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@gaomu, there
are various systems of thought and practice, referred to as “yanas”
or vehicles. If you have gone through
your basic education thoroughly, you will be able to define the
meaning of “vehicle” with complete understanding and distinguishing
clearly (1) The vehicle of the humans and divine beings and (2) The
Brahma Vehicle.
However, this
does not mean that these systems are complete in themselves in
presenting a path leading to full liberation from suffering and
from the cycle of existence. Genuine
freedom and liberation can only be achieved when our fundamental
ignorance, our habitual misapprehension of the nature of reality,
is totally overcome. This ignorance,
which underlies all our emotional and cognitive states, is the root
factor that binds us to the perpetual cycle of life and death in
samsara. The system of thought and
practice that presents a complete path towards liberation from this
bondage is called the Vehicle of the Buddha
(Buddhayana)
Within the
Buddha’s Vehicle there are two major systems of thought and
practice:
(1) The Lesser Vehicle or
Hinayana
(2) The Great Vehicle or
Mahayana
The Mahayana
consists of the Perfection Vehicle (Paramitayana) and Mantra
Vehicle or Vajra Vehicle (Vajrayana).
HINAYANA
VEHICLE
Hearer’s
Vehicle
(Sutra
Vehicle)
Solitary
Realiser’s Vehicle
(Sutra
Vehicle)
MAHAYANA OR
BODHISATTVA’S VEHICLE
Perfection
Vehicle
(Sutra
Vehicle)
Mantra
Vehicle
(Tantra
Vehicle)
For
beginners, find out the followings on your own:
(1) The difference between the sutra
vehicles;
(2) The difference between the perfection
vehicle and the mantra vehicle.
To appreciate
the special distinctiveness of tantra, it is necessary to determine
the difference between the sutra and tantra vehicles, and to do
that, first it is necessary to settle the differences between the
vehicles in sutra – Hearer’s Vehicle, Solitary Realiser’s Vehicle,
and Bodhisattva’s Vehicle or Great Vehicle – and then consider the
further division of the latter into its sutra and tantra
forms.
In addition,
it would be contradictory to propound that one should not train in
the scriptural collections of the Hinayana because one is a
Mahayana practitioner. All
Mahayana followers must practice all those things taught in the
Hinayana scriptural collections, with only a few exceptions, such
as diligently seeking a blissful peace for oneself
alone. This is the reason for
extensively teaching all three vehicles in the very vast scriptural
collections of the Bodhisattvas.
Furthermore, a perfect Buddha has not extinguished just a portion
of faults and accomplished a mere portion of good qualities, but
rather has extinguished all types of faults and accomplished all
types of good qualities. Mahayana
practitioners seek to achieve this.
Advice to new
practitioners:
Do not use
your own incapacity as a reason to repudiate what you cannot
actually engage in or turn away from.
Rather, think with anticipation, “When will I practice these
teachings by actually doing what should be done and turning away
from what should not be done?” Work at
the causes for such practice – accumulating the collections,
clearing away obscurations, and making aspirational
prayers. Before long your mental power
will become greater and greater, and you will be able to practice
all of the teachings that you were previously unable to
practice. Have confidence that all of
the teachings are free of contradiction.
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