On the Vimalakirti Sutra
The development of Mahayana Buddhism, described as the second turning of the Dharma wheel, was and is for many the culmination of Buddhist teaching. Though existing in different forms across many national borders Mahayana Buddhism is easily recognizable for those who know what to look for. In the material world one finds stupas and ornate depictions of multiple cosmic Buddhas ensconced in heavenly realms. Beneath these physical traces are hints of the philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism, which is multifaceted and deals often with the indescribable, the non-dualistic, and the ideal of the Bodhisattva. Running underneath all of the various forms of Mahayana Buddhism some of these ideas remain consistent, for example Nirvana without attainment. Other aspects may be more difficult to compare, for example while there is definite teaching on the nature of the Bodhisattva and on the innumerable cosmic Buddhas, these things are, by virtue of the teaching of the Heart Sutra, non-existent. Mahayana Buddhism provides the tools necessary to escape entrapment in its own system of thought.
Mahayana Buddhism is almost defined by its assertion Nirvana and Samsara are one and the same and that hence there is no attainment of Nirvana, abandoning dualism in a spectacular way. The Vimalakirti Sutra is a dialogue between a confused disciple and a goddess which asserts the superiority of the Mahayana school over all others. It was not enough to separate from the past with such radical ideas, establishing it as a parallel vehicle to enlightenment to other traditions, practitioners of the Mahayana school have often asserted that theirs is the superior conveyance to the other side. And why not? According to the goddess in the dialogue, the elders of what was then mainstream Buddhism were full of fallacious ideas, “When the flowers fell on the bodies of the bodhisattvas, they fell off on the floor, but when they fell on the bodies of the great disciples, they stuck to them and did not fall” (Thurman 2). That is to say, the Mahayana Boddhisattva with their superior understanding of Dharma were unfettered by problems that plagued them. The goddess lists the highest of these problems as pride, “‘Liberation is freedom from desire, hatred, and folly’ that is the teaching of the excessively proud. But those free of pride are taught that the very nature of desire, hatred, and folly is itself liberation” (Thurman 3). This is an example of the Mahayana evolution beyond dualism. Whereas practitioners of the ‘hinayana’ or ‘lesser vehicle’ try to scrub themselves clean of their every misdeed, many thinkers opted for a more profound way to reconcile themselves with their flaws.
Ironically, however, this skillful heart of Mahayana thinking contradicts many efforts by some to define Mahayana philosophy as anything beyond the essential teachings found in the Heart Sutra and other teachings of the school. The essential teaching of the Heart Sutra is that, ultimately, there are no things existing in and of themselves, whatsoever, in that they do not exist when not in relationship with other conventional things. This is what is called in the readings emptiness (Strong 143). The Vimalakirti Sutra is a very Mahayana document, asserting among other things that the countless cosmic Buddhas themselves do not achieve enlightenment but simply are enlightened, (Thurman 4) that the goddess herself believed that all beings were not truly themselves but the appearances of their forms, “While they are not women in reality, they appear in the form of women. With this in mind, the Buddha said, 'In all things, there is neither male nor female’” (Thurman 4). However, the Sutra also discusses the various forms of Buddhist doctrine, and there is the sense here that what is conventionally known as the Mahayana school is necessary above all others for liberation when the goddess says “I belong to the disciple-vehicle when I teach it to those who need it. I belong to the solitary-vehicle when I teach the twelve links of dependent origination… And, since I never abandon the great compassion, I belong to the great vehicle (mahayana), as all need that teaching to attain ultimate liberation” (Thurman 3). It must be then that the goddess is only speaking conventionally to the monk, who upon realizing his native enlightenment would see the emptiness of comparisons between one school of thought and another.
Mahayana philosophy is riddled with paradoxes. Practitioners most serious about departing the present for the other shore are further away than the disciple who searches for Nirvana in Samsara, who is further still from those who don’t look as a means of looking, and further still than those not looking at all, and yet it is those who don’t at all who seem to be most in need of what they already have. According to these teachings, at the same time, all of those people are equally enlightened. Rather than break the tradition, this proves that Mahayana Buddhism itself is not something to be clung to but is rather the means to transcending itself.
