The Dharma of the Greater and Lesser Vehicles Has Never Been Separable

The Buddha's Dharma has always been the One Vehicle path, the One Buddha Vehicle. All Buddhist teachings are each one method among the ways to attain buddhahood. The Great and Small Vehicles have never been separable within the Buddha's Dharma: one is the foundation, the other is advancement and transformation—a progression. Why should they be separated?

The Theravādins regard arhats as Buddhas and regard the Buddha as an arhat; this is very serious slander of the Buddha, so they cannot obtain the substance of precepts, nor can they realize the fruits. Since they do not believe the Mahāyāna is spoken by the Buddha, even producing the Śūraṅgama Sūtra would be of no use. Faith is the source of the Path and the mother of merit; without faith there is no faculty of faith, and no wholesome roots, and practice cannot lead to the attainment of the Way. Following them to learn for many kalpas would be futile labor. If you help them propagate and foster their influence, you will bolster the forces that slander the Buddha and destroy Buddhism, accelerating the destruction of Buddhism and the Mahāyāna sūtras. The offense is simply enormous—the offense of the Avīci hell.

Later on, the Māra king will exploit the foolishness of Buddhist practitioners, feigning textual research once again, and then fabricate an "Eastern transmission" and a "Western transmission," splitting Buddhism into fragments, so that no one can attain accomplishment, and all remain under Pāpīyas's palm in the cycle of birth and death. Who has the qualification and wisdom to conduct textual research on the course of the Buddha's propagation of the Dharma and the true events of the Buddha's era? Only a bodhisattva of the Buddha's era who has returned again, possessing the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only (wei-shi zhong-zhi) and having cultivated and studied alongside the Buddha, would have the seeds from that time. But if a bodhisattva truly possesses the seed-wisdom of consciousness-only, merely looking at the sūtras would allow them to quickly determine which is spoken by the Buddha and which is not; they would not be muddled and unable to discern clearly. And by what ability could an ordinary being (pṛthagjana) research the ancient history of Buddhism? There are even amateur Buddhism enthusiasts who engage in such research—what a laughingstock of the whole world!

Greed can be delivered, and hatred can be delivered; only foolishness is such that even the Buddha can do nothing about it. Those with hatred fall into hell, and Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva delivers beings in hell; those with greed become hungry ghosts, and various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas go to the hungry ghost realm to deliver them. But for the foolish—bacteria-like beings and animal-like beings—no one has any means to deliver them; they cannot understand the Buddha's Dharma, cannot understand human speech.

They also severely misunderstand meditative concentration (dhyāna). Quite a few people have committed the great false speech, claiming that they themselves and others possess the fourth dhyāna. In fact, what they have is the excessive blankness state of preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi). In such concentration, there are no thoughts or perceptions, as if one did not exist, and they mistake it for the fourth dhyāna. Such groups have no one who has realized the fruits, and fundamentally cannot produce practitioners who have realized the fruits and attained accomplishment. Following behind them, one can only create some karma and gain no benefit whatsoever.

Yet some people like the Theravādins' claims that deny the Mahāyāna—what can be done? When Buddhism is destroyed and the great river dries up, how could there still be small streams? When the Mahāyāna Dharma perishes, Buddhism perishes; and when Buddhism perishes, what Southern and Northern transmissions remain? What liberation remains? It would be better to go study the teachings of non-Buddhist paths—at the very least, one would not slander the Buddha and the Dharma, and would not create the karma of hell.