During and after Shakyamuni Buddha’s time there were two types of Buddhists: shravakas—disciples who sought awakening through hearing the Buddha’s teachings—and pratyekabuddhas or self-enlightened ones—ascetics who sought awakening by individually observing the appearance of causes and conditions and the coming into existence and passing away of human life and nature. … [S]eeing the transiency and emptiness of life, many of them fell into nihilism and ended up losing the meaningfulness of life.

Then, at about the time of the beginning of the current era in the Western calendar, a group, called “bodhisattvas,” appeared who devoted themselves to practicing the truth in the actual world. They created a Buddhist reform movement, in which they criticized the earlier two vehicles as being lesser vehicles (Hinayana), while calling themselves the Great Vehicle (Mahayana). They were especially harsh on the nihilism of the followers of the two vehicles in which the possibility of becoming a buddha had been lost.

The transiency and emptiness of life that Shakyamuni Buddha taught does not end with such nihilism but leads to the infinite and absolute world that is like empty space. Through realization of such a world, the great joy and meaning of life is reborn by liberating those who suffer from clinging to the ups and downs of life. Those who try to be witnesses to this truth are the bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism.