Observations placeholder
Asvaghosha - The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana - Definition
Identifier
016330
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Here we come up against the limitations of language and the problems of translating from Chinese to English [with its very narrow spiritual vocabulary] via a Japanese Zen scholar. But here I will add a further translation that may make some sense.
What is the Mahayana? It is the immortal soul - the Higher spirit of all sentient beings, that together with all other immortal souls make up the World soul. Thus the Mahayana is the World soul.
It is through the immortal soul that we can make contact and understand the World soul - the interconnectedness of all immortal souls. The immortal soul, is the very essence of the World soul.
It is via birth and death, that we know the immortal soul. By becoming mortal and through mortality we may experience the essence, the attributes and the activities of the immortal soul and the World soul.
A description of the experience
Asvaghosha - The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana translated by D T Suzuki
What is the Mahayana? It is the soul of all sentient beings (sarvasattva), that constitutes all things in the world, phenomenal and supra-phenomenal; and through this soul we can disclose what the Mahayana signifies.
Because the soul in itself, involving the quintessence of the Mahayana, is suchness (bhutatathata), but it becomes birth-and-death (samsara) in which are revealed the quintessence, the attributes, and the activity of the Mahayana.