論文

《人間佛教》學報‧藝文第7期

Lewis R. Lancaster

《大般若經》中的菩薩思想

妙凡、蔡孟樺主編

When we talk about the Prajnaparamita, we sometimes get deep into it. To begin, I have always been interested in the fact that before Sakyamuni became the Buddha and gained his enlightenment, he went to other teachers. We don’t often think about what his teachers have taught him. For example, Alara Kalama taught him a meditation where he could experience infinite space and be conscious of infinite space. After being taught about how to meditate in this way and having experienced infinite space, the Buddha thought it was interesting but it wasn’t good enough. He still hasn’t had the release and hasn’t reached moksha. So, he continued to study with other teachers. Uddaka taught him to go deeper into his mind and reach a mental state which is neither perception nor the lack of perception. A very deep and special state. But, once again, it wasn’t sufficient. Why wasn’t it sufficient? What was lacking? Why did he keep pursuing another path? What was the path he pursued? And, what was the difference between what he finally reached and what his great teachers had taught him? I looked into the Eight Thousand-Line Perfection of Wisdom Sutra having these questions in mind. When we look into this sutra, it is interesting to see that when the Buddha had gathered his audience, all of them were arhats. There was not a bodhisattva in sight. Where were all these bodhisattvas then? What we later on defined as a bodhisattva is what the Prajnaparamita Sutras taught for the first time. The Prajnaparamita created the bodhisattvas. In other words, at the time when he started teaching, this was the first Prajnaparamita Sutra. When the Buddha first taught it, there were no bodhisattvas of the type that we later see. Later in the sutra the bodhisattvas appeared. It was a sequential thing. In the beginning, it tells us that everybody was an arhat.

Lewis R. Lancaster, " Bodhisattva in the Perfection of Wisdom Buddhist Texts, " 《人間佛教》學報‧藝文第7期 (2017): 202-221COPY