Originally, in the era of Buddhism, there was no difference between Mahayana and Mahayana. Buddhism was always the same, but the content and realm were different due to different objects.
Buddha said the basic principles of human life to the shallow audience of root tools, holding the five precepts and practicing ten good deeds, which is called human nature riding; For those who have a strong sense of worldweariness, they say that the way to extricate themselves from life and death is called the famous Hinayana; The audience who has deep roots and wishes to transform into the world is Bodhisattva Mahayana.
In fact, Buddhism is divided into five parts: human, heavenly, aural, monastic and bodhisattva. Cultivate the top five precepts and ten good living days, and the middle five precepts and ten good living people, and integrate the five precepts and ten good, which is called the way of man and heaven; Hearing is the liberation of life and death due to the practice of listening to the Dharma, and independent consciousness is the liberation of life and death without the consciousness of listening to the Dharma without a teacher; The Bodhisattva Way is a way of seeking liberation without sacrificing the heavenly line of human beings. Therefore, the Mahayana Bodhisattva Way is a combination of the liberation way and the human heavenly way.
Only those who practice the five precepts and ten virtues in the way of man and nature are ordinary people. Those who have learned to escape from the Tao and no longer accept life and death are saints. They are called Mahayana because they only care about their own liberation by virtue of Buddhism and do not want to return to save other beings. Bodhisattva seeks the supreme Buddha's way and extricates himself from life and death, and reduces all living beings from the sea of life and death, so it is called Mahayana.
In terms of the distribution of Buddhism, it is generally said that the Buddhism spread from the north to Sanskrit Buddhism - Buddhism from China to Japan, South Korea, Mongolia and Tibet is Mahayana Buddhism; The Pali Buddhism spread from the south - Theravada Buddhism is centered on Ceylon and spread to Thailand, Myanmar and other countries. In fact, this is due to the differentiation method of the northern Buddhists, and the southern Buddhists fundamentally deny the correctness of this differentiation method, because there are four and fifteen volumes of the law and two and eight of Zaahan. There is a name of Mahayana in 769, which refers to the practitioners of the Eightfold Path; Za A Han Er Liu. In 604, taking the walking four photography method as the master, we added one Ahan scroll, 19 Ming, containing the sixth degree of Mahayana. In addition to the exertion of theoretical realm, northern Buddhism is more than southern Buddhism. In the practice of Buddhist life, northern Buddhism may not be all Mahayana, and southern Buddhism may not be all Mahayana; Except vegetarian Buddhism, there is nothing better than southern Buddhism, especially in the achievements of Mahayana Buddhism in China. Because the metaphysics of Laozi and Zhuangzi formed in China was particularly popular in the Wei and Jin dynasties, the scholars and gentlemen in the upper class also regarded Buddhism as the metaphysics of recreation and talking, and the philosophy of Tiantai Sect and Huayan Sect in China, It is also implied by this trend. So there was a Japanese scholar, Taixian Kimura, who criticized China's Buddhism as a kind of learned Buddhism rather than practical Buddhism for some reason. In fact, the thought structure of Tiantai Huayan was mostly based on the self realization of Chinese eminent monks, and there was no sufficient basis for Indian Buddhist thought. Therefore, the true Mahayana spirit of China has never been popularized among the people, let alone become the dependence of Chinese folk life beliefs. Therefore, some people say that Chinese Buddhism is the thought of Mahayana and the act of Mahayana.
