What yana is the legitimate and true yana?

samyutta nikaya

The Buddha's teachings were nothing but philosophical. The critical liberatory function of Buddhism compared to other traditions is also applying philosophical insight (vipasyana).

Nagarjuna's insights are exactly critical because they apply directly to the path in the most critical of ways. They extend vipasyana, clarify the root of samsara, and quantify the extent of ensnaring conceptuality in one's meditation.

Not a yana. Very optimistic readings believe parts of this collection to be rather early.

However, pre-sectarian Buddhism is a western myth, the cases for anything on historical grounds being the 'most legitimate and true' are very fragile.

Clinging to Shakyamuni is a mistake.

>The Buddha's teachings were nothing but philosophical

If by philosophical you mean some intelectual development of yourself, then it wasnt. What Buddha provided was a set of ethical rules of conduct and some tools to improve mindfulness and concentration. There was no "intelectual development" involved. You follow the rules and train your mind in perception then you try to addopt the right view. So any ontological or methaphysical inquiries can be actualy detrimental to your progress, like addopting a wrong view. So going into philosophical speculation and means to attain liberation is like shooting yourself in the foot. why would you risk addopting some notions of metaphysics of the world that are not needed at all to progress to niravanna. You can only make your situation worse by adopting more concepts you need to unlearn.

No, I don't at all mean 'merely' intellectual development in the narrow sense you lay out. In your mind philosophy is only speculation regarding ontology and metaphysics? I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

The Buddha's philosophy concerned things like phenomenology, ethics, soteriology, epistemology. This is all philosophy. Furthermore, there is obviously a lot of implied ontology of perception through this.

The fact is meditation itself is heavily conceptual, and even so called non-conceptual states are almost always just states with only a relatively small amount of conceptuality involved, but are actually conceptual nonetheless.

>You can only make your situation worse by adopting more concepts you need to unlearn.

Can you explain why exactly you believe the path is predicated on 'unlearning' concepts. Are you saying that some concepts are inherently binding? If so you seem to be placing an incredible emphasis on intellectual development.

Atiyoga is the highest of all yanas.

>The Buddha's philosophy concerned things like phenomenology, ethics, soteriology, epistemology. This is all philosophy. Furthermore, there is obviously a lot of implied ontology of perception through this.

>I interpret a doctrine of the buddha through the concepts of my time like phenomenology, ethics, soteriology, epistemology, therefore the buddha teaching was about phenomenology, ethics, soteriology, epistemology.

You are like the ones who claim buddhism is like science.

No. Buddhism isn't naturwissenschaften, but I think it can be fairly considered something like geisteswissenschaften and wissenschaftlich.

>I interpret a doctrine of the buddha through the concepts of my time

No, there is a Western formalization of these categories and than there is are purely descriptive usages for these categories. In no way am I talking about a Western formalization here.

For example, the texts depict the Buddha as clearly had a system of ethics and ethical prescriptions, this is by definition an ethical philosophy even if it doesn't line up with Western formalizations. Likewise with the other categories.

This really isn't that difficult to grasp.

I agree, but it is worth noting that early Dzogchen commentaries distinguish between 'common, outer atiyoga' with Ati Dzogpa Chenpo (the great perfection).

In other words, the system of Dzogchen that is tied into the yana scheme is still an indirect yana (and in other early commentaries is explicitly considered to be chagchen (mahamudra); while the other system of Dzogchen, which is basically thogal and yangti, is considered to be entirely distinct from the 9-fold yana system and wholly superior.

This distinction was less emphasized as Nyingma became more gsarmafied and institutional.

only people who have faith in Vajrayana or Mahayana use the word Shakyamuni.

Then you would be wrong. I don't even think Gautama the monk was a historical figure. I think it is more likely he was a myth euhemerized into history following the 'yogic hero' ideal type that was tremendously popular at that time. Furthermore the story appears to heavily borrow from the earlier Jain story of Mahavira, which shares a striking number of similarities with the Buddha myth.

I actually tend to use 'Gautama the monk', but we don't actually know what his name was, the references to that name (as well as Siddartha) come late, as late as the middle-collection of the Jataka fables. My personal favorite references to a "Gautama the monk" are in early non-Buddhist clan treaties that talk about a dark magician that discovered a hidden magic in reality and is using it to seduce the disciples of other groups.

The earliest surviving texts we have that actually use a more personal title or name use Sakyamuni.

That said, I do think common Mahayana and uncommon Mahayana (Vajrayana) are far more interesting and insightful religious traditions. Also, what do you mean by faith? Faith doesn't mean the will-to-believe in the absence of evidence like it does in Christianity, in Buddhism it refers to a reasoned confidence.

>No, I don't at all mean 'merely' intellectual development in the narrow sense you lay out. In your mind philosophy is only speculation regarding ontology and metaphysics? I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

Philosophy is a hostory of philosophy, a continuation of thought. Some random historical philosopher didnt just say "right, let's just throw out all the phil spergs be4 me and I'll start my own authistic screeching". It was more of a process of filling in the blanks and in time you come up with something superficialy completely new. as Kantian philosophy was developed into Hegelian system. From Kant trough Reinhold, into Fichte...

The Buddha's "philosophy" is developed (you follow the guidelines, and you're good to go), there is nothing to gain with philosophical development and speculation. you can only misinterpret and lose the right view. If you accept that Buddha was what he claimed to be and follow his teaching, then there is no practical reason to take in any additions that his followers made, since their position of "knowledge" of the subject cannot be verified. You just take risks with no guarantee of any benefit. Like the problems of understanding some notions of general nature of things (thanks to some smartypants monks). For instance, how should you understand dependant origination? should you understand it temporaly or structuraly? How do you understand nature of reality? Is it constant flux? exists on it's own? Does not exist at all?

>doesn't think Gautama was a historical figure
>Embraces Mahayana

Lol. Bringing Buddhism to China was a mistake.

The Buddha's philosophy was absolutely a continuation of thought. It was heavily influenced by, and in fact a reaction to, Brahmanist and Jainist thought. Unless you are a different user, I am really unsure about the previous denouncement of Buddha's philosophy as a philosophy.

>The Buddha's "philosophy" is developed (you follow the guidelines, and you're good to go)

I disagree. First of all, we don't know what the Buddha taught with any degree of confidence, Theravada was late on the scene and the Pali Canon is a heavily edited collection of texts. Other texts from traditions that existed alongside or previous to Theravada make very different claims, not merely about how to interpret what the Buddha taught, but what he taught to begin with and regarding very critical matters.

The consensus if that he didn't speak Pali and the dating of texts is a nightmare, with the earliest extant text being a freaking prajnaparamita sutra of all things. Pali texts on the other hand are very late, with the earliest scraps to 8-9th century, a handful of texts to the 15th or so century, and the bulk of the canon as late as the 18th century.

On the other hand if you take a minimalist approach and only focus on the earliest plausible section of the canon that has the best chance of reliably saying anything about a historical Buddha and his teachings, you are left with a small collection of small suttas. You cannot derive sufficient guidelines and instructions from these, you absolutely have to fill in the blanks in just about every respect.

If you go somewhere in between you are left filling in the blanks regarding which texts to even consider, which extant translations to use (some are dated much later and heavily modified), and whether or not you use the Pali or older Sanskrit versions, and you must make decisions on how to handle discrepancies.

Even when you do that, which is by no means merely 'being good to go simply following guidelines' the Pali Canon is filled with inconsistent teachings about very practical matters regarding the path. You have to apply some principle outside the suttas themselves to sort out what the guidelines are what more particular teachings you are going to consider non-guidelines.

>there is nothing to gain with philosophical development and speculation

I don't agree at all.

>you can only misinterpret and lose the right view

Or you can clarify and decrease the propensity of wrong view, wrong action, wrong samadhi etc.

> If you accept that Buddha was what he claimed to be and follow his teaching

If you accept that, you accept that 1. he advised a path distinct from the one that he himself had followed. 2. That he acknowledges he kept a lot of acquired knowledge to himself because it didn't directly pertain to the specific path he was delineating for hearers.

Also it is worth noting just how radically different the early sects thought about the Buddha and what he had claimed about himself.

>You just take risks with no guarantee of any benefit.

Fairly early thinkers recognized this as a given. They recognized that he wasn't the author of the texts, and that no advocate of them had ever met him nor knew elders that had met him and so forth. This was a huge concern in early Mahayana. They saw that as a result there was no guarantee of benefit and there was a risk in just arbitrarily choosing to accept this or that canon from this or that sect.

Very early pre-mahayana sects already had very different priorities and views of the path, some emphasizing personal liberation from samsara, others emphasized cultivating Buddhic wisdom and merit, some advocated a hearer's path, other thought the bodhisattva path was not only practical but desirable. Etc.

In short, what you say sounds nice, but it is divorced from the reality on the ground as experienced by Buddhists generally, from the earliest known times to now.