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The Buddha Nature: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna (Dissertation)

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Abstract

The present dissertation identifies the ontological presuppositions and the corresponding soteriological-epistemological principles that sustain and define the Mahāyāna Buddhist belief in the inherent potentiality of all animate beings to attain the supreme and perfect enlightenment of Buddhahood. More specifically, the study establishes a coherent metaphysic of Absolute Suchness (Tathatā), synthesizing the variant traditions of the Tathāgata-embryo (Tathāgatagarbha) and the Storehouse Consciousness (Ālayavijñāna).
      The dissertation interprets the Buddhist enlightenment as the salvific-transformational moment in which Tathatā "awakens" to itself, comes to perfect self-realization as the Absolute Suchness of reality, in and through phenomenal human consciousness. It is an interpretation of the Buddhist Path as the spontaneous self-emergence of "embryonic" absolute knowledge as it comes to free itself from the concealments of adventitious defilements, and possess itself in fully self-explicitated self-consciousness as the "Highest Truth" and unconditional nature of all existence; it does so only in the form of omniscient wisdom.
      Aside from Ruegg's La Theorie du Tathāgatagarbha et du Gotra and Verdu's study of the Ālayavijñāna in Dialectical Aspects in Buddhist Thought, Western scholarship treating of the subject is negligible. And while both sources are excellent technical treatises, they fail to integrate in any detailed analysis the dual concepts as complementary modes of each other. Thus, the dissertation, while adopting the methodology of textual analysis, has as its emphasis a thematic-interpretive study of its sources. Conducting a detailed analysis into the structure of the texts, the dissertation delineates and appropriates the inherent ontological, soteriological and epistemological foci which they themselves assume as their natural form.
      Structurally, the dissertation is divided into three major parts. The first focuses on the Tathāgatagarbha, the second on the Ālayavijñāna, the third on their relation and deeper significance in the human thought tradition. The first two parts are sub-divided into seven and four chapters respectively. The former seven chapters establish the ontological identity of the Tathāgata-embryo (Tathagātagarbha) through a critical examination of the major sūtral authority for the concept, i.e., the Śrī-Mālā-Sūtra, and the primary śāstral elaboration inspired by it, viz., the Ratnagotravlbhāga.
      Following the same pattern, the four chapters of part 2 note the role of the Laṅk¯āvatāra Sūtra as a principal scriptural advocate for the theory of the Storehouse Consciousness (Ālayavijñāna), while detailing the scholastic amplification of it in Hsüan Tsang's Ch'eng Wei-Shih Lun. Part 3 concludes the study by recapitulating the principal developments in the emergent complementarity of the two concepts, arguing that any adequate discussion of the Buddha Nature must be informed on the one hand by the theory of the Tathāgatagarbha which grounds and authenticates its ontological status, and on the other by the Ālayavijñāna, its noetic-cognitive determination. While the former tends to elucidate the process towards, and experience of enlightenment as a function of Absolute Suchness (Tathatā), the latter adopts the reciprocal perspective and examines the subject in the light and function of phenomenal consciousness.
      By way of comparison with Western thought, the chapter likewise demonstrates the analogous dynamic in the bilateral theory of the Tathāgatagarbha-Ālayavijñāna and the Hegelian Absolute Spirit in-and-for-itself. Focusing upon The Phenomenology of Spirit, the chapter notes that the self-becoming process in and through which consciousness realizes its own plenitude is strikingly homologous to the theory of Buddhist enlightenment presented through the concept of the Tathāgatagarbha-Ālayavijñāna. It suggests that these two representative thought systems mutually illumine each other, and together illustrate a correspondent framework within which the relationship of the Absolute and relative may gain a more universal conception and therefore, a more comprehensive resolution.

Citation	Brown, Brian Edward. "The Buddha Nature: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna." PhD diss., Fordham University, 1981.

Table of Contents About the Book Texts Translated Quotes

Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ........................................... 1 Fart One ............................................ 4 Part Two ............................................ 23 Part Three .......................................... 34 PART ONE , _ THE TATHAGATAGARBHA IN THE SRI-MALA SUTRA AND THE RATNAGOTRAVIBHAGA II. ANALYSIS OF THE ^RI-MALA SUTRA ....................... 39 Tathagatagarbha as Ontic Subjectivity .............. 41 Tathagatagarbha and Soteriology .................... 45 The Status of the Buddha ........................... 54 Tathagatagarbha and Epistemology ................... 58 The Nescience Entrenchment ......................... 61 The Buddha Natures ................................. 64 The Four Noble Truths .. y........................... 67 Tathagatagarbha as Both Sunya and A suhya............ 75 Tathagatagarbha as Self-Explicitating Knowledge .... 81 Evaluation ......................................... 86 III. THE RATNAGOTRAVIBHAGA................................ 91 The Jewels of the Pharma and the Satpgha ............ 97 SamallT and Nlrmala Tathata............................. 105 Threefold Meaning of the TatKagatagarbha ............... 108 The Meaning of Gotra ................................... 112 IV. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EMBRYO REALITY: ITS SELF-NATURE ...................................... 125 The Cause of the Embryo's Purification............. 126 The Four Supreme Virtues: Antidotal Methodology .... 129 Ttma-Paramita: Supreme Unity ....................... 142 Nitya-PSramita: Supreme Eternity ................... 154 Supreme Bliss and Supreme Purity ................... 161 The Result of the Embryo's Self-Purification ....... 164 The Union with the Purifying Factors ............... 166

V. FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EMBRYO .................. 169 The Function of the Embryo Towards Self-PurlfIcatlon ................................. 169 The Embryo's Manifestation .......................... 173 Cittaprakyti: the Innate M i n d ....................... 178 Buddhahood and Nirv3fra .............................. 192 VI. NINE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE GARBHA ...................... 201 Threefold Nature of the Tathagatagarbha ............. 207 VII. THE TATHAGATAGARBHA AND SUNYATA....................... 215 The Tathagatagarbha as Sunya and Asunya ............. 224 The Ratnagotra and the Frajhaparamita Tradition 235 VIII. THE PROPERTIES OF THE BUDDHA ............................ 249 Nirmala Tathat'a .................................. 252 Evaluation .......................................... 262

PART TWO t _ THE ALAYAVIJSfANA IN THE LANKAVATIrA SUTRA AND THE CH1ENG WEI-SHIH LUN IX. THE LANKAVATARA SUTRA .................................. 271 The Union of the Tathagatagarbha and the Xlayavijnana ...................................... 271 The Confusion of Episteraology and Ontology in the LankavatiTra ................................ 279 X. THE CH'ENG WEI-SHIH LUN ............................... 292 The Metaphysics of Mere-Consciousness ............... 292 The XLayavijnSha and the BTjas ...................... 301 XI. THE ALAYAVIJf&NA AND IGNORANCE ........................ 314 ‘Stmagraha and Dharmagraha ........................... 314 The Manas and ManovijnSha ................... 316 The Ultimate Origin of Ignorance .................... 326

XIIW THE HOLY PATH OF ATTAINMENT ........................... 332 The Stage of Moral Provisioning .................... 332 The Stage of Intensified Effort .................... 333 The Stage of Unimpeded Penetrating Understanding .... 336 The Stage of Exercising Cultivation ................ 339 The Stage of Ultimate Realization .................. 350 __ PART THREE THE TATHAGATAGARBHA-'lLAYAVIJf&NA; SUMMARY AND COMPARISON XIII. CONCLUSION ............................................ 356 The Tathagatagarbha in the Sri-Mala Sutra .......... 356 The Tathagatagarbha in the Ratnagotravibhaga ....... 361 The Lankavatara Sutra .............................. 374 The Ch'eng Wel-Shih Lun ............................ 378 The Ultimate Status of Ignorance in the Theory of the Tathagatagarbha-XLayavij n a n a ....... 382 The Tathagatagarbha-XLayavijnana and the Hegelian Absolute Spirit ......................... 391 APPENDIX 1 .................................................. 418 APPENDIX 2 .................................................. 422

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................... 425

ālayavijñāna - A neutral base consciousness that is posited as the storehouse for the seeds of past karmic actions in which they remain in a latent state until the circumstances arise for them to ripen as karmic consequences. Skt. आलयविज्ञान Tib. ཀུན་གཞིའི་རྣམ་ཤེས་ Ch. 藏識,阿賴耶識

Mahāyāna - Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion. Skt. महायान Tib. ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ། Ch. 大乘

tathatā - Suchness itself, absolute reality, or thusness, as in the ultimate state of being of phenomena. Skt. तथता Tib. དེ་བཞིན་ཉིད་

tathāgatagarbha - Buddha-nature, literally the "womb/essence of those who have gone (to suchness)." Skt. तथागतगर्भ Tib. དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ Ch. 如来藏

āgantukamala - 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. Skt. आगन्तुकमल Tib. གློ་བུར་གྱི་དྲི་མ་

gotra - Disposition, lineage, or class; an individual's gotra determines the type of enlightenment one is destined to attain. Skt. गोत्र Tib. རིགས་ Ch. 鍾姓,種性

sūtra - Sūtras mainly refer to the discourses delivered by the Buddha and his disciples, and the Sūtra corpus is one of the three main sets of teachings which form the Buddhist canon. Skt. सूत्र Tib. མདོ། Ch. 佛经

ātman - Though it can simply be used as the expression "I" or "me", in Indian thought the notion of self refers to a permanent, unchanging entity, such as that which passes from life to life in the case of people, or the innate essence (svabhāva) of phenomena. Skt. आत्मन् Tib. བདག་ Ch. 我,灵魂