? Should Mahāyāna bodhisattvas actually have even worse moral character and cultivation than Small Vehicle practitioners? 

The qualities possessed by Small Vehicle practitioners should all be possessed by Mahāyāna bodhisattvas; all Mahāyāna bodhisattvas have walked step by step through the study and practice of the Small Vehicle. Because genuine Mahāyāna bodhisattvas have realized the tathāgatagarbha and directly observed its nature and functioning, their mental conduct is even more pure and non-active—something that Small Vehicle practitioners who have not realized enlightenment cannot imagine or comprehend. If a student regards himself as a Mahāyāna bodhisattva, then he should possess Small Vehicle cultivation, be complete in precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom, have subdued and severed coarse afflictions, and certainly be complete in meditative concentration and wisdom, with a good mind-ground; his character and cultivation must be absolutely higher than those of ordinary beings and Small Vehicle practitioners. Otherwise he cannot justify calling himself a Mahāyāna practitioner, and is instead an arrogant fool who looks down on the small yet cannot grasp the great.