3 ms·

How is „ Vajrayana, the higher levels of the teachings“? It‘s one of three large subgroups. It would be like calling Catholicism the higher level of the teachin

• skissane 4y ago
  That's the traditional Vajrayana teaching. It claims Buddhism has three "vehicles" – "Hinaya" (a pejorative term for Theravada and its extinct cousins) being the lowest, Mahayana being the middle, Vajrayana being a highest. While obviously other Buddhists reject this, many Vajrayana still believe and teach it. Rather different from Christianity. I've never heard a Catholic claim "Protestantism is the lowest level of Christianity, Orthodoxy is in the middle, Catholicism is the highest". That might not be a bad statement of how some Catholics think, but I'd be rather surprised if any Catholic would ever actually put it that way.
  • quonn 4y ago
    In Zen (part of Mahayana) many historical texts calls the other two branches the „lesser two vehicles“. So some obviously also believed that.