strong interdependency helped Theravada Buddhism, later renamed as Hinayana, to develop in new directions.
HINAYANA’S NEW ROLE FOR MONKS AND THE LAITY
The tradition that developed over the centuries altered Hinayana’s original narrow application as a philosophy only for monks. Hinayana became a large religion with a definite place for the general population. Monks continued to pursue the Path to become arhats. But a new way developed for people to practice Buddhism even if they stayed with their families, owned property, and pursued a career. Hinayana Buddhism guided the general public to live ethical, fulfilling, and happy lives with the promise that they would be reborn in a happier state in their next life.
Goals for the layperson were more modest than were the goals for the monks. First, just like the monks, people must sincerely follow the precepts not to kill, steal, be lustful, lie, or take intoxicants. They also were to take refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. Taking refuge in the Buddha meant they were to respect and revere Buddha as an enlightened guide to wisdom.
Taking refuge in the dharma involved learning about the teachings of Buddha, although laypersons did not go into as much detail as the monks. They did learn about mindfulness meditation and control of desires, but they followed these teachings more moderately. The monks taught people meditation and rituals that could set them on a gradual path to enlightenment. Once a week people went to the monastery to meditate and perform rituals that helped them become more alert and aware, calmer and happier. On this day they were to eat nothing after noon and wear simple clothes without any jewelry. They sat on the floor, refraining from the comforts of plush furniture or modern conveniences. In a moderate way, people learned to overcome their suffering by lessening desires and becoming more aware.
Taking refuge in the sangha involved helping the monks and the monastery with financial support. When people gave food and money, they earned merit toward a higher rebirth in their next life. Thus, laypersons were encouraged to work and accumulate wealth, so long as their work did not violate the precepts. Commensurate with the amount of wealth people acquired, they were expected to share some of it with the sangha, who relied entirely on the public for support.
Kings, like the common people, were expected to give generously to the sangha, building monasteries and donating financial support. In return, monks taught meditation to the kings and offered an enlightened perspective to help them rule wisely so that the kingdom could thrive.
The close relationship between the monastery and the government put new responsibilities on the monks. The rulers expected the monks to help the people by running Buddhist schools where children could learn reading and writing along with Buddhism. During the rainy season, when no farming could be done, sons were sent to the monastery to live as monks. They shaved their heads and wore the robes. Sometimes they even gave up their regular form of livelihood to join the sangha and become monks. Usually they returned home, but often enriched by the experience.
Hinayana Buddhism is still practiced in many Southeast Asian countries today, where centrally located monasteries are an important part of everyday life. But along the way, Buddhism’s path took a dramatic turn as the liberal form developed into Mahayana.
CHAPTER 3
The Blossom of Mahayana
What makes the limit of Nirvana
Is also then the limit of Samsara
Between the two we cannot find
The slightest shade of difference.
—Nagarjuna
BUDDHISM EVOLVES
At first, conservative and liberal interpretations were not fully opposed. The monks from both perspectives lived and taught side by side for close to four hundred years. Gradually, though, Buddhist doctrine began to change; by around A.D. 100, a new literature and a new rationale for the dissenting doctrine emerged.
This new literature revealed a doctrine that creatively reinterpreted the historical words of Buddha. Over time, these interpretations became more clearly defined, and sentiment grew among the liberal monks to make a formal separation from the conservative Elders.
The liberal groups proposed an explanation for how their ideas were authentic Buddhist doctrine. They said that while the Hinayana sutras were being codified at the First Council, another assembly of monks hid a number of new, more progressive sutras for safekeeping. Five centuries later, these hidden sutras were rediscovered and brought forth as the Mahayana scriptures.
Much like King Asoka, who championed the older form of Buddhism, King Kanishka (A.D. 78-103), a conqueror from northern India, helped to spread the new Buddhism with passionate zeal. He called a council of five hundred monks and collected their new texts into a group. They called their new form Mahayana, the Great Vehicle, formally separating from the traditional Buddhism of the Elders, naming the older group of Buddhists Hinayana, the Lesser Vehicle. Now Mahayana Buddhists distinguished themselves as their own separate form of Buddhism.
In northwestern and southern India, Buddhism was exposed to Hellenistic influences as well as Iranian and Mediterranean cultures. The more liberal and inclusive Mahayana was open to other cultures, helping it to spread to China, Japan, Tibet, Nepal, Mongolia, and Korea.
DOCTRINAL CHANGES FROM HINAYANA TO MAHAYANA
Mahayana Buddhists developed what they considered to be an expanded, superior, and higher doctrine than that of Hinayana. The new doctrine replaced Buddha as the center and originator of Buddhism with a wider conception of Buddha. In Mahayana, Buddha, temporarily incarnated in the earthly person of Siddhartha Gautama, became Dharmakaya, the embodiment of the dharma within a succession of Buddhas over the millennia, to be followed by other Buddhas in the future. Buddha became all Being, the meaning within all phenomena, now supernatural, timeless, and spaceless. Buddha could not be found in spoken words, doctrines, or learning. The dharma body, or Dharmakaya, was transcendent, and thus Buddha’s exact words and rules as memorized by Ananda and the early disciples were only a temporary embodiment, not the permanent one.
The bodhisattva replaced the arhat as the ideal role model. Bodhisattvas live with compassion, kindness, and patience. According to the Mahayana, wisdom is virtue, and thus being compassionate, kindly, and patient was the correct interpretation of the Buddha’s teaching, not that of becoming a wise, dispassionate arhat. Bodhisattvas did not withdraw from society to find nirvana. Their altruistic ethics encouraged good works in the interest of the whole world.
Mahayana added many long discourses on metaphysical subjects, replacing Buddha’s silence in the earlier sutras. Our experience of an apparently real world, Mahayana taught, is illusion. The true nature of reality is emptiness, which is explained in the next two sections on the Madhyamika and Yogacarin Sects of Mahayana Buddhism.
The highest value was placed on what the Mahayana called upaya, skill in means, which meant that there were many ways to reach salvation. This allowed for a much broader repertoire of theories, techniques, and methods that could be included in Mahayana Buddhism than had been allowed in Hinayana. For example, people were permitted to worship images of Buddha with rituals, thereby finding enlightenment with faith and not simply by wisdom as in Hinayana.
Mahayana tended to be more charitable and warmer than Hinayana. Practitioners could be more emotional, personal, and interactive with other people. They produced ornate art, literature, and ritual. Hinayana continued to be more monastic, secluded, conservative, and less emotional, viewing all passions as delusions.
Mahayana now could appeal to a larger variety of situations and people. They were less strict, more inclusive with regard to women and monks of lesser attainment, as well as opening the potential for enlightenment to householders.
TWO SCHOOLS OF MAHAYANA
Two major schools of Mahayana developed with their own doctrines, called Yogacara and Madhyamika. The Yogacarin philosophy, or mind-only school, believed that our minds create reality as we experience it. The other main root, Madhyamika or middle way school, held that we cannot ever know whether reality really exists. People should remain in the middle and take neither side. Mahayana doctrine became formalized as systems through these two