Giant vehicle

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yinyangkoi
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Giant vehicle

Post by yinyangkoi »

Mahayana means great vehicle. How would you call an even bigger vehicle? A giant vehicle? In Sanskrit
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lelopa
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Re: Giant vehicle

Post by lelopa »

A tib. Lama once said: "Sometimes Maha means not only big, but total." F.e. Mahamudra = total symbol, not big, vast, great symbol as opposite for small, narrow, slim, etc.

So Mahayana is the total, the biggest yana.
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Zhen Li
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Re: Giant vehicle

Post by Zhen Li »

There are a lot of terms that can be used (e.g. viśālayāna), but they aren't necessary because, as Lelopa said, the Mahāyāna actually is beyond measure. This is in the first chapter of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā: The Great Vehicle is called that because it is equal to space. Just as space can contain an immeasurable innumerable number of beings, the Great Vehicle is likewise. Moreover, it neither comes nor goes nor has any location. This is why Mahāyāna is also the Ekayāna, the one vehicle. No matter how great in measurement you can make any other vehicle, it will always fit within the Mahāyāna whose scope is beyond measure.
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Astus
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Re: Giant vehicle

Post by Astus »

yinyangkoi wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 6:09 am Mahayana means great vehicle. How would you call an even bigger vehicle? A giant vehicle? In Sanskrit
The term for the highest/supreme vehicle is agrayāna (最上乘), as found in e.g. the Diamond Sutra, the Gaganaganjapariprccha Sutra, the Mahayanasutralamkara, and the Ratnagotravibhaga, but it's generally synonymous with Mahayana. One example where it becomes something higher than Mahayana is where Chan is called the highest vehicle.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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