The Unity of Buddhism Page 6
Extracted from Sangharakshita: A New Voice in the Buddhist Tradition by Dharmachari Subhuti


The problem is that the language of the three yanas is used in three distinct ways. First, it is used in aquite neutral sense to classify the various schools of Indian Buddhism and their successors outside India.
Secondly, it has been used as a polemical weapon: in itself, the term ‘Hinayana’, or ‘Lesser Path’, isderogatory. Thirdly, it is used to describe three different phases in the spiritual life of all individuals.
These three usages are not usually distinguished and therefore lead to much confusion and controversy.
As Sangharakshita says,

There is a lot of sorting out that we have to do in this area. It isn’t going to be easy because of the nature

of the historical development of Buddhism.22

That historical development is extraordinarily complex. We shall see later some of the problemsto whichthat complexity has given rise.

Sangharakshita uses the terminology of the three yanas quite freely in his writings and lectures. For muchof his career he has broadly accepted the terms as applied within the Tibetan tradition. He has used themto classify Buddhist schools, at the same time identifying them with the three main stages in the spiritualcareer of the individual - as well, sometimes, as employing ‘Hinayana’ as a term of condemnation.
However, he has more recently formed a very different view that supersedes, in a sense even criticises,
his own earlier position. It is obviously important to remember this in reading his work.

At that time [in the fifties and early sixties], I was still thinking things over and learning about the

Vajrayana. I was never in a hurry to come to conclusions, so when I learned these things I just tried to

understand them as they were actually taught. I wasn’t in a hurry to start interpreting in my own way. Since

then I have had many years in which to think these things over and come to certain conclusions.23
We will now see the outcome of his patient reflection. We will examine, under the headings of the threeusages of the yanas, his ideas on how the modern Buddhist should relate to the total Buddhist tradition.

THE YANAS AS A HISTORICAL CLASSIFICATION

First, the yanas may be used to describe the three main trends in the historical unfoldment of Buddhismin India. Here there is an immediate and direct conflict between modern scholarship and the traditionalperspectives of Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism. The modern representatives of the historical schools areinclined to maintain their customary ways of viewing the diversity of Buddhism: seeing the teachingsof all schools as directly taught by the Buddha to beings of varying capacities. No doubt, in their familiarcontexts these perspectives have their value. However, the development of a more intellectually rigorousapproach to history and to the study of literary documents has made these positions untenable. Recentscholarly research has shown that there is little or no historical basis for deriving most Buddhistscriptures directly from the Buddha. Nor are there any grounds for grading scriptures according to stagesin his teaching career.

Sangharakshita believes that Buddhists today must take advantage of modern scholarship. They mustensure that their statements about the facts of Buddhism as a historical phenomenon can be supportedby evidence that has been critically evaluated. In the first place, they must do so for moral reasons: oncefacts are known, it becomes a lie to ignore them. More pragmatically, if Buddhists do ignore modernscholarship, they will alienate the sceptically-minded Westerner - as well as the growing numbersthroughout the world who accept to some degree the scientific outlook. There is, moreover, nodisadvantage to Buddhists in scholarly research into the origins of their religion. Buddhism,
Sangharakshita says, unlike Christianity, has nothing to fear from the ‘higher criticism’, the scientificanalysis of its texts and other records. The truth of Buddhism does not rest upon the historicity of certainevents or upon the divine origins of certain texts. Sangharakshita himself has tried to take modernscholarship into consideration in coming to an understanding of the Buddhist tradition’s development.
However, as he is quick to point out, such scholarship is yet in its early stages and new facts are beingdiscovered all the time. Indeed, Sangharakshita’s own early work, particularly as represented by A Surveyof Buddhism, is itself out of date in certain historical details, as he freely admits.24

Modern scholarship has led Sangharakshita to a new perspective on the Buddhist tradition. He acceptsthat many teachings attributed to the Buddha by various schools were probably not actually taught byhim. As each school’s doctrine developed over the centuries, new creations were fathered on the Buddha,
to give them the authority of his name. Nonetheless, the fact that these doctrines were probably nottaught by the Buddha does not lessen their possible value as means to Enlightenment. Whether taughtdirectly by the Buddha or not, by the Buddha’s own criterion, they may be ‘the Master’s Message’.