Master Xiao Pingshi
This preface to The Correct Meanings of the Āgama Sūtra is a dialectical essay that I, lay Buddhist Xiao Pingshi, wrote in 2002 explaining the causes and conditions for writing the book series and elucidating the correct principle that “Mahāyāna IS the Buddha’s teaching” based on ample detailed and authentic scriptural evidence. This book series draws from the four Āgama sūtras alone (hereafter, the Āgamas), not from the Mahāyāna sūtras, to prove the following: that the Dharma discourses of various Mahāyāna sūtras of extensive Vijñāna-Only (S: vijñaptimātratā) teachings have never contradicted those of the Path to Liberation in the four Āgamas; that the Mahāyāna teachings are not the result of evolution; and most importantly, that when the Buddha expounded the notion of nirvāṇa in the original Dharma teachings, He constantly and covertly implied the existence of the eighth consciousness (vijñāna), the inherently abiding dharma, to prevent the notion of nirvāṇa from being equated with non-Buddhist nihilistic views.
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