Download Great Vehicle: Mahayana Buddhism

 Two ‘vehicles’ or
methods of achieving
enlightenment
 1. Greater Vehicle (bodhisattva-yana,
mahayana)
 2. Lesser Vehicle (hinayana)
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At about the time of Christ, Buddhism became divided
– Theravada (Hinayana) – small raft (vehicle)
– Mahāyāna– large raft (vehicle)
One striking feature of the Mahāyāna is its literature (Prajnaparamita Sutras)
– Written in Sanskrit
– Proliferated about 100 BC – 400 AD
– Too voluminous for any single person to read in a single lifetime
“The wisdom gone to the other shore”
Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra, etc.
Slide Credit:
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana%20Buddhism.ppt
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Theravada Buddhism: the 3 marks of all existence
– Anatta (no self); Dukkha (painfulness); Anicca (impermanence)
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Mahāyāna Buddjsm added “emptiness,” as the fourth mark of all existence
– Happiness is intrinsic to a healthy mind
– Don’t grasp; just “be”
– Reality is not an illusion; but its real nature (its reality) is transparent to analysis
– The objective world exists, but its independent existence, separate from its subjective
perception, cannot be found
– A “non-verbal” experience of reality is what is needed
Slide Credit:
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana%20Buddhism.ppt
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Comparison between the two schools (chart)
Theravada (Hinayana)
• Teaching of the elders
• Small vehicle
• Man as an individual
• Man on his own in the universe
• Key virtue: wisdom (bodhi)
• Religion is primarily for monks
• Ideal: the Arhat (lonely saint)
• Nirvana
• Buddha is a saint or sage
• Avoids metaphysics (speculation)
• Avoids ritual
• Conservative
• Pali texts
• Old wisdom school
• Escape Samsara, and reach Nirvana
• Ceylon, Burma, etc. (Southern Bism)
Mahāyāna
Spirit of the elders
Large (great) vehicle
Man involved with others
Man is not alone (grace is real)
Key virtue: compassion (karuna)
Religion is for laypersons as well
Ideal: the Bodhisattva
Nirvana + heavens, hells
Buddha is a savior
Elaborates metaphysics
Includes ritual
Liberal
Many later texts (Sanskrit)
New wisdom school
Samsara is Nirvana (identity)
China, Korea, Japan (N Bism)
Slide Credit:
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana%20Buddhism.ppt
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Most Mahayanists hold that Buddha privately taught that man does not
have to save himself; there is help available. The number of Buddhas
proliferated. The authors of salvation are of three kinds:
• Manushi Buddhas (started from a human base – Gotama Buddha)
 They came on earth, attained enlightenment, and are now gone. They
are teachers
 Gotama before his enlightenment
• Bodhisattvas
 Beings who vowed to become Buddhas and have enormous merit;
they postponed their entrance to Nirvana to help us
 Maitreya, Avalokitesvara, Kwan Yin, Amitabha
• Dhyani Buddhas (meditation Buddhas, never in human form)
 They achieved Buddha-hood, but not in human manifestation
 Vairocana, Amitabha are the most appealing of the D. Buddhas
Also, a mythology about the Buddha developed (Buddhology)
The Trikaya (Triple Body of the Buddha)
• Dharmakaya (analogous to the “Godhead”)
• Sambogakhaya (analogous to the “resurrected” Christ)
• Nirmanakaya (analogous to the historical Jesus of Nazareth)
Slide Credit:
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana%20Buddhism.ppt
The Bodhisattva became popular
 A being whose essence is enlightenment
 The bodhisattva vow (to save all sentient beings) [Vision p 41]
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Daily schedule of the schools of Buddhism (Theravada, Zen, Tibetan)
• Rise at 4 am
• Lunch is the main meal
• To bed by 10 pm
• A lot of time given to study/work
Re: the conduct of the various schools
• Symbiotic relationship
• Conduct (gives merit, or punya) includes
 Rules of restraint (5 and 5)
 The perfections towards which we should strive
 Taking responsibility for one’s actions
Slide Credit:
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana%20Buddhism.ppt
Rupert Gethin:
“...around the beginning of the Christian era there began to emerge
scriptures that challenged certain established Buddhist teachings and
ways of understanding, and which advocated what is represented as a
superior path of practice leading to superior understanding” (Gethin ,
224).
•New texts on the sceneauthenticity?
•Not a problem particular to Mahayana, according to Davidson
“The buddhist traditions in India found themselves, at one time or
another, inundated with a morass of material that passed under the rubric
of the “word of the Buddha” (buddhavacana). As a result, during the
course of its approximately seventeen hundred years in the land of its
origin, Indian Buddhist communities constantly found themselves
encountering tension between the more conservative masters of Buddhist
doctrine and those who, either tacitly or not, were open to the prospect of
the reinterpretation and recodification of the dharma preached by the
Tathagata.”
-Ronald Davidson, An Introduction to the Standards of Scriptural
Authenticity in Indian Buddhism
Authenticity
“But if the comparison is performed by examining the meaning through
reason which does not contradict the nature of reality, then a meaning
which harmonizes with the significance of discourses and is characterized
by reality accordingly demonstrates its own significance. So those
discourses which demonstrate the significance of the disciples’ darma
belong to the disciples’ vehicle. Those discourses which demonstrate the
significance of the private budddhas’ dharma belong to the private
buddhas’ vehicle, and those discourses which demonstrate the
significance of the bodhisattvas’ dharma belong to the bodhisattvas’
vehicle.”
Saramati’s Great Vehicle (408-409)
Authenticity
“One who slanders the dharma of the Great Vehicle certainly hastens to
the lower states of existence. This person experiences the maturation of
his action and its real nature should be stated.
He is born sunk in hell, his body burning with a great flame, the great
torture of his incineration the reliable result of sinful action.”
Saramati’s Great Vehicle (406)
Authenticity
“Futhermore, Mara, the Evil One, may come along in the guise of a
Shramana, and say: 'Give up what you have heard up to now, abandon
what you have gained so far! And if you follow this advice, we will again
and again approach you, and say to you: "What you have heard just now,
that is not the word of the Buddha. It is poetry, the work of poets. But what I
here teach to you, that is the teaching of the Buddha, that is the word of the
Buddha".” Quoted from: Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita
(The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight
Thousand Lines)
“Other early Mahayana works attest to the same traditionalist criticism
in much the same terms, so we are left in no doubt as to its prevalence”
INSPIRED SPEECH IN EARLY
MAHAYANA BUDDHISM I
-Graeme MacQueen
Authenticity
“It is my intention to examine certain aspects of the development of
standards of scriptural authenticity in India:
1. the method of scriptural transmission of the early Sangha and the
general attitudes that contributed to the early scriptural and doctrinal
elaboration
2. the role of the councils in the compilation of a canon and the codified
standards of authenticity established to effect scriptural purity
3. the claim to authority of the Abhidharmika masters as a model of
development and the response of their critics
4. the mythology and apologetics for the Mahayana
5. the steps taken by the Vajracaryas to establish the authority of the
Vajrayana”
-Ronald Davidson, An Introduction to the Standards of Scriptural Authenticity
in Indian Buddhism
Beginnings of the Mahayana
Authenticity
A bhiksu might claim that certain teachings were the dharma, the Vinaya,
the teaching of the teacher, as they were heard from:
1. the mouth of the buddha,
2. a Samgha of elders
3. a group of bhiksus who were
-specialists in the dharma
-specialists in the Vinaya
-specialists in the proto-abhidharma lists
-a single bhiksu who was such a specialist
-Ronald Davidson, An Introduction to the Standards of Scriptural
Authenticity in Indian Buddhism
Authenticity
“Abhidharma was the first wholly new form of literature to arise in
Buddhist India claiming status as scripture. Its methodologies, both
intellectual and apologetic, were to set much of the stage for the
Mahayana.”
-Ronald Davidson, An Introduction to the Standards of Scriptural
Authenticity in Indian Buddhism
Beginnings of the Mahayana
Authenticity
•Abhidharma lists began as “little more than mnemonic devices
facilitating the memorization of certain groups of psycho-physical
developments” (Davidson, 303).
•However, they “became the focus of an intense scholastic movement
that aspired to remove any doubt about the functional relation of any
element of reality to any other element, the sutras being neither
exhaustive on all points of doctrine nor written with a clear structural
layout. With this in mind, the Abhidarmika masters wished to construct
a ‘definitive’ statement about which no doubt could be harbored, since
they maintained that the sutras were ‘intentional’ in their content, being
spoken by the Buddha for a certain audience in a specific frame of
mind” (Davidson, 303).
As a movement:
Schopen’s data, page 17
Do you think Schopen’s argument is valid?
How confident is he/are we in his evidence?
Are certain pieces of his evidence more reliable than others?
http://kaladarshan.arts.ohiostate.edu/studypages/internal/CS321/03MahayanaVajrayana.htm
“Throughout the history of Buddhism in Asia, the Dharma has been
transmitted via cultures that considered women inferior to men.
Undoubtedly, many of the outstanding Dharma teachers were male
chauvinists. Yet the message of the teachings broke through their cultural
prejudices against women. This message inspired female seekers to find
true spiritual liberation in spite of their oppressed positions in society.”
-Rev. Patti Nakai
“If anyone wanted to present Buddhism as a viciously sexist religion, they
could easily do so by quoting out of context passages from numerous
sutras or from more recent texts such as Shinran's wasan (poems) or the
by-laws of the Shinshu Otani-ha (Higashi Honganji's denomination) which
denies female clergy the same status as male priests. But I believe the
essential spirit of Buddhism absolutely includes all beings, male and
female, in its vision of enlightenment. If I did not believe in that then I
would not want to be a part of this religious tradition. In this intermittent
series, I hope to make it clear that women have always been involved in
Buddhist history and that their role has been very crucial even if often
overlooked.”
-Rev. Patti Nakai
“In Mahayana Buddhism, since discrimination between beings was a
delusion that must be transcended, lay people had as much potential to be
enlightened as clergy. "Lay" and "clergy" were only artificial categories
created by karmic conditions. For women this meant a new opportunity to
be recognized as seekers because women were less free to leave their
obligations in the secular world than men.”
-Rev. Patti Nakai
(breaking down dualisms)
Gandhara
“In the rising merchant class, it was the women who were very involved in
supporting Buddhist temples. It may be crass to say, but because women
were in a position of economic power, Buddhist institutions had to pay
attention to their spiritual needs. This explains the emphasis on sutras
featuring women such as the Meditation Sutra and the Queen Srimala
Sutra.”
-Rev. Patti Nakai
China
In China, one of the most powerful champions of Buddhism was the
Empress Wu (late 7th century). She knew that a woman seizing control of
the throne went against Confucian tradition, so she used Buddhist
scriptures to justify her rule. Although she was ruthlessly using Buddhism
for her own political gain, the new sutras which declared the spiritual
potential of women benefited the nuns in various Chinese sects.
-Rev. Patti Nakai