types of Buddhism?

[Susma Rio Sep]

My apprehension is that a lot of our knowledge of Buddhism is founded upon texts. Do we have people who have lived among Buddhist men and women, children and grown-ups, housewives and fishmongers, businessmen and politicians, learned and ignorant practitioners, professionals and common laborers, in a Buddhist community with hundreds of years of Buddhist tradition?

These are the ones who can give us authentic intimation of Buddhism, this school and that school, from their prolonged acquaintance in real life situations living among Buddhists.

Susma Rio Sep

[Vajradhara]

Originally Posted by Susma Rio Sep

My apprehension is that a lot of our knowledge of Buddhism is founded upon texts. Do we have people who have lived among Buddhist men and women, children and grown-ups, housewives and fishmongers, businessmen and politicians, learned and ignorant practitioners, professionals and common laborers, in a Buddhist community with hundreds of years of Buddhist tradition?

These are the ones who can give us authentic intimation of Buddhism, this school and that school, from their prolonged acquaintance in real life situations living among Buddhists.

Susma Rio Sep

Namaste Susma,

yes, we do have those things. Generally speaking, the West doesn't have that sort of thing since Buddhism is fairly new here... however, in countries like Benegal, India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Tibet, Mongolia et al, there are Buddhist communities that have been in existence since before the time of Christ and continue to this day.

in the West, a lot of information is being transmitted and the most reliable way is to commit it to writing. Western minds think differently and thus Buddhism is undergoing a change as it moves into Western society.

some of the traditional teachers from the Eastern countries are rather confounded about how to incorporate traditional praxis into modern society. it's proving to be a challenge thus far. here in the west, we just don't seem to have the time or the luxury to not work for any extended period of time.

[Vajradhara]

Originally Posted by LittleLotus

so let me get this right mahayana is more for those who are buddhist but dont want to or cant become monks/nuns? is mahayana more about others and a sense of community then a personal journey towards enlightenment? and is mahayana considered to be less spiritual and less socially significant because of the direct cultural connection that theravarden buddhism has to buddha himself? Pali?

Namaste littlelotus,

thanks for the post.

generally speaking, yes, that is correct. The Hinyana path is an individual path of liberation with the end goal, ostensibly, being that of an Arhat or Foe Destroyer.

the Mahayana path, by contrast, is a path that emphasizes the path of liberation by working towards helping other sentient beings. Basically, they reason that it is the generation of Bodichitta or the "heart of compassion" is what is required to deliver one into the final Nirvana.

by the by.. alot of this is quite technical and of little bearing on actual practice as the Arhats perception of emptiness is as equally profound as the Bodhisattvas. again, technically speaking, the Arhat realizations correspond with the first 6 levels of the Bodhisattva realizations. Bodhisattvas, however, have 10 progressively subtle levels of realization.

there are some adherents that disparage either lineage, depending on their school. this is lamentable but seemingly inline with human nature. the typical polemics would revolve around the Mahayana's Sutras and Abidharma whereas the polemics that target the Hinyana main focus on the individual nature of their practice.

personally, these are the main reasons that kept me from accepting Buddhism much earlier in my life. fortunately for me, i explored the tradition further and found the Vajrayana.

we can sum up the differences betwixt all three schools with an exploration of one subject, shunyata or "emptiness." the three schools correspond with a progressively more subtle understanding of shunyata. the Hinyana assert an "emptiness" of persons but not phenomena. the Mahayana assert an "emptiness" of persons and phenomena and the Vajrayana supports this Mahayana veiw but expands on it to include the entire nature of perceptions, thought formations, feelings et al.

if i have the opportunity to do so, i'm planning to post a brief exposition of the 4 schools of Buddhist philosophy, which is where the main differences arise. that may shed more light upon the issue.

[LittleLotus]

thanks man.

[Vajradhara]

no worries

[samabudhi]

There is another most important difference not mentioned by Vajradhara. This is in regards to the root of all suffering (which is what Buddhism is all about).
There are 3 main causes of suffering: craving (or greed), aversion (hatred) and ignorance.

The Theravadas maintain that one should extinguish even the last drop of craving and aversion, and thus attain enlightenment. This is what they emphasise.

The Mahayanas say it is ignorance which one should try to dispel.

The Vajrayanas add to this by stating that the reason we are ignorant is because of our impure perceptions, and so, we should aim at purifying our perceptions.

The goal is the same, the methods are different.
Hope this helps.

[Vajradhara]

Originally Posted by samabudhi

There is another most important difference not mentioned by Vajradhara. This is in regards to the root of all suffering (which is what Buddhism is all about).
There are 3 main causes of suffering: craving (or greed), aversion (hatred) and ignorance.

The Theravadas maintain that one should extinguish even the last drop of craving and aversion, and thus attain enlightenment. This is what they emphasise.

The Mahayanas say it is ignorance which one should try to dispel.

The Vajrayanas add to this by stating that the reason we are ignorant is because of our impure perceptions, and so, we should aim at purifying our perceptions.

The goal is the same, the methods are different.
Hope this helps.

Namaste Samabudi,

thank you for the post and welcome to the forum

you are correct, and this difference is directly related to their understanding of the term "emptiness".

the Hinyana schools see emptiness of self, the Mahayana schools see emptiness of self and phenomena and the Vajrayana schools see emptiness of self and phenomena though it is a more subtle understanding of emptiness that they are using.

the Dharma rain falls equally on all sentient beings and they each respond according to their capacity!

[Zazen]

"the Mahayana assert an "emptiness" of persons and phenomena and the Vajrayana supports this Mahayana veiw but expands on it to include the entire nature of perceptions, thought formations, feelings et al."

this is incorrect in that there is no differences being stated

amitabha

[Vajradhara]

Originally Posted by Zazen

"the Mahayana assert an "emptiness" of persons and phenomena and the Vajrayana supports this Mahayana veiw but expands on it to include the entire nature of perceptions, thought formations, feelings et al."

this is incorrect in that there is no differences being stated

amitabha

Namaste zazen,

perhaps... you would care to correct me then rather than simply stating it's incorrect

please be aware that the philosophical position that is being taken is with reference to the Prasangkia-Madyamika view.

[Zazen]

"please be aware that the philosophical position that is being taken is with reference to the Prasangkia-Madyamika view."

cant honestly say i know what that is

"Vajrayana supports this Mahayana veiw but expands on it to include the entire nature of perceptions, thought formations, feelings et al."


like i said before, what your stating here isnt a difference, the philosophical teachings of the nature of perceptions, thought formations, feelings etc are all present in mahayana

in particular that of the chan school, which points directly at the mind and dissolving the ego to see the "original face"

amitabha

[Vajradhara]

Namaste zazen,

thank you for the post.

in part, it's my fault as i've said i will be posting the various philosophical positions that are held in Buddhism, and i've not done that yet. very slack of me

yes, they are all present in the Prajnaparamita Sutras. this is not in question. what i'm asserting, however, is the level of realiztion that these statements lead to.

you agree, do you not, that the Hinyana school asserts a position of empitness of self but not of phenomena?

and you agree that Mahayana schools assert a position of emptiness of self and phenemona, do you not?

this isn't what i had intended to post, but it should suffice for our discussion at this point:


Buddhist philosophical views are classified, at least by Tibetan Buddhists in general, into four main categories: Vaibhasika, Sautrantika, Yogachara, and Madhyamika.

1. Vaibhasika has been called "direct realism." It is similar to the first few of the Indian views that see the World of Experience as composed of various physical elements that interact with the components of beings.

2. Sautrantika considers that awareness is merely representational. These first two schools consider that there are two kinds of interactors: Physical aspects, ie. skandhas of which one, rupa comprises the traditional elements, and the Mental aspects including consciousness (vijnana), sensation (vedana) which contributes to pain/pleasure, cognition (sanjna) and the impressions derived from experience (samskara.). The 12 Links of Causality go into this in more detail.

3. Chittamatra/Yogachara sometimes referred to as the Knowledge Way or Vijnanavada. It has also been called Subjective Realism, acknowledging that individual factors including karma contribute to an experience of reality that must be different for every being. It mentions the idea of "Buddha nature." Vasubandha and Asanga finally adopted this position.

4. Madhyamika basically holds that there is no ultimate reality in the sense that something exists apart from the experiencer, but that this does not mean that there is nothing at all. It turns around the definition of Shunyata and therefore has been called Sunyatavada. Nagarjuna and Aryadeva are the main proponents. Chandrakirti expounds upon Nagarjuna.

The Madhyamika view has given rise to two particular schools of thought: Svatantrika and Prasangika, which is the school that i adhere to. According to the Prasangika school, the object of refutation (or negation, gag-cha)* is an extremely subtle object that is ever so slightly more than—a little over and above—what is merely labeled by the mind.

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso Rinpoche in The World of Tibetan Buddhism: An Overview of Its Philosophy and Practice. Boston: Wisdom Pub., 1995. (49-54):

"According to the explanation of the highest Buddhist philosophical school, Madhyamaka-Prasangika, external phenomena are not mere projections or creations of the mind. External phenomena have a distinct nature, which is different from the mind.

The meaning of all phenomena being mere labels or designations is that they exist and acquire their identities by means of our denomination or designation of them. This does not mean that there is no phenomenon apart from the name, imputation, or label, but rather that if we analyze and search objectively for the essence of any phenomenon, it will be un-findable.

Phenomena are unable to withstand such analysis; therefore, they do not exist objectively. Yet, since they exist, there should be some level of existence; therefore, it is only through our own process of labeling or designation that things are said to exist.

Except for the Prasangika school, all the other Buddhist schools of thought identify the existence of phenomena within the basis of designation; therefore, they maintain that there is some kind of objective existence.

Since the lower schools of Buddhist thought all accept that things exist inherently, they assert some kind of objective existence, maintaining that things exist in their own right and from their own side. This is because they identify phenomena within the basis of designation.

For the Prasangikas, if anything exists objectively and is identified within the basis of designation, then that is, in fact, equivalent to saying that it exists autonomously, that it has an independent nature and exists in its own right.

This is a philosophical tenet of the Yogacara school in which external reality is negated, that is, the atomically structured external world is negated. Because the proponents of the Yogacara philosophical system assert that things cannot exist other than as projections of one's own mind, they also maintain that there is no atomically structured external physical reality independent of mind. By analyzing along these lines, Yogacara proponents conclude that there is no atomicly structured external reality.

This conclusion is reached because of not having understood the most subtle level of emptiness as expounded by the Prasangikas. In fact, Yogacarins assert that things have no inherent existence, and that if you analyze something and do not find any essence, then it does not exist at all.

Prasangikas, on the other hand, when confronted with this un-findability of the essence of the object, conclude that this is an indication that objects do not exist inherently, not that they do not exist at all. This is where the difference lies between the two schools."

* Object of Refutation: one possible technique for searching for truth is to employ the process of elimination, and see what is left. Therefore, the principle or topic under consideration may be called the object of refutation which helps keep in our mind the notion that the thing is not to be assumed to exist. It is merely a target, so to speak.

this link has some very good information for the interested reader:
http://www.khandro.net/Bud_philo_Madhyamika.htm

[Zazen]

the classification of self and phenomena is only an elementary and intellectual intercourse, because there is no differentation between them, if there were, they wouldnt be empty

"yes, they are all present in the Prajnaparamita Sutras. this is not in question. what i'm asserting, however, is the level of realiztion that these statements lead to."

the emphasis placed on doctrines and sutras is unimportant to a chan practitioner, because reciting sutras and studying buddhist doctrines is only a phase, which is not even a neccesity.. the key is understanding from direct experience

amitabha

[Vajradhara]

Originally Posted by Zazen

the classification of self and phenomena is only an elementary and intellectual intercourse, because there is no differentation between them, if there were, they wouldnt be empty

"yes, they are all present in the Prajnaparamita Sutras. this is not in question. what i'm asserting, however, is the level of realiztion that these statements lead to."

the emphasis placed on doctrines and sutras is unimportant to a chan practitioner, because reciting sutras and studying buddhist doctrines is only a phase, which is not even a neccesity.. the key is understanding from direct experience

amitabha

Namaste,

yes, i am aware of your teachings, thank you for expounding on them further.

[zenmonk_genryu]

"reciting sutras and studying buddhist doctrines is only a phase, which is not even a neccesity..."

Not actually the case in practice, as all Zen/Chan students are required to have a firm understanding of Buddhist teaching.

[Zazen]

pass whatever your smoking this way

amitabha