Some people read "three vehicles" and "one vehicle" in such a way that they make statements like this:
A User From DhammaWheel wrote:Those that interpret Mahayana as that vehicle are making a large mistake. The single Vehicle encompasses all three Expedient Teachings, as well as many more. Buddha preached about this in the Lotus Sutra, and made it clear that He was always using a Single Vehicle to convert people
[...]
The Lotus Sutra is considered a Mahayana Sutra for example, but it isn't, it's part of a single Vehicle like I mentioned, as mentioned within it's pages, that contained all the other supposed three in an Expedient provisional way.
This is a misunderstanding about the ekabuddhayāna doctrine that is caused by not reading enough of the actual text of the Lotus Sūtra and instead reading interpretive texts on it.
The cultural fluff that has accrued around the Lotus Sūtra is massive, so I really don't blame them for not knowing this. Because of the proliferation of "sūtra schools" in East Asia, sutras that were never intended to serve as a praxis for an entire independent school of Buddhism are stretched into accommodating all of the sūtra schools' doctrines and beliefs. The Lotus Sūtra is so old it predates the theory of the three bodies of the Buddha, yet Tendai and Nichiren Buddhism are full of talk concerning the dharma body, the reward body, and the transformative body. Never, not once in the LS, does it mention the three buddha bodies. If I'm wrong on this, I suppose I'll have to do something funny like eat my hat.
The version of ekayāna that is preached in that first quote up there is directly contradicted by the actual text of the Lotus Sūtra itself. This is the ekayana misconception:
A User From DhammaWheel wrote:The Great Vehicle referred to here is not only referring to Mahayana as some have interpreted it, but also the other two ones that were preached as three as an Expedient Means as mentioned in the Sutra. So Theravada, Vajrayana, and Mahayana all encompass the Great Vehicle.
It is something that is artificially imputed into the text that is contradicted by looking at the text itself. Vajrayāna also you will notice is not one of the vehicles referred to in the text. The three vehicles are Śrāvakayāna, Pratyekabuddhayāna, and Mahāyāna. According to the Lotus Sūtra, there are two provisional vehicles and one definitive vehicle -- two provisional vehicles and one buddha vehicle.
In the parable of the burning house, one of the children hears his father speak of an ox cart outside, and in the end he receives the ox cart that he heard tell of. In the parable, the Arhat child and the Pratyekabuddha child, in the end, do not receive deer carts and the like, because all receive, in the end, the ox cart of the bodhisattvas. Why is this? Because, according to its own definitions of itself,
Mahayana is the Buddha-vehicle, the vehicle that
leads to anuttarā samyaksaṁbodhi (阿耨多羅三藐三菩提 unexcelled complete awakening), the vehicle that
produces Samyaksaṁbuddhas, not Pratyekabuddhas and not Śrāvakabuddhas/Arhats. Early Mahayana used this as a polemical device: "The dispensation to the Śrāvaka produces only Arhats, but bodhisattvayana produces Samyaksaṁbuddhas. Why? It is the longer and more arduous path, for three nigh-endless aeons and over countless lives, to
generate the merit for the special buddhaguṇas of the Samyaksaṁbuddhas.
With this in mind, we will look to the text of the Lotus Sūtra to establish that the unfiltered, unmodified, original, and correct form of the ekabuddhayāna doctrine of Mahāyāna Buddhism is that the one vehicle, the only Buddha vehicle, is the Mahayana and is not the vehicles of the Arhats or the Pratyekabuddhas.
「舍利弗!如彼長者,雖復身手有力而不用之,但以慇懃方便勉濟諸子火宅之難,然後各與珍寶大車。如來亦復如是,雖有力、無所畏而不用之,但以智慧方便,於三界火宅拔濟眾生,為說三乘——聲聞、辟支佛、佛乘,而作是言:『汝等莫得樂住三界火宅,勿貪麁弊色聲香味觸也。若貪著生愛,則為所燒。汝速出三界,當得三乘——聲聞、辟支佛、佛乘。[...] 』」
"Śāriputra, this father, though strong in body and arm, uses them not. Instead, he but heedfully applies appropriate methodologies to the ferrying of all of his children from the danger of the burning house. Afterwards, each receives the jeweled treasure of the great cart (大車 mahāratha, mahāyāna). The Tathāgatas are also like this. They are fearless, but use it (i.e. their fearlessness) not. Instead, it is via prajñā and appropriate methodologies that, in the burning house of the three realms, they save beings. They speak of three vehicles: the vehicle of the Śrāvakas, of the Pratyekabuddhas, and of the Buddhas, and thus they say: 'All of you need not frolic, dwelling in the burning house of the three realms. Do not crave its coarse and damaged form, (nor) its sounds, its smells, its tastes, (nor) its textures. If you are attached to, desirous of, or affectionate towards them, you will only burn. You should instead depart the three realms, (by) turning towards the completion of (one of) the three vehicles: Śrāvaka, Pratyekabuddha, and Buddha. I now for you guarantee that you will attain this matter in the end, and there is no falsehood in this. [...]'"
(Lotus Sūtra, Ch.3, T262.13b4)
So the Buddha himself explains the parable of the burning house thus in the text of the Lotus Sūtra. There are three vehicles: Śrāvakayāna, Pratyekabuddhayāna, and Buddhayāna, also known as the Mahāyāna, also known as bodhisattvayāna, the vehicle that leads to samyaksaṁbodhi. He clarifies further in the same section:
「舍利弗!如彼長者,初以三車誘引諸子,然後但與大車,寶物莊嚴,安隱第一;然彼長者無虛妄之咎。如來亦復如是,無有虛妄,初說三乘引導眾生,然後但以大乘而度脫之。[...] 」
Śāriputra, the father who first uses three carts to entice the various children and, afterward, bestows upon them the great cart, the gem-encrusted cart, the majestic and tranquil cart, the utmost cart, truly commits no falsehood and bears no guilt, for he is like the Tathāgatas and the Tathāgatas are like this: first speaking of three vehicles to initiate and edify living beings, and then afterwards using the Mahāyāna (大乘 the great vehicle) alone to liberate them.
(Ibid. T262.13c10)
And lastly, there is this from the Tibetan version:
Thus you (i.e. the Arhats) say that you have passed beyond all pain,
but from the sorrows of saṁsāra only are you free.
You have not yet transcended every misery.
The Buddha's highest vehicle you should now pursue.
Why need they now pursue the "Buddha's highest vehicle" if their Śrāvakayāna was the Buddha's highest vehicle, that singular vehicle he teaches? I will quote myself at the risk of vanity:
Coëmgenu wrote:[...] the ekayāna, "one vehicle," is bodhisattvayāna, and the meaning of the ekabuddhayāna doctrine is that bodhisattvayāna is the essence of śrāvakayāna and pratyekabuddhayāna and that the ultimate destiny of the dviyānikas (二乘之人 "peoples of the two vehicles") culminates in entrance into the Mahāyāna as bodhisattvas. This is why the bodhisattva disciple of the Buddha as characterized as a child in a burning house hears the Buddha speak of the ox cart and finds the ox cart instead of a deer cart, such as the śrāvaka disciple heard the Buddha speaking of, in the parable in the Lotus Sūtra.
The reason why in the gāthā above the Arhats must pursue the "Buddha's highest vehicle" is because they have not yet realized the telos of their Śrāvakayāna practice which, according to ekabuddhayāna doctrine as laid out in the Lotus Sūtra, is the Mahāyāna. Related to the above:
問曰:阿羅漢先世因緣所受身必應當滅,住在何處而具足佛道?
Inquiry: In the Arhats’ past lives, the causes and conditions for being subject to embodiment necessarily ought to have been eradicated. In light of this, they dwell where to perfect buddhahood?
答曰: 得阿羅漢時,三界諸漏因緣盡,更不復生三界。有淨佛土,出於三界,乃至無煩惱之名,於 是國土佛所,聞法華經,具足佛道。如法華經說:「有羅漢,若不聞法華經,自謂得滅度;我於餘國為說是事,汝皆當作佛。」
Response: When attaining Arhatship, the three realms’ myriad outflows’ causes and conditions are exhausted. There is no more birth again in the three realms. There is a pure buddhafield beyond the three realms where not even the word "affliction" has a name. In this kingdom of the Buddha, they hear the Dharma Flower Sūtra [i.e. the Lotus Sūtra]. With this, they perfect Buddhahood as in the Dharma Flower Sūtra’s words: “There are Arhats, for example, who’ve not heard the Dharma Flower Sūtra. Themselves they call 'ones who have attained cessation.' I in another realm for them speak this matter, that they all shall become Samyaksaṁbuddhas.”
(Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa T1509.714a9)