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Understanding the Mahyna Stras

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Un der stand ing Mah yna Stras

In re cent years, it has be come in creas ingly ap par ent that read ers are often con f used and con f licted about how to ap proach the Bud dhist stras and how to un der stand their ap pli ca tion. The chal lenges posed have not oc curred evenly across tra di tions, though. Due to the sim pler in struc tions and lit er ary style of the Pali Canon and the Chi nese ga mas, schol ars and the gen eral pub lic can di gest these fairly well, as less back ground and in ter pre ta tion are needed. In the case of the Mah yna stras, though, there are often vast chasms be tween the man ner in which these are used by ac tual Bud dhist tra di tions, and the ways in which they are used by aca d e mics and ca sual read ers who are ap proach ing them from a com pletely dif f er ent con text. For ca sual read ers as well as aca d e mics and spe cial ists, the typ i cal ap proach is still sim ply to plod along through the Mah yna stras, slowly and painfully, dis re gard ing any de tails which may seem strange or con f us ing, and then mak ing a few sim ple com ments or ex press ing some gen eral opin ions on their con tents. It would be fair to say that such a per son has un der stood only a small part of the ma te r ial, and even of the as pects that are un der stood, it is usu ally un clear why the texts have their par tic u lar struc tures and con tents. The Mah yna stras leave such read ers, al most uni ver sally, with two major im pres sions given by the texts: that the scope of these works is very grand, and that it is very mer i to ri ous to read, study, and up h old such texts. Aside from these two points, there will per h aps be some other in f or ma tion gleaned, such as ways for the reader to de velop merit, some thing about the prin ci ples of karma, the basic con duct of a bod h i sattva, or some lessons about con trived med i ta tion meth ods. Not going be yond the ini tial stage by then ap ply ing the stra teach ings in prac tice, this sort of su per f i cial un der stand ing has re mained com mon if not the norm. In re cent years, a few west ern schol ars have begun to see that the Mah yna stras seem

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Understanding the Mahyna Stras

to imply a mode of study in which their teach ings and prac tice are closely in ter twined. How ever, the gen eral un der stand ing of the na ture of this usage has not yet fully ma tured. For ex am ple, aca d e mics may read ily point to pas sages in the Pure Land stras that de scribe im ages to be vi su al ized, but they have not yet rec og nized the un der ly ing prin ci ples and re la tion ships be tween the stras and the cul ti va tion path. Rather than stay ing on this point and in ves ti gat ing it fully, it is more com mon for schol ars to wan der off the trail by then en gag ing in nar row lin guis tic stud ies, or by lim it ing them selves with stud ies that focus on one par tic u lar text. Rather than at tempt ing a full in ves ti ga tion into the use of Mah yna stras in Bud dhist prac tice, which will re quire look ing at both an cient and mod ern usage, they will in stead look for an swers in his tor i cal in f or ma tion on monas tic in sti tu tions, or pick apart lin guis tic minu tiae, at tempt ing to find some ir re ducible atom of truth. The re sult of this ap proach has been that rel a tively lit tle progress has been made by schol ars in un der stand ing the Mah yna teach ings on even a basic level. The afore men tioned method of read ing with out cul ti vat ing the meth ods pre scribed, so typ i cal for read ers, can nei ther lead to an ob jec tive un der stand ing, nor to a pro f ound one. It will only re f lect ones own per sonal un der stand ing, and this per spec tive will be very dif f er ent from that of a more ad vanced cul ti va tor. The rea son for this is that the mean ings of Mah yna stras un f old in ac cor dance with ones own par tic u lar realm of re al iza tion. Deeper un der stand ings are con tin gent upon ex pe ri ence and the ef f orts one has made in prac tice. For ex am ple, if a reader seems to find only in struc tions on how to in crease their merit, and he or she is un cer tain about the rest of the con tents, then the text is telling this per son some thing very di rectly: You lack the merit re quired for fur ther teach ings, and so you should carry out such-and-such prac tices. In ad di tion, you should def i nitely con tinue to read and up h old this text, be cause it is very pro f ound, and can help you along the way. The stras are clear and each part of them has mean ing. It is only if we have not fully car ried out the prac tices that are com pre h en si ble to us, that the other parts of the text re main so opaquely in com pre h en si ble. This prin ci ple should be no sur prise, since it is ex plained clearly in the texts them selves (if we bother to read them and take them se ri ously). One major re cur ring theme in Bud dhist tra di tions is that the Bud dha teaches ac cord ing to the ca pac i ties of his stu dents. For the ad vanced monks, for ex am ple, he would teach about med i ta tion, the Five Skand h as, and other top ics. For oth ers of less ca pac ity, he would just teach about basic moral ity, and cause and ef f ect through out dif f er ent realms of ex is tence. This pat tern is il lus trated con sis tently through out the ga mas, the Pali Canon, the Mah yna stras, and vir tu ally the en tire range of an cient Bud dhist lit er a ture. One well known ex am ple of this is in the Sad dharma Puarka Stra, in the chap ter con tain ing the para ble of herbs. At that time in nu mer able thou sands of myr i ads of kois of sen tient be ings ap -

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Understanding the Mahyna Stras

proach the Bud dha and lis ten to his teach ing. Then the Tath gata, per ceiv ing the fac u l ties of sen tient be ings whether they are sharp or dull, dili gent or idle ex plains the teach ings ac cord ing to their ca pac i ties in a va ri ety of im mea sur able ways, glad den ing and ben e f it ing them all. Hav ing heard his teach ing, all of these be ings are at peace in this world and are born into a good ex is tence in the fu ture. Through this they will re ceive peace of mind and be able to hear the teach ing. Hav ing al ready heard the teach ing they will be come free from ob struc tions and be able to grad u ally enter the path to the Dharma ac cord ing to their ca pac i ties. This prin ci ple be h ind the Bud dhist teach ings is not only ex plained in the texts, but is even il lus trated in the de sign of the 9th cen tury Bud dhist tem ple of Borobudur, which is the largest Bud dhist struc ture in the world. At this tem ple, the first tier of stone re liefs is those which il lus trate cyclic ex is tence, along with the prin ci ples of karma and its fruition. These basic prin ci ples of cause and ef f ect can be un der stood by any one, and they serve to in spire or di nary peo ple to do good and to avoid evil ac tions in order to in crease their merit. In the next tier of re liefs are teach ings from the J takas and the Lal i tavis t ara Stra. These works re count the past lives of the Bud dha, and sum ma rize his life and es sen tial teach ings. The high est tier of re liefs il lus trates scenes from the Gaavyha Stra (part of the Avata saka Stra), the teach ings of which are very lofty. By car ry ing out the prac tices at each level, one de vel ops a more ad vanced per cep tion of truth, and is then able to un der stand the higher teach ings nat u rally. If we look to the mod ern Bud dhist tra di tions that teach prac tice ac cord ing to the Mah yna stras, we can see that their usage of the stras is still ba si cally iden ti cal to that of In dian Bud dhism. This is il lus trated clearly in a con tem po rary doc u men tary, Amongst White Clouds (2007), which pre sents the Bud dhist prac tice of Chi nese monks and nuns who live as her mits in Zhong nan Moun tains of Shaanxi province. In this film, we can again see the basic prin ci ple that the un der stand ing one has of a stra is es sen tially con tin gent upon their own level of un der stand ing gained through med i ta tion and self-cul ti va tion. We can also see that these texts are re garded as the es sen tial guides to the en light en ment path. In one scene from the doc u men tary, the di rec tor and a monk are sit ting to gether in the monks her mitage, drink ing tea. The nar ra tor then ques tions the monk, say ing, You said when you walk this road, if you get lost, you can ask oth ers for di rec tions. But liv ing alone in the moun tains, you must still get lost some times. Who do you ask? How do you find the path? The monk smiles slightly, as if amused by the ques tion, and replies: You read the texts, right? Thats who you ask. The texts con tain the true path to bud dha h ood. With a lit tle abil ity, wher ever your mind ar rives, you see, Hey, the text talks about that place! Your mind is there, and the text talks about it, so you

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have ar rived there, right? Now, if you dont have this abil ity, then even if you read some thing in a text, if your mind isnt there, then you won't un der stand it. So you prac tice more. Its easy to read a text, but dif f i cult to un der stand it. In the above pas sage, the monk is de scrib ing this pre cise method of stra study and prac tice, which has been missed by so many read ers and aca d e mics. Using this method, the reader must carry out prac tices ac cord ing to his or her own un der stand ing of the stra, and when ad vanc ing through these prac tices, then other parts of the text will nat u rally be come com pre h en si ble. This usage fully con f orms to the orig i nal his tory of Mah yna prac tice in In dian Bud dhism, and to what schol ars have been start ing to dis cover in re cent years. This method also al lows us to un der stand, in a mean ing f ul way, the man ner in which Mah yna stras are to be uti lized by those who wish to fol low the bod h i sattva path. When we thor oughly un der stand this point, that the ory and prac tice must con verge, then we are left with a clear path ahead of us. We then have a set of prin ci ples that may be used across the en tire genre of Mah yna stras, along with all their meth ods of cul ti vat ing re al iza tion. Why, then, is this tra di tional method of learn ing and prac tice so un f a mil iar in the West? The sit u a tion be comes clearer when we con sider the man ner in which the trans mis sion of Bud dhism has oc curred. Rather than learn ing Bud dhism from liv ing Bud dhist tra di tions, or even from the Bud dhist stras them selves, it seems far more com mon for west ern ers to read books about Bud dhism. These books are usu ally writ ten by au thors who also have very lit tle prox im ity to liv ing Bud dhist tra di tions. In this sort of con text, Bud dhism may be ex plained as some thing com pletely dif f er ent from the man ner in which it is ac tu ally prac ticed. As a re sult, we com monly find books claim ing that Bud dhism is sim ply a peace f ul phi los o phy, or that Bud dhism is a lifestyle, typ i cally (and con ve niently) with out re quire ments of com mit ment, be lief, study, or prac tice. The re sult of this is that many peo ple claim ing to be Bud dhi sts do not even be lieve tra di tional Bud dhist teach ings, and may not en gage in prac tice of the Dharma, or even in mak ing merit, and yet re gard them selves as Bud dhi sts. In such an en vi ron ment, it should be no sur prise that tra di tional meth ods of learn ing and prac tice have fallen by the way side. At the end of many stras, there is a final sec tion in di cat ing that after the Bud dha had fin ished this par tic u lar teach ing, then the Four f old Sa gha, along with all the other be ings pre sent, be lieved, ac cepted, and prac ticed in ac cor dance. Whether the lis tener at the as sem bly hap pened to be a monk, nun, lay man, lay woman, or one of the eight kinds of spir i tual be ings, each was able to hear the dis course and carry out its teach ings in some man ner. If a reader has not started down the path by sim i larly learn ing, and then be liev ing, ac cept ing, and prac tic ing in ac cor dance, fol low ing the meth ods that he or she is able to un der stand, then a deeper com pre h en sion should not be ex pected. With out ful fill ing the basic re quire ments of cul ti va tion, the reader will es sen tially re main at the

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stage of a be gin ner. How ever, when the reader is able to make progress in his or her prac tice, then the text will seem to open up, and the mean ing of cer tain pas sages will nat u rally be come more ap par ent. When con sid er ing the basic prin ci ples of cul ti va tion prac tice and their re la tion ship to the Mah yna stras, it be comes clear that these teach ings are very egal i tar ian. Al though not every thing may be un der stood by the reader, there are meth ods which are com pre hen si ble to every one, and these often in di cate the meth ods that are most ef f ec tive and ap plic a ble at that time. If read ers are able to learn these meth ods and make some ef f ort to prac tice them, then they can con tinue mean ing f ully along the path, and in ac cor dance with the stras. In that sense, fol low ing the prac tices of the stras is re ally not so dif f i cult. It just re quires ded i cated study along with some con sis tency in cul ti vat ing the meth ods de scribed. There f ore, it is not only a few ad vanced bod h i sattvas who are able to carry out the meth ods pre scribed in the Mah yna stras, but re ally any one who de vel ops the nec es sary re solve and is will ing to carry out the teach ings by be liev ing, ac cept ing, and prac tic ing in ac cor dance. CC0 1.0 Uni ver sal. Un less oth er wise stated, all orig i nal trans la tions and ar ti cles on this site have been ded i cated to the pub lic do main by the au thor.

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