Recent Essays/Post-13

Tathāgatagarbhasūtra

[[ |300px|thumb| ]] Among the many tathāgatagarbhasūtras, or sūtras on buddha-nature, the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra is the only one which goes by that name. It is also perhaps the earliest and most well-known sūtra on buddha-nature. Translated into Chinese by Buddhabhadra in the fourth century and Amoghavajra in the eighth century, and into Tibetan by Śākyabhadra and Yeshe De in the eighth century, this sūtra is one of the main sources used by the author of the Sublime Continuum, or Ratnagotravibhāga, which is the core text on buddha-nature.

The sūtra is set at Vulture Peak, ten years after the Buddha attained perfect enlightenment, among some hundred thousand monks and innumerable bodhisattvas, including many familiar names, and many other kinds of beings. The Buddha, after lunch, enters the Candanagarbha pavilion, and through his meditative power he manifests myriads of lotus flowers in the space above. A radiant buddha figure sits in calyxes of the lotus flowers sending forth rays of light. He then uses his power to make the flowers wilt into dark, putrid, unsightly forms, but the buddhas inside the flower remain radiant. The Buddha uses this to explain how, in the putrid and unsightly filth of negative emotions and thoughts, every sentient being has the true nature of a buddha.

The Buddha goes on to explain all nine similes to illustrate the presence of latent buddha-nature in all sentient beings.

1. Buddha figure in the wilting unsightly lotus

2. Honey in the beehive

3. Kernel of grain in the husk

4. Gold nugget in pile of excrement

5. Treasure underneath a pauper’s house

6. A mango seed ready to unfold into a tree

7. Precious statue of the Buddha in a rag

8. A universal monarch in the womb of a poor woman

9. Golden statue in a clay mould

For more details, visit the pages on the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra and Michael Zimmermann’s A Buddha Within: The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra.

Weekly quote

All sentient beings possess buddha-nature; It remains obscured by myriad defiling emotions, like a lamp in a vase. 

~ Aṅgulimālīyam-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra