Basic Meaning
Mental stains that are not inherent to the nature of the mind but are temporarily present as the residue of past actions or habitual tendencies. It is sometimes iterated as adventitious defilements (Skt. āgantukakleśa, Tib. glo bur gyi nyon mongs), which references the fickle and temporary nature of disturbing emotions that lack an ultimately established basis for existence.
Has the sense of
See also obscurations (āvaraṇa).
Something which has been incidentally added on and therefore can be removed.
But this is obscured by adventitious stains.
When those are removed, they are buddhas at once.
Simplified English usage
Even though defilements exist, they are adventitious [to the buddha-element, because the buddha-element] is naturally pure.
- Sangpuwa Lodrö Tsungme, Wangchuk, Tsering trans. The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows (2017), page 32.
Usage example
Sanskrit:
- sattvā buddhā eva kiṃ tu āgantukamalāvṛtāḥ
- tasyāpakarṣanāt sattvā buddhā eva na saṃśayaḥ
- Hevajra Tantra, Part II 4.69
Tibetan:
- སེམས་ཅན་རྣམས་ནི་སངས་རྒྱས་ཉིད། །
- འོན་ཀྱང་གློ་བུར་དྲི་མས་བསྒྲིབས། །
- དེ་ཉིད་བསལ་ན་སངས་རྒྱས་ཉིད། །
- དཔལ་ཀྱེའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་རྒྱུད་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ།
See page 19 (entry for āgantukakleśa): In Sanskrit, “adventitious afflictions” or “adventitious defilements”; indicating that the kleśa are accidental and extrinsic qualities of the mind, rather than natural and intrinsic. This notion builds on an ancient Strand in Buddhist thought, such as in the oft-quoted passage in the Pāli Aṅguttaranikāya: “The mind, O monks, is luminous but defiled by adventitious defilements.” Since defilements are introduced into the thought processes from without, the intrinsic purity of the mind (citta) can be restored through counteracting the influence of the kleśa and overcoming the inveterate tendency toward attachment and its concomitant craving (lobha) and ill will (dveṣa), which empower them.This concept of āgantukakleśa is critical to the Mahāyāna doctrine of tathāgatagarbha (embryo of buddhahood), where the mind is presumed to be innately enlightened, but that enlightenment is temporarily obscured or concealed by defilements (kleśa) that are extrinsic to it.
The obscurations that are not intrinsic to the sugata-garbha, like clouds are not inherent in the sky.
nyon mongs pa dang shes bya'i sgrib pa gnyis ni sems kyi rang bzhin la ma zhugs par sems dang 'bral rung du yod pas na glo bur gyi dri ma zhes bya'o
The mental afflictions and their residues that temporarily cover the mind's true nature, thus preventing the attainment of buddhahood. Liberation is said to be possible precisely because these defilements are not inherent to the nature of the mind and can be removed by means of the path. - Bernert, Christian, trans. Perfect or Perfected? Rongtön on Buddha-Nature (2018), page 113.
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