Malcolm wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:09 am
tkp67 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:00 am
Malcolm wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 11:56 pm
No, the claim is false, not supported by the text at all. It's up to you to prove the claim is true, you or Bodei.
It is absolutely supported by the text unless you have a citation where the buddha expresses doubt.
Your claim is that Buddha asserts in this text it is the text by means of which all buddhas attain buddhahood. Citation please. If you can’t produce it, your claim is false.
No I said that the text supports the claim that all buddhas are enlightened by this sutra which is an expression of the buddhas enlightenment. . However Expedient means illustrates this point in several passages. For brevity I will post just one.
I also announce to you, Shariputra,
that this profound, subtle, and wonderful Law
without outflows, incomprehensible,
I have now attained in full.
Only I understand its characteristics,
and the buddhas of the ten directions do likewise.
Shariputra, you should know
that the words of the various buddhas never differ.
I would also remind you that lotus based traditions require more than textual comparisons but practice within the framework of the traditions which you admitted you do not do at all.
Irrelevant to your claim.
No it is the basis of these teachings. The great vehicle and Shakyamuni's enlightenment are not separable ...
The buddhas appear in the world
solely for this one reason, which is true;
the other two are not the truth.
Never do they use a lesser vehicle
to save living beings and ferry them across.
The Buddha himself dwells in the great vehicle,
and adorned with the power of meditation and wisdom
that go with that Law he has attained,
he uses it to save living beings.
I myself testify to the unsurpassed way,
the great vehicle, the Law in which all things are equal.
If I used a lesser vehicle
to convert even one person,
I would be guilty of stinginess and greed,
but such a thing would be impossible.
All other teachings of the buddha are pandering the the lesser capacities of those who doubt.
If a person will believe and take refuge in the Buddha,
the thus come one will never deceive him,
nor will he ever show greed or jealousy,
for he has rooted out evil from among the phenomena.
Therefore throughout the ten directions
the Buddha alone is without fear.
I adorn my body with the special characteristics
and shine my light upon the world.
I am honored by numberless multitudes
and for them I preach the emblem of the reality of things.
p.70Shariputra, you should know
that at the start I took a vow,
hoping to make all persons
ual to me, without any distinction between us,
and what I long ago hoped for
has now been fulfilled.
I have converted all living beings
and caused them all to enter the buddha way.
If when I encounter living beings
I were in all cases to teach them the buddha way,
those without wisdom would become confused
and in their bewilderment would fail to accept my teachings.
I know that such living beings
have never in the past cultivated good roots
but have stubbornly clung to the five desires,
and their folly and craving have given rise to affliction.
Their desires are the cause
whereby they fall into the three evil paths,
revolving wheel-like through the six paths of existence
and undergoing every sort of suffering and pain.
Having received a tiny form in the womb,
in existence after existence they constantly grow to maturity.
Persons of meager virtue and small merit,
they are troubled and beset by manifold sufferings.
They stray into the dense forest of mistaken views,
debating as to what exists and what does not,
and in the end cling to such views,
embracing all sixty-two of them.1
They are profoundly committed to false and empty doctrines,
holding firmly to them, unable to set them aside.
Arrogant and puffed up with self-importance,
p.71fawning and devious, insincere in mind,
for a thousand, ten thousand, a million kalpas
they will not hear a buddha’s name,
nor will they hear the correct teaching—
such people are difficult to save.
For these reasons, Shariputra,
I have for their sake established expedient means,
preaching the way that ends all suffering,
and showing them nirvana.
But although I preach nirvana,
this is not a true extinction.
All phenomena from the very first
have of themselves constantly borne the marks of tranquil extinction.
Once the sons of the Buddha have carried out the way,
then in future existences they will be able to become buddhas.
I have employed the power of expedient means
to unfold and demonstrate this doctrine of three vehicles,
but the world-honored ones, every one of them,
all preach the single vehicle way.
Now before this great assembly
I must clear away all doubts and perplexities.
There is no discrepancy in the words of the buddhas,
there is only the one vehicle, not two.
For numberless kalpas in the past
countless buddhas who have now entered extinction,
a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, million types
in numbers incapable of calculation—
such world-honored ones,
using different types of causes, similes, and parables,
the power of countless expedient means,
have expounded the characteristics of all phenomena.
These world-honored ones
have all preached the doctrine of the single vehicle,
converting countless living beings
and causing them to enter the buddha way.