Mahayana (The Great Vehicle)
The Mahayana branch is more of an umbrella body for a great variety of schools, from the Tantra school (the secret teaching of Yoga) well represented in Tibet and Nepal, to the Pure Land sect, whose essential teaching is that salvation can be attained only through absolute trust in the saving power of Amitabha, longing to be reborn in his paradise through his grace, which are found in China, Korea and Japan.
Ch’an and Zen Buddhism, of China and Japan, are Mahayana meditation schools. According to these schools, to look inward and not to look outwards is the only way to achieve enlightenment, which to the human mind is ultimately the same as Buddhahood. In this system, the emphasis is upon “intuition,” its peculiarity being that it has no words in which to express itself at all, so it does this in symbols and images. In the course of time this system developed its philosophy of intuition to such a degree that it remains unique to this day.
It is generally accepted, that what we know today as the Mahayana school arose from the Mahasanghikas sect who were the earliest seceders, and the forerunners of the Mahayanas. They took up the cause of their new sect with zeal and enthusiasm and in a few decades grew remarkably in power and popularity. They adapted the existing monastic rules and thus revolutionized the Buddhist Order of Monks.
Moreover, they made alterations in the arrangements and interpretation of the Sutra (Discourses) and the Vinaya (Rules) texts. And they rejected certain portions of the canon which had been accepted in the First Council as having come from the Buddha himself.
According to Mahayana doctrine, the Buddhas are lokottara (supramundane) and are connected only externally with the worldly life. This conception of the Buddha contributed much to the growth of the Mahayana philosophy.
Mahayana Buddhism is further divided into two systems of thought: the Madhyamika and the Yogacara.
The Madhyamikas were so called on account of the emphasis they laid on the middle view. Here, the middle path, stands for the non-acceptance of the two views concerning existence and nonexistence, eternity and non eternity, self and non-self. In short, it advocates neither the theory of reality nor that of the unreality of the world, but merely of relativity. It is, however, to be noted that the Middle Path propounded by the Buddha has an ethical meaning, while the Middle View of the Madhyamikas is a metaphysical concept, not to be confused with the Buddha’s Middle Plath.
The other Mahayana branch, the Yogacara School, was so called because it emphasized the practice of yoga (meditation) as the most effective method for the attainment of the highest truth (Bodhi). All the ten stages of spiritual progress of Bodhisattvahood have to be passed through before Bodhi can be attained.
The ideal of the Mahayana school, therefore, is that of the Bodhisattva, a person who delays his or her own enlightenment in order to compassionately assist all other beings and ultimately attains to the highest Bodhi.
Why I Do Not Practice Mahayana
Searching for scriptures as close to the historical Buddha as possible led me to the Pali Canon and the School of the Elders, Theravada.
Also, when the Buddha practiced his ministry, there was no Theravada nor was there any Mahayana. There was only the Dhamma. In my view—be it correct or not—Mahayana as a school is the result of local “adjustments” or “improvements” both in philosophy and practice, some of which may have been adopted to be more ethnically acceptable to the local populace, some of which may have been adopted on the strength of strong personalities who wanted to share the spotlight with the Buddha (mind you, I am speculating here).
When truth is concerned, younger is not necessarily better than older. Refined, expanded, opined, adjusted, improved, is not necessarily—rather the opposite I’d venture—better than the unalloyed original.
I believe I have found the unalloyed original in the Pali Canon, and (with the time I have left to me) there I will stay.
Ulf Wolf