Begin Discovering Your Buddha-Nature: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:32, 16 December 2020

Discover

Discover how buddha-nature is articulated in various Buddhist traditions by exploring multimedia, articles, books, and translations of primary sources from leading Buddhist teachers and academics. This page brings together a collection of curated resources designed to make the concept of buddha-nature understandable and accessible to a general audience.

Buddha-Nature in Tibet

Multimedia

Complete Site Guide

Video

Buddha Nature: What Is It? How Is It Different from soul? A Teaching from Zasep Tulku

"Everyone has Buddha Nature," explains H.E. Zasep Tulku Rinpoche in a "learning from the Teachers" video on the topic from BuddhaWeekly.

Video

Discovering Buddha Nature: Talk by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Mingyur Rinpoche describes buddha-nature with the metaphor of a diamond covered in mud, explaining how the innate purity of awareness can be obscured, but never changed.

Video

Dealing with Depression: Interview with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo on Study Buddhism

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo discusses buddha-nature beautifully for a general audience.

Video

What Is Buddha-Nature? by Wulstan Fletcher

Wulstan Fletcher explains buddha-nature as the deepest aspect of oneself, a wellspring of goodness and wisdom that is always present.

Video

On How Beginning Students Might Engage with Buddha-Nature Teachings by Ringu Tulku

Ringu Tulku talks about how beginning students might start to orient themselves toward buddha-nature teachings in practice. He explains that it is important to recognize that everybody has the seed of wisdom and compassion within them.

Video

We Are Enlightened by Nature

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche provides encouragement that we are all enlightened by nature, and the path is a process of discovering that enlightened nature.

Featured Articles

Article

Mind Is Buddha

Geoffery Shugen Arnold, Sensei, on Case 30 of the Gateless Gate, “Mazu’s ‘Mind is buddha.'”

Article

Everything Is Buddhanature

Original sin vs. original goodness: Mahayana Buddhism offers a more hopeful view of human nature.

Article

Trust Practice, Practice Trust

When we truly give ourselves over to practice, explains Roko Sherry Chayat, we let go of our dependence on outcomes and begin to trust just being what we are, buddhanature, revealed right here, right now, in this very body and place.

Article

Impermanence Is Buddha Nature

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.

Article

On the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna

An introduction to the Awakening of Faith, an immensely important treatise popular in all traditions of Buddhism in East Asia.

Article

The Path of Gratitude

In Shin Buddhism, we don’t practice to achieve anything—not enlightenment, good karma, a favorable rebirth, or material rewards. We practice simply to give thanks for what we have received.

Books

Daehaeng

No River to Cross

Suzuki

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

King

Buddha Nature

Study the Sources

The seeds of buddha-nature teachings are sprinkled throughout the sutras and tantras of the Buddhist canon. A core group of scripture that initially taught buddha-nature known as the tathāgatagarbha sūtras date between the second and fourth centuries. These include the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, the Śrīmālādevīsūtra and several others. The famous Laṅkāvatārasūtra was also important for buddha-nature theory. In Tibetan Buddhism the late-Indian treatise Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra, or Gyü Lama as it is known in the Tibetan, serves as a major source for buddha-nature. In East Asia the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna (大乗起信論) and the Vajrasamādhisūtra were the most influential treatises in spreading buddha-nature theory. And in Japan, the Zen master Dōgen (1200–1253), whose instructional lectures were collected in his Shōbōgenzo, also wrote extensively on the topic of buddha-nature. All of these important buddha-nature texts have been translated into English by leading scholars and translators. Below is a selection of these works:

Buddha-Nature in Translation

Zimmermann

A Buddha Within: The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra

Blum

The Nirvana Sutra, Vol. 1

Alex Wayman & Hideko Wayman

The Lion's Roar of Queen Śrīmālā

Red Pine

The Lankavatara Sutra: A Zen Text

Fuchs

Buddha Nature: The Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra

Jorgensen & Lusthaus, et al.

Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith

Robert Buswell

The Formation of Ch'an Ideology in China and Korea

Waddell & Abe

The Heart of Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō

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 				<div class="text-80 text-muted position-absolute" style="bottom: 7px; right: 10px;">[[Site Guide|Complete Site Guide]]</div>
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-					|content=Why is buddha-nature important? What would it mean to not have buddha-nature? Is buddha-nature the soul? These and other common questions about buddha-nature are outlined below, with links to readings, videos, and other material to help you explore further. New to Buddhist ideas? Click on Discover below.
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-					|content=Is buddha-nature already perfected and simply obscured by delusion, or is it a seed or potential that must be cultivated and perfected? Is buddha-nature a definitive or provisional teaching? Is it the mind's natural luminosity, or is it the same as emptiness? 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.
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-					|content=In the latter stages of its historical development in India, the idea of buddha-nature emerged as one of the most salient features of the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition. As this form of Buddhism spread beyond the cultural milieu of ancient India, the importance of buddha-nature became evermore pronounced. In East Asian and Tibetan Buddhism, buddha-nature came to be a major keystone in the assimilation and adaptation of the Indian scriptural tradition. And, as these forms of Buddhism expanded upon that Indian heritage and developed their own literary expression of the Buddhist teachings, buddha-nature continued to be a major theme that was revisited again and again. Thus buddha-nature was weaved into the very fabric of these Buddhist traditions. Below you will find a list of pertinent topics related to buddha-nature, along with some of the major themes in which it played a crucial role.
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-					|content=As one of the key doctrines of Mahāyāna Buddhism, buddha-nature has been taught by many of the greatest masters of India, China, Tibet, Japan, Mongolia, and Korea for well over a thousand years. Here you will find introductions to the many authors who have written on the topic, from the luminaries of Indian Madhyamaka to the great saints of Japan and Tibet. Also in this section, you will find pages for the many contemporary scholars and teachers who have written and spoken on buddha-nature. Simply filter the entire list using the search/filter bar below.
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-					|content=The doctrine of buddha-nature became widespread in India in the first centuries of the Common Era. Although the ideas have roots that stretch back to the earliest teachings of the Buddha, the concept of tathāgatagarbha—"womb or seed of buddhahood"—was first taught in Mahāyāna communities. It was related to, but most likely distinct from both Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, the dominant schools of the Mahāyāna, emerging primarily from a corpus of scripture collectively known as Tathāgatagarbha sūtras and a commentary on them known as the Ratnagotravibhāga. As these scriptures circulated in India and were translated into Chinese and Tibetan, buddha-nature theory spread and was ultimately integrated—albeit with significant differences—into all philosophical schools and traditions of Mahāyāna Buddhism, from Japanese Zen to Tibetan Mahāmudrā.
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