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MAHAYANA BUDDHISM
Mahayana means ‘Greater Vehicle’, expressing the belief that more
can reach enlightenment through Mahayana than Hinayana or the
‘Lesser Vehicle’. Hinayana does not refer to themselves as such but
use the name THERAVADA meaning the way of the elders.
Mahayana began about 100BC but did not develop a systematic way
of thinking until after 150AD.The two main schools of thought in
Mahayana are the MADHYAMAKA and the YOGACARA (or Citta
matra – mind only)
WHAT MAKES MAHAYANA DISTINCT FROM HINAYANA?
 Writings or Sutras that were written about 500 years after
the Buddha and are not part of the Theravada scriptures.
 The ideal for a Buddhist now becomes the Bodhisattva and not
the Arhat.
 There is equal emphasis on compassion (karuna) and wisdom
(prajna)
 Faith in Bodhisattvas or Buddhas is now possible to help a
person towards Nirvana. There are now many Buddhas.
 In Mahayana Buddhism there is an emphasis on ‘skill in means’
or ‘upaya’.
 The fully worked ideas of Madhyamaka and Yogacara go
further than Theravada in their philosophical treatment of
reality and the Buddha nature, (although arguably they were
only completing what was already inherent in Theravada.
THE MAHAYANA SUTRAS
These writings were written sometime after the life of Shakyamuni.
They were written as a response to Buddhism becoming too settled
and enclosed within a monastic Sangha.The needs of the laity were
not being fully met. Important religious needs were rather ignored in
favour of a concentration upon austerity and self-discipline. The
Mahayana sutras were also written as a response to further
philosophical speculation and to the influences of thought outside
Buddhism.
Although these writings were written sometime after the Buddha
they are traditionally said to have come from the Buddha himself (or
rather the teaching they include comes from the Buddha). According
to tradition, a group of Bodhisattvas secretly met at the same time
as the Theravada monks met to decide which writings were to have
authority. The Bodhisattvas compiled the Mahayana sutras, which
were then magically hidden until needed 500 years later to revive
Buddhism. Myth, this may be but it does express the Mahayana view
that their teaching is not novel but does have its roots in the
teaching of Shakyamuni.
The Mahayana writings are of four main types
 THE PRAJNAPARAMITA LITERATURE
This literature contains a number of sutras found in the Tibetan and
Chinese lists of authoritative texts (canon). Prajnaparamita means
perfect wisdom. This suggests wisdom beyond our daily
understanding of things and also beyond the Theravadin wisdom, in
particular the Abhidharma school of Theravada thought.
 THE SUKHAVATI SUTRAS
These are two main sutras consisting of the smaller and the larger.
They were written about 2nd century AD. They are concerned with
‘sukhavati’ or ‘happy land’. This is one of the ‘Pure Lands’ or ‘Buddha
Worlds’ where a Buddha resides. These Pure Lands can be reached
by devotion and faith. So, not surprisingly, these sutras had a very
important effect on the later development of Pure Land Buddhism.
 THE LOTUS SUTRA
This has become one of the most popular Mahayana sutras. It puts
forward some of the most important Mahayana ideas and argues that
all beings are called to be Buddhas, not just Arhats.
 TANTRAS
Tantric texts describe various meditations and exercises that are
supposed to use all means to reach enlightenment, sometimes very
quickly.
THE BODHISATTVA IDEAL
Mahayana Buddhism rejected the previous ideal of the Arhat
(‘worthy one’). The Arhat was one who had attained
enlightenment/nirvana but was not known as a Buddha because he or
she depended on the teaching of another (The Buddha Shakyamuni).
Mahayana also rejected the ideal, connected to becoming an Arhat,
of the ‘Pratyeka – Buddha’ or ‘solitary thinker’ and of the
Cravakayana (one who hears and obeys from authority rather than
from his own experience). What is being rejected is an emphasis on
contemplation and seclusion. The Theravada ideal is criticised as
being too cold and austere.
In its place Mahayana argues that there should be a return to the
old teaching of ‘saving all creatures’. The Bodhisattva aims to be
enlightened for the sake of others.
Nagarjuna defined the Bodhisattva thus:
‘Thus the essential nature of the Bodhisattva is a great loving heart
(maha-karuna-citta) and all sentient beings constitute the objects of
its love’.
The Hinayana Arhat is criticised as lacking karuna (compassion/love).
All the Arhat can do to help others is to show how intellectually,
nirvana is possible. Indeed from a Mahayana viewpoint, merely
stopping dukkha is not enough. The Bodhisattva aims for ‘perfect,
supreme Enlightenment’.
This is reflected in the name ‘Bodhisattva’.’Bodhi’ may mean
enlightenment or omniscience. It is often associated with the words
‘perfect’ and ‘supreme’. Bodhi is Buddha-jnana (knowledge of Buddha),
having eventually the same knowledge as the Buddha. ’Sattva’ means
‘being’, but not being as in any ordinary person. ‘Being’ here means as
in a strong or valiant man, a hero or warrior. Sattva therefore,
expresses the ideas of existence and struggle. The Bodhisattva
remains in samsara, existence striving for the enlightenment of all
beings.
Sattva is what the Arhat leaves when he is enlightened, whereas the
Bodhisattva remains and Bodhi expresses that degree of
enlightenment the Arhat does not gain.
The Bodhisattva is seen as embodying both wisdom (prajna) and
compassion (karuna). Both complement each other. Mahayana sees
the Bodhisattva as the true Middle Way using both wisdom and
compassion. The way up (following wisdom) is enlightenment whereas
the way down (following compassion) is by not leaving the world but
seeking to save it by continuing to live in it. Both ways meet and need
each other. So eventually the Bodhisattva refuses to enter nirvana
himself.
‘I shall not enter into final nirvana before all beings have been
liberated’ (Lankavatara sutra).
HOW TO BECOME A BODHISATTVA (not easy!!)
First the would be Bodhisattva must have the ‘thought of
enlightenment’ or Bodhicitta.This is not some vague, idle thought.
Bodhicitta has to be aroused in the mind. A person must have right
aspiration and karmic predisposition. He or she must go through
supreme worship, which involves seeking refuge in the Bodhisattvas
and Buddhas.
Self-dependence is given up. Bodhisattvas can give their merit to
others and likewise those wishing to become Bodhisattvas vow to give
their own merit away.
Compassion, pity, mercy must be at the heart of this ‘thought of
enlightenment’.
Then the would be Bodhisattva practices the six Paramitas
(perfections)-the virtues a Bodhisattva must perfect in order to
reach enlightenment.
The six paramitas are:
Giving
Morality
Patience
Vigour
Meditation
Wisdom
The stages the Bodhisattva then goes through were then said to be
ten. There is clearly a real contrast between this Buddhist
philosophy and the concept of the Arhat in the Theravada tradition.
EQUAL EMPHASIS ON COMPASSION AND WISDOM
This has already been seen in the ideal of the Bodhisattva and how
Mahayana argue both are needed for the ‘Middle Way’. Wisdom
(prajna) without compassion (karuna) can have no motive to help
others but can become centred only on one’s own enlightenment.
Compassion without wisdom does not have the ability or knowledge to
help others.
The greatest wisdom is required not for its own sake but so that the
Bodhisattva has the greatest skill in assisting other beings. In fact,
Mahayana teaches that this supreme wisdom (Bodhi) is only possible
if the enlightened person remains within Samsara; only then can the
Bodhisattva perfect the knowledge and wisdom he needs to help
others:
‘Just as the lotus-flowers do not grow in the dry land, but in the
dark-coloured, watery mire, ………….it is even so with intelligence. In
non-activity and external annihilation which are cherished by the
Pratyekabuddhas, there is no opportunity for the seeds and sprouts
of Buddhahood to grow. Intelligence can grow only in the mire and
dirt of passion and sin’
(Vimalakirti Sutra)
It might seem odd to say both wisdom and compassion are necessary.
Wisdom, according to Mahayana, finally shows all to be void or empty.
If so then why show compassion to other beings if finally they are all
void. (The response to this is that compassion becomes more relevant
not less because the Bodhisattva realises there is no distinction
between himself and others. The suffering of others is his or her
own suffering.
FAITH IN BODHISATTVAS OR BUDDHAS
With the emphasis that all can be enlightened as the Buddha
Shakyamuni, it follows that there are many Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas. They can be appealed to for aid. This allows faith
(bhakti) as well as one’s own efforts. The Mahayana writings promise
a happy rebirth as a reward of bhakti. A Bodhisattva in his progress
relies on help from those more advanced. Faith involves ceasing on
self-reliance (perhaps what anatta requires).
As time went by the Buddha Shakyamuni became remote, so in
Mahayana there are many Buddhas:
‘The Buddhas are like the sands on the banks of the Ganges’.
(Lankavatara Sutra)
These were personal figures, worthy of worship and following their
example. By such figures Mahayana became accessible to a greater
variety of people and satisfied a greater range of religious
experience and need.
Each Buddha had a Buddha field or world which they had purified by
their progress to become a Buddha. Such a Buddha world was the
Pure Land of the West where Amitabha brought those who had faith
in him.
The Lotus sutra places some importance on faith. It says that a
person showing devotion to statues of the Buddha, for example,
progresses towards enlightenment.
MAHAYANA EMPHASIS ON ‘UPAYA’ OR SKILL IN MEANS
This is one perfection (beyond the six already mentioned) that the
Bodhisattva has to perfect. The skill in means or ‘upaya’ is the skill to
know and be able to assist any sentient being towards nirvana. It is
the skill to do precisely what is needed and when for any particular
individual to assist them towards enlightenment.
All Mahayana can be said to be a ‘skill in means’. All is finally void or
empty, so all the different practices and ways to nirvana are finally
empty as well. They are simply means to an end whether it be by
devotion or extreme self-discipline.
PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS OF MADHYMAKA AND
YOGACARA (or CITTAMATRA – mind only)
 MADHYAMAKA (Middling) MIDDLE WAY
The main teacher of Madhyamaka was Nagarjuna. He is probably the
greatest single figure since the Buddha Shakyamuni. He is sometimes
referred to as the second Buddha. He lived and wrote about 150 AD.
Nagarjuna developed further the teaching of the Abhidharma school
of thought in Theravada Buddhism. The Abhidharma argued that
there were elements of existence or fundamental elements from
which everything else is made up. These elements had their own
existence ie. They did not depend on anything else for their
existence. They had ‘inherent existence’. These elements they called
‘dharmas’. This view can be seen as one of ‘realism’ (there are certain
things which are real from which everything else is derived).
Narajuna further developed this view by questioning why the
dharmas themselves could not be analysed and shown to be not
single, simple entities. He argued that such ‘dharmas’ could not be
part of the endless, ever changing round of Paticcasamuppada. If
they did not depend on anything else to exist then these dharmas
have always existed or do not exist at all. Nothing can cause them to
happen, they are either just there or have never existed. They
cannot cause anything else to exist either, because this will involve
change in the dharmas, but no change is necessary if they do not
depend on anything else to exist. So Nagarjuna argued that these
dharmas are also completely part of the endless chain of Conditioned
genesis. Like everything else they depend on other things for their
existence. Therefore, as we look further and further for something
that does not depend on something else for its existence we find no
such thing. Nothing has ‘inherent existence’. All things depend on
other things endlessly. We do not find anything that is fundamentally
‘real’ but all is seen as void or empty or Sunya.
If Nagarjuna rejects ‘realism’ then it would first seem that he
accepts the opposite which is ‘nihilism’, the belief in nothing, that
nothing has any value or purpose. But Nagarjuna is quite careful to
argue that this Sunya is not nihilism. Sunya is the middle way
between ‘realism’ and ‘nihilism’. Sunya or void or emptiness may sound
negative but Nagarjuna does not wish to see them as such. In fact
everything, as Sunya, is supposed to liberate us. It frees us from the
habitual grasping after things which only brings dukkha, because if
we fully are aware of Sunya we realise there is nothing to grasp at.
In addition, everything as Sunya releases us from self-interest and
self-absorption to a sense of great Compassion, for there is no
distinction between you or me. We are all the same.
Sunya or the void, then, is to be seen as between our views of the
negative and positive, or our views of existence and non-existence.
Sunya is beyond this dualistic thought. Such thought cannot reach
enlightenment. So Sunya is not another view or belief, or another
reality. It is the final truth which is beyond normal thought which
only traps us into the world of Samsara.
If all is void then nirvana is also void. It cannot be somewhere else or
something different. Thus samsara and nirvana are both void. They
are the same or as Nagarjuna said
‘The sphere of Nirvana in the sphere of Samsara: Not the slightest
distinction exists between them’
Nirvana is seeing Samsara in the right way.
Nagarjuna’s method was to show that any view or belief could be
undermined or contradicted. If someone argued that cause and
effect really exist he would argue against that. If they argued cause
and effect did not exist he would argue against that! His aim was to
help a person go beyond, in their experience, our normal views and
beliefs. These were not absolute truth. They could not be because
any view could be argued against. Finally absolute truth was that all
views or beliefs were empty or Sunya. This had to be experienced.
Nagarjuna did not think of this world as some fantasy but argued
that there were two different levels of awareness. On one level we
treated the everyday world as real with its objects, feelings and
people. At a fundamental level, however, we see all things as Sunya or
void.
The practical result of this it has to be said again, is not negative
but to liberate ourselves (even from the idea of ‘selves’!). One first
learns that one has no separate existence so finally everything is the
same, or ‘One’ or ‘All’. There is no subject or object. I am everything.
Everything is me. The final emptiness is sometimes also referred to
as the dharmakaya or the Buddha mind in all. There is no need to
grasp or seize anything for really there is only Sunya or Void; to
seize or grasp is absurd.
 YOGACARA (or CITTAMATRA – mind only)
The two main founders of this school of thought are Vasubandhu and
Asanga. Asanga was the brother of Vasubandhu. Both were Mahayana
monks. They lived in the fourth century AD. This school of thought
can have three names
1. Yogacara (those emphasising yoga)
2. Cittamatra (mind only)
3. Vijnanavada (teaching of consciousness)
By the fourth century some Mahayana Buddhists had come to think
that Nagarjuna’s Sunya was too negative. They wanted to say there
was a final reality. In Nagarjuna’s thinking Buddhist teaching was
Sunya or Void so some accused Nagarjuna of destroying Buddhism.
The Yogacara school placed great emphasis on yoga meditation to be
enlightened. Hence it finally argued that it is mind or consciousness
that is ultimately real. Objects around us depend on our awareness
of them and how we perceive them. (Could some flower in the middle
of the Sahara Desert, that has never been seen, be said to exist?
The Yogacara said it did not exist until seen). Consciousness then is
real. The ‘outside’ world depends on our awareness and perception of
it.
Consciousness or mind, then, is the final reality. But this does not
mean any form of mind or consciousness. The consciousness we use
everyday, for example, is one of the Skandhas or heaps that make us
up and are ever changing, so this form of consciousness cannot be
fully real. To say mind is finally real may also seem, at first, to be a
contradiction of the basic Buddhist view of ‘anatta’ or non-self. But
when Yogacara speak of consciousness or mind being finally real they
are not talking about normal, mundane consciousness or individual
‘minds’.
They analyse consciousness or mind into three different levels or
kinds. These are:
1. Parikalpita (imaged or constructed consciousness)
2. Parinispanna (dependent or relative consciousness)
3. Parinispanna (perfected or accomplished consciousness)
The first level of consciousness we experience daily, where we are
aware of the various objects around us which we name and look upon
as separate objects from us with their own existence. This level of
consciousness Yogacara sees as false. (To give an example which
might help: we look out of a window into a garden and see a tree. But
the idea of a tree is only in our own minds. The tree certainly doesn’t
go about thinking it’s a tree).
The next level of consciousness is to perceive that we have a
constant flow of different perceptions dependent on our own
situation (where we are what we are feeling).
The final stage of consciousness is to be aware only of a constant
flow of consciousness or mental experiences. We do not grasp at
these experiences and try to define them as to do with oneself or
some external object. We simply are aware of all the passing
experiences within consciousness. The dharmakaya or Bhudda mind
was this final state of consciousness.
This analysis of consciousness was then applied to the different
forms of consciousness of the Buddha. The Trikaya is not just to be
seen as the ‘Three Bodies’ of the Buddha. ‘Kaya’ means also ‘form’ or
‘being’. Trikaya means the three forms or three different levels of
being of the Buddha. The Trikaya describes the three levels of
consciousness of the Buddha and so, of course, of everybody (for
potentially we are all Buddhas).
 Nirmanakaya is the daily consciousness of objects and people
around us. It is the consciousness of particular thoughts and
feelings.
 Sambhogakaya is the purer energy of consciousness before we
begin to analyse and discriminate. For example in Mahayana
Buddhism the aspects of this energy most valued are
compassion and wisdom (personified by Sambhogakaya bodies
of Buddhas). This is not compassion or wisdom for particular
things or people but the universal conscious energy of
compassion and wisdom.
 Dharmakaya is pure consciousness itself and impossible to
define but can be directly experienced. It is like the clear sky
when all clouds have moved away.
Modern Buddhism would argue that we move through these three
levels of awareness each day and night but most of us remain unaware
of this. Buddhas, of course, are aware of this process. The dharmakaya
would be seen as the same as Nagarjuna’s Sunya where there are no
distractions.
POSSIBLE QUESTIONS
1. Comparing Bodhisattva and Arhat.
2. Comparing Mahayana and Theravada (their similarities and
differences and argument that differences developed from what
already was in Theravada).
3. Compassion in Mahayana. If they ask this then mention:
 The Mahayana Sutras that emphasise compassion, faith
and devotion (Lotus Sutra in particular).
 The Bodhisattva ideal (stress on karuna).
 The Bodies of the Buddha with Sambhogakaya and
Nirmenakaya as there to assist others.
 The faith and devotion that can receive help from Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas.
(examples of Buddhas; Manjushri – wisdom,
Avalokitesvara – compassion, Amitabha – Infinite Light).
4. Wisdom in Mahayana. Mention then:
 The perfection of wisdom Sutras.
 The Bodhisattva as aiming to achieve ‘Bodhi’.
 The perfection of wisdom as pursued in the philosophical
schools of Madhyamaka and Yoga Cara; going beyond the
extent of Thervada thinking.
 Describing and explaining Sunya or the Trikaya.