Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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tiltbillings
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by tiltbillings »

Let me add to the above. Not all Mahayanists on E-Sangha were hardline sectarians, not by a long shot.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by Cittasanto »

is it safe to say that

A - using hinayana as a term for theravada is not appropriate for a variety of reasons already detailed.
B - looking at the term (hinayana) can be done without it being inappropriate.
C - misrepresenting groups or individuals words in a way which can be devisive on this forum is not appropriate.
D - sometimes (as in this case) outside (non-theravadin) views can be discussed in the discovering theravada sub-forum.
E[dit] - maybe this thread (or atleast part of it) could be pinned somewhere, as I am sure others will ask this same question in the future.
these are just the main points I have from ths thread! any others?
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He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
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catmoon
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by catmoon »

maybe

F. The sects that were originally referred to as Hinayana are all extinct?
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by Paññāsikhara »

catmoon wrote:maybe

F. The sects that were originally referred to as Hinayana are all extinct?
May we ask, O Catmoon, what schools they were in the first place? :)
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LauraJ
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by LauraJ »

Manapa wrote:is it safe to say that

A - using hinayana as a term for theravada is not appropriate for a variety of reasons already detailed.
B - looking at the term (hinayana) can be done without it being inappropriate.
C - misrepresenting groups or individuals words in a way which can be devisive on this forum is not appropriate.
D - sometimes (as in this case) outside (non-theravadin) views can be discussed in the discovering theravada sub-forum.
E[dit] - maybe this thread (or atleast part of it) could be pinned somewhere, as I am sure others will ask this same question in the future.
these are just the main points I have from ths thread! any others?
That seems like a good summary Manapa.
It is a bit of a curiosity to me, that very nice teachers I've met who don't have English as a first language have used the term Hinayana when talking about motivation for practice or motivation for enlightenment. And these people wouldn't ever put other Buddhists down, I feel sure about that. They seem like darn nice, really happy people. So it has been a little bit curious to me even though I just choose to avoid the word myself.

Personally I learned a little bit here. Thanks to all :)
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Karma Dondrup Tashi
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by Karma Dondrup Tashi »

If an extremely large group of people are hurt by the use of the term does it matter what it "really" means? What do you gain by using it? Don't use it.
It has been the misfortune (not, as these gentlemen think it, the glory) of this age that everything is to be discussed. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
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Karma Dondrup Tashi
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by Karma Dondrup Tashi »

pink_trike wrote: Drive all Blame into One (Lojang slogan)
Lojong isn't practicing being a doormat either.
It has been the misfortune (not, as these gentlemen think it, the glory) of this age that everything is to be discussed. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by pink_trike »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings pink_trike,
pink_trike wrote:Unfortunately the modern tendency is to banish words rather than educate as to their correct context, meaning, and usage. So much easier to throw words in jail. Bad words, Bad!! :rofl: Perhaps we should start burning the books that used that term, or any other term that we imagine has the power to offend the frightened and hyper-vigilant "I" that rejects ownership of its feelings of diminishment and projects the generation of these feelings of diminishment onto the word and those who use it so that the "I" can do battle with what it generated and then frightened itself with.

That's all I have to say. If I continue I'll just be repeating.
I can't help feeling you're arguing against straw men here. It's hard to tell whether you've actually listened to what people have been trying to tell you... people who, by and large by the look of their responses, do not get all freaked out if someone else uses the term "hinayana" despite your implications that they do.

Metta,
Retro. :)
Hi Retro,

I'm not arguing.

Let me clarify once again. I don't support the use of the word as a sectarian slam. I am questioning why the word shouldn't be used in its narrow, benign and correct form. And I'm questioning why some people insist that it shouldn't even be used in its correct, narrow and benign form - in a tradition that they know very little about. If someone insists the word shouldn't even be used correctly and benignly within a different tradition and won't accept that this usage isn't a slam at them and the tradition they adhere to, then I think its reasonable to suspect there are personal issues lurking in the shadow.

This is why I point out that the mind loves to assign blame for its defensiveness to something "out there" and then fight it.
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Clear Light is Union
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by pink_trike »

BlackBird wrote:I'm not trying to be patronizing here, so I hope this will not be taken in that manner, also it's very big so I'm sorry if it's not to your liking but it gets the point across rather well :)

Image
:anjali:
Hi Blackbird,

Its a good message that always applies, but I'm curious...do you think that the temperature is high in this thread? I'm not seeing that. Are you uncomfortable with extended dialog that fleshes out and clarifies detail and attempts to iron out kinks of misunderstanding between people? In other traditions extended debate of even minute points is considered to be a necessary and healthy way of grinding the mill of knowledge to extract refined understanding.
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

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Cittasanto
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by Cittasanto »

:offtopic: I think this thread has gone as far as it is going to go! :focus:
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
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tiltbillings
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by tiltbillings »

catmoon wrote:maybe

F. The sects that were originally referred to as Hinayana are all extinct?
The use of hinayana to refer to other schools of Buddhism is a Mahayana sectarian classification. No school of Buddhism referred to themselves as hinayana. There is no objective reason to use that term in referring other schools of Buddhism, though one certainly can say that the Mahayana in talking about other schools of Buddhism called them hinayana.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by tiltbillings »

pink_trike wrote: I don't support the use of the word as a sectarian slam. I am questioning why the word shouldn't be used in its narrow, benign and correct form.
As I have said, the word has a meaning and function solely with the (Tibetan version of the) Mahayana, as the above quote I gave by Acharya Ray indicates. Solely within a Mahayana context the word hinayana has its place, but it has no place as an "objective" way of classifying other schools of Buddhism.

The reality of the word is that the "narrow, benign and correct form" is a later evolution of the term that has not supplanted the broad, sectarian, and malign aspects of the term, as it was originally coined and encased in its texts, and which are still used by some Mahayanists to include those schools that some Mahayana followers think are inferior to the Mahayana.
and won't accept that this usage isn't a slam at them and the tradition they adhere to, then I think its reasonable to suspect there are personal issues lurking in the shadow
.
The reality is, however, the term hinayana with all its attendant polemical, non-benign sectarian baggage, is not infrequently used by Mahayanists. It is not the latter "narrow, benign and correct form" that is being objected to or argued against. That is solely an internal Mahayana usage.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
tiltbillings wrote:The reality is, however, the term hinayana with all its attendant polemical, non-benign sectarian baggage, is not infrequently used by Mahayanists. It is not the latter "narrow, benign and correct form" that is being objected to or argued against. That is solely an internal Mahayana usage.
That is a particularly pertinent point give the OP's question...
I was posting on anouther forum and I used the term Hinayana. Some one said that it was a offensive term to use. I did not mean it as that. I had thought that Hinayana was a branch of Buddhism like Mahayana. Also I thought that Theravada was a branch of Hinayana much in the same way Zen or Tibetan is a branch of Mahayana. I remeber being told that Thereavada was the only surviving school of Hinayana. Am I correct in this understanding or have I been mislead?
It is obvious the sense in which A Medic had been introduced to the term as a Mahayana practitioner.

Metta,
Retro. :)
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Tex
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by Tex »

No, I'm not offended by Hinayana, any more than I would be offended by being called a honky (racial slur against white people). They're just words.

I do think it's important to point out the error when people use Hinayana incorrectly, though, without getting offended by it.
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"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." -- Heraclitus
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pink_trike
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Re: Do you find Hinayana offensive?

Post by pink_trike »

tiltbillings wrote:
pink_trike wrote: I don't support the use of the word as a sectarian slam. I am questioning why the word shouldn't be used in its narrow, benign and correct form.
As I have said, the word has a meaning and function solely with the (Tibetan version of the) Mahayana, as the above quote I gave by Acharya Ray indicates. Solely within a Mahayana context the word hinayana has its place, but it has no place as an "objective" way of classifying other schools of Buddhism.

The reality of the word is that the "narrow, benign and correct form" is a later evolution of the term that has not supplanted the broad, sectarian, and malign aspects of the term, as it was originally coined and encased in its texts, and which are still used by some Mahayanists to include those schools that some Mahayana followers think are inferior to the Mahayana.
and won't accept that this usage isn't a slam at them and the tradition they adhere to, then I think its reasonable to suspect there are personal issues lurking in the shadow
.
The reality is, however, the term hinayana with all its attendant polemical, non-benign sectarian baggage, is not infrequently used by Mahayanists. It is not the latter "narrow, benign and correct form" that is being objected to or argued against. That is solely an internal Mahayana usage.
THen we are in agreement. :smile:
Vision is Mind
Mind is Empty
Emptiness is Clear Light
Clear Light is Union
Union is Great Bliss

- Dawa Gyaltsen

---

Disclaimer: I'm a non-religious practitioner of Theravada, Mahayana/Vajrayana, and Tibetan Bon Dzogchen mind-training.
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