Posted by Golden Lotus
Feb 12 2007 3 :58pm
Lankavatara sutra is one of the Buddhas high level dharma teaching
which was mainly preaching to the Maha-Bodhisattva. It is even
higher dharma teaching than the Shurangama Sutra which was
preaching to Ananda and other disciple before they attained the
Arahant.
So if we can have a better understanding of the Shurangama sutra
first, it will help us to comprehend Lankavatara more easily. The
goal of Shurangama was guiding the disciple to attain Arahant and
further to attain the eighth stage Bodhisattva who can prove the No
Birth Dharma. A No Birth Dharma Bodhisattva is who can realized the
illusive consciousness and pass through the Five Aggregate. Passing
Five Aggregate mean transcend samsra, three realms, and cease the
birth and death cycle.
Therefore the eighth stages Bodhisattva also called no retreat
stage which is never falling back to samsara. However, this is a
turning point for the Bodhisattva turn to Nibbana or further
fulfills his previous life's vow to benefit the sentient being and
finally attain the Buddhahood.
In order to keep the Bodhisattva from turning to Nibbana, all of
Ten direction Buddha start to empower the Bodhisattva and fresh his
previous vow and dont back off to Nibbana. Meanwhile also
preaching a lots dharma to him to encourage to attain the fully
enlightenment as a Buddha.
So it is the time for Buddha to preaching the Lankayatara dharma to
them. Persuading them the Nibbana is not a right place to go. So it
is also the time Buddha start to condemn the two vehicles disciple,
Arahant and pacceka-buddha. In other words, not all Mahayana sutra
condemn the two vehicles. Only tiny part of very high level of
Mahayana teaching do.
The main purpose of Buddha is that he dont want the Bodhisattva
copy them back off to nibbana. So Buddha call the two vehicles
disciple rotten Buddha seed. If every Bodhisattva also go into
nibbana, then there is no future Buddha. So it is called rotten
Buddha seed.
This is the background information why the Buddha start to
preaching the Lankavatara sutra. I will try to explain three type
of dharma body later or tomorrow.