Mahayana Buddhism arose mainly because the teaching of Buddhism became more and more caught by a concrete idea of some particular teaching or precepts. And they tried to stick to the teaching rigidly. At first, they respected the teaching too much, and especially the priests tried to preserve the teaching. And this kind of effort resulted in a very rigid understanding of precepts or teaching.
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-04-29 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.