section_path: Worldview/Skillful means and the One Vehicle
section_name: Skillful means and the One Vehicle
paragraph_text: Skillful means and the One Vehicle
  
  Skillful means or Expedient techniques (Skt. upāya) is another important virtue and doctrine in Mahāyāna Buddhism. The idea is most famously expounded in the White Lotus Sutra, and refers to any effective method or technique that is conducive to spiritual growth and leads beings to awakening and nirvana. This doctrine states that, out of compassion, the Buddha adapts his teaching to whomever he is teaching. Because of this, it is possible that the Buddha may teach seemingly contradictory things to different people. This idea is also used to explain the vast textual corpus found in Mahāyāna.
  
  A closely related teaching is the doctrine of the One Vehicle (ekayāna). This teaching states that even though the Buddha is said to have taught three vehicles (the disciples' vehicle, the vehicle of solitary Buddhas and the bodhisattva vehicle, which are accepted by all early Buddhist schools), these actually are all skillful means which lead to the same place: Buddhahood. Therefore, there really are not three vehicles in an ultimate sense, but one vehicle, the supreme vehicle of the Buddhas, which is taught in different ways depending on the faculties of individuals. Even those beings who think they have finished the path (i.e. the arhats) are actually not done, and they will eventually reach Buddhahood.
  
  This doctrine was not accepted in full by all Mahāyāna traditions. The Yogācāra school famously defended an alternative theory that held that not all beings could become Buddhas. This became a subject of much debate throughout Mahāyāna Buddhist history.