Abstract
The concept of upaya (or upayakausalya), ‘skilful means’, has functioned on various levels within the Buddhist tradition, with considerable differences also in its degrees of prominence. It is a major concern in the Lotus Sutra, the Prajnaparamita literature and the Teaching of Vimalakirti, but absent or almost absent from many other scriptures. However, I am not going to concern myself with the history of the concept. I should be totally incompetent to do so; and fortunately Michael Pye had done this authoritatively in Skilful Means: A Concept of Mahayana Buddhism,1 of which I shall be making use.
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Notes
The Middle Length Sayings, vol. i, trans. I. B. Horner (London: Pali Text Society, 1954–9) pp. 173–1.
Michael Pye, ‘Skilful Means and the Interpretation of Christianity’, Buddhist-Christian Studies, vol. 10 (1990) p. 19.
Jikido Takasaki, A Study of the Ratnagotravibhaga (Rome: Is. MED, 1966) p. 284.
Shinran, Notes on ‘Essentials of Faith Alone’, A Translation of Shinran’s Yuishinsho-mon’i (Kyoto: Hongwanji International.Center, 1979) p. 5.
Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952) p. 189.
Ninian Smart, ‘Our Experience of the Ultimate’, Religious Studies, vol. 20, no. 1 (1984) p. 24. Cf. Beyond Ideology (San Francisco, CaL: Harper & Row, 1981), ch. 6.
John Hick, ‘Towards a Philosophy of Religious Pluralism’, Neue Zeitschrift fur systematische Theologie and Religionsphilosophie, vol. xxn, part 2, no. 2 (1980). Cf. (London: Macmillan; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
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© 1997 John Hick
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Hick, J. (1997). Religion as ‘Skilful Means’. In: Disputed Questions in Theology and the Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230390232_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230390232_7
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