Five vehicles
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone! 🙏🙏🙏
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important work and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
Thank you for helping us keep this Dharma project alive and available to everyone.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May all be blessed who see this 🙏🙏🙏
The five vehicles or yanas (Wyl. theg pa lnga) are:
- The specific vehicle of the gods and humans
- The vehicle of shravakas
- The vehicle of the pratyekabuddhas
- The Mahayana
- The Secret Mantra vehicle
Source
five vehicles
五乗 (Jpn go-jo )
Five kinds of teaching expounded in accordance with the people's capacity. Vehicle means a teaching that brings people to a particular stage of attainment.
The five vehicles are
- the vehicles of ordinary people,
- heavenly beings,
- voice-hearers,
- cause-awakened ones,
- bodhisattvas.
(1) The vehicle of ordinary people enables one to be reborn a human being through honoring the three treasures of Buddhism and upholding the five precepts.
(2) The vehicle of heavenly beings enables one to reach the heavenly realms through the observance of the ten good precepts and the practice of the four stages of meditation.
(3) The vehicle of voice-hearers enables one to attain the state of arhat through awakening to the four noble truths.
(4) The vehicle of cause-awakened ones leads one to the state of pratyekabuddha, or the insight of the cause-awakened one, through awakening to the doctrine of the twelve-linked chain of causation.
(5) The vehicle of bodhisattvas brings one to Buddhahood through the practice of the six paramitas.
There are several differing explanations of the five vehicles.