Pratyekabuddha yana

Pratyekabuddha yana — one of the nine yanas. Pratyekabuddhas, or ‘self-awakened’ are so-called because, having a more profound depth of wisdom than the shravakas, they manifest their own awakening through the power of their own wisdom, without needing to rely on other masters.

Entry Point

As with the entry point to the shravaka yana, the pratyekabuddhas take up any one of the seven sets of pratimoksha vows and then keep them unimpaired.

View

When it comes to the basis of their path, how they determine the view, they realize the absence of a personal self completely, but only realize half the absence of phenomenal identity, because although they realize that the partless particles of perceived objects are not real, they still believe in the true existence of indivisible moments of consciousness.

Meditation

When it comes to their path, and their practice of meditation, the uncommon approach of the pratyekabuddhas is to meditate on how the twelve links of interdependent origination arise in their progressive sequence and how they cease in the reverse order.

Conduct

Like the shravakas, they keep to the twelve rules of ascetic practice.

Results

As their fruition, those with sharper faculties attain the level of a rhinoceros-like pratyekabuddha arhat and those with duller faculties become parrot-like pratyekabuddha arhats.

Moreover, they reach their final existence as a result of three specific aspiration prayers. They pray that their last existence may be in a world without buddhas and shravakas, that they may attain awakening by themselves, without relying on any teacher, and that they may teach the Dharma silently through physical gestures.