Page 34 - 加拿大佛教会湛山精舍杂志季刊第76期

法脈摭實
D HARMA COLLECTION

The Direct Approach to

Buddhadharma V

直達佛法的方法（五）

Translated by Venerable Dharma Master lok To

Part I

Buddhadharma According to Mahayana

Teaching according to Mahayana likewise aim to of Form and was known as the School of Existence.
transcend the world, but they are at the same time The two schools gained considerable ground and at-
aware of the world and useful to the world. Medi- tracted numerous outstanding teachers. By the time
tators in the Theravada tradition seek great awaken- the profound teaching was introduced to China it has
ing first of all for themselves alone and their minds, been already meticulously formulated by a host of il-
absorbed in practice, allow no room and no time to lustrious sages and propagated the world over.
thoughts of the suffering of sentient beings. Those
aware of their Bodhi mind will make the great vow, Buddhadharma blended harmoniously with the Chi-
wanting to follow the Mahayana tradition. nese thought and its teachings were thoroughly un-
derstood there. Eventually, ten sects came onto exist-
During the five hundred years following the Buddha’s ence; most were Mahayana, some Theravada, while
Parinirvana the master’s teaching spread throughout some combined the two.
India and Theravada was its only vehicle. The first
literary work characterizing the distinctive features of During the late Han and Chin Dynasties, three monks
Mahayana was the Awakening of Faith by Ashvagho- were engaged in a translation of Buddhist texts. Ven-
sa Bodhisattva. Seven hundred years after the Bud- erable Kasyapamatanga, An Shih Kao and Dharmar-
dha’s Parinirvana, Nagarjuna Bodhisattva founded aksa translated some of the Mahayana sutras from the
and perfected the Madhyamika system. Two broth- original Sanskrit into Chinese but their translations
ers, the fully emancipated Bodhisattvas Asangha and have not become widely known. It was not until the
Vashubandha, founded and systematized the Yoga- eastern Tsin that the Tripitaka was translated in full
cara philosophy almost nine hundred years after the by Kumarajiva and made known to a very large au-
buddha’s final nirvana. The early development was dience. Several major sutras of the Mahayana can-
followed by the splitting up of the Mahayana doc- non, namely the Avatamsaka, Nirvana, Vaipulya,
trine into two schools: The school of nature and the and theVijnanamatra-vada as well as many additional
school of form. The first taught Mahayana Dharma of texts were translated by Bhadrapada, T’an Wu Chen,
the formless, sometimes referred to as the School of Bodhiruci and Paramartha and others. In the T’ang
Voidness, and the second taught Mahayana Dharma Dynasty, Tripitaka Master Husan Tsang journeyed to

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