It is widely known that the theoretical foundations of Buddhism were transmitted by Śākyamuni Buddha. During his lifetime of teaching, the Buddha turned the Wheel of Dharma three times. In the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, he taught the Hīnayāna path—the Four Noble Truths: suffering, origin the cause of suffering, path, and cessation of suffering. In the Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, he taught Prajñā and emptiness (śūnyatā), which includes much of what we now study in Madhyamaka and related teachings on emptiness. Of the Buddha’s forty-eight years of teaching, nearly half—about twenty-four years—were devoted to the Prajñā teachings. In the Third Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, he taught portions of Yogācāra (Consciousness-Only) and the doctrine of Tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-nature), both of which speak of the true nature of all phenomena.
Of course, the “Prajñā” taught in the Second Turning also concerns the essence of all phenomena. The difference is that the Second Turning emphasizes emptiness, while the Third Turning reveals another aspect of emptiness—luminosity.
When speaking of the nature of all phenomena, some people mistakenly think that the emptiness taught in the Second Turning means sheer nothingness. In fact, emptiness is not nonexistence at all. Another quality of emptiness is what is called “luminosity.” This luminosity does not refer to light from a bulb, the sun, or the moon. It is extremely difficult to describe, in human language, what the Third Turning means by luminosity. Any explanation can only be approximate. More accessible expressions for it include awareness, primordial knowing, and the original face of mind.
The teachings preserved from the Buddha’s three turnings of the Dharma Wheel became the most fundamental and original theories of Buddhism. Yet these truths were not invented by Śākyamuni Buddha. They were already so in their nature; the Buddha discovered them and proclaimed them, thereby establishing the earliest Buddhist doctrine.
Later, many Bodhisattvas and great masters who followed the Buddha composed numerous treatises. Examples include the Five Treatises of Maitreya, traditionally recorded by Asaṅga after receiving teachings from Maitreya in Tuṣita Heaven; the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng; and Xuanzang’s the Treatise on the Establishment of Consciousness-Only. These are classified as “Treatises”. Teachings spoken by the Buddha are called “Sutras”, while the disciplinary rules laid down for practitioners are called “Vinaya.” Together, Sutra, Vinaya, and Treatise are known as the “Three Baskets” (Tripiṭaka), and they constitute the theoretical corpus of Buddhism.
Editor’s Note: The Platform Sutra is customarily called a “Sutra” as an expression of faith-based recognition that its teachings accord with both truth and the needs of sentient beings. From the perspective of textual classification, however, since it was not personally spoken by Śākyamuni Buddha, it more properly belongs to the genre of a Treatise (Śāstra).
—Excerpted and compiled from The Relationship Between Buddhist Theory and Practice
This article is a preliminary translation draft and has not yet been reviewed or proofread by the speaker.
