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Confusion about Theravada and Mahayana.
Captain_America
Explorer
So I've been recently looking into Buddhism, and I know that there are different schools, the big two being Theravada and Mahayana. I understand that they're both supposed to be different paths to enlightenment but still I wonder about some of it.
I've realized that Mahayana is the more popular one, with things like Tibetan Buddhism being quite popular. What I don't understand get is whether or not Mahayana is a legitimate path. The way I see it is the following that is the closest to the Buddha's original teachings (or anyone's teachings depending on the religion/faith/etc) is the one that is most "true". The reason I think of it this way is because the way I think of Mahayana is just a spinoff with things that were made up to accommodate for different people and whatnot rather than actual words and such from the Buddha himself. As a result, I don't really know what school to follow.
I may be completely wrong in these thoughts, so I'm hoping someone here could clarify things for me.
I've realized that Mahayana is the more popular one, with things like Tibetan Buddhism being quite popular. What I don't understand get is whether or not Mahayana is a legitimate path. The way I see it is the following that is the closest to the Buddha's original teachings (or anyone's teachings depending on the religion/faith/etc) is the one that is most "true". The reason I think of it this way is because the way I think of Mahayana is just a spinoff with things that were made up to accommodate for different people and whatnot rather than actual words and such from the Buddha himself. As a result, I don't really know what school to follow.
I may be completely wrong in these thoughts, so I'm hoping someone here could clarify things for me.
0
Comments
What there is, is human beings who tread the path. Each human being has a different set of circumstances. Thus they are naturally attracted to one vehicle over another.
And on that note some human beings claim the legitimacy of one over another. But that is a fruitless and pointless argument. Why? Because it doesn't matter.
Do what works for you. What you are attracted to. Don't leave it at philosophy or religion. Dive in. Practice. And live life according to the vehicle. Let it transform you from your root of existence.
The fundamental vehicle is based on renunciation. Mahayana isn't just random. The basis of Mahayana is the fundamental vehicle. You know the four noble truths, three marks, etc. On the basis of all that the Mahayana is built as a reaction towards the lack of emphasis on wisdom (prajna) and balancing that with compassion.
Some schools of Buddhism emphasizes the emptiness of self to the extreme and focuses completely on that and that alone. Forsaking compassion and emptiness of phenomena.
But at the end of the day they both lead to the same enlightenment and nirvana. Freedom from suffering. Mahayana has a habit of reifying buddha nature into a super consciousness, so be careful of that.
One is about renunciation. The other about intention and cultivating the good.
In some ways the dichotomy is meaningless. Don't get caught up in dogma or buddhist polemics. Just practice and live life.
http://www.BuddhaNet.net has a lot of resources to study, for one.
http://www.AccessToInsight.org also has resources, such as the Pali Canon.
you dont need to settle down with any school, especially early on your path, discover what it is right for you, and learn from MANY
The goal for both: FREEDOM
Theravada: Dualistic vision of Buddhism. Absolute and relative reality are completely different and separate. Nirvana is nirvana. Conventional everyday existence is conventional everyday existence. The Arhat is the final expression as one who is free in the six sense spheres. Renunciation is emphasized because the deathless is what we want baby not this other shit.
Mahayana's basic premise is that look you're free yet the world is still suffering. Are you not moved to help? And supposively the Arhat naturally progresses to the bodhisattva path towards buddhahood. :]
Mahayana: Non-Dualistic vision of Buddhism. Absolute and relative reality are non dual, utterly the same. The basis of this is emptiness of inherent existence. Both nirvana and samsara are completely undifferentiated. The final expression is that of Buddhahood which is the experiential view of the union of appearances and emptiness. That means a Buddha can see both appearances and emptiness as the same time. In this view compassion and love is expressed and the bodhisattva returns continuously for suffering beings. Yet they are all empty of inherent existence. But the Middle Way is practiced. Thus one's own nirvana is only important in that it ultimately serves everyone else, yet there is no everyone else. Go figure.
And both schools also have different views coming from philosophy and experiential insight.
At the end of the day none of this matters unless its facing you directly in your practice. But its interesting to know what the differences are and what the basis for the two views are.
The teachings were espoused by the Buddha himself in person.
The NIKAYAS sutras are a very good starting point, cant go wrong from there. They pertain to everyday issues, how to live your life, the rights and wrongs etc, all described in easy to understand straightforward fashion.
Mahayana teachings supposedly came a few hundred years after the Buddhas passing.
They are supposed to build on and expand the Dharma to include a whole new pantheon of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. This is supposed to be a progressive introduction to wider aspects of Buddhism and that they exist in other dimensions.
Sadly, a lot of people jump right into the philosophical teachings without a proper foundation. ( Humans like to think they are 'there' already, hehe). It will only serve to confuse and distract.
Lookup the NIKAYAS, then proceed from there. After you have understood the teachings, then the natural progression to Mahayana will come.
Ciao
http://www.scribd.com/doc/93908177/Whose-Buddhism-Is-Truest
For instance from a Mahayana perspective, Theravada might be considered a "lesser vehicle" or "Hinayana" (in the definition concerning any schools that don't teach the bodhisattva path or adhere to Mahayana sutras)... but Theravada doesn't consider itself a lesser vehicle. That distinction was made by Mahayana, which means (and so named/proclaimed itself), the "Great(er) Vehicle".
Whether Theravada, Mahayana or Vajrayana, they should all be looked at from their own viewpoint. It's easy to get pulled into how each school views the other schools, which is kinda like Christianity judging Judaism or vice-versa. From their own perspectives, they're all "right".
It would be untrue to suggest that Mahayana teachings are not genuine or words of Buddha there is a marginal amount of time between the recording of these teachings of Theravada and Mahayana, It is said that there where many turnings of the wheel of Dharma to the capacity of sentient beings and it is a grave error to reject Dharma because of certain historical biases. The actual words of Buddha are not existent, all we have today are written records of his disciples and long oral lineage traditions of teachings and each differ from school to school there being many sub variations of Theravada and Mahayana each having a different recording so each practitioner takes their tradition on with a certain amount of faith that these teachings will be of benefit to them and that they are. The Theravada tradition has produced many thousands of highly accomplished practitioners as have the Mahayana traditions each having Buddha and his teachings as their method of accomplishment so who are we with dust in our eyes to say this is not a teaching of Buddha ?
In the mahayana the samaya from the guru is the relationship of the student to the dharma, er at least that is emphasized rather than texts.
The different teachings correspond to different students needs. Some students might have been studying tantras prior to meeting Buddha and the great teacher may have met them where they were in transmitting teachings. The flower sermon for example contained no words just offering of a flower and this sermon is historically part of the Zen tradition which is also based on transmission.
Also the goal of Buddhism is to transmit enlightened mind. If no one is getting enlightened we just have a cool hobby. Therefore some of the enlightened descendents could add teachings as they would also be Buddhas. The Theravada defines a Buddha as one who sets the wheel of dharma in motion in a world and so you would have to say arhats rather than Buddhas. But the mahayana there are Buddhas in the world, you could research padmasambhava for example. It's also a terrible karma to obstruct a bodhisattva in teaching the dharma and I keep that in mind. Of course it's a virtue to disagree, as that is a great learning experience for yourself and those you talk to; I'm talking about divisive speach. We've had some great discussions about the difference between divisive speach and speaking out in injustice such as women's rights etc.
which school did produce suttas/sutras in writing?
mahayana? vajrayana? theravada?
enough for my mind, they hit my heart describing my ' brothers and sisters'.
Sending Metta to all!
That's not to devalue the sutras though.
"The more you know."
http://www.newbuddhist.com/discussion/11592/significance-of-gandhari-scrolls-to-mahayana-theravada-split/
Ooh, I can read it from the other link, excellent:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/93908177/Whose-Buddhism-Is-Truest
We can get clingy and intellectual with scriptures, interpreting them how we like, following our desires around. It's for this reason that I prefer practice-oriented traditions like Zen (Mahayana) and Thai Forest (Theravada) that are basically "shut up and sit". We should try and learn from the scriptures, but it's most important to establish a practice that leads us to actual insight, to seeing for ourselves.
providing a good motto for 'me'
I had a stream of thoughts, views and opinions, and discovered that Theravada more-or-less taught exactly that....Theravada was here long before I came up with my dazzling, mind-piercingly logical conclusions.
It felt all at once, both gratifying and disappointing.
I thought I'd come up with all that as an original idea. And there it was, thousands of years old, all along.
Boy, did my Ego take a knock that day.....
Much more important than the scriptures is actual practice, and I think all traditions afford us a reliable practice to see for ourselves.
"The Gandharan Buddhist texts are both the earliest Buddhist and South Asian manuscripts discovered so far. Most are written on birch bark and were found in labeled clay pots. Panini has mentioned both the Vedic form of Sanskrit as well as what seems to be Gandhari, a later form (bhāṣā) of Sanskrit, in his Ashtadhyayi."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhara
There are many topics on this, and yes, when you just get into Buddhism it is confusing. You think one particular school must have the truth and the other doesn't. But let me tell you how I see things.
It's not about following this or that school. Within both Therevada and Mahayana there are also big differences of opinion on various matters. So even if you pick one of them, you still have to find your way inside that tradition as well. So what should you do? Trust your own instinct and experience to tell you what's right and what's not. That's what you should do. Only that way can you find the truth. Remeber this is what the Buddha did. He didn't belief the teachers of his time until he had found the truth for himself. He would have wanted us to do the same.
I have the opinion that the Buddha never set up his teachings to form different schools, neither Therevada nor Mahayana. These were made up afterward. And when these various splits of the sangha occured, there must also have been monks that never cared about being in a particular school because they knew that the Dhamma doesn't work like that. It's our job to find out what that original Dhamma is. And whatever that is, although some schools may be closer than others, in the end it doesn't belong to one particular school of thought. So all this division of schools is artificial, it has no place in reality itself.
So go with what you feel is right. What texts do ring true to you and which don't? Perhaps they all do. Perhaps you just don't know. And if you don't know, that's still knowing something. And yes, some texts can be dated older than others. But does that make them more true automatically?.. If that was so, aren't the Egyptian texts even older? So should we belief those? No, we should belief what we feel is true, or better even, what we can verify.
Long story short, within various Buddhist traditions there will have been people who found the real Dhamma, both 'Therevada' practitioners and 'Mahayana' practitioners and others. But there are also many who didn't. So it's up to you to find out for yourself. Just always be aware that just because someone wears a robe, has practiced Buddhism longer than you, or is within a specific tradition, that doesn't automatically mean they are right.
With metta,
Sabre
It seems possible to me that it's one of those "What is an elephant?" questions. To a flea, we would describe it as soft gray mountain that provides food. To a toad in the road, we would describe it some kind of incredibly dangerous moving tree trunk, pounding toward you, that you must always flee at all costs, etc. It does no good to explain to the toad, during his lifetime as a toad, that the elephant provides food--even though this is true. All that would do is result in lots of toad death. And if we told the flea to flee, he'd die from starvation.
Are they completely different views? The differences sound far greater to me than some of the differences between view of self in various Buddhist schools.
In the same talk I referenced, the Buddha advised an elderly Christian friend, who had an incredibly deep feeling of love and concentration on his God, not to investigate emptiness, lest that investigation shake the power of the Christian's practice of devotion, a practice which the Dalai Lama obviously believed was valuable for developing the mind.
I think very many things take on a different view when you examine them over multiple lifetimes instead of one. The Christian man's practice was already very advanced in this particular lifetime--a devotion-based practice. Better to stick with that, take the mind as far as it can go; in a future life, one may be increasingly suited to other practices. I find it completely possible that (as we can see on this very forum) different people are suited to different practices.
At the risk of comparing myself to a flea or toad, I think that it's possible to gain one view in one life, then a different one in the next, until finally we see the whole elephant. The individual views, though different, may not be wrong, they may just be incomplete.
Also, the ultimate view is beyond words and can only really be experienced--is it likely that any school can put into words something that is the equivalent of experiencing a view (even their own)? The teachings say that conceptual thought can only attempt to describe experience; in the end, experience can only be experienced.