Hinayana

However, the pejorative term Hinayana is currently inappropriate for any particular branch of the teachings or schools of Buddhism. The surviving Theravadin schools clearly have been maintained by openly offering religious sustenance and teaching to all of the larger community surrounding their monastic cores. In the mature development of the Mahayana tradition, all branches of the teachings are fully recognized as appropriate and beneficial for some beings, and all are included in the greater Mahayana vehicle. The arhats are specifically honored in East Asian Mahayana Buddhism as exemplars of awakening in the world. The Zen tradition appreciates the quirkiness and character of some of the colorful legendary arhat figures, and Zen ceremonies include veneration of and prostrations to many groupings of arhats.

When the lowercased term hinayana is used in later Buddhist writings, or today, we can see its aptness to describe the tendency toward small-mindedness and self-centered practice in any branch of Buddhism. In this sense all schools and teachings, and each spiritual practitioner, may have hinayana and mahayana aspects.

---Taigen Dan Leighton, in Faces of Compassion---