The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo:
Yesterday a new student asked the following question, “What is the difference between Mahayana and Vajrayana?” She had studied for six years from books. This question can take years to answer! So I apologize for giving the quick cereal box top version.
There are three main levels of Lord Buddha’s teachings. They can be thought of as a “wedding cake” shape, if you will.
The first Level was the first teaching, Theravadin. It is based square on the Vinaya structure, relates to purity and no-harm. It is the basis for all further turning of the “Wheel of Dharma.”
The next layer of the cake would be Mahayana, or “Great Vehicle” and is associated with the Bodhisattva vow, along with refuge in the Three Jewels, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Now, in the Vinaya, to purify, one gender must not touch opposite sex, handle money, has many laws. In Mahayana, the same laws apply but are modified by the Bodhisattva vow. In that vow one cultivates Bodhicitta, compassion. So a monk could theoretically touch a woman to give aid, medicine, food, comfort, support. And as Bodhisattvas in training, vow to liberate and care for all sentient beings. Through ordinary and ultimate kindness. In Mahayana we dedicate all our merit, practice, efforts to all beings, thinking of them as our own kind mothers in all lives. And we help all we can.
Vajrayana is like the top level if the wedding cake. It is a very profound and mystical level. And within that there are preliminary, generation stage, and lastly completion stage practice. Preliminary is Ngundro, generation is of the three Roots of practice: Lama, yidam, and khandro with protectors. The completion stages are Tsa-lung, Togyal and Trek Chod. These are the practices that can deliver Liberation in one lifetime.
Now here is the thing. These wedding cake layers cannot be separated, or the whole thing falls down. Theravadin, Mahayana and Vajrayana are totally and completely inseparable. If not the case, there is no stability in the practice. One sustains the other and is it’s very foundation! It’s support. So the Vinaya supports and gives rise to, through purification, the Mahayana Bodhisattva level, with additional vows. The top layer is totally depending on the other layers and they cannot be separated. Vajrayana requires the practice of giving rise to Bodhicitta because the yidams, the Three Roots, are the very display of Bodhicitta in the world! They are not ordinary and come from the play, the dance of the Buddha nature in phenomena. Each and every yidam or meditational deity is not separate from Bodhicitta, never could be, or it could not be a display of the Buddha.
We must learn to accept the feast of the whole cake as it is. We cannot pick the easy part, the one we like best to feel smart. We cannot change the cake. We can change the flavor, the color, to suit our culture, but not the layer cake!
And what is at the top? The union, Yab/Yum. Wisdom and compassion; emptiness and method. Or empty primordial nature couples with display/samaya in that union, we are liberated! EH MA HO!
OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG!
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved
