Chapter 9, The Mahayana, The Great Vehicle Summary and Analysis

The Buddhist notion of a well-defined canon is illusive. In face, the defining idea of Buddhism is Gautama's superior awakening and his development of all spiritual qualities. His path is called the maha-yana, or "great vehicle" of the Bodhisattva. It is not clear when the idea of the maha-yana arose. The Maha-yana is composed of sutras that list the bodhisattva path, the perfection of wisdom, "ideas only", "embryo of the Tathagata", the Lotus sutra, the pure land sutras and the meditation sutras.

All Buddhism has a bodhisattva path, which all derive from the story of the ascetic Megha and his meeting the previous Buddha, Dipamkara. It lays down the career of the disciple and the bodhisattva and how they are distinct and unequal. The inequality of the teacher-student relationship is not...