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Buddha-nature is the capacity for enlightenment and freedom present within the mind of every being, a fundamental core of goodness, wisdom, and compassion that is hidden by clouds of ignorance—so hidden in fact that we might never even suspect its presence. It is like the sun that continues to shine regardless of the clouds that may cover it. By clearing away those clouds of greed, anger, and selfishness we uncover a state of perfection that is, and always has been, our own true nature.
Although it may be difficult to completely overcome all our limitations and clear away those clouds, the fact that our nature is fundamentally the same as a buddha's is what makes the whole path to enlightenment possible. We already have everything we need to begin walking a path that leads to true happiness. We simply need to have confidence in the presence of our buddha-nature and the courage to begin the journey to uncover it.
Everyone has the same buddha-nature, even the Buddha. The only difference is that the Buddha recognized his and the rest of us have not. The goal of Buddhist practice is to allow our true nature to shine forth. We may not be perfect buddhas yet, but we have the capacity to develop wisdom and compassion and cease our commitment to selfishness, greed, and hatred. Buddhist teachings and practices are dedicated to revealing our true nature through retraining the mind and body, both by cultivating the proper outlook and behavior, and by ceasing the negative habits that cause dissatisfaction and suffering. This website is focused on the teachings associated with traditions of training that lead to real liberation and we hope that you can learn a great deal from reading and watching the content here, but please seek out an authentic teacher to engage in any specific practices discussed here.
In almost all Buddhist traditions, buddha-nature is understood to be the same as the natural luminosity of mind—that is, the mind's natural, pure state of awareness which is free from any duality or defilement. All beings are said to share the potential for full enlightenment because their minds are, in some sense, already enlightened. In East Asian Buddhist traditions, this is known as the doctrine of original enlightenment, while in Tibetan contexts it is called primordial purity. Various Buddhist paths employ diverse methods to shake off the obscurations to enlightenment and cultivate the mind's natural perfection, from quiet sitting to elaborate tantric visualization and yogic endeavors.
Although the teachings related to buddha-nature are vast and the ideas manifest throughout Tibetan Buddhist literature, there is a single core text for the Tibetan tradition, which is called The Treatise on the Ultimate Continuum or the Sublime Continuum in English (learn more about the translation of the title here) and often referred to as the Gyü Lama or the Uttaratantra. In Western scholarship it has become known as the Ratnagotravibhāga. This text was originally composed in Sanskrit and translated into Tibetan sometime in the eleventh century, and many commentaries followed from many traditions right up to present day. Textual sources for these ideas are extremely important to the Buddhist traditions, and you can learn more about the history, texts, and ideas associated with buddha-nature in the pages that follow. Here, too, are some articles that introduce the idea of buddha-nature for a general audience. For more advanced readings, take a look at the Explore page or browse the Library.
Two other metaphors are traditionally used to describe buddha-nature: a golden statue encased in muck and the seed of a mango tree. The first suggests that our buddha-nature is already perfect and only needs to be revealed in order to manifest our enlightenment. The second presents buddha-nature as a potential that must be cultivated in order to attain enlightenment. A third, less common interpretation is that we somehow produce buddhahood and thus acquire buddha-nature at a certain stage of religious accomplishment. These three models—disclosure, transformation, and production—are used by different traditions to define buddha-nature and describe the methods to fully actualize enlightenment.
Not all Buddhist traditions are comfortable with language that describes buddha-nature as the mind's fundamental state, suspecting that such descriptions promote the idea that buddha-nature is some kind of abiding individual self. The Buddha, of course, famously taught that such an idea of a self is wrong, a delusion we create but which causes us suffering. However, buddha-nature is not taught as an individual self but more like the natural characteristic of mind, akin to wet being the natural characteristic of water. Some Buddhist philosophers have rejected buddha-nature simply because it uses positive language. They maintain that ultimate reality cannot be described by language because language is limited by dualism (self and other, good and bad, and so forth), whereas the ultimate is nondual. Such philosophers will only say what the ultimate is not—not permanent, not individualistic, not ignorant, and so forth. The limitations of such a position for teaching about experience are obvious; how can one describe anything without language? Still others have argued that buddha-nature is misguided because it undermines the drive to improve ourselves, as though we must think of ourselves as bereft of good qualities in order to become better people.
In Indian and Tibetan traditions, philosophers have also debated whether buddha-nature is a teaching to take literally or if it was meant to promote and encourage the student to move in the right direction. Early scriptural evidence in fact points to the provisional interpretation: buddha-nature was offered to help those who were discouraged by the difficult philosophical teachings of emptiness or by the daunting project of attaining enlightenment. Most teachers, however, take the position that the mind's natural luminosity is self-evident and need not be explained as a rhetorical trick. They maintain that if the mind were not already enlightened by nature, then enlightenment would have to be produced. This would contradict the definition of ultimate reality—that is, nirvāṇa—as unproduced and unconditioned.
