Casey Forgues: The Basis for Buddhahood

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Casey Forgues
The Basis for Buddhahood: The Naturally Luminous Mind and Buddha Nature in the Early Mahāmudrā Tradition
27 July 2024 · 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time
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Description & Participants

The Basis for Buddhahood: The Naturally Luminous Mind and Buddha Nature in the Early Mahāmudrā Tradition
27 July 2024 · 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

Why are we able to attain enlightenment? Is buddha-nature merely a metaphor for emptiness or something more? Is buddhahood something that is produced or uncovered? In this conversation, Casey Forgues explores these questions and more with Lopen Karma Phuntsho by referencing some of the earliest Mahāmudrā masters, including Nāropa, Marpa, and Gampopa. This discussion focuses on how the luminous mind (also sometimes known as clear light) was emphasized in terms of the basis, path, and fruition in this tradition, and how the three can be merged through meditative practices on luminosity.

In the recent publication Buddha Nature Across Asia, edited by Klaus-Dieter Mathes and Casey Forgues (Kemp), Casey contributes a chapter focused on an important concept related to buddha-nature and our innate propensity for buddhahood—natural luminosity (prakṛtiprabhāsvaratā), the theory that the inherent condition of mind is luminous and pure, and afflictions (kleśa) are merely adventitious. While this idea is found in the Pāli canon, it came to be particularly thematized as the basis for buddhahood among the various Mahāyāna traditions. The natural luminosity of mind is a central topic in the Ratnagotravibhāga and came to be understood by some commentators to be synonymous with buddha-nature, especially within the Tibetan Kagyü Mahāmudrā tradition. Casey provides a semantic gloss of the term among key Indian canonical texts, including sūtra, tantra, and dohā sources, that directly influenced the doctrine of natural luminosity among the early Mahāmudrā teachings. She looks into how Maitrīpa (986–1063), Nāropa (1016–1041), and Marpa (1012–1097) in particular understood the luminous mind to be inseparable from the dharmakāya, which led to later traditional Mahāmudrā understandings of buddha-nature. While buddha-nature sources are not extensively referenced in the earliest available Mahāmudrā teachings, Casey demonstrates how the doctrine of natural luminosity directly influenced teachings on buddha-nature, and vice versa, in the tradition.

You can download the PDF of the book for free online here: https://wstb.univie.ac.at/wp-content/uploads/WSTB_103.pdf

Casey Forgues (Kemp) is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna and editorial director of Khyentse Vision Project. Casey received her MPhil in Tibetan Studies at the University of Oxford and has translated sūtras for 84000. Her research focuses on tantric philosophical views of the luminous nature of mind in the early Mahāmudrā tradition (eleventh-thirteenth centuries). She is the co-editor of Buddha Nature across Asia and has published on topics including death and dying in tantric Buddhism, buddha-nature, the six yogas of Nāropa, and the Kalācakra tradition.

Guest

Casey Forgues
Host

Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho

Conversations on Buddha-Nature

A Tsadra Foundation Event
Regular live interviews with Buddhist practitioners, scholars, and thinkers.
This is a space for stimulating and inspiring conversations on Buddha-Nature and related subjects. As a part of the Buddha-Nature Project of the Tsadra Foundation, Karma Phuntsho will host conversations with a Buddhist leader, influencer or expert each month on the theories and practices of Buddha-Nature, which will be live on Facebook. As an exercise of mindful listening, right speech, and wholesome exploration of meaning and nature of life and existence, these conversations aim to enhance the understanding and awareness of Buddha-Nature and promote the ethos of innate goodness and positive perception.

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