ABSTRACT
The concept of ‘skilful means’ is one of the leading ideas of Mahayana Buddhism and was first used extensively in The Lotus Sutra and other writings treated below. In Mahayana Buddhism the various forms of Buddhist teaching and practice are declared to be provisional means, all skilfully set up by the Buddha for the benefit of the unenlightened. A Buddhist who makes progress himself comes to recognise this provisional quality in the forms of his religion, and though using the means provided for him he has to learn not to be wrongly attached to them. He leaves them behind, like a raft left lying on the bank by a man who has crossed a stream and needs it no more. An advanced follower of Buddhism, usually named by Mahayana Buddhists a bodhisattva, continues to use such provisional means in order to lead other living things towards nirvana. A bodhisattva is skilled in allowing the Buddhist religion to be spelled out in all its detail, while not being ensnared by the false discriminations of the unenlightened.
