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Vehicles of Enlightenment

From Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia
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Buddhism teached of various vehicles for escaping suffering and ignorance and transcending the Life & Death of the Threefold Realm. These vehicles are for people of varying degrees of inclination and capacity for the spiritual life:

The first two vehicles are for those who who do not seek to escape the life of the threefold realm:

The next two vehicles are those that wish to escape the the prison of the threefold realm and live the noble and selfless life. They are designed to destroy the illusion of ego-centrism, emotional distress (klesas), and the four currents (asravas) of ignorance, desire for sensory gratification, craving for selfish existence, and attachment to views or opinions.

Often described in the Sutras as the ‘Two Vehicles’, they aspire to an ideal of an Arhat, one liberated forever from rebirth as a self in the threefold realm. Since these vehicles are only about one’s own spiritual awakening and liberation, they are called the ‘Small Vehicle’.



The next vehicle is for those that wish to be free of the threefold realm but also remain engaged in it in order to help others become liberated. In being simultaneously for oneself and for others it is called the ‘Great Vehicle’. It is the cause of enlightenment.


The final vehicle is the ultimate effect of enlightenment. Understanding the true purpose for the one's appearance in the world and serving as a font of enlightenment for all living beings.


The Great Calm-Observation says:


“From the beginning, the gradual method of Calm-Observation recognizes the True Spiritual Aspect of Reality[1]. The Aspect of Reality is difficult to understand. The gradual, sequential method makes it easier to practice.


  1. First one takes refuge in the precepts of morality, rejecting falsehood and facing the truth. One calms the fire, the blood, and the sword[2], and reaches the three good paths[3].
  1. Next one cultivates meditative concentration. One calms the scattering networks of desire, and reaches into the path that is meditation of the material and the immaterial realms.
  1. Next one cultivates non-affliction. One calms all attachments to the threefold realm[4] and reaches the path of nirvana[5].
  1. Next one cultivates mercy and compassion, calms the attachments to one's own personal realization and reaches the path of the Bodhisattvas[6].
  1. Finally, one cultivates the True Spiritual Aspect of Reality. One calms the inclinations to extremes, and reaches the path of that which is ever remaining[7].

This begins being shallow and ends being deep, and is the Gradual and Sequential Aspect of Calm-Observation.”


Footnotes

  1. The True Spiritual Aspect of Reality: The perfect blending of the three truths and the middle way; the true understanding of reality and the absolute in the mundane.
  2. The fire (of hell), the blood (of beasts, animality), & the sword (of the demons of hunger): The three paths of evil
  3. The three good paths: Asuras (titans, indicating assertiveness), Humans (personality), Gods (heaven, rapture)
  4. The threefold realm: The material realm, the non-material realm, & the realm of desire
  5. The path of nirvana: Here, the realm of the Two Vehicles of the Small Vehicle of salvation
    1. Spiritual Disciples (S. Sravakas) Those that have heard the four truths and aspire to the liberation of the arhat.
    1. The Spiritually Self-Awakened: (S. Pratyekabuddhas) Those that understand the twelve-fold wheel of causality and have mastered the self (arhats)
  6. The Bodhisattvas: who forsake their own liberation in order to save others
  7. The path of that which ever remaining: That is, the path of the Buddha

Source

tientai.net