Individual wrote:
Mahayana:
- Buddhism throughout Asia (China, Korea, Tibet, Japan, etc.), more predominant
- Looser orthodoxy, greater variation of views
- More terminology
- Various Sanskrit texts (and other languages?) translated to Chinese, Korean, and Tibetan, while individual sects emphasize certain suttas more than others
- Emptiness is a fundamentally important teaching, referenced frequently
- Primary emphasis is on enlightening all beings, the bodhisattva vow.
- Goal is to be a bodhisattva, to become a Buddha. Bodhisattva path is superior to Hinayana path (selfish enlightenment).
- Arahant is inferior to Buddha
- Gautama Buddha didn't really die; it was just an illusion to teach us a lesson and the Buddha is more like an eternal cosmic spirit that comes and goes from time-to-time for our benefit, teaching us practices which are both exoteric and esoteric.
- Vegetarianism is mandatory or at least strongly encouraged, in order to practice compassion and non-violence
Thanks for the list. Unfortunately the Buddha of the suttas would disagree with much of the Mahayana doctrine, and it comes back to a matter of authenticity, an argument that Mahayanists are often at pains to avoid, sometimes even going as far to discredit the idea that there was a Buddha at all by falling back on the agnostic position that it 'doesn't matter.' However their private view of things is most likely to remain that which is found in the Mahayana scriptures, essentially that the Buddha was enlightened a very long long time ago, and manifested himself on Earth as Gotama Buddha. All the hinayana stuff found in the suttas about his quest for enlightenment? Well he was really just fooling people, skillful means so he could show the sravakas how to put some effort in.
The truth (however painful) seems to be that most, if not all of the Mahayana doctrines that place their focus on trumping the so called 'hinayana' practice, originate from material that is
not the word of the historical Buddha. The response to this is that the Mahayana Sutras are surely the works of enlightened beings. However there is not a shred of argument to support the claims that those invented the Sutras were enlightened, and therefore it is merely an article of faith.
Not a solid footing to build your vehicle on, in my opinion.
Following that is usually a side-step: '
It doesn't matter, what's important is the practice in the here and now.' But really, why walk a very long path if you cannot reason your faith that it leads in the direction it advertised?
A certain degree of self-concern is necessary I guess, to question the validity of one's path, a self-concern - perhaps the baby, that was thrown out with the bathwater of the self-orientated quest for nibbana.
It might be claimed that I am setting up a straw man here, but I have seen these arguments put forth on much more than one occasion.