Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
multiple mahayana sutras claiming to be the best
Anyone else notice this? It seems like every mahayana sutra I read the buddha says something along the lines of "this is the ultimate sutra that contains the highest knowledge. All others only give you a taste of the ultimate truth contained within this sutra." I like to think of it as different ways of teaching different people, depending on their dispositions. How about you guys?
0
Comments
Sure, the Mahayana sutras can be a bit hyperbolic but I love them. IMO, the Mahayana sutras (like the Flower Ornament) are the most beautifully written scriptures of any tradition, Buddhist or not.
If I had to guess, I might say that most people would give the Diamond Sutra the ranking as the true highest, because it is the teaching to fully eliminate the idea of a self (being and soul). Whereas the others are o.k. in perpetuating the myth, but serve some other important purpose.
All I know, is that compared with worldly teachings, and even other religious teachings, the Mahayana scriptures are "the highest" in the sense of the most honorable thoughts a person could have about life and living beings. I agree with upalabhava that the Flower Ornament is just amazing wording, even in English language... but with that sutra, here and there I cringe, thinking: "no one is really going to believe that little phrase, and therefore discount the whole thing". Yet it contains a plethora of profound, important and 'deep messages'.
Will we ever know if it is 'B.S.' or not? Maybe on our death bed, we'll be glad that we had an incling of faith for the esoteric Buddhism.
Certainly won't have wasted our time becoming more kind people in a sometimes brutish world.
The different traditions can be confusing enough without coming across this thread.
I have asked this before on numerous occasions:
Please consider carefully where you locate threads.
"Buddhism for Beginners" is not the place to discuss the wording, authenticity or claims of any of the Buddha's teachings.
Thanks.
Love it! Good one.
It's repeated very frequently something like "This very perfection of wisdom [is the highest / shall bring merit] ... etc" and I believe that it is to instill a strong sense of the necessity and importance of Prajnaparamita in the Boddhisattva path. The perfection of wisdom is the condition that leads to the other perfections.
Without proper understanding (wisdom or prajna) we cannot perfect the virtues of charity, morality, patience, vigor, and concentration.
And I agree that many of the Mahayana sutras are very deep and the wording often puts me into a meditative and powerful state of concentration. The over-the-top miraculous elements and some of the more arrogant characters grate at my nerves a bit though.
I understand the writing to be a technique employed to clear the mind out from impurities in many cases, such as much of the Avatamska Sutra. In other cases such as the Lotus Sutra, there is a division that tries to present itself more clearly by saying ahead of time "let me tell you a parable" i.e. this part is a parable whereas the rest is truth. And the Diamond Sutra tries to come across as complete truth for the whole sutra - and it does seem to embellish the least (if at all), of these that I've read so far.
Mostly skillful means to tame the mind from its endless waywardness's.
As the Gelukpa was the only school that did not travel to India to receive the teachings, they depended on translations and lineages from the other schools hence this approach of regarding the Prajnaparamita as definitive can be said to be a particularly Tibetan innovation. I will leave analysis of the verity of these distinctions to the interested reader. The point is that the texts first and foremost are pedagogical devices NOT historical records. The only use for the dharma is to discover one's own wisdom mind and to help others to make the same discovery. Teachers from different buddhist traditions will use different methods to achieve this goal. In my opinion, there is nothing to be gained by trying to come up with a monolithic truth. The proof is in praxis.