Hinayan and Mahayn

Introductory Comparison of Hinayana and Mahayana horse parsley Berzin Berlin, Germany, January 2002 edited transcript The Terms Hinayana and Mahayana The terms Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle or Modest Vehicle) and Mahayana (Greater Vehicle or Vast Vehicle) originated in The Prajnaparamita Sutras (The Sutras on Far-Reaching Discriminating Aw beness, The Perfection of Wisdom Sutras). They ar a rather derogatory pair of words, aggrandizing Mahayana and putting d cause Hinayana. utility(a) terms for them, however, have many new(prenominal) shortcomings, and so therefore I sh altogether use these more modular terms for them here. describe The Terms Hinayana and Mahayana. Hinayana encompasses 18 schools. The most important for our purposes argon Sarvastivada and Theravada. Theravada is the unmatchable extant today in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Sarvastivada was widespread in Northern India when the Tibetans started to travel there and Buddhism began to be transplanted to Tibet. in tha t respect were devil primary(prenominal) sectionalizations of Sarvastivada based on philosophical conflicts Vaibhashika and Sautrantika. Hinayana principle systems studied at the Indian monastic universities such as Nalanda, and later by the Tibetan Mahayanists, are from these devil schools.The lineage of monastic vows followed in Tibet is from other Sarvastivada subdivision, Mulasarvastivada. See A Brief History of Buddhism in India before the Thirteenth-Century Invasions. Buddhas and Arhats There is quite a significant difference between the Hinayana and Mahayana presentations of arhats and Buddhas. Both conform to that arhats, or liberated beings, are more limited than Buddhas, or initiate beings, are. Mahayana formulates this difference in terms of two sets of obscurations the emotional unitarys, which prevent sack, and the cognitive ones, which prevent omniscience.Arhats are free of barely(prenominal) the former, whereas Buddhas are free of both. This division i s not found in Hinayana. It is purely a Mahayana formulation. To gain press release or enligh goment, both Hinayana and Mahayana conjure up that one needs non judgmentual cognition of the deprivation of an impossible intelligence. Such a lack is often c aloneed selflessness, anatma in Sanskrit, the main Indian scriptural language of Sarvastivada and Mahayana anatta in Pali, the scriptural language of Theravada.The Hinayana schools assert this lack of an impossible soul with respect only to persons, not all phenomena. Persons lack a soul, an atman, that is unaffected by anything, partless, and separable from a personify and a take care, and which can be cognized on its own. Such a soul is impossible. With just the chthonicstanding that there is no such thing as this type of soul with respect to persons, one can induce either an arhat or a Buddha. The difference depends on how much authoritative force or so-called merit one builds up.Because of their development of the instruct aim of bodhichitta, Buddhas have built up far more positivist force than arhats have. Mahayana asserts that Buddhas understand the lack of an impossible soul with respect to all phenomena as well as with respect to persons. They call this lack voidness. The discordant Indian schools of Mahayana differ regarding whether or not arhats also understand the voidness of phenomena. at bottom Mahayana, Prasangika Madhyamaka asserts that they do. However, the quaternion Tibetan traditions explain this focalise differently regarding the Prasangika assertion.Some say that the voidness of phenomena mum by arhats is different from that understood by Buddhas few assert the two voidnesses are the same. Some say that the scope of phenomena to which the voidness of phenomena applies is more limited for arhats than it is for Buddhas some assert it is the same. There is no need to go into all the details here. See Comparison of the Hinayana and Mahayana Assertions of the Understandin gs of Voidness by Arhats and Buddhas. Further Points Concerning Buddhas and ArhatsThe assertions of Hinayana and Mahayana concerning arhats and Buddhas differ in many other ways. Theravada, for instance, asserts that one of the differences between a shravaka or listener striving toward the liberation of an arhat and a bodhisattva striving toward the enlightenment of a Buddha is that shravakas study with Buddhistic teachers, magic spell bodhisattvas do not. The historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, for instance, did not study with another Buddha. He studied only with non-Buddhist teachers, whose methods he ultimately rejected. In the fact that Buddhas understanding and attainment id not arise from reliance on a Buddhist teacher, Theravada asserts that a Buddhas wisdom surpasses that of an arhat. In addition, bodhisattvas work to become world(a) Buddhist teachers shravakas do not, although as arhats they certainly teach disciples. in the first place passing away, Buddha himself deputed his arhat disciple Shariputra to continue turning the wheel of Dharma. check to Theravada, however, Buddhas excel arhats in being more skillful in methods for lead others to liberation and in the breadth of their conduct of teaching.This is the meaning of a Buddhas being omniscient. However, according to this presentation, a Buddha would not know everyones visit and would have to ask such information from others. According to the Vaibhashika school of Hinayana, Buddhas are actually omniscient in knowing such information, but they only know one thing at a time. According to Mahayana, omniscience heart knowing everything simultaneously. This follows from its view that everything is interconnected and interdependent we cannot speak of just one piece of information, totally unrelated to the embossment.Hinayana says that the historical Buddha achieved enlightenment in his living and, like an arhat, when he died, his moral continuum came to an end. Therefore, according to Hinayana , Buddhas teach only for the rest of the life-time in which they achieve enlightenment. They do not emanate to uncounted world systems and go on teaching forever, as Mahayana asserts. Only Mahayana asserts that the historical Buddha became enlightened in a previous lifetime many eons ago, by studying with Buddhist teachers. He was just demonstrated enlightenment under the bodhi tree as one of the twelve enlightening deeds of a Buddha.The precursor of this description of a Buddha is found in the Mahasanghika School of Hinayana, another of the eighteen Hinayana schools, but is not found in either Sarvastivada or Theravada. See The Twelve Enlightening Deeds of a Buddha. Concerning Buddhas, another major difference is that only Mahayana asserts the triad corpuses or bodies of a Buddha Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Dharmakaya. Hinayana does not assert them. Thus, the concept of a Buddha is significantly different in Hinayana and Mahayana. See Identifying the Objects of Safe Directi on (Refuge). The passageway Minds Leading to Liberation and Enlightenment Hinayana and Mahayana both assert that the stages of progress to the purified state of matter, or bodhi, of either an arhat or a Buddha entail developing louver levels of street mind the so-called five rails. These are a building-up road mind or data track of accumulation, an applying alley mind or path of preparation, a seeing pathway mind or path of seeing, an accustoming pathway mind or path of meditation, and a path needing no throw out training or path of no more learning.Shravakas and bodhisattvas who attain a seeing pathway of mind both become aryas, highly completed beings. Both have nonconceptual cognition of the sixteen aspects of the tetrad noble truths. See The cinque Pathway Minds Basic Presentation. See also The Sixteen Aspects and the Sixteen kinky Ways of Embracing the Four Noble Truths. Both Hinayana and Mahayana hit that a seeing pathway mind unlooses both arya shravakas and arya bodhisattvas of doctrinally based strike emotions, while an accustoming pathway mind rids them of automatically arising disturbing emotions.The former are based on learning the set of assertions of one of the non-Buddhist Indian schools, while the latter arise automatically in everyone, including animals. The list of disturbing emotions that shravaka and bodhisattva aryas rid themselves of is part of a larger list of mental factors. Each of the Hinayana schools has its own list of mental factors, while Mahayana asserts yet another list. Many of the mental factors are defined differently in each list. Both Hinayana and Mahayana agree that the course of progressing through the five pathway minds entails practicing the thirty-seven factors leading to a purified state.A purified state or bodhi refers to either arhatship or Buddhahood. These thirty-seven factors include the four close placements of mindfulness, the eight branches of an arya pathway mind (the eightfold noble path) , and so on. They are very important. In anuttarayoga tantra, the thrity-seven are represented by Yamantakas thirty-four arms plus his body, speech and mind, as well as by the dakinis in the body mandala of Vajrayogini. The thirty-seven are a standard set of practices. The specifics of each practice, however, are often different in Hinayana and Mahayana. See The Theravada Practice of the Four coterminous Placements of Mindfulness. See also The Four Close Placements of Mindfulness According to Mahayana. Both Hinayana and Mahayana assert that the scheme of stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner and arhat refers to stages of an arya shravakas path, but not to the path of an arya bodhisattva. Thus, stream-enterers have nonconceptual cognition of the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths, which include nonconceptual cognition of the lack of an impossible soul of persons.We should not think that stream-enterer is a beginner level. So if someone claims to have achieved the state of a stream-enterer, be suspicious. Hinayana does not provide an extensive explanation of the bodhisattva pathway minds. Mahayana, however, explains that an arya bodhisattvas path to enlightenment entails progressing through the development of ten levels of bhumi-mind. These levels of mind do not pertain to the path of shravakas. Both Hinayana and Mahayana agree that traversing the bodhisattva path to enlightenment takes more time than traversing the shravaka one to arhatship.Only Mahayana, however, speaks of building up the two enlightenment-building networks the two collections for three zillion eons. Zillion, usually translated as countless, means a finite number, though we would be unable to count it. Shravakas, on the other hand, can attain arhatship in as short as three lifetimes. In the first lifetime, one becomes a stream-enterer, in the next lifetime a once-returner, and in the third lifetime, one becomes a non-returner, achieves liberation, and becomes an arhat. This is quite allure for many people.The assertion that arhats are selfish is like bodhisattva propaganda. It is basically meant to point out an extreme to avoid. The sutras record that Buddha asked his sixty arhat disciples to teach. If they were truly selfish, they would not have agreed to do so. Arhats, however, can only help others to a more limited extent than Buddhas can. Both, however, can only help those with the karma to be helped by them. Bodhisattvas It is important to realize that the Hinayana schools do assert that before go a Buddha, one follows the bodhisattva path.Both Hinayana and Mahayana have versions of the Jataka tales describing the previous lives of Buddha Shakyamuni as a bodhisattva. startle with King Siri Sanghabodhi in the third century CE, many Sri Lankan kings even called themselves bodhisattvas. Of course, this is a little tricky to untangle because there was some Mahayana present in Sri Lanka at the time. Whether this idea of bodhisattva kings preexisted a Mahayana influence is hard to say, but it did happen. even out more surprisingly, in the fifth century CE, the elders at theSri Lankan capital Anuradhapura say Buddhaghosa, a great Theravada Abhidharma master, to be an incarnation of the bodhisattva Maitreya. Mahayana asserts that there are a thousand Buddhas in this fortunate eon who will start universal religions, and there have been and will be many more Buddhas in other world ages. Mahayana also asserts that everyone can become a Buddha, because everyone has the Buddha-nature factors that modify this attainment. Hinayana does not discuss Buddha-nature. Nevertheless, Theravada does mention hundreds of Buddhas of the past.One Theravada sutta even lists twenty-seven by name. whole of them were bodhisattvas before becoming Buddhas. Theravada asserts that there will be innumerable Buddhas in the future as well, including Maitreya as the next one, and that anyone can become a Buddha if they practice the ten far-reaching attitudes. The Ten Far-Reaching Attitudes Mahayana says that the ten far-reaching attitudes are practiced only by bodhisattvas and not by shravakas. This is because Mahayana defines a far-reaching attitude or saint as one that is held by the force of a bodhichitta aim.According to Theravada, however, so keen-sighted as the ten attitudes are held by the force of renunciation, the determination to be free, bodhichitta is not necessary for their practice to be far-reaching and act as a cause for liberation. Thus, Theravada asserts that both bodhisattvas and shravakas practice ten far-reaching attitudes. Aside from the different motivating aims behind them, the other main difference between a bodhisattvas and a shravakas practice of the ten is the degree of their intensity.Thus, each of the ten far-reaching attitudes has three stages or degrees ordinary, medium, and highest. For example, the highest practice of generosity would be giving ones body to feed a hungry tigress, as Buddha did in a p revious life as a bodhisattva. The list of the ten far-reaching attitudes also differs slightly in Theravada and Mahayana. The Mahayana list is * generosity * ethical self-possession * patience * joyful perseverance * mental stability * discriminating sentience * skill in means