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The major systems and their literature
Theravada (Pali: "Way of the Elders"; Sanskrit, Sthaviravada) emerged as one of the Hinayana (Sanskrit: "Lesser Vehicle") schools, traditionally numbered at 18, of early Buddhism. The Theravadins trace their lineage to the Sthaviravada school, one of two major schools (the Mahasanghika was the other) that supposedly formed in the wake of the Council of Vaishali (now in Bihar state) held some 100 years after the Buddha's death. Employing Pali as their sacred language, the Theravadins preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching in the Tipitaka ("Three Baskets").
During the reign of the emperor Ashoka (3rd century bce), the Theravada school was established in Sri Lanka, where it subsequently divided into three subgroups, known after their respective monastic centres. The cosmopolitan Abhayagiriviharavasi maintained open relations with Mahayana and later Vajrayana monks and welcomed new ideas from India. The Mahaviharavasi—with whom the third group, the Jetavanaviharavasi, was loosely associated—established the first monastery in Sri Lanka and preserved intact the original Theravadin teachings.
The Mahavihara ("Great Monastery") school became dominant in Sri Lanka at the beginning of the 2nd millennium ce and gradually spread through mainland Southeast Asia. It was established in Myanmar in the late 11th century, in Thailand in the 13th and early 14th centuries, and in Cambodia and Laos by the end of the 14th century. Although Mahavihara never completely replaced other schools in Southeast Asia, it received special favour at most royal courts and, as a result of the support it received from local elites, exerted a very strong religious and social influence.
Beliefs, doctrines, and practices
Like other Buddhists, Theravadins believe that the number of cosmos is infinite. Moreover, they share the near-universal Buddhist view that the cosmos inhabited by humankind, like all cosmos, has three planes of existence: the realm of desire (Pali and Sanskrit: kama-loka), the lowest of the planes; the realm of material form (Pali and Sanskrit: rupa-loka), which is associated with meditational states in which sensuous desire is reduced to a minimum; and the realm of immateriality or formlessness (Pali and Sanskrit: arupa-loka), which is associated with meditational states that are even more exalted.
The three planes are divided into various levels. The realm of desire is divided into heavens, hells, and the earth. It is inhabited by those suffering in the various hells—a species of wandering, famished ghosts (Sanskrit: pretas), animals, hell beings, human beings, gods, and a sixth group that is not universally acknowledged, the asuras (Sanskrit: demigods). The entire cosmos is enclosed by a great Chakkavala wall, a ring of iron mountains that serves as a kind of container for the realm of desire. Mount Meru, the great cosmic mountain topped by the heaven of the 33 gods over which Indra (Sakka) presides, is surrounded by a great ocean where people live on four island continents, each inhabited by a different type of human being. (The southern continent, loosely correlated with South—and sometimes Southeast—Asia, is called Jambudvipa.) The material aspect of the realm of desire is made up of four elements: earth, water, fire, and air, held together in various combinations.
In this cosmos, as in all others, time moves in cycles of great duration involving a period of involution (destruction of the cosmos by fire, water, air), a period of reformation of the cosmic structure, a series of cycles of decline and renewal, and, finally, another period of involution from which the process is initiated once again. Five buddhas are destined to appear in the cosmos in which humans live, including Gotama (Sanskrit: Gautama), who is to be the fourth, and Metteyya (Sanskrit: Maitreya), who is to be the fifth.
Human existence is a privileged state, because only as a human being can a bodhisattva become a buddha. Moreover, according to Theravada, human beings can choose to do good works (which will result in a good rebirth) or bad works (which result in a bad rebirth); above all, they have the capacity to become perfected saints. All these capacities are accounted for in terms of a carefully enumerated series of dhammas (Sanskrit: dharmas), the elements' impermanent existence. In continual motion, these changing states appear, age, and disappear.
Classification of dhammas
Dhammas are divided and subdivided into many groups. Those that are essential to psychophysical existence are the 5 components (Sanskrit: skandhas; Pali: khandhas), the 12 bases (Pali and Sanskrit: ayatanas), and the 18 sensory elements (Pali and Sanskrit: dhatus). The 5 skandhas are rupa (Pali and Sanskrit), materiality, or form; vedana, feelings of pleasure or pain or the absence of either; sanna (Pali), cognitive perception; sankhara (Pali and Sanskrit), the forces that condition the psychic activity of an individual; and vinnana (Sanskrit: vijnana), consciousness. The 12 ayatanas comprise the five sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body) and the mind (manas), as well as the five related sense fields (sights, sounds, odours, tastes, and tangibles) and objects of cognition—that is, objects as they are reflected in mental perception. The 18 elements, or dhatus, include the five sense organs and the mano-dhatu (Pali and Sanskrit: "mind element"), their six correlated objects, and the consciousnesses (Pali: vinnana) of the sense organs and manas.
The Theravada system of dhammas (Pali) is not only an analysis of empirical reality but a delineation of the psychosomatic components of the human personality. Moreover, Theravadins believe that an awareness of the interrelation and operation of these components, as well as the ability to manipulate them, is necessary for an individual to attain the exalted state of an arhat (Pali: arahant, "worthy one"). Through the classification of dhammas, a person is defined as an aggregate of many interrelated elements governed by the law of karma—thus destined to suffer good or bad consequences. All of this presupposes that there is no eternal metaphysical entity such as an "I," or atman (Pali: attan), but that there is a psychosomatic aggregate situated in time. This aggregate has freedom of choice and can perform acts that may generate consequences.
Such classifications are not purely doctrinal but also are intended to guide those who seek to follow the Buddha's teachings and to overcome the cycle of rebirths. Further guidance is found in the seven factors of enlightenment: clear memory, energy, sympathy, tranquility, impartiality, the exact investigation of the nature of things, and a disposition for concentration. Moreover, "four sublime states"—love for all living creatures, compassion, delight in that which is good or well done, and, again, impartiality—provide the necessary preconditions for liberation from karma and samsara (the perpetual cycle of death and rebirth).
Two basic forms of meditation (Pali: jhana; Sanskrit: dhyana) have been practiced in the Theravada tradition. Closely related to a Hindu tradition of yoga, the first of these involves a process of moral and intellectual purification. Initially, the Theravadin meditator seeks to achieve detachment from sensual desires and impure states of mind through reflection and to enter a state of satisfaction and joy. In the second stage of this form of meditation, intellectual activity gives way to a complete inner serenity; the mind is in a state of "one-pointedness" (concentration), joy, and pleasantness. In the third stage, every emotion, including joy, has disappeared, and the meditator is left indifferent to everything. In the fourth stage, satisfaction, any inclination to a good or bad state of mind, pain, and serenity are left behind, and the meditator enters a state of supreme purity, indifference, and pure consciousness.
According to Theravada belief, at this point the meditator begins pursuit of the samapattis (or the higher jhanic attainments). Beyond all awareness of form, withdrawn from the influence of perception, especially the perception of plurality, the meditator concentrates on and reposes in infinite space. Transcending this stage, the meditator focuses on the limitlessness of consciousness and attains it. Proceeding still further by concentrating on the nonexistence of everything, the meditator achieves a state of nothingness. Finally, the meditator reaches the highest level of attainment, in which there is neither perception nor nonperception.
The second form of Theravada meditation is called vipassana (Pali: "inner vision" or "insight meditation"). This practice requires intense concentration, which is thought to lead to a one-pointedness of mind that allows the meditator to gain insight into the saving truth that all reality is impermanent, permeated by suffering, and devoid of self. This insight, from the Buddhist perspective, allows the meditator to progress toward the attainment of nirvana itself.
In Theravada texts both jhanic and vipassana forms of meditation are recommended and are often combined in various ways. In the 20th century, there was an increasing emphasis on vipassana practices, and vipassana meditation movements became extremely important in Asia and among Buddhist groups in the West.
The stages leading to arhatship
Theravadins maintain that the ideal Buddhist is the "one who is worthy" (Sanskrit: arhat; Pali: arahant), the perfected person who attains nirvana through his own efforts. Although the Theravadin arhat "takes refuge in the Buddha," his focus is on the practice of the Buddha's dhamma (Pali).
According to the Theravadins, true insight is achieved by passing through four stages. The first stage is that of the "stream winner" or "stream enterer," the individual who has seen the truth, has experienced the first real intimations of nirvana, and will undergo no more than seven additional rebirths. Next is the stage of the "once-returner," who will endure no more than one additional rebirth before achieving nirvana. The third stage is that of the "nonreturner," who will achieve release in the present life or, at the very least, before another rebirth occurs. One who has reached this stage has broken free from the lower bonds of doubt, belief in a permanent self, faith in the results generated by rituals, sensual passion, and malice. The fourth and final stage is that of the arhat, who has attained complete freedom. The arhat is free from the bonds of ignorance, excitability, ambition, and the desire for existence in either the formed or formless worlds.
The Buddha
The state of the Buddha, the perfectly Enlightened One, is nirvana (Pali: nibbana). Beyond death—neither caused, born, nor produced—nirvana transcends all becoming and is devoid of all that makes up a human being. Three kinds of nirvana are particularly associated with Buddhahood. The first, the nibbana of the kilesas (Pali: "defilements"), is achieved by the Buddha when he attains enlightenment and leaves behind all defilements. The second kind, the nibbana of the khandas (Pali: "aggregate"), is achieved when the Buddha "dies" and leaves behind the aggregates that have constituted his identity as a person. Finally, at the time when the Buddha's religion becomes extinct, his relics return to Bodh Gaya (the place of his enlightenment) or, in some texts, to Anarudhapura (the ancient capital of Sri Lanka), where they will reassemble into the body of the Buddha, who then preaches one last sermon before completely disappearing. At this point the Buddha attains his final nibbana, the dhatu (Pali) or relic nibbana.
The Buddha has been given many other names, the most common of which are Arahant and Tathagata ("He Who Has Thus Attained"). According to Theravada scriptures, previous buddhas (mostly those who met Gotama in one of his past lives) are recognized by name, and there is a single mention of the future buddha Metteyya (Sanskrit: Maitreya). The Theravadins came to believe that Metteyya is presently in the Tusita heaven and will come into the world in the distant future to reestablish the religion.
The Pali canon (Tipitaka)
The earliest systematic and most complete collection of early Buddhist sacred literature is the Pali Tipitaka ("Three Baskets"; Sanskrit: Tripitaka). Its arrangement reflects the importance that the early followers attached to the monastic life (Pali and Sanskrit: Vinaya), to the discourses of the Buddha (Pali: Sutta), and subsequently to the interest in scholasticism (Pali: Abhidhamma).
The Pali Vinaya Pitaka ("Basket of Discipline") is still in theory the rule in Theravada monasteries, even though some sections have fallen into disuse. It is divided into five major parts grouped into three divisions—Sutta-vibhanga ("Division of Rules"), Khandhakas ("Sections"), and Parivara ("Accessory").
The largest of the three "baskets" is the Sutta Pitaka ("Basket of Discourse"), which consists of five collections (Pali and Sanskrit: nikayas) of the Buddha's discourses. From a literary viewpoint, many of the discourses can appear to be drawn out and repetitive; however, they are characterized by sublimity of thought and employ rich, beautiful illustrative similes.
The third "basket," the Abhidhamma Pitaka ("Basket of Special [Further] Doctrine"), comprises seven works. Although based on the contents of the Buddha's discourses, they deal with topics that were central to Theravada scholastic thought. The Pali version is a strictly Theravada collection and has little in common with the Abhidhamma works recognized by other Buddhist schools.
Early noncanonical texts in Pali
The noncanonical literature of Theravada Buddhism consists, to a large extent, of commentaries on the Tipitaka texts but also includes other works. Prominent among the exponents of Buddhism who attempted to harmonize its apparently conflicting teachings and grasp the inner meaning of its doctrine were Nagasena, Buddhaghosha, Buddhadatta, and Dhammapala.
The Milinda-panha ("Questions of King Menander"), traditionally attributed to Nagasena, is one of the great achievements of Indian prose and was probably written at the time of Menander (160–35 bce) or shortly after. The author begins with an account of his own past lives and those of King Menander because events in those lives will cause the two to meet again in this life. Menander, a well-informed scholar and keen debater, is disheartened when no one is able to resolve problems he raises regarding Buddhist teachings. Impressed by the serenity of the monk Nagasena, the king visits him in his monastery. Their conversation at the monastery and later at the king's palace is the subject matter of the Milinda-panha, which presents a profound and comprehensive exposition of Buddhist doctrine, ethics, and psychology. This work, like several other noncanonical texts, contains a chariot analogy: although the parts of a chariot put together in a specific way constitute the chariot, there is no chariot as such over and above its parts; similarly, the various components of an individual human being make up the individual, but there is no entity that actually holds the components together.
Buddhaghosha (flourished early 5th century ce) is undoubtedly the most prolific and important writer in the Pali language. There is little agreement about his birthplace, but it is known that he stayed at Bodh Gaya, in eastern India, for a long time. There he most likely met Sinhalese monks, because the vihara (Pali and Sanskrit: monastery) at Bodh Gaya had been built with the permission of Emperor Samudra Gupta (c. 330–380 ce) for Sinhalese pilgrims. Relocating to Sri Lanka, Buddhaghosha stayed at the Mahavihara ("Great Monastery") in Anuradhapura, which possessed a rich collection of commentarial literature, most likely in Old Sinhalese. Buddhaghosha's first work probably was the Visuddhimagga (Pali: "The Path of Purification"), a greatly revered compendium of Theravada teaching. He also wrote commentaries on the Vinaya (Pali), the first four nikayas (Pali and Sanskrit), and the seven books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, though the exact chronology of their composition cannot be determined.
Although a number of other works traditionally have been attributed to Buddhaghosha—including the Suttanipata (Pali: "Group of Suttas"), the Khuddaka-patha (Pali: "Collection on Little Readings"), the Dhammapada (Pali: "Verses on the Dhamma"), and the Jatakas (Pali and Sanskrit: "Births")—modern scholarship indicates that he was not their author. The introduction to commentary on the Jatakas includes the most famous "biography" of the Buddha in Pali; it begins with the hero's vow, made in a previous life, to become a buddha and concludes with his purported stay at the Jetavana monastery, where he told the 547 stories that follow. These stories, ranging from very brief narratives to full-scale romances, recount events in the Buddha's previous lives (for example, the story of the Buddha's last life before his birth as Siddhartha, during which he perfected the virtue of sacrificial giving). In countries where the Theravada school is prominent, these narratives and romances have exerted a tremendous influence on everything from the fine arts to law.
Buddhadatta, a contemporary of Buddhaghosha, was a native of Uragapura, near modern Tiruchchirappalli, in southern India. Like Buddhaghosha, he went to Sri Lanka to study at the Mahavihara in Anuradhapura, and upon his return he wrote his works in a monastery on the banks of the Kaveri River. His Abhidhammavatara (Pali: "The Coming of the Abhidhamma"), though a summary of the older works on the Abhidhamma Pitaka, is one of the most important commentaries on the "basket." While Buddhadatta's ideas were similar to those of Buddhaghosha, he did not follow Buddhaghosha blindly. Instead, he reduced Buddhaghosha's five metaphysical ultimates (form, feeling, sensations, motivations, and perception) to four (mind, mental events, forms, and nirvana). This creative classification, similar to that of the Sarvastivadins (a Buddhist sectarian group that emerged in the mid-3rd century bce and that affirmed ontological realism), makes Buddhadatta a philosopher in his own right rather than a commentator who merely restates matters in new terms.
Dhammapala, who probably came from southern India, is credited with the writing of numerous commentaries, including the Paramattha dipani (Pali: "Elucidation of the True Meaning"), a commentary on several books of the Khuddaka nikaya. In the Paramattha manjusa (Pali: "Jewel Box of the True Meaning"), a commentary on Buddhaghosha's Visuddhimagga, Dhammapala quotes a verse from the Hindu scripture Bhagavadgita and frequently mentions the views of other schools and teachers. As a result, this work provides valuable information about intellectual activity in traditional circles.
At the close of the 4th century ce, an even older work existed in Sri Lanka. This chronicle of the history of the island from its legendary beginning onward probably was part of the Maha-atthakatha, the commentarial literature that formed the basis of the works by Buddhaghosha and others. The accounts it contains are reflected in the Dipavamsa (Pali: "History of the Island"), which appears to be a poor redaction in Pali of an earlier Old Sinhalese version. The Mahavamsa (Pali: "Great Chronicle"), compiled by Mahanama in the 5th or 6th century, and its continuation in the Chulavamsa ("Little Chronicle"), compiled from the 13th to the 18th century, show much greater skill in the use of the Pali language and make liberal use of other material. These artistic compositions contain rich mythic, legendary, and historical material. The vamsa tradition continued in Sri Lanka (where it remains alive) and other countries where the Theravada school was prominent.
Later Theravada literature
During and after the "revival" and spread of the Theravada in the early centuries of the 2nd millennium ce, a new corpus of Theravada literature came into being. This corpus includes commentaries and other works written in Pali in Sri Lanka and the Theravada countries of Southeast Asia, as well as many important texts written in Sinhalese, Burmese, Thai, Laotian, and Khmer. One of the important Pali texts is the Mangala dipani, a highly respected commentary on the Mangala-sutta that was written in northern Thailand in the 16th century. Important vernacular texts include the 14th-century Traibhumikatha ("Three Worlds According to King Ruang"), which is the oldest-known full-length text written in Thai, and the Buddhadhamma, a 20th-century work by the Thai monk Prayudh Payutto.
Mahayana Buddhism is both a system of metaphysics dealing with the basic structure and principles of reality and, primarily, a theoretical propaedeutic to the achievement of a desired state. Arising in India in the 1st century ce, it spread to Central Asia, China, Japan, mainland Southeast Asia, Java, Sumatra, and even Sri Lanka. Its teachings involved basic shifts in doctrine and approach, though there were precedents in earlier schools. It taught that neither the self nor the dharmas exist. Moreover, for the elite arhat ideal, it substituted the bodhisattva, one who vows to become a buddha and delays entry into nirvana to help others. In Mahayana, love for creatures is exalted to the highest; a bodhisattva is encouraged to offer the merit he derives from good deeds for the good of others. The tension between morality and mysticism that agitated India also influenced the Mahayana.
Basic teachings
The Buddha: divinization and multiplicity
In the Mahayana tradition the Buddha is viewed as a supramundane being. He multiplies himself and is often reflected in a pentad of buddhas—Vairochana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi—who reveal various doctrines and elaborate liturgies and sometimes take the place of Shakyamuni.
As the tradition developed, there emerged new texts that were considered by Mahayana adherents to be Buddhavachana ("the word or words of the Buddha"). This new literature went far beyond the ancient canons and was believed to be the highest revelation, superseding earlier texts. In this literature the teaching is thought to operate on various levels, each adapted to the intellectual capacity and karmic propensities of those who hear it.
The bodhisattva ideal
The purpose of the bodhisattva is to achieve enlightenment and to fulfill the vow to become a buddha. The bodhisattva also foregoes entrance into nirvana in order to remain in the world as long as there are creatures to be saved from suffering.
Beginning with the vow to become a buddha, the career of a bodhisattva, according to some texts, traverses 10 stages or spiritual levels (bhumi) and achieves purification through the practice of the 10 perfections (paramitas). These levels elevate the bodhisattva to Buddhahood. The first six levels are preliminary, representing the true practice of the six perfections (generosity, morality, patience, vigour, concentration, and wisdom). Even though further purification and fortification must be achieved in the following stages, irreversibility occurs as soon as the seventh stage has been reached and the bodhisattva has assumed the true buddha nature. This is the moment when he engages in activity aimed at fulfilling the obligations of a bodhisattva. The difference between this and the preceding six stages is that now the activity is explained as an innate and spontaneous impulse manifested with conscious constraint and therefore not subject to doubt. Everything is now uncreated, ungenerated; thus, the body of the bodhisattva becomes identified more and more completely with the essential body (dharmakaya), with Buddhahood, and with omniscience.
The three Buddha bodies
The three bodies (trikaya; i.e., modes of being) of the Buddha are rooted in Hinayana teachings concerning the physical body, the mental body, and the body of the law. The theory of the three bodies was a subject of major discussion for the Mahayana, becoming part of the salvation process and assuming central significance in doctrine. The emanation body (nirmanakaya) is the form of the Buddha that appears in the world to teach people the path to liberation. The enjoyment (or bliss) body (sambhogakaya) is the celestial body of the Buddha to which contemplation can ascend. In the heavenly regions, or Pure Lands, the enjoyment body teaches the bodhisattva doctrines that are unintelligible to those who are unenlightened. The unmanifested body of the law (dharmakaya) already appears in the Saddharmapundarika, or Lotus Sutra, a transitional text of great importance to Mahayana devotional schools. In many Mahayana texts buddhas are infinite and share an identical nature—the dharmakaya.
As anticipated in ancient schools, the Buddha is the law (dharma) and is identified with an eternal dharma, enlightenment (bodhi), and nirvana. In later schools real existence is opposed to the mere appearance of existence, and voidness, the "thingness of things," an undefinable condition, present and immutable within the Buddhas, is stressed. All is in the dharmakaya, the third body and expression of ultimate reality; nothing is outside it, just as nothing is outside space; transcendence and immanence come together. Other schools posit a presence that is innate within all human beings, even if it is not perceived. It is like a gem hidden in dross, which shines in its purity as soon as the veil of ignorance has been removed.
New revelations
New revelations are made on earth and in heavenly paradises by Shakyamuni and other buddhas. The teaching is expounded uninterruptedly in the universe because worlds and paradises are infinite and all buddhas are consubstantial with the essential body. They speak to assemblies of shravakas (disciples), bodhisattvas, gods, and demons. The authors of the new doctrines revealed their religious enthusiasm in various highly expressive ways, filling their works with phantasmagoria of celestial choruses, fabulous visions in which shine flashes of new speculations, and trains of thought influenced by Indian speculative and mystical traditions. The texts, from which new trends spring, overflow with repetitions and modulate the same arguments with a variety of readings.
Mahayana thinkers faced the daunting challenge of producing a completely logical arrangement of this prolix literature, some of which had legendary origins. The Prajnaparamita ("Perfection of Wisdom") and the Avatamsaka-sutras ("Flower Ornament Sutras"), for instance, are said to have been concealed by the nagas, demigods that live in miraculous palaces in an underground kingdom. There are various Prajnaparamita texts, ranging from 100,000 verses (the Shatasahasrika) to only a few lines (the Prajnaparamitahrdaya-sutra, widely known as the Heart Sutra). The fundamental assumption of the Prajnaparamita is expounded in a famous verse: "like light, a mirage, a lamp, an illusion, a drop of water, a dream, a lightning flash; thus must all compounded things be considered." Not only is there no "self," but all things lack a real nature (svabhava) of their own. The Prajnaparamita-sutras announce that the world as it appears to us does not exist, that reality is the indefinable "thingness of things" (tathata; dharmanam dharmata), that voidness (shunyata) is an absolute "without signs or characteristics" (animitta).
The Mahayana schools and their texts
The Mahayana tradition encompasses a great many different schools, including the Madhyamika; the Yogachara or Vijnanavada (Vijnaptamatrata); the Avatamsaka school, which recognized the special importance of the Avatamsaka-sutra; a number of different schools that recognized the special authority of the Saddharmapundarika (Lotus Sutra); various Pure Land devotional schools; and several Dhyana ("Meditation") schools.
Madhyamika (Sanlun/Sanron)
The Madhyamika ("Doctrine of the Middle Way") system, also known as Shunyavada ("Theory of Negativity or Relativity"), held both subject and object to be unreal and systematized the doctrine of shunyata ("cosmic emptiness") contained in the Prajnaparamita literature.
Along with his disciple Aryadeva, the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna (c. 150–250 ce) is recognized as the founder and principal exponent of the Madhyamika system. Nagarjuna is the presumed author of the voluminous Mahaprajnaparamita-shastra ("The Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom"), preserved in its Chinese translation (402–405) by Kumarajiva, and the Mulamadhyamakakarika (more commonly known as Madhyamika Karika; "Fundamentals of the Middle Way"), which is considered by many to be the Madhyamika work par excellence. The main work of Aryadeva, the Chatushataka, criticizes other forms of Buddhism and the classical Sanskrit philosophical systems.
Nagarjuna and his followers sought a middle position, devoid of name and character and beyond all thought and words. They used rigorous logic to demonstrate the absurdity of various philosophical positions, including those of Hindus and other Buddhists. Assuming that contradiction is proof of error, Nagarjuna took any point of view that would reveal the error of his opponents. He did not, however, accept the opposing point of view but used it only as a means to expose the relativity of the system he was attacking. Because he was willing to refute his first position, he could claim adherence to no doctrine. Moreover, Nagarjuna attempted to prove that all worldly thought is empty (shunya) or relative and that the true path is that of the middle, the path that is between or, more correctly, above extremes. This belief has been called the doctrine of emptiness of all things, which posits that all things lack essential characteristics and exist only in relation to conditions surrounding them.
Nagarjuna presented this middle path above extremes in his statement of the Eightfold Path of Buddhism:
Nothing comes into being, nor does anything disappear. Nothing is eternal, nor has anything an end. Nothing is identical, nor is anything differentiated. Nothing moves here, nor does anything move there.
In presenting these pairs of opposites, Nagarjuna taught that anything that can be conceptualized or put into words is relative. This led to the Madhyamika identification of nirvana and samsara, which are empty concepts with the truth lying somewhere beyond.
After the world's emptiness or relativity has been proved, the question arises of how one is to go beyond this position. Nagarjuna answered with the doctrine of the two truths, explaining that humans can gain salvation and are not irreconcilably caught in this world, which can be used as a ladder leading to the absolute. In his doctrine the relative truth is of this existence. This leads first to the realization that all things are empty of subhava ("own being") and then to the intuition of an absolute truth beyond all conceptions. The link between these two truths—the relative and the absolute—is the Buddha. He experienced the absolute truth, which is nisprapancha—i.e., inexplicable in speech and unrealizable in ordinary thought—and yet he returned to point to this truth in the phenomenal world. By following this path, one can be saved. Thus, Nagarjuna taught that through the middle path of Madhyamika, which is identified as the Buddha's true teachings, one is guided to an experience beyond affirmation and negation, being and nonbeing. Madhyamika is a philosophy that can rightly be called a doctrine of salvation, for it claims to present humans with a system that leads to rescue from their situation.
The Madhyamika school divided into two subtraditions in the 5th and 6th centuries. The Prasangika school, which emphasized a more negative form of argumentation, was founded by Buddhapalita (c. 470–540), who wrote many works, including a commentary on Nagarjuna's Madhyamika Karika. The school was continued by Chandrakirti, a famous logician of the 7th century and author of a commentary on the Madhyamika Karika, and by Shantideva (c. 650–750), whose Shiksa-samuccaya ("Summary of Training") and Bodhicharyavatara ("The Coming of the Bodhisattva Way of Life") are among the most popular Mahayana literary works.
The Svatantrika school, which utilized a syllogistic mode of argumentation, was founded by Bhavaviveka, a contemporary of Buddhapalita and author of a commentary on the Madhyamika Karika. Santiraksita, a great scholar who wrote the Tattvasamgraha ("Summary of Essentials") and the Madhyamikalankara Karika ("Verses on the Ornament of the Madhyamika Teaching"), continued the school. Both the Svatantrika tradition and the Prasangika tradition strongly influenced Buddhist philosophy in Tibet.
The missionary translator Kumarajiva took the Madhyamika school to China from India in the 5th century. Three of the texts that he translated from Sanskrit into Chinese—the Madhyamika Karika and the Dvadashamukha-shastra or Dvadasha-dvara-shastra ("The Twelve Topics or Gates Treatise") of Nagarjuna and the Shata-shastra ("One Hundred Verses Treatise") of Aryadeva—became the basic texts of the Chinese Sanlun (Japanese: Sanron), or "Three Treatise," school of Madhyamika. Although this school was challenged by the Silun, or "Four Treatise," school, which also accepted the Mahaprajnaparamita-shastra as a basic text, Sanlun regained preeminence as a result of the teachings of Sengzhao, Kumarajiva's disciple, and later of Jizang. Both of these Chinese Madhyamika masters commented on Nagarjuna's thesis in numerous influential works.
A Korean disciple of Jizang, Ekwan (Huiguan), then spread Sanlun (Korean: Samnon) to Japan in 625. This school was never popular among the masses and rarely formed an independent sect, though it remained the basis of logical and philosophical thought among the learned.
Yogachara/Vijnanavada (Faxiang/Hossō)
The Yogachara (or Vijnanavada) school was founded, according to tradition, by the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu (4th/5th century ce) and by Sthiramati (6th century), who systematized doctrines found in the Lankavatara-sutra and the Mahayana-shraddhotpada-shastra (attributed to Ashvaghosha but probably written in Central Asia or in China). Later Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism include doctrines that were to be influenced by Yogachara teaching.
The special characteristics of Yogachara are its emphasis on meditation and a broadly psychological analysis, which contrasts with the other great Mahayana system, Madhyamika, where the emphasis is on logical analysis and dialectic. Its central doctrine, however, is that only consciousness (vijnanamatra; hence the name Vijnanavada) is real and that external things do not exist. Thought or mind is the ultimate reality, and nothing exists outside the mind, according to this school. The common view that external things exist is due to an error that can be removed by a meditative or yogic process that brings an inner concentration and tranquility and a complete withdrawal or "revulsion" from fictitious externalities.
Alaya-vijnana ("storehouse consciousness") is postulated as the receptacle of the imprint of thoughts and deeds, the vasana (literally, "dwelling") of various karmic seeds (bijas). The "seeds" develop into touch, mental activity, feeling, perception, and will, corresponding to the five skandhas ("aggregates"; parts of an individual personality). This is followed first by the emergence of ideation (manas), which sets off the self or mind from the world, and then by the realization that objects exist only through the sense perceptions and thought of subject. The store consciousness must be purged of its subject-object duality and restored to its pure state. This pure state is equivalent to the absolute "suchness" (tathata), to Buddhahood, to the undifferentiated.
Corresponding to false imagination (vikalpa), right knowledge, and suchness are the three modes of being: the mere fictions of false imagination; the relative existence of things, under certain conditions or aspects; and the perfect mode of being. Corresponding to this threefold version of the modes of being and awareness is the trikaya doctrine of the Buddha (the apparitional body, the enjoyment body, and the dharma body), a doctrine that was systematized by Yogachara thinkers.
The Yogachara school was represented in China primarily by the Faxiang (or Dharmalaksana; also Weishi) school, called Hossō in Japan. Paramartha, an Indian missionary-teacher, introduced the basic Yogachara teachings to China in the 6th century, and his translation of the Mahayana-samparigraha-shastra provided the foundation for the Silun school. Silun was succeeded as the major vehicle of Yogachara thought in China by the Faxiang school, which was founded by Xuanzang, the 7th-century Chinese pilgrim-translator, and his main disciple, Kuiji. Xuanzang went to India, where he studied the works of Dharmapala (died 561) and taught at the Vijnanavada centre at Valabhi. When he returned to China, he translated Dharmapala's Vijnapti-matrata-siddhi and many other works and taught doctrines that were based on those of Dharmapala and other Indian teachers. Xuanzang's teachings were expressed systematically in Fayuanyilinzhang and Weishishuji, the basic texts of the Faxiang school.
Faxiang, the Chinese translation of dharmalakshana (Sanskrit: "characteristic of dharma"), refers to the school's basic emphasis on the peculiar characteristics (dharmalakshana) of the dharmas that make up the world that appears in human ideation. According to Faxiang teaching, there are five categories of dharmas: 8 mental dharmas (chittadharma), comprising the 5 sense consciousnesses, cognition, the cognitive faculty, and the store consciousness; 51 mental functions or capacities, dispositions, and activities (chaitashikadharma); 11 elements concerned with material forms or appearances (rupa-dharma); 24 things, situations, and processes not associated with the mind—e.g., time, becoming (chittaviprayuktasamskara); and 6 noncreated or nonconditioned elements (asamskritadharma)—e.g., space or suchness (tathata).
In Chengweishi lun ("Treatise on the Establishment of the Doctrine Consciousness Only"), Xuanzang explained how there can be a common empirical world for different individuals who construct or ideate particular objects and who possess distinct bodies and sensory systems. According to Xuanzang, the universal "seeds" in the store consciousness account for the common appearance of things, and particular "seeds" account for the differences.
According to traditional accounts, Faxiang was first taken to Japan by Dōshō, a Japanese priest who visited China, studied under Xuanzang, and established the teaching (now called Hossō) at Gangō Monastery. It was also taken there by other priests, Japanese and Korean, who studied in China under Xuanzang, Kuiji, or their disciples. Thus, the Japanese claim to have received the Hossō teaching in a direct line from its originators, and it continues to have a living and significant role in Japanese Buddhism.
Avatamsaka (Huayan/Kegon)
Unlike the Faxiang (Hossō) school, which concentrated on the differentiating characteristics of things and the separation of facts and principles, the Avatamsaka school (called Huayan in China, Kegon in Japan) stressed the sameness of things, the presence of absolute reality in them, and the identity of facts and ultimate principles. It took its name from the Mahavaipulya-Buddhavatamsaka-sutra ("The Great and Vast Buddha Garland Sutra"), often called simply the Avatamsaka-sutra ("Wreath Sutra" or "Garland Sutra").
According to legend, the Avatamsaka-sutra was first preached by the buddha Vairochana shortly after his enlightenment but was replaced with simpler doctrines because it proved incomprehensible to his hearers. The sutra tells of the pilgrimage of a young man in a quest to realize dharma-dhatu ("totality" or "universal principle"). Three Chinese versions and one Sanskrit original (the Gandavyuha), which contains the last section only, are extant. There is no trace of an Indian sectarian development, and the school is known only in its Chinese and Japanese forms.
The forerunner of the Avatamsaka or Huayan school in China was the Dilun school, which was based on the Shiyidijing lun or Dilun, an early 6th-century translation of the Dashabhumika-sutra ("Sutra on the 10 Stages"). Since this work, which concerns the path of a bodhisattva to Buddhahood, was part of the Avatamsaka-sutra (which came to circulate independently), Dilun adherents readily joined the Huayan school that was established in the late 6th century (?) by Dushun (Fashun), the first patriarch (died 640). The real founder of the school, however, was the third patriarch, Fazang (also called Xianshou; died 712), who systematized its teachings; hence, it is sometimes called the Xianshou school. The school developed further under Fazang's student Chengguan (died c. 820 or c. 838), who wrote important commentaries on the Avatamsaka-sutra. After the death of the fifth and final patriarch, Zongmi, in 841, Huayan declined because of the general suppression of Buddhism in China in 845. Despite its decline, the school greatly influenced the development of neo-Confucianism (a significant movement in Chinese thought beginning in the 11th century) and is regarded by many as the most highly developed form of Chinese Buddhist thought.
The Avatamsaka school was introduced into Japan by pupils of Fazang and by an Avatamsaka missionary from central India during the period from about 725 to 740. Known in Japan as the Kegon school, it has exerted an important influence in Japanese Buddhism that has continued to the present day.
The school's most significant doctrine is the theory of causation by dharma-dhatu ("totality" or "universal principle"), according to which all elements arise simultaneously, the whole of things creates itself, ultimate principles and concrete manifestations are interfused, and the manifestations are mutually identical. Thus, in Fazang's Essay on the Golden Lion, written for the empress Wu Hou, gold is the essential nature or principle (Chinese: li), and lion is the particular manifestation or form (Chinese: shi; literally, "event"). Moreover, as gold, each part or particle expresses the whole lion and is identical with every other part or particle. This model suggests that all phenomena in the universe are expressions of the ultimate suchness or voidness while at the same time retaining their phenomenal character; each phenomenon is both "all" and "one." All the constituents of the world (the dharmas) are interdependent and possess a sixfold nature: universality, speciality, similarity, diversity, integration, and differentiation.
The ideal expressed in this doctrine is a harmonious totality of things leading to the perfectly enlightened buddha. The buddha nature is present potentially in all things. There are an infinite number of buddhas and buddha realms. There are myriads of buddhas in every grain of sand and a buddha realm at the tip of a hair.
The universe is fourfold: a world of factual, practical reality; a world of principle or theory; a world of principle and facts harmonized; and a world of factual realities interwoven and mutually identified. The first three aspects are the particular emphases of other Buddhist schools. The fourth aspect—emphasizing the harmonious whole—is the distinctive doctrine that represents the perfect knowledge that was attained by the buddha Vairochana and is communicated in the Avatamsaka-sutra.
The school known as Tiantai in China and Tendai in Japan is one of the most important schools in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. It is significant for its doctrines, which in many respects are similar to those of the Huayan/Kegon school, and for its influence on devotion. The school's doctrines and practices are focused on the Indian or Central Asian Saddharmapundarika-sutra ("Lotus of the True Law Sutra") as well as on the Mahaparinirvana and Mahaprajnaparamita-sutras.
Sometimes called Lotus (Fahua in Chinese; Hokke in Japanese), this school, which apparently had no separate development in India, took its name from the mountain in southeastern China where the basic interpretation of the Lotus Sutra was first propounded in the 6th century. The origins of the school, however, are to be found in the early 5th century when the original text of the Sanskrit sutra was translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva and was then taught in North China by the monks and first patriarchs, Huiwen and Huisi. The latter's student Zhiyi, who established a famous monastery on Mount Tiantai ("Heavenly Terrace"), is regarded as the true founder of the school because he propounded the systematic interpretation of Lotus doctrines that came to be widely accepted. His interpretation spread to Japan in the early 9th century, where Saichō (known posthumously as Dengyō Daishi), a Buddhist priest who studied the teachings first in Japan and then on Mount Tiantai, founded a Japanese Tendai school. He also founded a monastery on Mount Hiei that became one of Japan's greatest centres of Buddhist learning.
Along with the Vajrayana Buddhist school of Shingon, with which it was closely connected, Tendai became one of the most important influences on Japanese religious culture. Tendai has been markedly syncretistic, incorporating the teachings of various Buddhist schools and those of Shintō, the indigenous Japanese religion, into its traditions.
The Lotus Sutra, which is recognized by Tiantai and Tendai as the locus of the most exalted Buddhist teaching, emphasizes the notion of the one way (or "vehicle" or "career") for attaining salvation (Buddhahood). It claims to be the definitive and complete teaching of the Buddha, who is depicted as a transcendent eternal being, preaching to arhats, gods, bodhisattvas, and other figures, using all sorts of sermons, lectures, imaginative parables, and miracles. The Lotus is an object of devotion in this school, and those who preach, recite, or hear it are believed to accrue religious merit.
In the Lotus the three ways of salvation supposedly preached by the Buddha are adjusted to the level and situation of the hearers: shravakayana, the way of the disciples (shravakas), appropriate for becoming an arhat; pratyeka-buddhayana, the way of those who aim at salvation for themselves alone; and bodhisattvayana, the way of those (the bodhisattvas) who, on the point of attaining salvation, give it up to work for the salvation of all other beings. All are forms of the one way, the buddhayana, and the aim for all is to become a buddha.
The Tiantai/Tendai tradition divides the Buddha's teachings into five periods. The first immediately followed the Buddha's enlightenment, when, without success, he preached the Avatamsaka-sutra. The second is the so-called Deer Park period, when he preached the Agamas (Theravada scriptures) to those with ordinary human capacities. In the third or Fangdeng ("broad and equal") period, he preached the Vaipulya or early Mahayana teachings, which were intended for all persons. During the fourth period he preached the Mahaprajnaparamita doctrines concerning absolute voidness and the falsity of all distinctions. Finally, in the Saddharmapundarika and Mahaparinirvana ("Wisdom") period, he taught the identity of contrasts, the unity of the three "vehicles," and the ultimate authority of the Lotus Sutra.
Central to Tiantai/Tendai doctrine is the threefold truth principle (following Nagarjuna's [?] commentary on the Mahaprajnaparamita), according to which all things are void, without substantial reality; all things have temporary existence; and all things are in the mean or middle state, synthesizing voidness and temporary existence, being both at once. The three truths are a harmonious unity, mutually including one another, and the mean or middle truth is equivalent to the absolute suchness. The world of temporary appearances is thus the same as absolute reality.
Tiantai/Tendai propounds an elaborate cosmology of 3,000 realms. There are 10 basic realms, respectively, of buddhas, bodhisattvas, pratyeka buddhas, shravakas, heavenly beings, fighting spirits (asuras), human beings, hungry spirits or ghosts (pretas), beasts, and depraved hellish beings. Each realm, however, includes the other 9 and their characteristics, and counting these together thus yields 100 realms. Each of these in turn is characterized by the 10 features of suchness manifested through phenomena—form, nature, substance, power, action, cause, condition, effect, compensation, and ultimacy—which thus brings the total to 1,000 realms. Finally, each of these realms is divided into living beings, space, and the aggregates (skandhas); hence, the whole of things consists of 3,000 realms.
Those realms interpenetrate one another and are immanent in one moment of thought: "one thought is the three thousand worlds." The universe is not produced by thought or consciousness but is manifest in it, as is the absolute suchness: hence, the central importance of concentration (zhi) and insight (guan) that leads to a realization of the unity of things and their manifestation of the ultimate.
Pure Land
The main text of the Pure Land schools is the Sukhavativyuha-sutra ("Pure Land Sutra"). Written in northwestern India probably before the beginning of the 2nd century ce, the Sukhavativyuha exists in two original versions, a longer one that emphasizes good works and a shorter version that emphasizes faith and devotion alone. This sutra tells of a monk, Dharmakara, who heard the preaching of Lokeshvararaja Buddha aeons ago and asked to become a buddha. After millions of years of study, Dharmakara vowed, among other things, to establish a Pure or Happy Land (Sanskrit: Sukhavati; Chinese: Qingtu; Japanese: Jōdo), also known as the Western Paradise, if he achieved Buddhahood. In this Pure Land no evil would exist, the people would be long-lived, they would receive whatever they desired, and from there they might attain nirvana. Dharmakara then revealed in a series of 48 vows the means by which this Pure Land can be reached. Several vows emphasize meditation and good works on earth as a prerequisite, but the 18th one (a famous vow in the later development of Pure Land schools) states that, if one merely calls the name of the Buddha at the moment of death, then one will be reborn in the Pure Land.
Dharmakara, it is believed, attained Buddhahood and is known as the buddha Amitabha (Sanskrit: "Infinite Light"; Chinese: Emituofo; Japanese: Amida) or the buddha Amitayus (Sanskrit: "Infinite Lifespan"). He is flanked in the Pure Land he created in fulfillment of his vows by Avalokiteshvara (Chinese: Guanyin; Japanese: Kannon) on his left and Mahasthamaprapta on his right, who assist Amitabha in bringing the faithful to salvation.
By the 3rd century ce, the Amitabhist doctrine had spread from India to China, where a school based on it gradually became the most popular form of Buddhism. Followers of the Tendai school took Amitabhist teachings to Japan, where they attempted to weld the many sects of Buddhism into one system. By the 13th century ce, the Pure Land sect had separated from the Tendai school and spread among the common people of Japan through the work of two outstanding figures, Hōnen and Shinran.
The basic doctrines of the Pure Land schools emphasize the importance of devotion. Pure Land leaders teach that a person reaches salvation not by individual effort or the accumulation of merit but through faith in the grace of the buddha Amitabha. The main practice of those who follow the Pure Land teachings is not the study of the texts or meditation on the Buddha but rather the constant invocation of the name Amitabha, a practice based on the 18th vow of Dharmakara. Furthermore, in Pure Land Buddhism the attainment of nirvana is not the most prominent goal; it is rather to become reborn in the Pure Land of Amitabha.
These doctrines and the practice of invoking the name Amitabha—called nembutsu in Japanese and nianfo in Chinese—became popular in China and Japan, where it was believed that the world had reached the decadent age, the so-called "latter days of the law" in which Buddhist doctrines were unclear and humans lacked the purity of heart or determination to attain salvation by their efforts. Therefore, the only hope was to be saved by the grace of Amitabha. This doctrine of grace became more and more radical, until individual actions were said by some to play no part in the attainment of salvation.
Tanluan and the other 6th–7th-century Chinese Pure Land patriarchs, Daochuo and Shandao, were among those who rejected the role of works in salvation. Originally a follower of Daoism, Tanluan, while searching for the elixir of immortality, was converted to the Pure Land doctrine by an Indian monk. Dedicating his life to the spread of this doctrine, Tanluan preached the invocation of the name Amitabha and declared that even evil persons were eligible for the Pure Land if they sincerely uttered the nembutsu. He warned, however, that the lowest hell awaited those who reviled the Buddhist dharma.
Tanluan was followed by Daochuo, who argued that, because his was the age of the final decline predicted in Buddhist scriptures, people must take the "easy path" to salvation. They must trust Amitabha completely, for they are no longer able to follow the more difficult path of the saints. His disciple Shandao, believed by some Japanese Pure Land adherents to be the incarnation of Amida, shaped the doctrines of the later forms of Pure Land Buddhism. He distributed many copies of the Pure Land Sutra and wrote a commentary in which he taught that rebirth in the Western Paradise is made possible by invoking Amida. The nembutsu must be supplemented, however, by the chanting of sutras, meditation on the Buddha, worshiping of buddha images, and singing his praises.
The work of Shandao inspired Hōnen, the founder of the Pure Land sect (Jōdo-shu) in Japan, to declare that in this evil period people must put complete faith in the saving grace of Amida and constantly invoke his name. Hōnen expressed his beliefs in the treatise Senchaku hongan nembutsu-shu (1198), which was popular among the common people, as were his teachings generally. The treatise was burned by the monks of Mount Hiei, and his teachings were vigorously opposed by the established Buddhist priesthood. Indeed, opposition to Hōnen was so great that his rivals forced him into exile from 1206 to 1211.
Hōnen's disciple Shinran, who was exiled at the same time, was the founder of True Pure Land (Jōdo Shinshu or Shin), a more radical Amida school. Shinran married with Hōnen's consent, which thus suggests that one need not be a monk to attain the Pure Land. In Shinran's teachings, which he popularized by preaching in Japanese villages, he rejected all sutras except the Pure Land Sutra, as well as the vows of Dharmakara in that sutra that stress individual merit. Basing his doctrines on the 18th vow, Shinran discouraged any attempt to accumulate merit, for he felt that this stood in the way of absolute faith and dependence on Amida. Furthermore, he rejected Hōnen's practice of continual invocation of Amida, believing that the nembutsu need be said only once in order to attain salvation and that repetition of it should be regarded as praise of Amida and not as affecting one's salvation. Thus, Shinran established the total ascendancy of the doctrine of grace. He also founded what would become the Shin school, the largest single Buddhist school in contemporary Japan. Throughout its history the Shin school has actively promoted music, dance, and drama and, since the late 19th century, has engaged in extensive educational and social welfare programs.
A third Pure Land sect grew up around the itinerant teacher Ippen. He traveled throughout Japan, advocating the chanting of Amida's name at set intervals throughout the day; hence, his school was called the Ji ("Times") school, or Jishū.
Like the Lotus Sutra and Pure Land schools, the indigenous Japanese Nichiren school focuses on the "Lotus of the True Law Sutra" and emphasizes fervent faith and the repetition of a key phrase. Unlike other schools that were named after a book or doctrine, the Nichiren school is unique in that it is named after its founder, Nichiren (1222–82). The son of a poor fisherman, Nichiren became a monk at an early age and studied at Mount Hiei, the centre of the Tendai school. He was frustrated by the many paths of Buddhism promising salvation and left Mount Hiei to search for the true path. When he emerged from his independent studies, he taught that the Lotus Sutra (Saddharmapundarika-sutra) contains the final and supreme teaching of the Buddha Shakyamuni and offers the only true way to salvation.
According to Nichiren, the three forms of the Buddha—the universal or law body (dharmakaya), the enjoyment body (sambhogakaya), and the phenomenal body (nirmanakaya)—are important aspects of the Buddha Shakyamuni and should be granted equal respect. Following the teaching of Zhiyi, the Chinese founder of Tiantai/Tendai, that the Lotus Sutra is the essence of Buddhism, Nichiren held that this same buddha nature was possessed by all people and could be realized only by proper worship of the Lotus Sutra. Furthermore, like the Pure Land Buddhists, Nichiren felt that his time, which was marked by political upheaval and unrest, was the period of degeneration known in the Lotus Sutra as the time of the latter-day dharma (mappō), when the purity of Buddhist doctrines could be kept only by the bodhisattvas. Nichiren identified himself as an incarnation of several of them, especially Vishistacaritra (Japanese: Jōgyō), the bodhisattva of supreme conduct. Nichiren believed that his distinctive bodhisattva mission was to propagate the true teachings of the Lotus Sutra in Japan, where he believed the regeneration of the Buddhist dharma would occur.
In attempting to guide Japan to the Buddhist dharma as he interpreted it, Nichiren drew great criticism for his strong-willed and uncompromising attitude. In one treatise Nichiren wrote that the unrest in Japan was caused by the chaotic state of religious belief, a condition that could be corrected only by adopting the teachings of the Lotus Sutra. He taught that if people turned to this sutra, they would realize their true buddha nature, perceive that suffering is illusion, and see that this world is a paradise. If human beings—i.e., the Japanese—did not follow the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, however, natural disasters and invasions would result. Moreover, Nichiren, confident of the righteousness of his cause, attacked the Shingon and Amida Buddhist groups for neglecting Shakyamuni, the true Buddha of the Lotus Sutra; and he attacked Zen for placing stress only upon Shakyamuni's historical form. He went so far as to declare that "the Nembutsu is hell, Zen is a devil, Shingon is the nation's ruin." These sharp criticisms led Nichiren to be exiled twice and almost brought his execution, from which he was—according to his own account and the belief of his adherents—miraculously saved.
Nichiren advocated two main religious practices. The first is the worship of the honzon (or gohonzon), a mandala (symbolic diagram) designed by Nichiren, which represents both the buddha nature that is in all humans and the three forms of the Buddha Shakyamuni. The second is the daimoku (Japanese: "sacred title"), the repetition—both orally and in every action of the believer—of the phrase "Namu Myōhō renge kyō" (Japanese: "Salvation to the Lotus Sutra") to affirm belief in the teaching and efficacy of the Lotus Sutra. Nichiren also taught that there should be a sacred place of ordination (Japanese: kaidan) where the believer could receive training in the doctrines of the Lotus Sutra. This sacred place might be seen as wherever the believer in the Lotus Sutra lives, for there is the Buddhist truth. The honzon, daimoku, and kaidan, "the three great secret laws" (or "mysteries"), are regarded as the essential teaching of Nichiren.
Nichiren's fervent faith brought him wide fame and many devotees, and at his death he chose six disciples to continue his work. They developed the Nichiren-shu (Japanese: "School of Nichiren"), which still controls the main temple founded by Nichiren at Mount Minobu. One of his disciples, Nikkō, established the Nichiren shō-shū (Japanese: "True School of Nichiren"), which taught that Nichiren, not Shakyamuni, was the saviour and that the mandala painted by Nichiren was alone efficacious in saving mankind. In the 20th century these schools gained many devotees.
Within the Nichiren-shū the Reiyū-kai (Japanese: "Association of the Friend of the Spirit") arose in 1925. This group, which preaches a combination of ancestor worship and Nichiren's doctrines, places faith not in the Buddha or in bodhisattvas but in the mandala, in which all saving power is concentrated. The Risshō-Kōsei-kai (Japanese: "Society for Establishing Righteousness and Friendly Relations"), which split from Reiyū-kai in 1938, teaches the recitation of the daimoku as an affirmation of faith in the teaching of the Lotus Sutra and the worship of the Buddha Shakyamuni. Like Reiyū-kai, it also allows the veneration of ancestral spirits.
Risshō-Kōsei-kai gained many converts after World War II, but its success was soon eclipsed by Sōka-gakkai (Japanese: "Value Creation Society"), the lay movement of Nichiren Shōshū. Founded by Makiguchi Tsunesaburō (1871–1944) in 1930, Sōka-gakkai was dedicated to educational research and the extension of Nichiren Shōshū. Its founder insisted on the practical values of worldly gain and happiness as well as the attainment of goodness, beauty, and world peace; he taught that Nichiren was to be worshiped as the True Buddha predicted in the Lotus Sutra. The members also fervently practice daimoku and worship the honzon as the repository of the power of all buddhas and bodhisattvas. After World War II, Sōka-gakkai, under the leadership of Toda Jōsei (1900–58), grew rapidly through a technique of evangelism called shakubuku (Japanese: "break and subdue"), in which the resistance of the other person is destroyed by forceful argument. Although its practice of shakubuku was curtailed by Ikeda Daisaku, the society's third president, Sōka-gakkai continued to grow throughout the second half of the 20th century and expanded into other countries, including the United States. Thus, Nichiren's teaching and personality are still strong influences today.
Dhyana (Chan/Zen)
The Dhyana (Sanskrit: "Meditation"; Chinese: Chan; Japanese: Zen) school of Buddhism emphasizes meditation as the way to awareness of ultimate reality, an important practice of Buddhism from its origin in India and one found in other Indian schools, such as Yogachara. Chan, which was also influenced by Daoism, promotes special meditation training techniques and doctrines. Despite Indian influences, Chan is generally considered a specifically Chinese product, a view reinforced by the fact that 4th–5th-century Chinese Buddhist monks, such as Huiyuan and Sengzhao, taught beliefs and practices similar to those of the Chan school before the traditional date of its arrival in China.
Most Chinese texts name a South Indian monk, Bodhidharma, who arrived in China about 520 ce, as the founder of the Chan school. Bodhidharma is regarded as the first Chan patriarch and the 28th patriarch of the Indian meditation school. The Indian school began with the monk Kashyapa, who received Buddha Shakyamuni's supreme teaching, which is found in the Lankavatara-sutra ("Descent to the Island of Lanka"). The sutra teaches that all beings possess a buddha nature, often equated with shunya (Sanskrit: "the void") in Chan, and that realization of this fact is enlightenment (Chinese: Wu; Japanese: satori). The truly enlightened one cannot explain this ultimate truth or reality, nor can books, words, concepts, or teachers, for it is beyond the ordinary duality of subject and object and must be realized in direct personal experience.
Bodhidharma was succeeded as patriarch of the Chan school by Huike, and this line of transmission continued to the fifth patriarch, Hengren, in the 7th century. After Hengren's death a schism occurred between the adherents of the Northern school of Shenxiu, which held that enlightenment must be attained gradually, and the Southern school of Huineng, which taught that true wisdom, as undifferentiated, must be attained suddenly and spontaneously. Huineng's Southern school claimed to de-emphasize rituals and the study of texts and to rely on teaching passed from master to pupil. Some proponents of the Southern school also adopted an iconoclastic attitude toward the Buddha, maintaining that if all things contain the buddha nature, then the Buddha could rightfully be equated with a dung heap. The Southern school overcame its rival, and standard Chinese Chan texts therefore name Huineng as the true and only sixth patriarch. Huineng's Liuzu Tanching (Chinese: "Platform Scripture of the Sixth Patriarch") became a key text of the Chan school.
In the 9th century, the Linzi (Japanese: Rinzai) and Caodong (Japanese: Sōtō) branches of the Southern school emerged. The former relied heavily on the gong'an (Japanese: koan), a paradoxical question or aphorism that was intended to reveal that all conceptualization is wrong and thus leads to enlightenment. The gong'an was often accompanied by shouts and slaps from the master to provoke anxiety in the student and, from this, an instant realization of the truth. The Caodong/Sōtō school emphasized the practice of "silent illumination" or "just sitting" (Chinese: zuochan; Japanese: zazen), which involved sitting in silent meditation under the direction of a master and purging the mind of all notions and concepts.
Both schools followed the doctrine of Huaihai, who taught that a monk who would not work should not eat and that work (as well as everything else) should be done spontaneously and naturally. The emphasis on work made the Chan schools self-sufficient and saved them from the worst effects of the government purge of supposedly parasitic Buddhist monks in 845. The emphasis on spontaneity and naturalness stimulated the development of a Chan aesthetic that profoundly influenced later Chinese painting and writing. The relative success of the Chan tradition in subsequent Chinese history is demonstrated by the fact that virtually all Chinese monks eventually came to belong to one of the two Chan lineages.
Chan (Zen) Buddhism was introduced into Japan as early as the 7th century but flowered only in the 12th and 13th centuries, most notably in the work of the monks Eisai and Dōgen. Eisai, founder of the Rinzai school in the 12th century and a Tendai monk, wished to restore pure Buddhism to Japan and with that aim visited China. When he returned, he taught a system of meditation based on the use of the koan phrases. Unlike the Chan schools, Eisai taught that Zen should defend the state and could observe ceremonial rules and offer prayers and incantations. These teachings influenced the warrior class and led to a Zen influence on the martial arts of archery and swordsmanship. Zen influence can also be seen in the Noh theatre, poetry, flower arrangement, and the tea ceremony, all of which stress grace and spontaneity.
Dōgen, who established the Sōtō school in Japan in the 13th century, joined the Tendai monastery of Mount Hiei at an early age, after the death of his mother and father taught him the transitoriness of life. Unfulfilled by his experience at Mount Tendai, Dōgen sought the true path of Buddhism and may have studied with Eisai for a time. Like Eisai, whom he held in high esteem, Dōgen went to China, where he fell under the influence of a Chinese Chan master. Upon his return to Japan, he taught the discipline of "sitting straight" (Japanese: zazen), the practice of meditation in the cross-legged (lotus) position. For Dōgen, practice and enlightenment were intertwined; in zazen the buddha nature in each person is discovered. Unlike many of his Chinese counterparts, however, Dōgen studied scriptures and criticized those who did not.
The Zen sects of Eisai and Dōgen have deeply influenced Japanese culture and continue to play a significant role in contemporary Japan. By the mid-20th century, Zen had become one of the best-known of the Buddhist schools in the Western world.
Vajrayana (Tantric or Esoteric) Buddhism
Mystical practices and esoteric sects are found in all forms of Buddhism. The mystical tendency that Buddhism inherited from Indian religion became increasingly pronounced. Following the codification of the Theravada canon—which according to tradition emerged orally shortly after the Buddha's death and was written down by the late 1st century bce—and the subsequent emergence of Mahayana (1st century ce), this mystical element slowly developed into discrete schools of thought. Buddhist mysticism (including the philosophical school of Chan), like other forms of mysticism, insists on the ineffability of the mystical experience, because it is not intelligible to anyone who has not had a similar experience. Mystical knowledge is not intellectual but is "felt knowledge" that views things in a different perspective and gives them new significance. The experience is both ineffable and timeless, which means that the mystic seems to be outside time and space, oblivious to his surroundings and the passage of time.
Early Buddhist mysticism was concerned with the emptying of subjective being, considered to be the greatest obstacle to the individual's spiritual growth. This passing into a new dimension of reality is described in terms of a flame going out. In this emptying process the limits of the individual's being are supposedly transcended. The experience of this new dimension of reality is a vision that goes far beyond the reach of "mere logic" and normal perception.
While Theravada Buddhism was analytic in its attempt to free reality from the imposition of subjectivity, Mahayana extended the analytic process to objective reality. In its rejection of subjectivism and objectivism, it emphasized the nature of reality-as-such, which was experienced in enlightenment (Pali and Sanskrit: bodhi). While the various philosophical trends associated with Mahayana dealt with the intellectual problem of reality, the tantras (Sanskrit: "treatises"), which form the distinctive literature of Vajrayana Buddhism, dealt with the existential problem of what it is like or how it feels to attain the highest goal.
Vajrayana Buddhism in India
Vajrayana (Sanskrit: "Diamond Vehicle" or "Thunderbolt Vehicle") or Mantrayana (Sanskrit: "Path of the Sacred Formulas"), also known as Tantric Buddhism, first emerged in various parts of India and Sri Lanka. The esoteric nature of Tantric doctrine and practice makes identifying the origins of the Vajrayana school difficult, but some Buddhist traditions associate them with Nagarjuna and Asanga and therefore suggest that Vajrayana began to develop quietly in the 2nd or 4th century ce. Vajrayana was prominent in India and Tibet, and a form of it, which does not seem to have emphasized sexoyogic practices, spread to China and then to Japan, where it became associated with the Tendai and Shingon schools.
Although Vajrayana texts describe numerous yogic or contemplative stages that must be experienced before enlightenment can be achieved, they preserve the Mahayana identification of nirvana and samsara as a basic truth. Moreover, Vajrayana teaches that nirvana as shunyata ("voidness") is one side of a polarity that must be complemented by karuna ("compassion of the bodhisattva"). Shunyata, according to the Vajrayana tradition, is the passive wisdom (prajna) that possesses an absolutely indestructible or diamond-like (vajra) nature beyond all duality, and karuna is the means (upaya) or dynamic aspect of the world. Enlightenment arises when these seeming opposites are understood to be one. This realization, which is known experientially and not cognitively, is portrayed in Vajrayana imagery and practice as the union of the passive female deity, which signifies wisdom or voidness, with the dynamic male, signifying compassion without attachment. Such a union, yab-yum (Tibetan: "father-mother"), is a symbol of the unity of opposites that brings the "great bliss," or enlightenment.
Vajrayana Buddhists believe that, as all things are in truth of one nature—the void—physical-mental processes can be used as a vehicle for enlightenment. According to the Kalachakra-tanta, the Buddha taught that, in this age of degeneration, enlightenment must be achieved through the body, which contains the whole cosmos. Vajrayana specialists warn, however, that the first step toward enlightenment is taken by undergoing instruction by a master who has been initiated into the mysteries and can teach the correct use of the body's process. The master directs every step so that the pupil learns to control mental and physical processes instead of being dominated by them.
The master, it is believed, leads the student to compassion through meditation on the transitoriness of life, the relation of cause and effect of one's actions, and the suffering of humanity. After sympathy for human suffering has been aroused, the student is taught yogic, or contemplative, exercises that help to produce inner experiences corresponding to the various stages of spiritual growth. Advancement toward enlightenment involves the identification of the initiate with deities that represent various cosmic forces. These gods are first visualized with the help of mudras (meditative gestures and postures), mantras (sacred syllables and phrases), and icons portrayed in a mandala, all of which are believed to possess the essence of the divinities to be invoked. After this visualization the initiate identifies with the divinities and finds that each in turn is shunyata ("voidness").
According to Vajrayana traditions, the culmination of this process, called vajrasattva yoga, gives the initiate a diamond-like body beyond all duality. The four stages in the process are described in four different groups of tantras (the Kriya-tantra, Charya-tantra, Yoga-tantra, and Anuttarayoga-tantra) that are compared with the fourfold phases of courtship (the exchange of glances, a pleasing or encouraging smile, the holding of hands, and consummation in the sexual act). The first stage involves external ritual acts, and the second combines these outward acts with contemplation. The third stage involves only contemplation, and the fourth is the unification of all dualities in the sexual act, symbolically or effectively. The last stage is divided into two phases. In the first the initiate uses controlled imagination to experience the union on an ideational level. The second phase is the maithuna, or sexual coupling. Unlike the ordinary sexual act, which gives only momentary pleasure, the maithuna is considered a technique to attain enlightenment and eternal bliss because the initiate has already realized the voidness of all things, allowing perfect control over emotions and a complete absence of attachment.
These Vajrayana practices have been condemned by some Buddhists and some modern scholars as degenerate, a view ostensibly borne out by the Guhyasamaja-tantra, which states that adultery and eating of human flesh are actions of the bodhisattva. Vajrayana practices and the imagery of its texts, however, were designed to shock the complacency and self-righteousness of more traditional Buddhists. Moreover, the imagery of the texts was based on the belief that voidness alone exists and that it is beyond good or evil in the usual sense. The imagery is also based on the belief that any acts that bring about this realization are acts that benefit the practitioner and all sentient beings.
Vajrayana literature
The tantras, the genre of texts unique to the Vajrayana tradition, are written in a highly figurative and symbolic language to enable individual spiritual development. Because of this symbolic character, the tantras have usually been kept secret, and a literalist interpretation of such texts has usually failed to make any sense out of them.
The Guhyasamaja-tantra ("Treatise on the Sum Total of Mysteries"), also called the Tathagataguhyaka ("The Mystery of Tathagatahood [Buddhahood]"), is the earliest-known tantra and is traditionally ascribed to Asanga (c. 4th century ce), the renowned Indian scholar and propounder of the Yogachara philosophy. Unlike most tantras, which do not explain the technical or symbolic terms that they employ, the Guhyasamaja-tantra devotes a very long chapter to the elucidation of these terms.
An important feature of all tantras is a polarity symbolism, which appears on the physical level as the union of male and female, on the ethical level as the union of beneficial activity and an appreciation of what there is as it is, and on the philosophical level as the synthesis of absolute reality and absolute compassion. The richness of this symbolism is apparent in the opening of the Guhyasamaja, where the absolute, which is depicted as a polarity, manifests itself in various mandalas (circular diagrams that have both a psychological and a cosmic reference), each related to one of the celestial buddhas—Akshobhya, Vairochana, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi. Each of these buddhas again represents a polarity that is often portrayed in iconographic works through their union with female consorts.
The tantras may emphasize either "beneficial activity" or "appreciative awareness" or their "unity," and, therefore, Tantric literature has been divided into the so-called Father Tantra (emphasizing activity), the Mother Tantra (emphasizing appreciation), and the Nondual Tantra (dealing with both aspects unitively). The original Sanskrit versions of most of these works have been lost, but their influence is noticeable in works such as Jnanasiddhi ("Attainment of Knowledge") by the great Vajrayana teacher Indrabhuti (c. 687–717), Prajnopayavinishchayasiddhi ("The Realization of the Certitude of Appreciative Awareness and Ethical Action") by the 8th-century writer Anangavajra, and the songs of the 84 mahasiddhas ("masters of miraculous powers," who were considered to have attained the Vajrayana goal). One of the last Sanskrit works to have been written in Central Asia was the Kalachakra-tantra ("Wheel of Time"), which probably entered India in 966 ce. It taught that the Adi-Buddha—primeval Buddhahood—manifested itself as a continuum of time (kala) and space (chakra).
Vajrayana Schools in Tibet
When Tibet was converted to Buddhism (7th to 11th century), the most dynamic form in India was Vajrayana; thus, it was this tradition that became established in Tibet. Little is known about the early stages of the conversion (7th to 9th century), however, and the role of Vajrayana in the conversion before the 11th century, when several identifiable schools emerged, remains unclear.
Among the Vajrayana schools of Tibet and neighbouring regions, the Rnying-ma-pa claims to preserve most purely the teachings of Padmasambhava, the 8th-century Indian miracle worker who helped convert Tibet by using his magical prowess, it is believed, to quell the local demons. The Rnying-ma-pa makes fuller use than any other school of the "discovered" texts of Padmasambhava. These texts are believed to have been hidden since the early 9th century, when persecution began in Tibet, and their discovery began in the 11th century and continued until the late 20th century. Their importance to this school is reinforced by the Rnying-ma-pa notion that "hidden treasure" has strong spiritual and historical overtones.
The Rnying-ma-pa order divides Buddhist teaching into nine progressively superior groups and subdivides the tantras in a manner different from that of other Vajrayana schools. The six groups of tantras are: Kriya, or ritual; Upayoga, which involves the convergence of the two truths and meditation on the pentad of buddhas; Yoga, which involves the evocation of the god, the identification of the self with the god, and meditation on the mandala; Mahayoga, which involves meditation on the factors of human consciousness (skandhas) as divine forms; Anuyoga, which involves secret initiation into the presence of the god and his consort and meditation on "voidness" in order to destroy the illusory nature of things; and Atiyoga, which involves meditation on the union of the god and his consort, leading to the experience of bliss. Members of the order believe that those initiated into the Kriya can attain Buddhahood after seven lives, the Upayoga after five lives, the Yoga after three lives, the Mahayoga in the next existence, the Anuyoga at death, and the Atiyoga in the present existence.
One of the most profound thinkers of the Rnying-ma-pa tradition, Klong-chen rab-'byams-pa (1308–64), is the author of the Klong-chen-mdzod-bdun (Tibetan: "Seven Treasures of Klong-chen"). In modern times Mi-'pham of Khams (1846–1914) wrote important Vajrayana commentaries on the canonical texts.
Sa-skya-pa, Bka'-brgyud-pa, and related schools
Several Tibetan schools that developed during the 11th and 12th centuries traced their lineage back several centuries to particular Indian Vajrayana saints. The Sa-skya-pa and the Bka'-brgyud-pa orders were the most prominent, and they gave rise to many others, including the descendant of Bka'-brgyud-pa, the Karma-pa (Tibetan: "Black Hat"), which has its major centre at the monastery of Mtshur-phu.
Although the Sa-skya-pa order traces its lineage back to Virupa, its founder was the Tibetan 'Brog-mi (992–1072), who went to India and received training in the Vajrayana. The order places great emphasis on the Hevajra-tantra, which 'Brog-mi translated into Tibetan.
The Sa-skya-pa order had an important impact on the society around it. The order produced many great translators, and its scholars also contributed original works on Vajrayana philosophy and linguistics. On the ecclesiastical and political level, the order sometimes exerted considerable power. During the 13th century, for example, the Sa-skya-pa abbot 'Phags-pa (1235–80?) initiated Kublai Khan (founder of the Yuan, or Mongol, dynasty in China) into the tradition of the Hevajra-tantra. 'Phags-pa was then appointed dishi (Chinese: "imperial preceptor") and invested with the authority to govern Tibet, though under the control of the Mongol court.
The Bka'-brgyud-pa school developed from the teachings of the Indian master Tilopa, who transmitted them to the Indian yogi Naropa, the master of Mar-pa, the 11th-century householder-teacher, who was in turn the master of Mi-la-ras-pa (1040–1123). The school preserved a collection of songs attributed to the founder and a hagiographic account of his life. Sgam-po-pa (1079–1153), who was Mi-la-ras-pa's greatest disciple, systematized the school's teaching and established the basis for its further development. His most famous work, Thar-rgyan (Tibetan: "The Jewel Ornament of Liberation"), is one of the earliest examples of the Tibetan and Mongolian Vajrayana literary tradition Lam Rim (Tibetan: "Stages on the Path"), which presents Buddhist teachings in terms of gradations in a soteriological process leading to the attainment of Buddhahood.
Bka'-brgyud-pa teachers stressed the exercises of hatha yoga and posited as the supreme goal the mahamudra ("the great seal"), or the overcoming of dichotomous thought in the emptiness of Buddhahood. The Bka'-brgyud-pa made frequent reference to the "Six Teachings of Naropa," which set forth techniques for attaining enlightenment, either in this life or at the moment of death. These techniques are associated with self-produced heat (the voluntary raising of the body temperature), the illusory body, dreams, the experience of light, the state of existence intermediate between death and rebirth (Tibetan: Bardo), and the movement from one existence to another.
The Bka'-gdams-pa and Dge-lugs-pa
The Bka'-gdams-pa school was founded by 'Brom-ston (c. 1008–c. 1064), who based his school's teachings on those of Atisha (an Indian monk who went to Tibet in the 11th century). The school produced the Bka'-gdams gces-bsdus (Tibetan: "Collection of the Sayings of the Bka'-gdams-pa Saints"), which preserves the poetic utterances of the founder's disciples. The central practice of the school was the purification of the mind, which required the elimination of intellectual and moral blemishes in order to obtain a clear vision of emptiness (Sanskrit: shunyata). The school relied on the Prajnaparamita and made use of mantras. It was absorbed in the 15th century by the reform movement that became the Dge-lugs-pa school.
Members of the Dge-lugs-pa (Gelugpa; the "Virtuous") are commonly known as Yellow Hats, in reference to the colour of their head cover. Their founder, Tsong-kha-pa, attended the important Sa-skya-pa, Bka'-brgyud-pa, and Bka'-gdams-pa schools, and his own school is considered the continuation of the Bka'-gdams-pa. Tsong-kha-pa initiated monastic reforms in response to what he deemed a general laxity of morals, increasingly less-rigorous observance of monastic rules, and deviations in the interpretation of the tantras. He imposed respect for the traditional rules of the Vinaya and reemphasized dogmatics and logic as aids to salvation. His treatise, the Lam-rim chen-mo (Tibetan: "The Great Gradual Path"), based on the Bodhipathapradipa by Atisha, presents a process of mental purification ascending through 10 spiritual levels (bhumi) that lead to Buddhahood. The essential points of such a process are the state of quiescence and the state of enhanced vision.
Tsong-kha-pa instituted regular debates at monasteries. Competing monks sought to reach, by means of formal logic and in the presence of an abbot of great learning, an unassailable conclusion on a chosen topic. Various ranks of monks were established on the basis of examinations, the highest being that of dge-bshes (Tibetan: "philosopher").
The attention to doctrinal and logical problems did not exclude interest in the tantras, and Tsong-kha-pa's Sngags-rim chen-mo (Tibetan: "The Great Gradual Tantric Path") deals with Tantric ritual. Tantric initiation, however, was open only to students who had already acquired extensive learning. The literature of the Dge-lugs-pa is enormous, including the gigantic collections of the Dalai and Panchen lamas, both of whom are members of this school.
The Dge-lugs-pa assert that the nature of the mind element is light, which constitutes the cognitive capacity. The continuum of each person, therefore, is a thinking and luminous energy, which is in either a coarse or a subtle state, the latter state being achieved only after purification through meditation and contemplation.
Vajrayana traditions in China and Japan
During the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries, Indian Vajrayana Buddhism spread to Southeast Asia and East Asia. In East Asia, it became established in the Zhenyan ("True Word") school in China and in the Tendai and Shingon schools in Japan.
According to the Zhenyan tradition, Vajrayana Buddhism was taken from India to China by three missionary monks who translated the basic Zhenyan texts. The first monk, Shubhakarasimha, arrived in China in 716, and he translated the Mahavairochana-sutra and a closely related ritual compendium, the Susiddhikara, into Chinese. The other two monks, Vajrabodhi and his disciple Amoghavajra, arrived in 720 and produced two abridged translations of the Sarvatathagatatattvasamgraha ("Symposium of Truth of All the Buddhas"), also known as the Tattvasamgraha.
Between the arrival of Shubhakarasimha and the great persecution of 845, the Zhenyan school enjoyed amazing success. The tradition of Shubhakarasimha and the Mahavairochana-sutra merged with that of Vajrabodhi and the Tattvasamgraha. The Chinese disciples of this new tradition, such as Huiguo, contributed to an emerging Zhenyan synthesis. The combination of sophisticated doctrinal instruction and miracle-working powers supposedly conferred by the esoteric rituals enabled Zhenyan leaders to gain the confidence of the court, especially of Emperor Daizong (762–779/780), who rejected Daoism in favour of Zhenyan Buddhism.
Although Zhenyan lost its position of prominence in China after the persecution of 845, it maintained spiritual vitality and communal visibility through the Song dynasty (960–1279). Moreover, the Zhenyan school contributed a great deal that has endured in the larger fabric of Chinese religion.
Although Vajrayana Buddhism played a much greater role in China than is usually recognized, it was in Japan that it became most influential. Esoteric elements, called taimitsu in Japanese, have been an important element in the Japanese Tendai school, which was founded by the monk Saichō (764–822), who studied with Zhenyan and Tiantai masters in China. The most systematized and elaborated expressions of the Vajrayana tradition, however, were developed in the Shingon school, the Japanese version of Zhenyan.
The founder of the Shingon school in Japan was Kūkai, better known by his posthumous name, Kōbō Daishi (Japanese: "Great Master Who Understood the Dharma"). An exceptional scholar, poet, painter, and calligrapher, he wrote a treatise comparing Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist thought and naming the latter as superior. Although trained for government service, he experienced a change of heart and became a Buddhist monk. Like many monks in pursuit of the pure Buddhist doctrine, he journeyed to China, where he met the master Huiguo, who recognized Kūkai's potential and taught him Zhenyan Buddhism. After the death of Huiguo, Kūkai returned to Japan, where he received many governmental honours and established a monastery on Mount Kōya as the centre of Shingon Buddhism.
In propagating the teachings of his school, Kūkai wrote many important texts, including the Jūjū shinron (Japanese: "The Ten Stages of Consciousness"). In this work Kūkai presented a model of the development of the spiritual life that arranged Buddhist teachings and those of other religions into a hierarchical system. He taught that the first stage of human spiritual development was one in which humans are controlled by their instincts. In the second stage, which Kūkai identifies with Confucian teachings, human beings attempt to live a proper moral existence. The third stage, in which the individual strives for supernatural powers and heavenly rewards, is that of Brahmanism and Daoism. The fourth and fifth stages of spiritual development are taught by the Hinayana schools and are characterized by the striving for self-enlightenment. Stages six to nine, identified with the Mahayanist teachings of Hossō, Sanron, Tendai, and Kegon, lead the individual to compassion for others. The zenith of spiritual development is identified by Kūkai with the esoteric teachings of Shingon.
The Shingon school claimed that its doctrine was the purest because it was not based on the teachings of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, who expounded his doctrine with the limitations of his audience in mind, but on the timeless and immutable teachings of the Buddha in his dharmakaya, or cosmic body. This buddha, named Mahavairochana, was felt to be beyond all earthly dualism and impurity but at the same instant to be within all things as their buddha nature.
In Shingon the realization that one's own buddha nature is identical with Mahavairochana is enlightenment. This enlightenment, as depicted in Kūkai's treatise Sokushin-jōbutsugi (Japanese: "The Doctrine of Becoming a Buddha with One's Body During One's Earthly Existence"), can be achieved in this world while possessing a human body. To achieve this enlightened state, however, the aspirant must receive the secret doctrine of Shingon orally and directly from a Shingon master. The truth that the master reveals is founded on the ritual mysteries of the body, speech, and mind; these mysteries invoke cosmic forces embodied in the buddhas and bodhisattvas with which the aspirant identifies before becoming one with Mahavairochana. The experience of the mystery of the body involves the use of mudras: devotional gestures of the hands and fingers, postures of meditation, and the handling of such sacred instruments as the vajra ("thunderbolt" or "diamond") and the lotus. The mystery of speech involves the recitation of dharanis or mantras, mystical verses and sounds believed to be the essence of the cosmic forces with which one wishes to commune. Attaining the mystery of the mind involves yogic contemplation of and absorption in the buddha Mahavairochana and his attendants.
The aspirant is further helped in his quest to identify his buddha nature with the Cosmic Buddha by means of two mandalas, often placed on the Shingon altar. The mandalas, believed to contain all the power of the cosmos, were drawn in accordance with the teaching of Huiguo, who maintained that the buddha Mahavairochana's doctrines were so profound that their meanings could be conveyed only in art. One mandala, called the "Diamond Mandala" (based on the Tattvasamgraha and known in Japanese as kongō-kai), portrays the buddha Mahavairochana sitting upon a white lotus in deep contemplation, surrounded by the buddhas of the four regions. This symbolizes Mahavairochana's indestructible, immutable, or potential aspect. The second mandala, called the "Womb Mandala of Great Compassion" (based on the Mahavairochana-sutra and known in Japanese as taizō-kai), reveals Mahavairochana sitting on a red lotus surrounded by innumerable buddhas, bodhisattvas, and Indian gods, with consorts. This represents the Cosmic Buddha's dynamic manifestation in which he is immanent in everything. It was believed that, by meditating correctly on these two mandalas, the aspirant would realize the unity beyond the diversity of the world.
The emphasis of Shingon upon ritual, symbolism, and iconography, coupled with the government's praise of Kūkai and the bestowal upon him of the shrine for the protection of the country, made Shingon very popular in Japan. Shingon's popularity was a cause of the growth of Ryōbu Shintō (Japanese: "Two Aspects Shintō"), which identified Shintō kami (object of worship or sacred power) with bodhisattvas. Moreover, believing that Shingon rites controlled the forces of the cosmos, many people used them to ward off evil and bring supernatural help in everyday life. While this combination of esoteric Buddhism with more this-worldly concerns caused schisms, Shingon maintains its position as one of Japan's strongest Buddhist schools.
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text: bjcasillas 0 Posted November 1, 2013 Hey interweb. I recently updated Garageband, and now Pod Farm doesn't work. The old Pod Farm that's free, cause I'm cheap and it's been working great for me anyway. Anyway, when I first open up Garageband it tells me that the Pod Farm plug-in isn't available on my system. But it is, it's - it's right there. So then, when I open up the AU list, I can see that the Pod Farm options are there, but when I go to open them I get this error: "Failed to load Audio Unit, please contact the manufacturer for an updated version or further assistance.(-10110)" So. Will there be an update to Pod Farm 1.12 for Mavericks and Garageband 10 compatibility? Or am I now finally forced to get Pod Farm 2? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites

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