The Buddhist traditions
Mahayana
The Great Vehicle: bodhisattvas, emptiness and many Buddhas, across China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
What it is
Mahayana (the great vehicle) arose in India around the turn of the era with new scriptures presented as the Buddha's word: the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, the Lotus Sutra, the Pure Land sutras and many more. Its ideal is the bodhisattva, who vows to become a Buddha for the sake of all beings. Teachers such as Nagarjuna taught that all things are empty of inherent existence.
Our response
The bodhisattva ideal of compassion for all beings is a moving thing, and it echoes something the gospel says is real: one who would give himself for others. But the bodhisattvas of the sutras are figures of devotion and story, not history. Jesus is the one who actually came, gave his life, and rose.
5Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. 8And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross.
Philippians 2:5-8 (WEB) · context
45For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:45 (WEB) · context
9By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his only born Son into the world that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:9-10 (WEB) · context
In their texts
Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarika), chapter 2, Expedient Means Summary, not a quotation
Teaches that the Buddha's earlier teachings were skilful means, and that there is in truth only one vehicle, leading to Buddhahood.
Where scholars and traditions differ
- Scholars agree the Mahayana sutras were composed centuries after the Buddha; Mahayana teachers answer that they were revealed or preserved by bodhisattvas and are still the Buddha's word.
Sources
- Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (2nd ed., Routledge, 2009).
- Jan Nattier, A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Honolulu, 2003).