INDICATING THE DOORS OF THE DIFFERENT STAGES FOR ENTRY TO THE TEACHING
This has two parts: divisions of the vehicles in general and divisions of the Great Vehicle.
DIVISIONS OF THE VEHICLES IN GENERAL
This has four parts: how the vehicles are divided, reasons for the divisions, nature of the individual divisions, and a teaching that even all of them in the end are branches of the process of fullest enlightenment.
HOW THE VEHICLES ARE DIVIDED
In Āryadeva’s Lamp Compendium of Practice (caryāmelāpakapradīpa),12 the vehicles are divided through gathering practices into three types from the viewpoint of the three types of trainees’ interests. Practices free from desire are taught to those interested in the lowly; practices of the grounds and perfections are taught to those interested in the vast; and practices of desire are taught to those specially interested in the profound. Similarly, Tripiṭakamāla’s Lamp for the Three Modes (nayatrayapradīpa)13 also says:
The meanings of the modes
Of the truths, of the perfections,
And of the great secret mantra
Through abridgement have been taught here.
Thus, the master Tripiṭakamāla includes all within three modes—the mode of the yoga of the four truths and so forth, and Jñānakīrti also gathers them the same way in his Abridged Explanation of All the Word (tattvāvatārākhyasakalasugatavacastātparyavyākhyāprakaraṇa).14
Maitreya’s Ornament for the Great Vehicle Sūtras (mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra) says, “The scriptural collections are either two or three.” Thus, there are said to be two scriptural collections, Supreme Vehicle and Lesser Vehicle [or three, discipline, discourses, and manifest knowledge]. It is permissible to use these explanations with reference both to divisions of scriptures and divisions of paths or vehicles.
REASONS FOR THE DIVISIONS
Let us explain the reasons for saying that there are two divisions [of vehicles]. There are two types of trainees, low and supreme:
• low trainees who seek a low object of intent which is a low attainment solely for their own sake—the state of the mere quiescence of the suffering of cyclic existence
• supreme trainees who seek an elevated object of intent, the supreme attainment—the state of Buddhahood—for the sake of all sentient beings
Since there are these two types of trainees, low and supreme, the two vehicles by which these two go to their own state are called the “Lesser Vehicle” (hīnayāna) and the “Great Vehicle” (mahāyāna). Doctrines taught in accordance with these are called the scriptural divisions of the Lesser Vehicle and of the Supreme Vehicle.
The Lesser Vehicle has two types, Hearers and Solitary Realizers, and since the paths that lead them to their respective states are divided into the two, a Hearer Vehicle and a Solitary Realizer Vehicle, there are three vehicles [the Hearer, Solitary Realizer, and Great Vehicles].
NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL DIVISIONS
This has two parts: presentations of the Lesser Vehicle and of the Great Vehicle.
PRESENTATION OF THE LESSER VEHICLE
It is said in Asaṅga’s Actuality of the Grounds (bhūmivastu, yogācārabhūmi) that although Hearers and Solitary Realizers differ in inferiority and superiority with respect to their faculties and fruits [of practice, Hearers being inferior to Solitary Realizers], the presentations of their paths are mostly the same. Because I fear that the fine details would run to too many words, I will just summarize the coarse general features of both Hearers and Solitary Realizers.
Since those who have Hearer and Solitary Realizer lineages have turned away from bearing others’ welfare, they are engaged only in their own liberation. The chief cause of attaining liberative release is the wisdom realizing the meaning of selflessness because the chief cause of being bound in cyclic existence is the conception of self [inherent existence]. Therefore, [not just Bodhisattvas but] also Hearers and Solitary Realizers, understanding this fact, seek this wisdom, and through having cultivated it while accompanying it with other paths such as ethics and meditative stabilization, they extinguish all afflictions.
Proponents of Sūtra, Kashmiri Proponents of the Great Exposition, Proponents of Mind-Only, and certain Proponents of the Middle Way [namely, Middle Way Autonomists] explain that Hearers and Solitary Realizers do not realize that persons, even though from the start empty of inherent existence in the sense of lacking establishment by way of their own character, appear like a magician’s illusion to exist inherently; rather, they say that realization that persons do not have the substantially existent self that is imputed by non-Buddhists is the meaning of realizing the selflessness of persons. The glorious Chandrakīrti says that if that were so, then Hearers and Solitary Realizers would not in the least overcome the conception of true existence with respect to persons, and, therefore, such does not have the meaning of realizing the selflessness of persons:
• because as long as persons are conceived to truly exist, the conception of a self of persons has not been overcome
• and because just as a realization of a mental or physical aggregate or the like as not inherently existing must be put as the meaning of realizing the selflessness of phenomena [other than persons], so a realization of a person as not inherently existing must be put as the meaning of realizing the selflessness of persons.
Therefore, Chandrakīrti considered that as long as the aggregates are conceived to truly exist, the conception that persons truly exist also operates, and as long as this operates, one cannot entirely overcome the afflictions, and due to this it would have to be asserted that, no matter how much Hearers and Solitary Realizers strove at it, they could not be liberated from cyclic existence, and [thus he concluded that] this is not reasonable. Chandrakīrti says in the Supplement to the Middle (madhyamakāvatāra, VI.131):
According to you, yogis who have seen selflessness
Would not realize the suchness of forms and so forth.
Thus desire and so forth would be generated because of engaging in forms
With apprehension [of inherent existence], for they have not realized their nature.
And Chandrakīrti’s own commentary also says:
Because they have gone astray through apprehending an inherent existence of forms and so forth, they would not realize even the selflessness of persons. For they are apprehending [the inherent existence of] the mental and physical aggregates that are the cause of the imputation of a self.
This is the assertion of the protector Nāgārjuna because his Precious Garland (ratnāvalī, 35) says:15
As long as the aggregates are conceived,
So long thereby does the conception of “I” exist.
Further, when the conception of “I” exists, there also is action,
And from action (karma) there also is birth.
And his Fundamental Treatise on the Middle, Called “Wisdom” (prajñānāmamūlamadhyamakakārikā, XVIII.5) says that one is bound in cyclic existence through conceiving the aggregates to exist inherently, and in order to be liberated from cyclic existence one must overcome its root, the proliferations of conceiving true existence, and those are overcome through realizing the meaning of the emptiness of inherent existence:
Through extinguishing actions and afflictions, there is liberation.
Actions and afflictions arise from conceptualizations.
These arise from proliferations.
Proliferations are ceased through emptiness.16
Also, Nāgārjuna’s Praise of the Nonconceptual (nirvikalpastava [?]) says:
The path of liberation relied upon
By Buddhas, Solitary Realizers,
And Hearers is only you.
None other, it is definite.
Thus, Nāgārjuna says that only the Mother—the nonconceptual wisdom realizing that phenomena do not inherently exist—is the path of liberation of all three vehicles; he is summarizing the meaning of the statements in the Mother of the Victors (the Eight Thousand Stanza Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā)17 which says, “Even those who want to train in the grounds of a Hearer must train in just this perfection of wisdom,” and the statement of the same also with respect to the levels of a Solitary Realizer and of a Buddha, and the Condensed Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra (prajñāpāramitāsañcayagāthā),18 which says:
Those who think to become Hearers of the Ones-Gone-to-Bliss
And those who wish to become Solitary Realizers or Monarchs of Doctrine
Cannot achieve [their aims] without depending on this endurance.
Also, in the Hearer scriptural collection19 it is said:
Forms are like balls of foam.
Feelings are like bubbles.
Discriminations resemble mirages.
Compositional factors are like banana tree trunks.
Consciousnesses resemble magical illusions.
Thus the Sun Friend Buddha said.
Indicating the same meaning, Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Treatise on the Middle, Called “Wisdom” (XV.7) says:
In the Advice to Kātyāyana
“Exists,” “does not exist,” and “both”
Are rejected by the Supramundane Victor,
Knower [of the nature]20 of things and nonthings.
Hence, it is not that a selflessness of phenomena [other than persons] is not also taught in the Lesser Vehicle scriptural collections.
However, in the Hearer scriptures there are many explanations that through the view of the sixteen attributes of the four truths—impermanence and so forth—one can progress to the state of a Foe Destroyer, and even in the Great Vehicle both modes of progress are taught, one through realization that phenomena do not inherently exist and one through the paths of impermanence and so forth. Nevertheless, about the statements, for example, even in Great Vehicle sūtras that there are two ways of progressing to omniscience through the views of the Mind-Only School and of the Middle Way School, the master the Superior Nāgārjuna certified through his Collections of Reasoning21 that sūtras teaching the Middle Way are not suitable to be interpreted as other than as taught, whereby sūtras elucidating the Mind-Only way must be interpreted as other than as taught, so in the same way here also such a procedure should be asserted.
Even the tantras also frequently say that Hearers and Solitary Realizers have not realized the suchness of phenomena; however, they also frequently state that without realizing the suchness of things one cannot pass beyond cyclic existence and frequently state that conceptuality apprehending things as truly existent binds one in cyclic existence. Therefore, you must know how to explain these without contradiction [through accepting as nonliteral the teaching that Hearers and Solitary Realizers have not understood the suchness of phenomena].
Question: If the teachings of the paths of impermanence and so forth do not release one from cyclic existence, what is the purpose of teaching them?
Answer: It is to be known in accordance with the statement in Nāgārjuna’s Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning (yuktiṣaṣṭikā):
The paths of production and disintegration
Were expounded for a meaningful purpose.
Through knowing production one knows disintegration,
Through knowing disintegration one knows impermanence.
Through knowing impermanence
One knows also the excellent doctrine.
Those who know how to abandon wholly
The production and disintegration
Of dependent-arisings cross the ocean
Of cyclic existence with its [bad] views.
In this way you should know the purpose of teaching impermanence, for a wish to leave cyclic existence does not arise in a mind thoroughly attracted to products, and thus as an antidote to this the paths of impermanence and suffering are taught, whereby a wish to leave cyclic existence arises. Then, if one realizes—by way of the reason of production and disintegration—the excellent doctrine that dependent-arisings lack inherently existent production and disintegration, one will be released from cyclic existence. Therefore, the path of release is the realization itself that persons and other phenomena do not inherently exist, and the paths of impermanence and so forth are to be taken as means of generating this realization, paths training the mental continuum.
Other masters [Autonomists, Proponents of Mind-Only, Proponents of Sūtra, and Proponents of the Great Exposition] also do indeed assert that the paths of emptiness and selflessness are the means of release and that cultivating the paths of the remaining aspects of the four truths, such as impermanence, are means for training the continuum for the sake of realizing selflessness. However, they identify the realization of emptiness and selflessness among the sixteen aspects of the four truths as an ascertainment only that the self imputed by non-Buddhists does not exist, and hence such realization is not suitable as an antidote to the innate conception that persons exist by way of their own character; therefore, all the paths of the sixteen aspects are similar in not being liberating paths, only being techniques to train the mental continuum.
Thus, those of the Lesser Vehicle of dull faculties for the time being are suitable vessels for paths that train the continuum, but not for a path that liberates, and those of the Lesser Vehicle of sharp faculties are also suitable as vessels of a path that liberates. The main or special trainees for whom Lesser Vehicle scriptural collections were spoken are the latter; the former are subsidiary trainees.
Even though among Lesser Vehiclists there are those who realize that phenomena do not inherently exist, it is not that the Lesser Vehicle and the Great Vehicle do not differ because the Great Vehicle teaching does not just clarify the selflessness of phenomena; it also teaches the grounds, perfections, aspirational wishes, great compassion, and so forth, and dedications, the two collections, and also the inconceivable nature free from all defilements [a Buddha’s Nature Body]. Nāgārjuna’s Precious Garland (stanzas 390 and 393) also says:22
Bodhisattvas’ aspirational wishes, deeds, and dedications [of merit]
Were not described in the Hearers’ Vehicle.
Therefore how could one become
A Bodhisattva through it?
The subjects concerned with the Bodhisattva deeds
Were not mentioned in the sūtras [of the Hearer Vehicle],
But were explained in the Great Vehicle.
Hence the wise should accept it [as Buddha’s word].
Therefore, Lesser Vehicle and Great Vehicle are not differentiated through their view [of emptiness]; the Superior Nāgārjuna and his spiritual sons assert that the two vehicles are differentiated by way of the deeds of skillful method. Just as a mother is a common cause of her children, but the fathers are the causes of individually differentiating the children’s lineages [Tibetan, Mongolian, Indian, and so forth], in the same way, the Mother—the perfection of wisdom—is the common cause of all four children [Hearer, Solitary Realizer, Bodhisattva, and Buddha Superiors], but the causes of their being individually differentiated into the individual lineages of Great Vehicle and Lesser Vehicle are methods, such as the generation of an aspiration to highest enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.
PRESENTATION OF THE GREAT VEHICLE
Wanting to attain highest enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings and thereupon training in the Bodhisattva deeds—the six perfections—is the general meaning of being a person of the Great Vehicle (theg pa chen po pa) in the sense of vehicle as the means by which one progresses because it is said many times in tantras that also in the Mantra Vehicle one proceeds by this path. However, within this context there are many distinctive attributes of different paths.
The path of these persons is the Great Vehicle proceeding to omniscience. The general body of the path is just this for those of the Great Vehicle of the Perfection Vehicle; however, when those of the Perfection Vehicle within the Great Vehicle are divided by way of their view of emptiness, there are Proponents of the Middle Way and Proponents of Mind-Only. Even so, those two are not described as stages of different vehicles; therefore, both are one vehicle. Since there is a difference of whether or not they have penetrated the depth of suchness, Proponents of the Middle Way are of sharper faculties and Proponents of Mind-Only are of duller faculties. Here also Proponents of the Middle Way are the main special trainees for whom the Perfection Vehicle was set forth; Proponents of Mind-Only are subsidiary, or secondary, trainees of that Vehicle.
Even those of the Perfection Vehicle (phar phyin gyi theg pa pa) are said in the Introduction to the Forms of Definite and Indefinite Progress Sūtra (niyatāniyatagatimudrāvatāra)23 to be of five types when differentiated from the viewpoint of their speed on the path: two Bodhisattvas who progress carried respectively in an ox chariot and in an elephant chariot, one Bodhisattva borne by the moon and the sun, and two others by the magical creations of Hearers and Solitary Realizers or by the magical creations of Buddhas. Though they, like their examples, differ very greatly in their speed of progress on the path, they do not have individual vehicles. Therefore, the vehicles cannot be individually differentiated only by sharpness or dullness of faculty or by great or small progress over the path.
Hence, individual vehicles are posited (1) if there is a great difference of superiority or inferiority between them in the sense that a vehicle is a fruit or goal toward which one is progressing; or (2) if there are different stages of paths that give a different body to a vehicle in the sense that a vehicle is a cause by which one progresses. However, if the bodies of the path have no great difference in type, then a series of vehicles cannot be assigned merely because the paths have different internal divisions or the persons who progress by means of them differ in superiority or inferiority.
EVEN ALL THE DIVISIONS IN THE END ARE BRANCHES OF THE PROCESS OF FULLEST ENLIGHTENMENT
Though those of the Lesser Vehicle do not engage in their own paths with an aim to attain Buddhahood, their paths are methods leading those persons to Buddhahood; therefore, it should not be strictly held that Lesser Vehicle paths are obstacles to fullest enlightenment; the White Lotus of the Excellent Doctrine (saddharmapuṇḍarīka) says:
So that they might realize a Buddha’s pristine wisdom
I taught these methods on my own.
Still, I never said to them,
“You will become Buddhas.”
Why? The Protector sees the time.
And:
So that they might realize a Buddha’s pristine wisdom
The sole Protector appears in the world.
There is one vehicle, there are not two,
Buddhas do not lead with a Lesser Vehicle.
I set sentient beings in the powers,
Concentrations, liberations, forces,
And paths like those in which a Buddha,
An independent being, abides and realizes.
If, having attained the special pure enlightenment,
I set some beings in a Lesser Vehicle, I would have
The fault of miserliness, thus it would not be good.
There is one vehicle, not two, never a third except
For the various vehicles taught in the world
Through the skillful means of supreme beings.
The meaning of this is that the purpose of Buddha’s coming to the world was for the sake of sentient beings’ attaining the pristine wisdom that he achieved; hence, the paths that he taught are only means leading to Buddhahood; he does not lead sentient beings with a Lesser Vehicle that is not a method leading to Buddhahood. Therefore, he also sets sentient beings in the powers and so forth that exist in the state in which he resides. If, having attained enlightenment, he set some beings in a Lesser Vehicle that was not a means leading to Buddhahood, he would have a miserliness that is a holding back of doctrine because since there is one final vehicle, even those having the lineage of a Lesser Vehicle are capable of being led to Buddhahood, and while knowing the methods to do this, he would have hidden from them the doctrines leading to Buddhahood in the sense that he would not teach these to them.
The Chapter of the True One Sūtra (satyakaparivarta) also expresses it clearly:24
Mañjushrī, if the One-Gone-Thus taught the Great Vehicle to some sentient beings, taught the Solitary Realizer Vehicle to some, and taught the Hearer Vehicle to others, the mind of the One-Gone-Thus would be very impure. His mind also would be without equanimity. It also would have the fault of attraction. It also would have partial compassion. It also would have the fault of different discriminations. I would also be enacting a teacher’s miserliness with regard to doctrine.
Mañjushrī, all the doctrines that I teach to sentient beings are for the sake of attaining omniscient wisdom. Flowing into enlightenment and descending into the Great Vehicle, they are means of achieving omniscience, leading completely to one place. Therefore, I do not set up different vehicles.
The meaning of “If the One-Gone-Thus taught individual vehicles” is as explained above.
Question: Well then, how should the statement be taken in Maitreya’s Ornament for the Great Vehicle Sūtras that generating a Lesser Vehicle attitude interferes [with attaining highest enlightenment] and that being born in a hell does not?
If the intelligent dwell in a hell, it never interferes
With their [progress to] enlightenment broad and stainless.
Through a thought that takes delight in another vehicle
One helps oneself and lives in happiness, but it interferes.
Answer: This passage means that if the intelligent—that is, Bodhisattvas—generate an aspiration for the Lesser Vehicle, they remove themselves far from Buddhahood, but they do not do so by dwelling in a hell. Hence, there is no fault because there is not any contradiction in the fact that for those of the Great Vehicle the Lesser Vehicle is an obstacle to full enlightenment but for one having the Lesser Vehicle lineage it serves as a means toward full enlightenment. Furthermore, just previous to that stanza such is said in reference to Victor Children [Bodhisattvas]; therefore, the stanza is not a source of debate [as it would be if the reference were to all practitioners].
Also, the statement in the Compendium of All the Weaving Sūtra (sarvavaidalyasaṃgraha)25 that it would be an abandonment of doctrine if the Victor’s word were divided into the good and the bad, the suitable and unsuitable, or if what is taught for Hearers and Solitary Realizers and for Bodhisattvas referred to taking some of [Buddha’s] words as means for fullest enlightenment and some as obstacles to fullest enlightenment. In that sūtra26 it is said that if the abandonment of doctrine explained there occurs through a sinful friend, the sin can be cleansed by disclosing it three times a day for seven years, but in order to attain endurance [which is the facility to advance to the next level] one needs ten eons even at the quickest. Therefore, if time passes in wrong understanding, one is yoked to great misfortune; however, if unmistaken understanding [of the compatibility of the vehicles] is found, through merely finding it these faults [of abandonment of doctrine] do not occur.
Therefore, like the statement in the Chapter of the True One Sūtra that just as many rivers flow to a great ocean from different approaches, so all the water of the three vehicles also flows into the great ocean of a One-Gone-Thus, you should understand that all doctrines taught by Buddha are, in relation to the trainees at those specific points, only means leading to Buddhahood. Still, it is feasible that these means differ in terms of completeness and incompleteness and in terms of the speed of their paths and so forth due to the superiority or inferiority of the trainees, whereby the two, a path that is a branch of the process leading to Buddhahood and a Great Vehicle path, are not one and the same. Seeing the impact of this, the Expression of the Ultimate Names of the Wisdom-Being Mañjushrī (mañjuśrījñānasattvasya paramārthanāmasaṃgīti)27 also says:
The deliverance of the three vehicles
Abides in the fruit of the one vehicle.