Is the Mahāyāna spoken by the Buddha?

Regarding whether the Mahāyāna is the Buddha's teaching, there is ceaseless, heated debate in online forums. Those who deny that the Mahāyāna is the Buddha's teaching are the Small Vehicle practitioners who study and practice Theravāda Buddhism. They mainly study the Āgama sūtras, along with keeping precepts and cultivating meditation. But if one does not believe that the Mahāyāna was spoken personally by the Buddha, then one of course also denies the tathāgatagarbha dharma, and thereby indirectly denies cause and effect and the cycle of rebirth.

Where does cause and effect come from? Certainly it is realized by the tathāgatagarbha. Why does the cycle of rebirth through the six destinies appear? Certainly because the tathāgatagarbha does not perish; the tathāgatagarbha carries the karmic seeds and, together with the manas, proceeds to future lives, manifesting the retributive body of future lives.

As for whether the Mahāyāna is the Buddha's teaching, people with good roots, merit, and wisdom need not undertake any textual verification at all. Whether a dharma is right or wrong becomes perfectly clear after reading it twice and pondering it a little. Is verification even necessary? Those who insist on verification are all people of very low wisdom, lacking good roots and merit. For more than two thousand years, no one has ever verified a conclusion or produced proof that the Mahāyāna was not spoken by the Buddha but was fabricated by later people. If any later person could fabricate such a supremely excellent Buddha-dharma, their wisdom would be on par with the Buddha's—truly remarkable.

Theravāda Buddhists who study the Pāli Āgama sūtras are, generally speaking, more diligent and hardworking than we in the Chinese lands, truly cultivating and truly practicing. But if they deny the Mahāyāna and deny the existence of the tathāgatagarbha, their good roots and merit are extremely meager, and no matter how they cultivate, they will not realize the fruits. Because they do not believe the Buddha's words, they lack sufficient faith in the Three Jewels and adequate faith in the Buddha; the three refuges and five precepts cannot be accomplished, and they cannot realize the fruits. And if such an unfruitful Theravāda lineage has transmission errors, those who follow and study after them—including people in the Chinese lands—will also be unable to realize the fruits.

Although Theravāda places great emphasis on precepts and meditative concentration, by denying the Mahāyāna their precepts are deficient and flawed, and their meditative concentration will not be very high either. Moreover, by denying the Mahāyāna, they cannot receive the empowering power of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas; relying on individual strength alone, no matter how they cultivate, there will be no accomplishment. In the Buddha's time, there were non-Buddhists who later came to have deep faith in and acceptance of the Buddha and the dharma the Buddha taught; because they had faith in the Three Jewels, the three refuges and five precepts were accomplished, and combined with their high meditative concentration, upon hearing the Buddha teach the dharma they could realize the fruits—even the fourth fruit. But the Small Vehicle people who deny the Mahāyāna cannot realize the fruits.

The Theravāda people who deny the Mahāyāna and the tathāgatagarbha are indeed of poor wisdom. If they would contemplate and analyze the origin of their own body of the five aggregates, they would know: without an imperishable tathāgatagarbha, how could there be life after life? How could there be the cycle of birth and death? If there were no imperishable dharma, what meaning would there be in a lifetime of cultivation? Where are the seeds of practice stored? Without a place to store the seeds, how could future lives bear the retributive fruits of practice?

Some people think Theravāda Buddhism is good and go to follow and study it. In terms of meditative concentration and precepts, Theravāda Buddhism is quite good; but overall, within the Buddha-dharma it lacks a strong pillar, lacks a substantial dharma to support it—like a castle in the air, useless to cultivate. Not only is cultivating it useless, it will also plant evil karmic seeds of annihilatory emptiness in the field of the ālayavijñāna; in future lives, when those seeds sprout, one will still be a proponent of annihilatory emptiness, sinking into the three evil destinies and suffering without end. Therefore, those who follow and study Theravāda Buddhism must open their eyes wide, carefully contemplate its drawbacks and consequences, and quickly withdraw, to avoid suffering in future lives. If one propagates the annihilatory-emptiness Theravāda Buddhism that denies the Mahāyāna dharma and influences other people, the offense is extremely grave—it may well be karma leading to hell. Cause and effect are truly fearsome; be cautious, be cautious.

Those people, when they read the Mahāyāna dharma, cannot interpret the true meaning of the Buddha-dharma; they are completely bewildered, not knowing what the Buddha is saying at all. Because they cannot understand it, they deny it again and again—foolish and pitiable, precisely because they lack good roots and merit. Those people all claim their meditative concentration is so high, and many claim to have attained the fourth dhyāna, but in fact even the first dhyāna is unlikely. Yet they are indeed serious about practice and work very hard. Their male practitioners are far better than we men in the Chinese lands, all very diligent. We men in the Chinese lands are too lax, knowing only how to make money by performing deliverance rites, not understanding cultivation.

Therefore, whoever goes to a monastery again to request deliverance rites harms not only the ordained bhikṣus but the entire Buddhist religion. If the monastics have no cultivation, Buddhism will perish. After performing deliverance rites, how could they have the energy and state of mind to apply effort in the Buddha-dharma? Everyone says that today's monastics are not as good as those of the past, and that the atmosphere of practice in monasteries is poor—but who caused such consequences? Who brought worldly customs and afflictive habits into the monasteries? Who polluted the cultivation environment of the monasteries? Who deprived the monastics of the time and energy for cultivation?

If the Theravāda people cannot understand the Mahāyāna dharma, then they also cannot fully understand the Small Vehicle dharma, and therefore they cannot realize the fruits. In the Small Vehicle dharma, the World-Honored One also spoke of the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha; it is only that the wording is rather obscure, not expressed very plainly. By denying the Mahāyāna, they also indirectly deny the Small Vehicle; the Buddha's precepts cannot be accomplished, and liberation is hopeless.