What is the Ekayana?

 Eka = one, single. Yana = vehicle or the way or track the vehicle travels on. 

 I translate Ekayana as "One Vehicle," Mahayana is Great Vehicle, Dviyana is Two Vehicles, and Triyana is Three Vehicles. There is, in some circles, confusion about the word because of the similarity to the Christian term "One Way." In Buddhism, the One Vehicle is not "the One Way" in the Christian sense of exclusivity as "the one and only way to get salvation by professing faith in Jesus Christ." In Buddha Dharma, the One Vehicle is an all-inclusive way, the one great Buddha vehicle that allows all people to work out their liberation and become Buddhas.

 In the Lankavatara Sutra the Buddha declares, "The way to realise the path of the Ekayana is to understand that the process of perception is due to discrimination; when this discrimination no longer takes place, and when one abides in the suchness of things, there is the realisation of the Vehicle of Oneness.” (Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, by D.T. Suzuki, p.361.)

 

 D.T. Suzuki wrote: "Besides this Ekayana and Dviyana, the Mahayana sutras generally speak of Triyana, which consists of the Sravaka-yana, Pratyekabuddha-yana, and Bodhisattva-yana. But we must remember that the Ekayana has really nothing to do with the number of Yanas though eka means 'one'; eka in this case rather means 'oneness,' and Ekayana is the designation of the doctrine teaching the transcendental oneness of things, by which all beings inclusive of the Hinayanists and Mahayanists are saved from the bondage of existence." (Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, by D.T. Suzuki, p. 359.)

 

 Zen in China is the lineage of the One Vehicle brought by Bodhidharma. As stated in the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks, the Second Ancestor Huike taught the Lankavatara Sutra according to how he learned it from Bodhidharma by "relying on the One Vehicle (Ekayana) lineage of Southern India (依南天竺一乘宗)."  (Cf. Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra, by D.T. Suzuki, p. 51-51 and 54-55, and The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch by Philip B. Yampolsky, p.29,n.87.)  The essence of the One Vehicle is what Bodhidharma called “entering by principle”: awakening with the deep faith that holds beings are the same one true nature.

 The origins are clouded in historical uncertainty, but approximately 500 years after the Buddha, a new movement came out of the clouds restoring vitality to the Buddha Dharma. The story as I see it, necessarily briefly: the One Vehicle movement was the response to the sectarianism of the period known as “the Eighteen Schools.” Under the schism between the school of the Elders, the Sthaviravada, and the new school of the Great Assembly, the Mahasanghikas, each branch further subdivided over splitting hairs of doctrine. There is no definitive count, but for conventional purposes they were called “the 18 schools.”  The One Vehicle movement held that nit-picking divisions like those of the 18 Schools were nonsense in the light of the Buddha’s Dharma that teaches one taste of liberation.  The One Vehicle perspective is that all schools teaching awakening are the One Vehicle of the Buddha, i.e., the One Buddha Vehicle. As a synonym, the term Great Vehicle, Mahayana, arose to indicate that the One Vehicle was so great that followers of all vehicles had a place in the Buddha’s Vehicle. “Again, we see that the term ‘Ekayana’ appears in the place where Buddha’s Ontological doctrines are dealt with, while on the contrary when there is an indication of Buddha’s personality or his theory upon nhuman beings then the terms ‘Buddhayana’ and ‘Bodhisattvayana’ were used.” (Buddhist Sects and Sectarianism, by Bibhuti Baruah, p. 79.)  At this phase, the monk-scholars of the 18 Schools and of the Mahayana “worked, each in his own tradition of scholarship, side by side in the monasteries of India, but their works were resultantly different in form as well as in kind and quality.” (Buddhist Monks and monasteries of India, by Sukumar Dutt, p.248.)

 However, as are human proclivities to grasp onto concepts for personal gain and imaginings of superiority, even  Buddhists succumbed to the temptation to put their views above others, and these people among the Mahayana then appropriated the term Great Vehicle in a narrowed sense to denigrate the followers of the 18 schools as the Small or Lesser Vehicle, the Hinayana.   These followers interpreted the Mahayana as an exclusive vehicle not an all-inclusive vehicle. They then said that their Great Vehicle was the Bodhisattva Vehicle, the third vehicle as opposed to the small vehicles of the two vehicles of listener-disciples (sravakas) and pratyekabuddhas. In this scheme, all the 18 Schools were swept into the first of the two-vehicle categories of sravakas, the listener-disciples. The second of the two-vehicle categories was the pratyekabuddhas; these are people who awaken not by following the teaching that is heard, but by working out or receiving their liberation by awakening independently.  

 

 The third vehicle, that of the Bodhisattavayana, established the family of the Prajnaparamita Sutras and elaborated the Six, and later the Ten, Paramitas as the path of the Bodhisattva in contradistinction to the Eightfold Path of the listener-disciples.  The Dharma taught in what is now the extant Pali Canon was called the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma in accord with the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta: “Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion.”  To distinguish the teaching of the Prajnaparamita Sutras, this family of Sanskrit Sutras was proclaimed to be “The Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma,” and with its usual self-erasing language, the Prajnaparamita states “They turn the wheel of Dharma, but they do not turn any dharma forward or backward. They do not behold any dharma, nor do they demonstrate any dharma. And why? Because that dharma cannot be apprehended which could turn forward or backward.” (As translated by Edward Conze in “The Large Sutra of Perfect Wisdom” p..311.)

 

 The relation of these two turnings of the Wheel of Dharma was that of thesis and antithesis. Without going into the ins and outs of the controversies, suffice it to say that this Second Turning itself became misunderstood.  Where the Prajnaparamita Sutra said that the three inherent and universal positions of reality, as the three gates of liberation, emptiness, signlessness, and desirelessness (the third interpreted in Zen as “wuwei” non activity and “buji” no-affairs) are equal, in the analysis of the later interpreters like Nagarjuna, emptiness became valorized as the primacy of the three. And on the question of own-being or own-nature (svabhava) the Sutra said “Moreover, Subhuti, all dharmas have emptiness for own-being, the signless, the wishless.  Moreover, Subhuti, all dharmas have Suchness (tathata) for own-being, the Reality limit (bhutakoti), the Dharma-element (dhrmadhatu).” Thus, emptiness and Suchness are synonyms in the Prajnaparamita Sutra. However, the Prajnaparamita scholars emphasized emptiness above Suchness and treated Suchness as a reified delusion.  

 

 The Prajnaparamita scholars saw themselves as correcting the mistakes of the First Turning of the Wheel by their antithesis philosophy. However, others said that they went too far and in turn reified emptiness making it into a nihilistic philosophy. This brought forth the resurgence of the One Vehicle movement that said the equation of the Bodhisattva Vehicle with the Mahayana was really an error and the true Great Vehicle was the One Vehicle, not a Bodhisattva Vehicle that is a third vehicle in relation to the two vehicles called Small Vehicles.In other words, Ekayana does not accept the idea that the so-called Hinayana and Mahayana are mutually exclusive or irreconcilable.  This One Vehicle movement produced the Mahayana One Vehicle Sutras that became called the Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, as the synthesis of the First Turning, as thesis, and the Second Turning, as antithesis, to create a coherent whole to the Buddha Dharma.  These One Vehicle Sutras include:

 

The White Lotus of the True Dharma Sutra - Saddharmapundarika Sutra;

The Union With Deliverance Sutra - The Samdhinirmocana Sutra;

The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimala Sutra  - Srimaladevi Simhanada Sutra;

The Going Down to Lanka Sutra - The Lankavatara Sutra;

The Flower Garland Sutra - Avatamsaka Sutra;

 The Great Complete Nirvana Sutra - Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra;

Shurangama Sutra -  Śūraṅgama Sutra;

The Diamond Samadhi Sutra – Vajrasamadhi Sutra;

The Great Dharma Drum Sutra - Mahābherīhāraka-parivarta Sutra;and

The Non-regressing Wheel Sutra - Avaivartikacakra Sutra.

A quick look at this list shows that these are considered among the most important Mahayana Sutras that are not in the Prajnaparamita family of Sutras. Each of these sutras presents the One Vehicle perspective on the theme generally presented in the sutra, for example, the Lankavatara Sutra is on the theme of the psychology of awakening and the Lotus Sutra is on the theme of faith in awakening and the use of expedient means to arouse the faith.  

 The Sutra of Queen Srimala’s Lion’s Roar has the distinction of being the Sutra that presents the Entry into the One Vehicle most comprehensively as the Acceptance of the Real Dharma. The protagonist, Queen Srimala, is unique among Buddhist Sutras as a lay person and a woman who is at the highest Bodhisattva stages and receives the affirmation of future Buddhahood by the Buddha. Queen Srimala’s Sutra has sections presenting the One Vehicle perspective on all the major themes of Buddha Dharma, the Four Noble Truths, Nirvana, Emptiness, Tathagatagarbha, etc.

 

 Notable masters of the Zen lineage teaching the One Vehicle include Bodhidharma, “the first Ancestor” of the Chinese lineage; Sengcan, "The Third Ancestor" (“If you desire to take hold of the One Vehicle (Ekayana), do not despise the six dusts.”); Hongren, “The Fifth Ancestor” (“Indeed, for this reason the Tathagata accords with this gate of mind to lead them to enter the One Vehicle.” “This discourse reveals the One Vehicle to be the lineage, so that it arrives at the meaning for those destined for confusion about the Way.); Huineng, “The Sixth Ancestor”; Shitou; Matsu; Baizhang; Zongmi; Huangbo; Jinul of Korea; Dahui; Dogen; Hakuin; and Torei.  

 

As you can see, many Zen masters taught the One Vehicle.  I'd like to ask people to share and post in the comments section any references to the One Vehicle by these or other Zen/Chan masters that you have come across.

 In gratitude, _/|\_

 

The Buddha didn't say, “Life is suffering."

 

 

This is my response to the question "Is Buddha right that life is suffering?" at the Quora website.

First off, the Buddha never said, “Life is suffering.” That is in the form of a generalized philosophical assertion, and the Buddha did not speak that way.

Let’s look at the word usually translated as “suffering.” It is “dukkha” and comes from the idea of a wheel that is off center or unbalanced. Thus when the wheel turns on the off centered axle the ride is very bumpy. This gives the word the connotations of stress; suffering; agitation; pain; distress; discontent; unease; etc. in how it would feel having to ride in a cart whose axle and wheel are not aligned. The opposite is “sukha” which means how the smooth ride feels in a cart with the axle and wheel properly aligned. This gives the connotations of ease; comfortable; pleasure; satisfaction; joy; etc., that is, to lessen or be free from strain, discomfort, stress, worry, agitation, etc.

So for “dukkha” let’s say “unease” or “uneasy” knowing it means the result of being off center or unbalanced, and for “sukha” let’s say “ease” or “easy” knowing it means the result of being centered and balanced.

When the Buddha taught about unease (dukkha), the Buddha didn’t make a blanket conclusory statement that “life is uneasy.” He pointed out how specific and particular inevitable aspects and conditions of life make us uneasy. This is called the “First Noble Truth of the Truth of Unease.” The Second Noble Truth is the Truth of the Origination of Unease, the Third Noble Truth is the Truth that Unease May Cease, and the Fourth Noble Truth is the Truth of the Path to the Cessation of Unease. They are called the Four Noble Truths, because they are the Truths of the Noble One, i.e., the Buddha, and the truths that will lead each person to becoming a Noble One, that is, a Buddha.

To enumerate the First Noble Truth, the Buddha said, “Birth is uneasy, aging is uneasy, death is uneasy; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are uneasy; being in contact with what we do not love uneasy, separation from the loved is uneasy, not getting what is wanted is uneasy. In short, the five branchings of appropriation are uneasy.”

(The “five branchings of appropriation,” pañca-upandana-skandha, are the outline of the five categories of our physical and psychic makeup that we take as our own to create the manifestation of self and personality.)

People who hear the mistranslation and misinterpretation of “life is suffering” can wrongly conclude that the Buddha was saying “life is bad” or “to put an end to suffering, put an end to life.” This is the gravest misunderstanding of Buddhism (the Buddha Dharma). The Buddha’s teaching that “birth makes us uneasy, death makes us uneasy, sorrow makes us uneasy, despair makes us uneasy,” etc. was to point to the way we can learn to not be made so uneasy by these things. He was pointing to the path of ease and joy in living even when we must inevitably encounter these conditions of life that usually make us uneasy and stressed out. He was not saying “life is suffering and bad, so forget it, or just accept it that way.” He was saying life can be joyful if you look at how unease, distress, or discomfort in life originate and how the cause of that origination may be put to an end.

This path of ease and joy is called The Fourth Noble Truth of the Eight-fold Path and enumerates eight parts of the way to live a life that is aligned, centered, and balanced. So it is profoundly important to understand that when the Buddha pointed out that under our usual way of looking at life, the conditions of life become seen as sources of sorrow, suffering, unease, etc, it is our own perspective, frame of reference, and conduct that make it so, not some inevitable fate or destiny. The original sin leading to our suffering is our own ignorance about how we look at and approach life, not in life itself. The Buddha taught how to put an end to our original sin of ignorance and to be free of unease and suffering while living.