15.1.16

Vehicles

Both Theravada and Mahayana aim for no attachment to the five aggregates and six senses, thus one is unbound. According to Theravada after parinirvana there is nothing to say, since even before that there is no individual to point to. Mahayana says that because of compassion bodhisattvas and buddhas do not leave samsara, nor do they enter nirvana, but because they have realised the emptiness of appearances they can function without being affected. So actually both affirm that there is no individual entity to be bound.

As we can see, they can accuse each other with wrong views: Hinayana is annihilationist, Mahayana is eternalist. But as actually everyone is aware, the topic of the existence or non-existence of the Tathagata after death is a question based on the incorrect assumption of self.

There is really no establishment of various vehicles, and so I speak of the one vehicle; but in order to carry the ignorant I talk of a variety of vehicles.
(Lankavatara Sutra, 2.56, tr Suzuki)
"And how do some adhere? Human & divine beings enjoy becoming, delight in becoming, are satisfied with becoming. When the Dhamma is being taught for the sake of the cessation of becoming, their minds do not take to it, are not calmed by it, do not settle on it or become resolved on it. This is how some adhere.
"And how do some slip right past? Some, feeling horrified, humiliated, & disgusted with that very becoming, relish non-becoming: 'When this self, at the break-up of the body, after death, perishes & is destroyed, and does not exist after death, that is peaceful, that is exquisite, that is sufficiency!' This is how some slip right past.
"And how do those with vision see? There is the case where a monk sees what has come into being as come into being. Seeing what has come into being as come into being, he practices for disenchantment with what has come into being, dispassion toward what has come into being, cessation of what has come into being. This is how those with vision see."
(Iti 49; see also: Ajahn Amaro: The View From the Center, ch 7