In todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;The Three Yanas in Tibetan Buddhism,and#8221; Sangharakshita explores how in Tibetan Buddhism we can learn about all three yanas and#8211; the Hinayana, the Mahayana and the Vajrayana. From the talk and#8220;The Future of Tibetan Buddhismand#8221; given in 1968.
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The Three Yanas in Tibetan Buddhism
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for Your Life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. Now amongst the various forms of Buddhism, with which we are currently becoming acquainted in the West, is Tibetan Buddhism. Now first, what can we learn? What is it that we can learn from Tibetan Buddhism, which we cannot learn from any other form of Buddhism? In other words, in what respects is Tibetan Buddhism unique. Now first of all, Tibetan Buddhism represents Indian Buddhism at the height of its development. I think I've gone into this before, that in India, Buddhism passed through these three great stages of development. The Hinyana, the Mahayana, the Vajrayana, and at the end of 1500 years, Tibetan Indian Buddhism was a very rich and a very many-sided thing. It wasn't just one Yana or the other, it was Hinyana, plus Mahayana, plus Vajrayana. And it's this unified, this Trayana sort of Buddhism, which went from India to Tibet and was preserved there. So we may say that Tibetan Buddhism is the nearest that we can get to Indian Buddhism as a living tradition. It's all very well to read about traditions in books, all very well to read about ancient traditions in books, but you want some sort of contact, even in direct contact, with living traditions. So Tibetan Buddhism, which is still a living tradition, albeit on a reduced scale, is the nearest that we can get to Indian Buddhism as a living tradition, not just that, but to Indian Buddhism at the height of its development. And this is perhaps very, very important. Dr. Konza has in this connection a rather interesting theory. Dr. Konza maintains, amongst various other things, that Dr. Konza maintains with great vigor and learning, Dr. Konza maintains that the nearer one is, through the geographical center of a religion, the nearer one is to its spirit. And conversely, the further away you are, from the geographical center of a religion, the further you are away from its spirit. And according to Dr. Konza, some forms of Japanese Buddhism, because we tread here on very delicate ground, some forms of Japanese Buddhism, and I think he has an issue in school in mind, but about as far away as you can get from the spirit of Buddhism, Indian Buddhism. And he also points out that even Ceylon is pretty far. It's near India, yes, but not Buddhist India, it's 2,000 miles away from North India, from Buddhist India. But Dr. Konza says, "Tibet geographically is nearer to India, is nearer to the original geographical center of Buddhism than any other form of Buddhism." And according to his theory, it's therefore nearest to the spirit of Indian Buddhism. Now, whatever the merits may be of Dr. Konza's theory, I think we can say that it seems to be borne out by the example, by the instance of Tibetan Buddhism. The spirit of Tibetan Buddhism seems remarkably close to, if not identical with, the spirit of Indian Buddhism during the last stages, indeed at the height of its development in northeastern India. Tibetan Buddhism has a further advantage that from Tibetan Buddhism we can learn about all three Yarnas. And we don't learn about them as it was side-by-side and unrelated. We learn about the three Yarnas in the context of Tibetan Buddhism, that it was a Hinyan Mahayana and Vajrayana, as successive stages of a single path. This idea that the three Yarnas, the Hinyan of the Mahayana and the Vajrayana, constitute successive stages of a single path, this idea is mentioned, first of all, in the Hei Vajra Tantra. And it's worked out in greater detail by Atisha, who, of course, played a visit to Tibet in his Vodhi Patha Pradipika, which means light of the way to enlightenment, or lamp of the way to enlightenment. And the same idea, the same doctrine, is the basis of Tsongkapa's lamb-win for great stages of the path. In fact, we can say that in certain respects, this idea of the three Yarnas, Hinyan and Mahayana and Vajrayana, constituting not just three different forms of Buddhism, but three successive stages on the path to enlightenment. This idea constitutes the leading idea of Tibetan Buddhism. It's common to all the schools, whether it's the Nengma Parsal, the Kargupas, the Sakyapas, or the Gelupas. They all believe that one progresses to enlightenment through a course of training, in the course of which, when recapitulates, the Hinyan, the Mahayana and the Vajrayana. Now, this sort of combination, this sort of synthesis of all three Yarnas is not found elsewhere in the Buddhist world. If you go to Southeast Asia, if you go to Ceylon, or if you go to Burma or Thailand, you find only the Terabhadha, which is one form of the Hinyana. You don't find the Mahayana, and you certainly don't find the Vajrayana. If you go to China and to Japan, you find the Hinyana, yes? You find the Mahayana, yes. Here and there you find the Altitantra, but though you find them, in China and in Japan, these different forms of Buddhism, even these Yarnas, are usually constituted into mutually exclusive, sometimes even rival schools. In China, for instance, the school of the Vinaya, the discipline, which is the Hinyana school, is a separate school by itself. On the different Mahayana schools are separate schools by themselves, and in Japan, this is even more the case. Japanese Buddhism is more sectarian than any other form of Buddhism. And by sectarian, I mean that all the different schools are sects in the western sense. They are mutually exclusive in the organization, and even sometimes in doctrine. And there has been in the part a certain amount of rivalry between them. But the Inner Tantra is found only in Tibet. And it's only in Tibet that you find all these different schools, all these great Yarnas, in Yarna, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, existing not independently, not separately, not as separate sects, but as stages of the one path leading to enlightenment. So this is a very great and remarkable feature of Tibetan Buddhism. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this screen. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donnie. And thank you. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]