Is Mahāyāna the Word of the Buddha?

Regarding whether the Mahāyāna is the Buddha's teaching, there are endless, heated debates in online forums. Those who deny that the Mahāyāna is the Buddha's teaching are the Hīnayāna practitioners who study Southern (Theravāda) Buddhism. They mainly study the Āgama sūtras, along with keeping precepts and cultivating meditative concentration (samādhi). However, if one does not believe that the Mahāyāna was spoken personally by the Buddha, one of course also denies the tathāgatagarbha dharma, and thereby indirectly denies cause and effect as well as saṃsāra (transmigration).

Where does cause and effect come from? Of course it is realized by the tathāgatagarbha. Why does transmigration through the six realms occur? Of course it is 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.

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 very 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 result or produced proof that the Mahāyāna is not the Buddha's teaching but was fabricated by later people. If any later person could fabricate such a wondrous and supreme Buddha-dharma, their wisdom would be equal to the Buddha's—truly remarkable.

Those in Southern Buddhism who study the Pāli Āgama sūtras are, generally speaking, more diligent and hardworking than we in the Chinese lands, truly cultivating and practicing. But if they deny the Mahāyāna and deny the existence of the tathāgatagarbha, their good roots and merit are very low, and no matter how they cultivate, they will not attain realization of the fruits. Because they do not believe the Buddha's teaching, they lack sufficient faith in the Three Jewels and insufficient faith in the Buddha; the threefold refuge and five precepts cannot be accomplished, and they cannot attain the fruits. If such an un-realized person in Southern Buddhism transmits an erroneous lineage, then those who follow and study after them, including people in the Chinese lands, also cannot attain the fruits.

Although Southern Buddhism places great emphasis on precepts and meditative concentration, by denying the Mahāyāna their precepts are deficient, and their meditative concentration cannot be very high. Moreover, by denying the Mahāyāna, they cannot receive the blessing power of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas; relying only on individual effort, no matter how they cultivate, they will not achieve accomplishment. In the Buddha's time, there were non-Buddhist practitioners who later came to have deep faith in the Buddha and the dharma the Buddha taught; because they had faith in the Three Jewels, the threefold refuge and five precepts were accomplished, and combined with their high meditative concentration, upon hearing the Buddha teach the dharma they could attain the fruits, even the fourth fruit. But the Hīnayāna people who deny the Mahāyāna cannot attain the fruits.

The Southern Buddhists who deny the Mahāyāna and the tathāgatagarbha—their wisdom is truly poor. If they contemplate and analyze the origin of their own five-aggregate body, they would know: without an imperishable tathāgatagarbha, how could there be life after life, how could there be birth-and-death and saṃsāra? If there is no dharma that does not perish, what meaning is there 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 retribution of cultivation?

Some people think Southern Buddhism is good and go to follow and study it. In terms of meditative concentration and precepts, Southern Buddhism is quite good, but overall, within the Buddha-dharma it lacks a strong pillar, lacks a real dharma to support it—like a castle in the air, useless to cultivate. Not only is it useless to cultivate, it also plants evil karmic seeds of annihilatory emptiness (uccheda-śūnyatā) in the field of the Ālayavijñāna; in future lives when those seeds sprout, one will still be a person of annihilatory emptiness, sinking into the three evil realms to suffer endlessly. Therefore, those who follow Southern Buddhism should open their eyes wide, carefully contemplate its flaws and consequences, and quickly withdraw, to avoid suffering in future lives. If one propagates the annihilatory-emptiness Southern Buddhism that denies the Mahāyāna dharma and influences others, the offense is extremely grave—it may well be karma leading to the hells. Cause and effect are truly fearsome; be cautious, be very cautious.

When those people read the Mahāyāna dharma, they cannot interpret its true meaning; they are completely bewildered, not knowing what the Buddha is saying. 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 the fourth dhyāna, but in fact even the first dhyāna is unlikely. Yet they do indeed take cultivation seriously and work very hard. Their male practitioners are far better than we men in the Chinese lands, all very diligent. Our male practitioners in the Chinese lands are too lax, knowing only how to perform deliverance rituals to make money, not understanding cultivation.

Therefore, whoever goes to a monastery again to request deliverance rituals harms not only the ordained bhikṣus but the entire Buddhist religion. If monastics have no cultivation, Buddhism will perish. After performing deliverance rituals, how could they have the energy and state of mind to work hard on the Buddha-dharma? Everyone says today's monastics are not as good as before, that the cultivation atmosphere 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 monastics of the time and energy for cultivation?

If Southern Buddhists cannot understand the Mahāyāna dharma, then they also cannot fully understand the Hīnayāna dharma, and therefore they cannot attain the fruits. In the Hīnayāna dharma, the World-Honored One also taught that there is the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha; it is only that the wording is rather obscure, not expressed very directly. By denying the Mahāyāna, they also indirectly deny the Hīnayāna; the Buddha's precepts cannot be accomplished, and liberation is hopeless.