Mahayana Buddism

魏昕仪

The period of Mahāyāna Buddhism spanned roughly from the 1st century CE to the 7th century CE. The term yāna literally means a vehicle or carrier, and also carries the sense of a path. Practitioners of the Dharma ride upon this vehicle to traverse the spiritual path and reach the other shore of enlightenment; thus, yāna serves as a traditional designation for the Buddhist teachings.
Mahāyāna Buddhism professes the ideal of universally delivering all sentient beings to the transcendental realm of nirvana, hence styling itself the “Great Vehicle”. Meanwhile, it disparages early Buddhism and Nikāya Buddhism as the “Lesser Vehicle”, claiming they focus merely on individual liberation.
Mahāyāna Buddhism later evolved into two major schools: the Mādhyamaka School, also known as the School of Emptiness; and the Yogācāra School, referred to as the School of Being.
The Mādhyamaka School advocates avoiding one-sided extremes in viewing all phenomena—such as the dichotomies of emptiness and existence, permanence and impermanence. It upholds the Middle Way by contemplating both sides of all antinomies, from which its name derives. Founded by Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250 CE) and his disciple Āryadeva (c. 170–270 CE), the school reveres the Large Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra as its primary scriptural authority. Nāgārjuna’s foundational treatises include the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, the Dvādaśanikāyaśāstra, and the Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra, while Āryadeva’s Catuḥśatakaśāstra constitutes another core doctrinal work. Āryadeva was succeeded by Rāhulabhadra, whose lineage passed down to Bhāvaviveka and Buddhapālita, after which the school further split into various subsects.
Around the 4th to 5th centuries CE, the Yogācāra School emerged within Mahāyāna Buddhism and went on to become the mainstream Buddhist tradition. The term Yoga means correspondence, referring to a meditative practice through which one realizes the ultimate truth of Buddhism. The school honors Maitreya as its patriarch and takes the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra and the Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra as its principal scriptures. It was formally established by the brothers Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. Asaṅga’s Mahāyānasaṃgraha, together with Vasubandhu’s Viṃśatikāvijñaptimātratāsiddhi, Triṃśikāvijñaptimātratāśāstra, and Mahāyānāśatadharmaviparyaya, played decisive roles in founding the school.
After Vasubandhu, two lineages arose led by Bandhusumati and Huobian. Bandhusumati’s teachings were inherited and elaborated by Sthiramati, Dignāga, and Paramārtha, collectively known as the Early Yogācāra School. Another lineage descended from Vasubandhu and Huobian was represented by Dignāga, who placed special emphasis on Hetuvidyā—Buddhist logic and epistemological inquiry.
Reference：Fang Litian, Buddhist Philosophy, People’s Press

魏昕仪

Non-independent sect: Mahāyāna Buddhism is not a new sect separated from Indian Nikaya Buddhist monastic communities. It possesses no independent monastic rules or ordination lineage. All Mahāyāna practitioners belonged to traditional Nikaya monastic orders and remained institutionally embedded within the established Buddhist monastic system.

Ideological and spiritual movement: Essentially, Mahāyāna emerged as a doctrinal, spiritual, and religious movement within the existing Nikaya monastic communities. Its scriptures and doctrines were primarily composed and developed by formally ordained monastics, rather than originating as a lay-led secular movement independent of the monastic establishment.
Deconstruction of the Mahāyāna–Hīnayāna binary opposition: The so-called Hīnayāna is not an actual historical sect. It is merely a pejorative rhetorical label employed in Mahāyāna texts to designate those holding divergent doctrinal views, and cannot be equated with early Buddhism or Nikaya Buddhism. Followers of both Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna orientations coexisted within every Nikaya school, with no clear institutional division between two discrete Buddhist camps.

No single fixed essence: Mahāyāna cannot be precisely defined by any single necessary and sufficient characteristic, such as the bodhisattva path, emptiness, or altruism. There is no essential attribute shared universally by all Mahāyāna schools and traditions.

Polythetic cluster concept: Mahāyāna should be understood as a polythetic category defined by family resemblance. Centered on Mahāyāna sutras as its core textual foundation, it refers collectively to a broad Buddhist intellectual and spiritual tradition that embodies most of a set of characteristic features—including the bodhisattva ideal, universal salvation, self-benefit and benefiting others, the six perfections, and Mahāyāna doctrines of buddha-nature. Spiritually, it transcends personal liberation and ultimately aims at Buddhahood and the deliverance of all sentient beings.

Pluralistic and integrative development: Early Mahāyāna consisted of numerous distinct textual communities and intellectual lineages with divergent views, rather than a monolithic unified tradition. These diverse strands were gradually synthesized into a generalized Mahāyāna system in later periods. Its doctrines, textual heritage, and connotations are multi-layered and fluid, and cannot be confined within rigid, static interpretive frameworks.

Silk, Jonathan A. “What, If Anything, Is Mahāyāna Buddhism? Problems of Definitions and Classifications.” Numen, vol. 49, no. 4, 2002, pp. 355–405.

魏昕仪

Teachings
Bodhisattva
Central to Mahayana ideology is the idea of the bodhisattva, one who seeks to become a Buddha. In contrast to the dominant thinking in non-Mahayana Buddhism, which limits the designation of bodhisattva to the Buddha before his awakening (bodhi), or enlightenment, Mahayana teaches that anyone can aspire to achieve awakening (bodhicittot-pada) and thereby become a bodhisattva. For Mahayana Buddhism, awakening consists in understanding the true nature of reality. While non-Mahayana doctrine emphasizes the absence of the self in persons, Mahayana thought extends this idea to all things. The radical extension of the common Buddhist doctrine of “dependent arisal” (pratityasamutpada), the idea that nothing has an essence and that the existence of each thing is dependent on the existence of other things, is referred to as emptiness (shunyata).

The bodhisattvas seek to understand this reality through wisdom (prajna) and to actualize it through compassion (karuna). They realize that since no individual has a “self,” there can be no real difference between themselves and others, and therefore their own liberation is not distinct from the liberation of all beings. They are thus “self-less,” both philosophically, in the sense of understanding the absence of self or essence in all things and persons, and ethically, since they act for all beings without discrimination.

From Britannica

魏昕仪

Awakening
Buddhism, like most Indian systems of thought, sees the world as a realm of transmigration, or reincarnation (samsara), from which one may escape by attaining nirvana. In the Mahayana tradition, the emphasis is less on nirvana and more on knowledge or wisdom, the mastery of which constitutes awakening. Moreover, because the fact of emptiness implies that all dualities, such as good and evil or existence and nonexistence, are ultimately false, even basic distinctions such as that between samsara and nirvana cannot be sustained. As developed by later philosophers, such as Jnanagarbha in the 8th century, the doctrine of the Two Truths, absolute truth (paramarthasatya) and conventional truth (samvritisatya), resolves the apparent conflict by stating that ultimately things do not exist as such, which is to say, do not exist as they seem to exist, substantially. Therefore, ordinary reality is ultimately nothing more than convention or tacit agreement. Understanding absolute truth consists in understanding the nature of ordinary reality as nothing more than conventional. This is realized through meditation and—in the Vajrayana tradition, which uses highly symbolic language—through various practices specifically designed to break down ordinary assumptions through shocking inversions of normal expectations. Practices that challenge ordinary views of purity and impurity, for instance, teach that such notions are not an inherent part of the world but something imposed upon it by convention.

The universal accessibility of awakening, together with the idea that the universe has no beginning in time and is filled with an infinite number of beings and an infinite number of worlds, leads to the conclusion that there are not only an infinite number of bodhisattvas in the universe but also an infinite number of buddhas, each dwelling in his own world-realm. The existence of these buddhas erases the separation between samsara and nirvana inherent in the idea that buddhas cease to exist upon attaining nirvana. These “cosmic” buddhas play a role in many Mahayana sutras and much more so in later Tantric traditions. As depicted in many Mahayana and Vajrayana texts, this cosmology confirms that all aspirants can become buddhas. A prominent example of this idea is the bodhisattva Dharmakara, whose vows set the conditions under which he would attain awakening and become the Buddha Amitabha (Japanese: Amida). He promised to create the world-realm Sukhavati (“Pure Bliss”) and to guarantee that ordinary beings could attain rebirth there (rather than reentering the cycle of transmigration) merely by having faith in him. Amitabha assured his devotees entry into Sukhavati by transferring to them some of the infinite merit he acquired during eons of practice as a bodhisattva. Although the classical theory of karma dictates that only an individual’s own actions can affect his future, epigraphical evidence illustrates the early existence of the idea of the transfer of merit, especially to one’s deceased parents, ultimately leading to their liberation. The generation of merit has always been important in Buddhism, but the application of merit toward the acquisition of wisdom and ultimate awakening, instead of toward better future rebirths within samsara, is a Mahayana innovation.

From Britannica

廖婉玲

Thank you for sharing! I have some questions. What is the difference between absolute truth and conventional truth in the Two Truths doctrine？What is the difference between absolute truth and conventional truth in the Two Truths doctrine？

mea

What a compelling picture!" It possesses no independent monastic rules or ordination lineage" is so straight to the point，and I like it.