[Buddha-l] Re: Mahayana taught by the Buddha?

[Andrew Ward]

Richard P. Hayes wrote:

>On Tue, 2005-06-21 at 10:39 +1200, Andrew Ward wrote:
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>>>That is the official position of traditional Mahayana teachers.
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>>Do they have this position because they disagree with the scholars on 
>>the dates that the various writings were created? Or do they have this 
>>position because they find hints of Mahayana teachings in the original 
>>Pali scriptures?
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>Hardly any traditional Mahayana teachers have any knowledge of the Pali
>canon, since it was not translated into Chinese or Tibetan. Parts of the
>Sanskrit (or perhaps some vernacular Indian language) canons that were
>approximate counterparts of the Pali canon were translated into Chinese
>and Tibetan, but they tend to be ignored, mostly because of a strong
>prejudice against them. (Just last weekend I heard a veteran Zen
>practitioner say "Why would anyone study inferior teachings when we have
>access to superior Mahayana teachings?") So I don't think the answer is
>that traditional Mahayana teachers find hints of Mahayana teachings in
>any of the śrāvakayāna canons. Rather, I think the traditional Mahayana
>teachers subscribe to the view that the Mahayana teachings were spoken
>by the Buddha and then transmitted "underground" for several centuries
>until people were ready for them.
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>>Of course, whether you accept or reject a teaching should be based on 
>>it's content, not on it's author. 
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>Yes, and the content of any teaching should be accepted when it turns
>out to be useful to accept it. Only you can decide how useful a teaching
>is to you.
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That's a good point. I have a tendency to reject things if I cannot 
prove them, without even considering whether or not they would be useful 
to me. (I use the word 'prove' loosely here)

>>However, in cases where faith is required to follow a teaching until
>>you have the neccessary understanding of it, then it is easier if you
>>already have respect for the author's other works.
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>The problem I see in this way of looking at things is that if you don't
>have the necessary understanding of a teaching, there is no way you can
>follow it anyway. Faith will not come to your aid, because faith itself
>is generated by seeing that a teaching is working, and a teaching works
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I thought that was proof, not faith.

>only after you understand it. So faith is the end point, not the
>starting point. The whole issue of who the author of a teaching is is a
>distraction. My advice would be not to worry about that, unless you are
>an historian and want to speculate on how things got to be as they are.
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>>If someone reads a teaching about aspiring to become a Bodhisattva and
>>decides this is a good course of action, they need to have faith that
>>what is contained in the teaching is actually possible.
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>Again, I would disagree with you on that. First, I don't think it's at
>all necessary to believe that something is possible in order to strive
>in the direction of it. In Buddhism you need not have any idea where you
>are going; it is sufficient to know what you want to get away from. If
>you are not happy being selfish, you move away from selfishness. You can
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Someone may be selfish and unhappy. However it might not be clear to 
them that the cause of their unhappiness is selfishness. In this case 
they may follow the teaching of altruism in blind faith and once they 
achieve happiness they have proof that the cause of the unhappiness was 
selfishness.

>do this even if you have no idea whether it's possible to become
>perfectly altruistic. Bodhicitta is just moving in the direction of
>altruism. Could you be more altruistic than you now are? If so, you need
>know nothing else. 
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>Have you found that by cultivating kindness through contemplative
>exercises you can move away from selfishness, even if only for a while?
>If so, then you have all the faith you need to keep doing those
>exercises. Knowing who invented the exercises will not help you follow
>them any more than knowing who wrote the software you are using to read
>this e-mail message will help you send an intelligent reply.
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>Did the historical Buddha teach anything about bodhicitta? Damned if I
>know. Is bodhicitta worth cultivating? As Krishnamurti was fond of
>saying to such questions, "Find out."
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