Begin Discovering Your Buddha-Nature

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

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"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

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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

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

Video

What Is Buddha-Nature? by Wulstan Fletcher

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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

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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

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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

On Buddhanature—and What It Is Not, by Khandro Rinpoche

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"Buddhism must always be seen as a skillful means for realizing the most basic aspect of human life: one's inherent buddhanature."

Article

Emptiness–Buddhanature, by Traleg Kyabgon

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"Our true nature is buddhanature and that buddhanature is the nature of all sentient beings."

Article

Lasting Happiness, by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

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"... We don’t have to look outside the present moment to experience wisdom, compassion, and the boundless purity of our true nature."

Article

This Is My Mind, Luminous and Empty, by Tsoknyi Rinpoche

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"That something, when I was old enough to fit words to it, is a kind of spark that lights the lives of all living beings.... In many Buddhist teachings, it’s known as buddhanature."

Article

The Example of the Buddha: Relating the Life of the Buddha to Our Own, by Joseph Goldstein

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"Another level on which we can relate is to view the Buddha as a fundamental archetype of humanity; that is, as the full manifestation of buddha-nature, the mind that is free of defilement and distortion..."

Article

The Sky Dragon's Profound Roar, by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso

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"We practice the genuine dharma because it is a method for clearing away the temporary stains that obscure our vision of the true nature of mind."

Books

14th Dalai Lama & Peter Michel

The Buddha Nature

Geshe Sonam Rinchen

Buddha Nature

Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Carefree Dignity

14th Dalai Lama & Thubten Chodron

Saṃsāra, Nirvāṇa, and Buddha Nature

Shenpen Hookham

The Buddha Within

Thubten Loden

The Fundamental Potential for Enlightenment

Buddha-Nature in East Asia

Multimedia

Complete Site Guide

Audio

Buddha-Nature by Rev. George Kosho Finch

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This week's topic is Buddha Nature, in Sanskrit: tathāgatagarbha (如来藏). All sentient beings are considered to be in possession of the Buddha Nature, the potential to attain enlightenment.

Video

It Is Your Buddha-Nature That Sees, Hears, and Speaks!

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Daehaeng Kun Sunim, a Seon (Zen) master and Buddhist nun from Korea, responds to questions about the concept of Juingong (the underlying mind) from an audience member.

Audio

Trusting in Our Own Buddha-Nature

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Rinso Ed Sattizahn gives a dharma talk at San Francisco Zen Center's City Center on the topic of buddha-nature. He touches on selections from Dōgen's Genjōkōan to illustrate this Buddhist teaching

Video

One's True Mind and Inherent Nature by Sheng Yen

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Our true mind is the pure mind of wisdom free of defilements. Our inherent nature refers to the nature of our being something common, which is also called the Buddha-nature.

Audio

The Cloudless Sky of Buddha-Nature

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Rev. Kokyo Henkel teaches on "The Cloudless Sky of Buddha Nature" at the San Francisco Zen Center on September 6, 2011.

Featured Articles

Article

Mind Is Buddha

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

Article

Everything Is Buddhanature

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

Article

Trust Practice, Practice Trust

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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

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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

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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

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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

More from the Experts

First Writer-In-Digital-Residence: Alex Gardner

Alex Gardner served as the writer-in-residence for Tsadra Foundation's Buddha-Nature Project from 2017-2019. Read his introductory articles on the Ratnagotravibhāga and the history of buddha-nature theory.

On the Ratnagotravibhāga

Article

A History of Buddha-Nature Theory: The Literature and Traditions

Article

Jump to Explore to Learn More

Explore

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Go deeper into the textual sources, questions, and debates

Explore the subjects

Complete Site Guide

Subject

The Questions

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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.

Subject

The Ideas

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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 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.

Subject

The Topics

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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.

Subject

The People

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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.

Subject

The History

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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.

The Literature

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Texts and multilingual resources.

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The Bibliography

The Source Texts

The Ratnagotravibhāga

The Multilingual Root Verses

The Library

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A curated space for publications on buddha-nature.

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The Complete Library

Books

Dissertations

Articles

Interviews

Sutras

Commentaries

People

Multimedia

Terms Glossary

The Bibliography