Then, how is the teaching of Amitabha Sutra, for example, can be conducive to enlightenment? All I know is Amitabha Sutra contains teaching of reciting Amitabha Buddha’s name and promises his practitioners will be reborn in a heaven-like Pure Land (which is more conducive to “desire to be reborn” [bhavatanha] than enlightment to me).
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Since both the Theravada and Mahayana scriptures weren’t put to writing until hundreds of years after the events described, how would one know whether they were written as novels or to edit a pre-existing body of texts?
There are things in the Pali scriptures that may not have literally happened, in order to add literary affect. For example, when a wealthy ruler visits the Buddha, they might exaggerate the number of horses in his retinue.
Some might even say the references to gods and nagas in the Pali scriptures are literary embellishments as well. None of these embellishments, though, detract from the overall message of the text.
Please elaborate.
At a popular level, one recites the Nianfo to an external being for rebirth in the Pure Land after death. At a deeper level, one recites the Buddha’s name to realize the Buddha as one’s own Buddha-nature, and to experience the here and now as a Pure Land. As it says in the Vimalakirti Sutra, “When the mind is pure, the land is also pure.”
At the popular level, the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha is an ideal training ground, an ideal environment where the practitioner is reborn thanks both to his own efforts and the power of Amitabha Buddha’s vows…
At the advanced level, i.e. for cultivators of high spiritual capacity, the Pure Land method, like other methods, reverts the ordinary, deluded mind to the Self-nature True Mind. In the process wisdom and Buddhahood are eventually attained.
The high-level form of Pure Land is practiced by those of deep spiritual capacities:
“When the mind is pure, the Buddha land is pure …to recite the Buddha’s name is to recite the Mind.”
In its totality, Pure Land reflects the highest teaching of Buddhism as expressed in the Avatamsaka Sutra: mutual identity and interpenetrating…
Faith means faith in Amitabha Buddha’s Vows to rescue all who recite His name, as well as faith in one’s own Self-Nature, which is intrinsically the same as His (to recite the Buddha’s name is to recite the Mind).
Vows are the determination to be reborn in the Pure Land - in one’s pure mind - so as to be in the position to save oneself and others.
Practice generally means reciting the Buddha’s name to the point where one’s Mind and that of Amitabha Buddha are in unison…
Introduction to Pure Land - Pureland Buddhism - Trang Nhà Quảng Đức
The original meaning of the word Nianfo or Nembutsu is “mindfulness of the Buddha,” a practice endorsed in the Pali scriptures.
To me, language that expresses “believing” like this seems distinctly out of place in what the Buddha taught. The danger in forming views and clinging to them is that one becomes entrenched in beliefs, hallucinations of view, very difficult to overcome.
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Do you believe the Pali scriptures or any other Buddhist texts to be the teachings of the Buddha, even though they weren’t put to writing until hundreds of years after the events described? If so, why?
I’m not very fond of double standards, and neither was the Buddha, as far as I know.
Do you think the Kālacakratantra, c. 1100, is Buddhavacana?
I’m not a fan of double standards either. But “put to writing until hundreds of years after” is better than “put to writing until hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later”, by many people’s metrics
Clearly some Mahayana sutras preserve earlier oral teachings, the Prajnaparamita sutra preserves Satipatthana material for example and also metaphors for the emptiness of dhammas which is similar to the phena sutta.
Other Mahayana material is new and not in the earliest texts.
The same can be said of the Theravada Abhidhamma, which is seen as being directly from the Buddha in orthodox Theravada but modern scholarship has shown it contains much later interpretations and concepts while also being based on an earlier oral tradition of matrkas or mother lists.
All Buddhist traditions developed new concepts and theories over time on top of the EBT teachings. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as we understand the historical development of this material in context.
I currently practice in a Tibetan Buddhist group and I consider this tradition to be as valid and effective as other Buddhist traditions even if they use mainly later texts as their basis for study. I do not accept the orthodox view that the Buddha taught the Mahayana sutras, I have a more modern historical understanding. But this doesn’t undermine my practice or trust in the effectiveness of the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.
Isaac Newton was a genius, his laws of motion have not been overturned and his theories have been proved correct. Likewise, new developments in physics have added new theories and new ways of experimenting with physics, without overturning the truth of Newton’s laws. This is how I understand the later teachings like Abhidharma, Mahayana and Vajrayana and so on.
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The most widely read Mahayana sutras were put to writing, as far as I know, between 100 BCE and 300 CE. Please forgive me if I’m mistaken. That’s around the same time period the Pali suttas were put to writing as well.
In terms of manuscripts, it’s also worth noting that the oldest Buddhist manuscripts are, as far as I know, of Mahayana sutras.
If neither the Pali nor the Mahayana scriptures were put to writing until hundreds of years after the events described, how do we determine that one is earlier or more authentic to the historical Buddha than the other? I am curious about that criteria.
While there might be mythical embellishments in the sutras for literary affect, especially if they developed over hundreds of years, I take at face value that the Mahayana sutras contain the historical Buddha’s essential teachings.
Why be Mahayana rather than Theravada if one doesn’t actually believe that the Buddha taught the Bodhisattva vehicle? It sort of defeats the point, in my opinion.
If neither the Pali nor the Mahayana scriptures were put to writing until hundreds of years after the events described, how do we determine that one is earlier or more authentic to the historical Buddha than the other? I am curious about that criteria.
It’s not about Pali vs Mahayana, its about Early Buddhist text material which includes the Agamas, Gandharan material, etc.
The criteria includes archeological evidence (material cited in Ashoka pillars for example), comparative textual study among the different textual traditions, internal textual evidence (Mahayana sutras include passages defending themselves from those who see them as inauthentic, etc) philology, etc.
While there might be mythical embellishments in the sutras for literary affect, especially if they developed over hundreds of years, I take at face value that the Mahayana sutras contain the historical Buddha’s essential teachings.
Sure, but they also contain a lot of new material and developments, which is just fine. A lot of Pali works also do this.
Why be Mahayana rather than Theravada if one doesn’t actually believe that the Buddha taught the Bodhisattva vehicle? It sort of defeats the point, in my opinion.
Because I value the teachings and ideas as great interpretations and developments of the Dharma and I don’t necessarily see the “historical Buddha” as my only source of understanding.
Besides, Theravada is a tradition, not a yana. One can be Theravada AND have a Mahayana aspiration.
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In terms of the essential teachings of Mahayana Buddhism which differentiate it from Theravada, how can we say definitively that they don’t go back to the historical Buddha? How can it be disproved that the historical Buddha taught them?
While I am unapologetically a Mahayana Buddhist, I also value Theravada Buddhism, which is included under the 84,000 path to enlightenment the Buddha taught. Ch’an master Hsuan Hua was very much in favor of ecumenical relations with Theravada:
The belief that the Buddha taught the attainment of full Buddhahood is predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of what a Buddha actually is, &, for that matter, what an arahant is.
The Buddha taught to attain nibbāna.
What would you say is the difference between those two?
It can’t be definitively disproved, it’s just the best induction from the historical evidence.
You can believe what you want, but that’s a faith based claim, not an evidence based one.
Why is it so important that the historical figure of Sakyamuni taught certain texts anyways? In Mahayana, the idea of Buddha is much more abstract anyways, such as the concept of the Dharmakaya.
There is still a lot of scholarly disagreement on the “historical Buddha” anyways, it will probably never be definitively resolved which doctrines are directly from him and which were later developments. What can be done though is establish certain layers of textual development and history, and the vast majority of scholars, Asian and Western, agree that the EBT material is earlier than the Mahayana sutras. But this historical perspective does not invalidate the Mahayana sutras as a source of wisdom. Just like it does not invalidate the Abhidhamma.
Ultimately, this question has to be put aside and one must focus on the practice, if one’s practice leads to less greed, hatred and confusion, it doesn’t really matter what text it came from.
After years of grappling with these kinds of questions, one realizes what a waste of time arguing about this really is.
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Some people claim, I am particularly thinking of some more radical members of Lotus schools, that the attribution of the Mahāyāna to the “historical” personage of Śākyamuni Buddha at all is a skillful means to an end. Bodhisattvayāna is taught by the saṃbhogakāya of the Buddha (as in, any Buddha) while the nirmāṇakāya teaches the śrāvaka vehicle, such people sometimes claim. I myself have in the past entertained such suspicions.
Obviously afaik this is a modern claim for Mahāyānists to be making, one in light of modern scholarship about the textual history of the Mahāyānasūtrāṇi. I don’t know any teacher of any “official” capacity or any sort that teaches as such, but, one can hear such a perspective voices on Dharma forums, for instance.
That being said, for instance, in the aforementioned LS, when Prabhūtaratna Buddha descends from the clouds in his flying jewelled stūpa, and when Śākyamuni Buddha & the Vulture Peak assembly ascend into the air to meet him, I feel like the world of “historical” this or “historical” that, let alone any particularly this or that, Śākyamuni Buddha or Ascetic Gautama, has been left behind.
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And, from a historical perspective, one should regard such myths in the same way one would regard the Theravada myth of the Buddha teaching the Abhidhamma in Tavatimsa heaven.
This is of course, not the same as saying the Abhidhamma and Mahayana sutras do not contain true Dhamma.
It’s important not to conflate these two ideas, because there is definitely a lot of defensiveness from traditionalists who feel attacked when one refuses to accept their claims on historical grounds.
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No I don’t.
What I mean by that is, because the suttas we have today emerged from an oral tradition through reciters, many schools and traditions and lots of time, it’s impossible to say with certainty “these are the words of the Buddha”. I think that’s the beauty of comparative work of the Pali, Chinese , Tibetan and Sanskrit texts to get closer to the message from 2500 years ago. The more I hear the dhamma and put it to the test of meditation and applying it to my every moment life, the sharper my dhamma vision becomes. When something sounds out of place (or in place for that matter!), I investigate with an open mind, careful, keeping in mind that it’s easy to form and cling to views.
What I was commenting on was that, to me, when I hear language like “I believe…” it seems odd in a Buddhist context, something I rarely encounter.
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At the same time, some of the Buddhavacana is well-established by a certain date. Lets say 300AD to be arbitrary & to give these texts a great deal of time to settle down into “standard” versions.
At this time, some of that same Buddhavacana is not highly well-established, or is in highly variable form (for instance, one can compare the Indian Buddhāvataṃsaka with the Chinese, the Chinese has much to do with “Indra’s Net”, but the Indo-Tibetan recension, which is half as long, doesn’t mention it, or one can compare the Gilgit Lotus Sūtra with the Nepalese & Chinese recensions, the Gilgit being much much shorter, with only 15 chapters/vargāḥ than the standard Chinese recension with 28).
If one wants to be maximally skeptical of the history of Buddhists texts, afaik, at least this fact still stands. The so-called EBTs, whether or not they are substantially more antique, as standardized much sooner than any Mahāyānasūtrāṇi.
To clarify, I was merely answering a question about believing.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t take the suttas seriously or that they aren’t the teachings of the Buddha. I was only splitting hairs saying that we don’t have 100% certainty on any particular words.That said, my life is centered around the dhamma and with thousands of suttas and lots of material to guide me, I don’t really need to split too many hairs!
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While I like this sentiment, are you sure that Theravāda is not a yāna “according to” Mahāyāna?
The usual practice, in my experience, amongst sectarian Mahāyānikāḥ in the know, is to direct polemics originally levelled against the Sarvāstivāda towards the School of the Elders, pretending them to be the same thing for the sake of a convenient pre-written shortlist of points of critique.
Its easier to critique Theravāda when you just pretend they are Sarvāstivāda. Mahāyāna has a wealth of literature disagreeing with various Sarvāstivāda points.