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From Buddha-Nature
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''Kano, Kazuo. "Hōshōron no tenkai" (Development of Interpretation of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga''). In ''Nyoraizō to Busshō'' (Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha Nature), edited by Masahiro Shimoda, 205–47. Vol. 8 of ''Shirīzu Daijō Bukkyō'' (Series on Mahāyāna Buddhism). Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2014.'' +
''Kano, Kazuo. "Hōshōronchū kenkyū (I): Phywa pa niyoru hōshōron I.26 kaishaku" (A Study of Commentaries on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (I): Phywa pa's Interpretation of Verse I.26). ''Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū'' (Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies) 51, no. 2 (2003): 109-11.'' +
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Is buddha-nature already perfected and simply obscured by delusion, or is it a seed or potential that must be cultivated and perfected? Is it the mind's natural luminosity, or is it the same as emptiness? Are buddha-nature teachings [[nītārtha|definitive]] or [[neyārtha|provisional]]? These are questions that cut to the heart of Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine regarding the nature of enlightenment, reality, and the Path. This page introduces some of the key questions in buddha-nature theory, framed in terms of binaries. +
No abstract given. Here is the first relevant paragraph: <br><br>
I have been able to trace a hitherto unidentified quotation in the ''Ratnagotravibhāga(vrtti)'' (''RGV(V)'') to the ''Tathāgatagarbhasūtra'' (''TGS''). The sentence in question occurs in the ''RGV(V)'' in the context of the explanation of the three ''svabhāvas'' of the ''dhātu'', viz., ''dharmakāya'', ''tathatā'' and ''gotra'', the three key terms of verses 1.27-28, which constitute the central section of the ''RGVV''. The quotation is part of the commentary on the third aspect, i.e., ''gotra'', and is placed after the last of the three interpretations of the compound ''tathāgatagarbha''. In this context the ''dhātu'' of living beings, i.e., their buddha essence, has
just been declared to mean "cause" (''hetu'').<br><br>
[http://iriab.soka.ac.jp/publication/aririab.html Read the rest of this article in Vol. 3 of the Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology . . .] +
It was the Buddhist nun and travel writer Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) who brought the manuscript “Illuminator, a Light of Gnosis – The Great Commentary on The Single Intention” by Dorje Sherab from Asia to France. The German foundation Garchen Stiftung reproduced the precious manuscript in its original size and colors. Thus the work is available to an audience of traditional and western experts as well as students of the Tibetan language. +
Articles/Image-likeness and the Tathāgatagarbha: A Reading of William of St. Thierry's Golden Epistle and the Ratnagotravibhāga +
In Book 10 of his ''Confessions'' Augustine marvels as he meditates on the qualities of the ''memoria'' in human beings:<br>
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This concern with the ''memoria'', and its function in the human mind, was to be one of the most important spiritual legacies Augustine would leave to the Latin, and especially monastic, Middle Ages. In fact, it would be possible to say without much exaggeration that the entire history of monastic spirituality in the Latin Middle Ages (at least until approximately A.D. 1200) is the record of the development of understanding of the power of ''memoria''.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"' A central reason for this is that ''memoria'' was described as a faculty that worked by recalling the human person to the knowledge and intuition that they were created in the image and likeness of God. Thus the words of ''Genesis'' 1:26–27 stand at the beginning of an entire spiritual tradition: "God said let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves. . . . God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." Augustine frequently exhorts himself, as in ''Confessions'' 7.10, to "return to myself" ''(redite ad memet ipsum)''. This was also the continual refrain of the Cistercian author of the twelfth century, William of St. Thierry, in his ''Golden Epistle'', and it serves as one of the themes on which he builds this work. William's treatise, folloing in the path of Augustine, is a call to discover the image and likeness of God in the individual person.<br> In the presentation to follow I would like to set out two spiritual traditions for us to consider: the image-likeness tradition based on Genesis 1:26 and developed by the Latin and Greek Fathers of the Church until approximately A.D. 1200, and the ''tathāgatagarbha'' teachings on Buddha-nature in Mahayana Buddhism, which flourished in India and then spread to Tibet and other parts of the Far East in the first six centuries C.E. I shall do this bby presenting two texts: the ''Golden Epistle'' of William of St, Thierry, and the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (third to fifth centuries A.D.), variously attributed to Saramati or Maitreya. My thesis here is that while the language and concepts used in these two treatises are different, and the two worldviews of which they are representative also vary widely, we can find nonetheless underlying themes that express central concerns of each tradition, especially concerning the brith of a basic nature in the person, and the inability of either sin or defilements ''(kleśa)'' to cover over that nature that is coming to birth.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000005-QINU`"' (Groves, "Image-likeness and ''Tathāgatagarbha''," 97–98)
Dōgen Zenji was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there. Dōgen is known for his extensive writing including the Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma or Shōbōgenzō, a collection of ninety-five fascicles concerning Buddhist practice and enlightenment.<br>
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The primary concept underlying Dōgen's Zen practice is “oneness of practice-enlightenment”. In fact, this concept is considered so fundamental to Dōgen's variety of Zen—and, consequently, to the Sōtō school as a whole—that it formed the basis for the work Shushō-gi, which was compiled in 1890 by Takiya Takushō of Eihei-ji and Azegami Baisen of Sōji-ji as an introductory and prescriptive abstract of Dōgen's massive work, the Shōbōgenzō (“Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma”).<br>
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Dōgen is a profoundly original and difficult 13th century Buddhist thinker whose works have begun attracting increasing attention in the West. Admittedly difficult for even the most advanced and sophisticated scholar of Eastern thought, he is bound, initially, to present an almost insurmountable barrier to the Western mind. Yet the task of penetrating that barrier must be undertaken and, in fact, is being carried out by many gifted scholars toiling in the Dōgen vineyard. (Source: [https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/impermanence-is-buddha-nature-d%d0%begens-understanding-of-temporality/ University of Hawai'i Press]) +
Few premodern Japanese thinkers have received as much attention from Western philosophical circles as the thirteenth century Sōtō Zen master Dōgen. This interest has been sparked and facilitated by insightful English translations of key portions of Dōgen's masterful collected work, the ''Shōbōgenzō'' (especially those by Norman Waddell and Masao Abe), and by several book-length studies of Dōgen's thought—most notably those by Hee-jin Kim, Steven Heine, and Carl Bielefeldt. Kim and Heine, in particular, have examined Dōgen from a cross-cultural philosophic perspective.<br> Professor Stambaugh, whose background is primarily German Philosophy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, first turned to Dōgen in the climactic chapter of her book ''The Real in Not the Rational'' [Albany, NY, 1986]. Also the author of ''The Problem of Time in Nietzsche'' [Lewisburg, 1987], she has combined in her present work many of the concerns and issues raised in these previous works while embarking on several new avenues of investigation. She is genuinely impressed with Dōgen, and portrays him as a strong and critical voice capable of insights that frequently go beyond the formulations proffered by the Western philosophers whim whom she compares him, philosophers such as Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.<br> Generally her method of argument in each chapter consists of setting out basic categories—such as transcendence-immanence, identity-difference, etc.— or sketching the view of a particular philosopher—such as Hegel's notion of dialectic—and then allowing Dōgen to either supplement or supplant what has been introduced. In the earlier chapter this method proves fruitful and she repeatedly zeroes in on crucial passages from Dōgen's seminal works: ''Uji'' ('"Being Time"), ''Genjokōan'' ("Actualizing the Kōan"), ''Busshō'' ("Buddha-nature"), ''Gyōji'' ("Ceaseless Practice"), and so on. She is a careful reader, sensitive to many of the philosophical subtleties of Dōgen's writings, and her insights are frequently illuminating and lucid. This is no mean task, given the difficult and unusual language Dōgen uses to express himself.<br> She is particularly effective, I think, in her discussion of the Buddha-nature fascicle, clearly explaining why, for Dōgen, Buddha-nature is neither something that someone possesses nor a potentiality that someone develops or brings to fruition. (Lusthaus, Review of ''Impermanence Is Buddha-Nature'', 69-70)
Change isn’t just a fact of life we have to accept and work with, says Norman Fischer. Practitioners have always understood impermanence as the cornerstone of Buddhist teachings and practice. All that exists is impermanent; nothing lasts. Therefore nothing can be grasped or held onto. When we don’t fully appreciate this simple but profound truth we suffer, as did the monks who descended into misery and despair at the Buddha’s passing. When we do, we have real peace and understanding, as did the monks who remained fully mindful and calm... +
Articles/In Defense of His Guru: Dratsepa's Rebuttal to the Challenges Articulated by the Proponents of the Other-Emptiness Doctrine +
The buddha-nature literature has a significant place within the Indian Mahāyāna tradition and Tibetan Buddhism. While it is usually included in the so-called Last Wheel of the Buddha’s teachings, many Tibetan thinkers began to cast doubts about the textual significance of buddha-nature discourse in fourteenth century Tibet. In this article, I will examine one particular case where there is apparent tension between multiple Tibetan masters over the importance of buddhanature teachings. This paper primarily analyzes Dratsepa’s commentary to the ''Ornament'' (''mdzes rgyan'') written by his teacher, Buton. Dratsepa construes the ''Ornament'' as a work critiquing Dolpopa’s interpretation of the buddha-nature literature. He levels a barrage of criticisms against Dolpopa by referring to Indian śāstras and sūtras that are equally important to both of them, and also by tracing his own assessment of the tathāgata-essence teachings to early Tibetan scholars. In contradistinction to Dolpopa’s claims, Dratsepa offers several nuanced readings of the buddha-nature literature and complicates the notion of what it means to have tathāgata-essence, what a definitive or provisional meaning entails, and the relationship between the Middle Wheel and the Last Wheel teachings. In brief, Dratsepa’s text sheds light on one of the earliest discourses on the tension between self-emptiness and other-emptiness presentations. +
Nagarjuna is famous in the West for his works not only on Madhyamaka but his poetic collection of praises, headed by ''In Praise of Dharmadhatu''. This book explores the scope, contents, and significance of Nagarjuna's scriptural legacy in India and Tibet, focusing primarily on the title work. The translation of Nagarjuna's hymn to Buddha nature—here called ''dharmadhatu''—shows how buddha nature is temporarily obscured by adventitious stains in ordinary sentient beings, gradually uncovered through the path of bodhisattvas, and finally revealed in full bloom as buddhahood. These themes are explored at a deeper level through a Buddhist history of mind's luminous nature and a translation of the text's earliest and most extensive commentary by the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje (1284–1339), supplemented by relevant excerpts from all other available commentaries. The book also provides an overview of the Third Karmapa's basic outlook, based on seven of his major texts. He is widely renowned as one of the major proponents of the ''shentong'' (other-empty) view. However, as this book demonstrates, this often problematic and misunderstood label needs to be replaced by a more nuanced approach which acknowledges the Karmapa's very finely tuned synthesis of the two great traditions of Indian mahayana Buddhism, Madhyamaka and Yogacara. These two, his distinct positions on Buddha nature, and the transformation of consciousness into enlightened wisdom also serve as the fundamental view for the entire vajrayana as it is understood and practiced in the Kagyu tradition to the present day. (Source: [https://www.shambhala.com/in-praise-of-dharmadhatu-2597.html Shambhala Publications]) +
Any steps to be taken in the direction of investigating the Indian roots of Ch'an are hindered by the thicket of legends in which the tradition shrouded itself. The Ch'annists must also be blamed for the fact that the question of what was the original form of this peculiarly Chinese version of Buddhism remains open, still obscured by the fallacious assumption that Ch'an was a monolithic, clearly defined school or tradition. Progress in this area is further hampered by the fact that in both India and China the early history of the movements that gave rise to Ch'an belongs to mystical traditions existing on the margins of the scholarly establishment of Buddhism. On the other hand, the broader question of contacts, connections, agreements and disagreements between Ch'an and Indian Buddhism can now be the object of documented study thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Buddhist scholars in Russia, France and Japan, who have attempted to verify the facts and meaning of an incident known as the "Council of Lhasa." (Gómez, "Indian Materials," 393) +
Articles/Indo kōki mikkyō ni okeru nyoraizō eno genkyū to sono kaishaku: Tantra chūshakusho wo chūshin to shite +
''Kano, Kazuo. "Indo kōki mikkyō ni okeru nyoraizō eno genkyū to sono kaishaku: Tantra chūshakusho wo chūshin to shite" (References to Tathāgatagarbha in Later Tantric Commentaries). ''Mikkyōgaku Kenkyū'' 44 (2012): 125–37.'' +
The vast expansion of Indian culture by Buddhists who penetrated through Bactria into the region of modern Kashghar, Yarkand, Khotan, Maralbashi, Kucha and Loulan has been disclosed by the results of expeditions sent out in the first decade of this century. Among the numerous documents was a considerable number written in Ancient Khotan, but in a dialect of the Śakas, or Indo-Scythians, who from the first century BC to the third century AD were dominant in North-western India. Volume I of Khotanese Texts was published in 1946, Volume II in 1954 and Volume III, which completed the publication of the longer texts in 1956. Volume IV containing the Śaka Texts from the Hedin Collection appeared in 1961. The fifth volume completed the printing of the texts. When it was published in 1963, it contained a large number of fragments and other pieces published for the first time, as well as the Hoernle Collection, the Samguata-Sutra folios and the Karma Text. (Source: [https://www.cambridge.org/ar/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/asian-language-and-linguistics/indo-scythian-studies-being-khotanese-texts-volume-v-volume-5?format=HB&isbn=9780521119948 Cambridge University Press]) +
Kaiji Jeffrey Schneider gives a general dharma talk on buddha-nature at the San Francisco Zen Center. He begins with a discussion of the five skandhas and discusses how the later notion of tathāgatagarbha represented a radical shift in the Buddhist understanding of the mind and consciousness. +
About the teaching, Lama Tharchin Rinpoche said:
"The topic on which I want to speak tonight has to do with the ultimate inner peace or happiness that inhabits all of our beings. This inner peace has as its nature an inner luminosity and brilliant clarity. This is primordially our nature, and it is primordially the nature of all sentient beings... However, regardless of our thoughts about how we’re going to gain peace and happiness, there are very few who actually come to awaken their original natural inner peace and happiness. Why is that? The answer to this is something I’d like to speak about."
Posted in honor of Lama Tharchin Rinpoche's 11th Decho Anniversary, July 21-22, 2024. +
This annotated translation of an early ninth-century essay by the Hua-yen and Ch'an master Kuei-feng Tsung-mi (780-841) provides the nonspecialist with a window through which to survey the landscape of medieval
Chinese Buddhist thought. Unlike other more technical expositions of Buddhist teachings, ''Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity (Yuan Jen lun)'' does not presuppose a detailed knowledge of Buddhist doctrine. In a brief
and accessible fashion, it presents a systematic overview of the major teachings within Chinese Buddhism. The organizational framework used by Tsung-mi, moreover, represents one of the primary methods devised by
Chinese Buddhists to organize and make sense of the diverse body of teachings they received from India. Finally, Tsung-mi's essay is especially noteworthy in that it sheds light on the interaction of Buddhism with the
indigenous intellectual and religious traditions of Confucianism and Taoism. Peter N. Gregory's commentary, which follows a running translation of the work, will help bridge the temporal and cultural gap separating contemporary Western readers from the text's intended medieval Chinese audience. (Source: back cover) +
Books/Interpretations of Unity: Hermeneutics in Śākya mchog ldan's Interpretation of the Five Treatises of Maitreya +
'''Abstract'''<br><br>
This dissertation is a study of the process through which Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, by synthesizing doctrines and texts into consistent models, integrates views of reality within doctrinal and soteriological systems. It consists of an analysis of the most fundamental doctrinal tension found in the Tibetan tradition, namely the apparent inconsistency of doctrines belonging to the negative Mādhyamika and to the more affirmative Yogācāra trends of Mahāyāna Buddhism. As a case study aiming to provide a first systematic examination of that problematic, the dissertation surveys and analyzes Tibetan interpretation of the set of texts referred to as the Five Treatises of Maitreya (''byams chos sde lnga''), and at the way those interpretations deal with the doctrinal tensions found in that set of text. In addition to providing a recension of major interpretations of the Five Treatises developed between 1100 and 1500, a detailed account is given of the model of interpretation given by gSer mdog Paṇ chen Śākya mchog ldan, a famous teacher of the Sa skya school of Tibetan Buddhism. When confronted with the features of other interpretations, Śākya mchog ldan's interpretation of the Five Treatises, which proceeds primarily by allowing a plurality of views to be maintained even at the level of definitive meaning, provides us with a new insight in the Tibetan philosophical tradition: the most fundamental dimension of philosophical reconciliation of doctrinal views, especially of the kind found in the Five Treatises, can be described as pertaining to textual hermeneutics. Moreover, Śākya mchog ldan's contribution to that domain of Buddhist thought, by placing hermeneutics at the very centre of his system of Buddhist doctrine and practice, suggests that hermeneutics is a fundamental category of all Buddhist philosophical debates, and that it should be part of any attempt to understand the Tibetan philosophical tradition. +
Jamie Hubbard and Paul Swanson discuss Critical Buddhism, buddha-nature, and their book ''Pruning the Bodhi Tree''. +
Venerable Dhammadipa discusses the term ''tathābatagarbha'', the Yogācāra tradition, and the ''Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna''. +
