[abouthotels]

It's been said that He never taught a "second or third turning of the wheel of dharma"; those are the later contrivances of Brahmins, tantrists and other outsiders. . ("He" refers to Sakyamuni Buddha). Quote is from reply by Stuka.

Firstly, I'd be perfectly happy if Arya Nagarjuna personally wrote the Perfection of Wisdom and if Arya Asanga (with or without help from Lord Maitreya) penned 3rd Turning of the Wheel Sutras pertaining to wisdom instead of just commenting upon them. It has no bearing whatsoever as to whether the teachings contained in these works are sound or whether they are worth studying or not. I also think the Suttas of the Pali Canon are worth relying on and should be studied by Mahayanists; I'd like to see a greater trend in this direction; so I have no preference; I am interested in gaining correct view and in instructions that help liberate.

Secondly, I have no faith that all or most of the Pali Canon consists of the actual speech of the Buddha. Indeed the person who made this quote doesn't consider large parts of the Pali Canon to be the spoken words Buddha either (at least that's what I've read her/him say), since it's full of superstitious, yet entertaining stories about the Buddha's past lives, as well as struggles with demons, predictions, teachings in other realms, a declaration that he could have extended his life a really long time if he'd been asked, and the like.

Is it reasonable that someone in 2011 can accurately pick and choose what was totally authentic within the Pali Canon and what was just made up, and then, with the same degree of surety, declare all teachings not contained in the 3 baskets as DEFINITELY not the Buddha's words? Recently, for example, this same person decided that a particular Sutta that he didn't agree with probably wasn't spoken by the Buddha---it just didn't sound like something he'd say. That's fine, but if the Pali Canon is so filled with dubious content then why not simply examine works from all three turnings based on whether they make sense or not.
Go ahead and attack the Heart Sutra and explain why it makes no sense; this would do far more to advance debate across traditions than to merely reject all writings not from the Pali Canon as having no merit. I would enjoy debating on that basis rather than on the basis of whether the Heart Sutra is a suitable topic for debate by two different types of Buddhists (if I'm to even be considered a Buddhist---perhaps not by some here).

Now, as to the assertions in the quote above regarding the origins of the 2nd and 3rd turning:

These works have nothing to do with Tantra nor did anyone who wrote them, assuming they were written by others, practice Tantra. Read Davidson on the introduction of Tantra into Indian Buddhism (but any other scholar would say essentially the same thing; it was a process that didn't really begin until the 5th century at the earliest, more likely the 6th century). All the 2nd and 3rd turning Sutras occurred hundreds of years earlier. They had been translated and were being taught in China and many other places well before Tantra began being practiced by Buddhists. Moreover the subject matter is completely different.

Also Brahmins didn't write the 2nd or 3rd turnings. They disagreed on all the fundamental points, and, especially with regard to the 2nd Turning, which is the basis for the Middle Way schools, and is a clear refutation of all Brahmin schools extant at the time, because it rejects any basis whatsoever, any essence, any soul, any self, and also rejects nihilism completely. The only Brahmin teacher who taught anything like this, Sankhara (who co-opted much of what the Buddha taught) wasn't born until at least 450-500 years after these Sutras had been commented upon. And even Sankara couldn't get away from positing an existent of sorts (union with Brahman), which was rejected by the 2nd Turning.

There's simply no concordance between these philosophies and that of any then extant Brahmin tradition; Arya Nagarjuna spends most of his time in the Root text on the Perfection of Wisdom and the 70 Stanzas on emptiness debunking Brahmin theories of that day through showing how their arguments result in absurd consequences. He doesn't refute a single teaching of the Buddha in his works----because he was a Buddhist who accepted the teachings of the Buddha. Yet he spends most of the time dealing with a mythical opponent----yes, that's the Brahmins he's refuting

As for the tag of "outsiders",firstly, those who commented on these works were mostly scholars at Nalanda university, the largest Buddhist university in the world, and had studied the Pali Canons extensively; for most of this period both Suttas and Sutras were studied, though not necessarily with equal emphasis by all monks. To be sure, there were divisions; yet the Pali Canons have always been considered fundamental and correct teachings by the Mahayana.

To say that the works themselves, if written by others, were the works of any of those three categories is equally foolish, especially if you read the works. They refute the nihilist and eternalist arguments made by Brahmins (here I am speaking specifically of 2nd Turning works and, additionally the 3rd Turning works from which the Yogacharya tradition was born---those focusing on perfection of wisdom.

The works I've referenced all uphold the fundamental teachings of the Buddha; they basically extend the idea of selflessness of the personal self to all phenomena (the Buddha stated that things lack any essence of their own...they lack a self); there are differences between the 2nd and 3rd turning with regard to some kind of purified mind as an underlying basis (suchness) and also with regard to the idea of a storehouse consciousness (where karmic seeds are stored; Nagarjuna rejected this as a kind of eternalism); Madyamika Prasangika refuses to accept any basis at all; they prefer that we always stand in quicksand; any existent is a crutch.

These are not topics that the Buddha expressed disagreement with; he didn't express this concept in the same way in his teachings; his aim was personal liberation; analyzing the arising(s) that one calls "I", the inherently/self-sufficiently existing self, the truly existent self, whatever you want to call it is enough to achieve this state. He had no interest in proving that there were really part-less particles or truly existent atoms; those arguments were made by various schools well after the Buddha died. The Buddha also used examples from the phenomenal world not to prove the existence of material objects, but to make his teachings accessible.