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The Buddhist Self

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The assertion that there is nothing in the constitution of any person that deserves to be considered the self (ātman)—a permanent, unchanging kernel of personal identity in this life and those to come—has been a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching from its inception. Whereas other Indian religious systems celebrated the search for and potential discovery of one’s “true self,” Buddhism taught about the futility of searching for anything in our experience that is not transient and ephemeral. But a small yet influential set of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, composed in India in the early centuries CE, taught that all sentient beings possess at all times, and across their successive lives, the enduring and superlatively precious nature of a Buddha. This was taught with reference to the enigmatic expression tathāgatagarbha—the “womb” or “chamber” for a Buddha—which some texts refer to as a person’s true self.

The Buddhist Self is a methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathāgatagarbha (otherwise the presence of one's “Buddha-nature”) and the extent to which different Buddhist texts and authors articulated this in terms of the self. C. V. Jones attends to each of the Indian Buddhist works responsible for explaining what is meant by the expression tathāgatagarbha, and how far this should be understood or promoted using the language of selfhood. With close attention to these sources, Jones argues that the trajectory of Buddha-nature thought in India is also the history and legacy of a Buddhist account of what deserves to be called the self: an innovative attempt to equip Mahāyāna Buddhism with an affirmative response to wider Indian interest in the discovery of something precious or even divine in one's own constitution. This argument is supplemented by critical consideration of other themes that run through this distinctive body of Mahāyānist literature: the relationship between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings about the self, the overlap between the tathāgatagarbha and the nature of the mind, and the originally radical position that the only means of becoming liberated from rebirth is to achieve the same exalted status as the Buddha. (Source: University of Hawai'i Press)

Citation	Jones, Christopher V. The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2020.

Table of Contents About the Book Texts Translated Quotes

TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
COPYRIGHT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
CONVENTIONS

1: Introduction
1.1 Self and Not-Self in Early Buddhism
1.2 Tathāgatagarbha Literature in Overview
1.3 Essences, Natures, Wombs, and Chambers
1.4 Buddhist Ātmavāda: Preliminary Thoughts

Part I: Buddha-Nature, the Self

2: The Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra and the Buddhist Self
2.1 The Text
2.2 The Buddha as Self
2.3 Buddha-nature and the Self
2.4 Contentions and Clarifications
2.5 The True Self and False Notions of It
2.6 Self and Absence of Self
2.7 Buddha-nature in Dharmakṣema's MPNMSD+
2.8 Conclusions

3: The Aṅgulimālīyasūtra and the Essential Self
3.1 The Text
3.2 An "Essence" of One's Own
3.3 What Buddha-nature Is Not: More False Notions of the Self
3.4 Perceiving Buddha-nature
3.5 Essence, Action, and the Self
3.6 A "Single Essence"
3. 7 Buddhism contra Other Systems
3.8 Conclusions

4: The Mahābherīhārakasūtra and Liberation of the Self
4.1 The Text
4.2 Continuity of the Self
4.3 The Sovereign Self
4.4 Buddha-nature and Buddhist Practice
4.5 Self, Not-Self, and Emptiness
4.6 Conclusions

Part II: Buddha-nature, Not Self

5: The Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra and the Perfection of Self
5.1 The Text
5.2 Reimagining Tathāgatagarbha 5.3 The Dharmakāya and Its Qualities
5.4 On "Singularity"
5.5 Conclusions

6: Other Tathāgatagarbha Sources
6.1 The Anūnatvāpūrṇatvānirdeśaparivarta
6.2 The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra
6.3 The Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra

7: The Ratnagotravibhāga and the Self That Is No Self
7.1 The Text
7.2 Buddha-nature and the "Basic" RGV
7.3 "Perfection of Self' in the RGVV
7.4 Tathāgatagarbha as, Once Again, the Self
7.5 Conclusions

8: The Laṅkāvatārasūtra and Rejecting the Buddhist Self
8.1 The Text
8.2 Tathāgatagarbha and Absence of Self
8.3 The "Ālayavijñāna-Tathāgatagarbha"
8.4 Selfhood in the Sagāthaka
8.5 Conclusions
8.6 Postscript: After the LAS

Part III: Buddha-nature Reconsidered

9: Recurring Themes and Motifs
9.1 The Single Vehicle
9.2 "Cryptic" Utterances
9.3 The Intrinsically Pure Mind
9.4 "Sarvalokapriyadarśana"
9.5 Emptiness and Nonemptiness
9.6 Non-Buddhists and Their Teachings

10: Evolution of the Buddhist Self
10.1 The Course of Buddha-nature Teaching
10.2 Origins of the Buddha-nature Idea
10.3 Liberation and the Self
10.4 Buddhist Selfhood and the Mahāyāna
10.5 Closing Thoughts

REFERENCES
INDEX

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