My first Dharma teacher is Mahayana and I took my Bodhisattva vow before I went on my first meditation retreat with my Theravada meditation teacher SN Goenka. I studied both vehicles...one is not better than the other, they compliment each other in my opinion.
@reddust,
My dear friend, I don't know in deep, but these two teachings has a lot of differences! I heard Therawada is a pure Buddhism and Sri Lanka is one of the country which has this pure Buddhism! This is what I heard and never compared these two teachings before.
Theravada and Mahayana are different, I didn't say they weren't, I did say they compliment each other...
One is not better than the other....I have met saintly people in all three Buddhist traditions and I have met a lot of ignorance and hatred regarding whose school is the best...I have had to argue the points in Buddhist schools differences ad infinitum when I worked as a moderator on a Buddhist social site called e-sangha. I won't argue the points anymore because I still am working on the basics, like letting go of my negative conditioning, which all schools address through hundreds of teachings in sutas and sutras and meditation techniques, all are the same but delivered differently depending on the group or individuals conditioning...hehehe <3
I've had to argue scholars with Ph.D's in the field of Buddhist scholarship...oh the headaches the well educated have given me...hahahah
The early Buddhist schools are those schools into which the Buddhist monastic saṅgha initially split, due originally to differences in vinaya and later also due to doctrinal differences and geographical separation of groups of monks.
Formation
The original saṅgha split into the first early schools (generally believed to be the Sthavira nikāya and the Mahāsāṃghika) a significant number of years after the death of Gautama Buddha. According to scholar Collett Cox "most scholars would agree that even though the roots of the earliest recognized groups predate Aśoka, their actual separation did not occur until after his death."[14] Later, these first early schools split into further divisions such as the Sarvāstivādins and the Dharmaguptakas, and ended up numbering, traditionally, about 18 or 20 schools. In fact, there are several overlapping lists of 18 schools preserved in the Buddhist tradition, totaling about twice as many, though some may be alternative names. It is thought likely that the number is merely conventional.
Teachings
After the Sangha split into the various early Buddhist schools and the Mahayana, further elaborations and interpretations of the preserved teachings, and various new doctrines, scriptures and practices. They were composed and developed by the monastic communities, concerning issues deemed important at the time.[note 4]
My first Dharma teacher is Mahayana and I took my Bodhisattva vow before I went on my first meditation retreat with my Theravada meditation teacher SN Goenka. I studied both vehicles...one is not better than the other, they compliment each other in my opinion.
@reddust,
My dear friend, I don't know in deep, but these two teachings has a lot of differences! I heard Therawada is a pure Buddhism and Sri Lanka is one of the country which has this pure Buddhism!
This is what I heard and never compared these two teachings before.
Cheers~
Theravada and Mahayana are different, I didn't say they weren't, I did say they compliment each other...
One is not better than the other....I have met saintly people in all three Buddhist traditions and I have met a lot of ignorance and hatred regarding whose school is the best...I have had to argue the points in Buddhist schools differences ad infinitum when I worked as a moderator on a Buddhist social site called e-sangha. I won't argue the points anymore because I still am working on the basics, like letting go of my negative conditioning, which all schools address through hundreds of teachings in sutas and sutras and meditation techniques, all are the same but delivered differently depending on the group or individuals conditioning...hehehe <3
I've had to argue scholars with Ph.D's in the field of Buddhist scholarship...oh the headaches the well educated have given me...hahahah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Buddhism