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Discover

Our Buddha-Nature

Buddha-nature is the capacity for enlightenment and freedom present in every being, a fundamental core of goodness, wisdom, and compassion that is hidden by clouds of ignorance—so hidden in fact that we might never even suspect its presence. It is like the sun that continues to shine regardless of the clouds that may cover it. By clearing away those clouds of greed, anger, and selfishness we uncover a state of perfection that is, and always has been, our own true nature.

Although it may be difficult to completely overcome all our limitations and clear away those clouds, the fact that our nature is fundamentally the same as a buddha's is what makes the whole path to enlightenment possible. We already have everything we need to begin walking a path that leads to true happiness. We simply need to have confidence in the presence of our buddha-nature and the courage to begin the journey to uncover it.

What Then?

Everyone has buddha-nature. The only difference between us and an enlightened being such as a buddha is that a buddha recognizes this nature and the rest of us do not. The goal of Buddhist practice is to allow our true nature to shine forth. We may not be perfect buddhas yet, but we have the capacity to develop wisdom and compassion and free ourselves from selfishness, greed, and hatred. Buddhist teachings and practices aim at revealing our true nature by cultivating the proper outlook and behavior, and by ceasing the negative habits that cause dissatisfaction and suffering. This website is focused on the teachings associated with traditions of training that lead to real liberation, and we hope that you can learn a great deal from reading and watching the content here. You can start by reading and watching the following introductory materials.

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What is Buddha-Nature?

All Buddhist traditions claim that the nature of our mind is luminous—that is to say, the natural state of our mind is free, open, and pure awareness. Buddha-nature refers to this pure, natural, and luminous state of our consciousness which is free from any duality or defilement. All beings are said to possess buddha-nature, which is what makes enlightenment possible. The myriad Buddhist practices, from quiet sitting meditation to visualization of deities, chanting, and yogic endeavors, are diverse methods to shake off the temporary cloud-like obscurations veiling the sun of one's own nature.

Everything Is Buddhanature

Beyond the sun always shining behind the clouds, two other metaphors are traditionally used to describe buddha-nature: a golden statue encased in muck and the seed of a mango tree. The first suggests that our buddha-nature is already perfect and only needs to be revealed in order to manifest our enlightenment. The second presents buddha-nature as a potential that must be cultivated in order to attain enlightenment. A third, less common interpretation is that we acquire buddha-nature at a certain stage of spiritual accomplishment, like a fruiting tree. These three models—disclosure, transformation, and obtainment—are used by different traditions to define buddha-nature and describe the methods to fully actualize enlightenment.

Not all Buddhist traditions are comfortable with language that describes buddha-nature as the mind's fundamental state, suspecting that such descriptions promote the idea that buddha-nature is some kind of abiding individual self. The Buddha, of course, famously taught that such an idea of a self is wrong, a delusion we create but which causes us suffering. However, buddha-nature is not taught as an individual self but more like the natural characteristic of mind, akin to wet being the natural characteristic of water. Some Buddhist philosophers have rejected such a description of buddha-nature. They maintain that ultimate reality cannot be described by language because language is limited by dualism (self and other, good and bad, and so forth), whereas the ultimate is nondual. Such philosophers will only say what the ultimate is not—not permanent, not individualistic, not ignorant, and so forth. The limitations of such a position for teaching about experience are obvious; how can one describe anything without language? Still others have argued that buddha-nature is misguided because it undermines the drive to improve ourselves, as though we must think of ourselves as bereft of good qualities in order to become better people. On these pages and the other materials linked here, you will find details about fascinating debates from these different perspectives.

In Indian and Tibetan traditions, philosophers have also debated whether buddha-nature is a teaching that one should take literally or if it was meant to promote and encourage the student to move in the right direction. Some scriptures support the interpretation that buddha-nature is a provisional teaching given to those discouraged by the daunting project of attaining enlightenment. Other sources, however, present buddha-nature as a definitive teaching and take the position that the mind's natural luminosity is self-evident and need not be explained as a rhetorical trick. They maintain that if the mind were not already enlightened by nature, then enlightenment would have to be produced. This would contradict the definition of ultimate reality—that is, nirvāṇa—as unproduced and unconditioned.

Video

Karmapa on The Nature of All Beings

A commentary across lifetimes. H.H. the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, comments on a quote of the 3rd Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje: "The nature of all beings is always Buddha" (འགྲོ་བའི་རང་བཞིན་རྟག་ཏུ་སངས་རྒྱས་).

Karmapa, 17th. "All Beings Are Buddha by Nature." Interview with H.H. Karmapa conducted at Vajra Vidja Institute, Sarnath, Varanasi, India, February 2015. Video, 1:41. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pll8nGuWtU&list=PL8sDrkwWlohTjleLphxWRmLge5hgbpAXM.

Karmapa, 17th. "All Beings Are Buddha by Nature." Interview with H.H. Karmapa conducted at Vajra Vidja Institute, Sarnath, Varanasi, India, February 2015. Video, 1:41. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pll8nGuWtU&list=PL8sDrkwWlohTjleLphxWRmLge5hgbpAXM.;Karmapa on The Nature of All Beings;Karmapa, 3rd;The 17th Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje;རྒྱལ་བ་ཀརྨ་པ་ཨོ་རྒྱན་འཕྲིན་ལས་རྡོ་རྗེ།;rgyal ba karma pa o rgyan 'phrin las rdo rje; Karmapa on The Nature of All Beings

Video

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

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

Palmo, Tenzin. "Dealing with Depression." Interview by Matt Linden and Yura Milyutin. Produced by Study Buddhism (Website), September 2016. Video, 3:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0ChZpIBgSo.

Palmo, Tenzin. "Dealing with Depression." Interview by Matt Linden and Yura Milyutin. Produced by Study Buddhism (Website), September 2016. Video, 3:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0ChZpIBgSo.;Dealing with Depression: Interview with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo on Study Buddhism;provisional;potential;Potential or already-perfected;Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo;Dealing with Depression: Interview with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

Video

Discovering Buddha Nature: Talk by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

In this short teaching, 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.

Mingyur, Yongey, 7th. "Discovering Buddha Nature." Produced by Tergar Learning Community, April 7, 2014. Video, 1:48. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srRcHz9jVrg.

Mingyur, Yongey, 7th. "Discovering Buddha Nature." Produced by Tergar Learning Community, April 7, 2014. Video, 1:48. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srRcHz9jVrg.;Discovering Buddha Nature: Talk by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche;Contemporary;Defining buddha-nature;Metaphors for buddha-nature;Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche;Discovering Buddha Nature

Article

Buddhanature: You're Perfect as You Are

Why feel bad about yourself when you are naturally aware, loving, and wise? Mingyur Rinpoche explains how to see past the temporary stuff and discover your own buddhanature.

Mingyur Rinpoche. "Buddhanature: You're Perfect as You Are." Lion's Roar, November 8, 2019.

Mingyur Rinpoche. "Buddhanature: You're Perfect as You Are." Lion's Roar, November 8, 2019.;Buddhanature: You're Perfect as You Are;Contemporary;Disclosure model;Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche;&nbsp

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The Questions

One of the most common questions about buddha-nature is whether it is the same as or similar to the Christian or Hindu notions of a soul. It is not. Buddha-nature is not an individual entity—there are not separate buddha-natures in each being. Christianity teaches that each person's soul exists independently and will survive that person's death. There is plenty of debate across traditions, but in general the soul is said to be fundamentally polluted by Original Sin and that it requires God's intervention to be saved. The Hindu notion of ātman is similarly understood to be real, but only in the sense of partaking in a universal divine presence called Brahman; the individuality of the ātman is believed to be illusory.

Buddha-nature, in contrast to both of these ideas, is neither individualistic nor a manifestation of a divine presence. Rather, it is the basic faculty of awareness—a natural luminosity that is unchanged no matter how ignorant or benighted we are. It is like water that has been muddied—the water is fundamentally clear, and it will return to that state when left to settle—or like a cloudy sky, where the clarity of the sky remains constant even as clouds pass through it. Because buddha-nature is empty of any conditioning, it is fundamentally pure, no different from the enlightened state of a buddha. For that reason, we all have the potential to cast off ignorance and suffering and achieve buddhahood, and we are solely responsible ourselves for doing so. Questions regarding what buddha-nature actually is, as well as several other questions, have been debated by Buddhist scholars from different traditions through the centuries. To learn more, navigate to the Questions page and the Topics page in the Explore section.

The Questions

Explore more

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The History

The seeds of buddha-nature teachings were planted in some of the earliest Buddhist scriptures. Passages such as this one, from the Aṅguttaranikāya — "Luminous, monks, is this mind, but sometimes it is defiled by adventitious defilements"— suggest a natural state that is only temporarily obscured by the stains of saṃsāra. Buddhism before the rise of the Mahāyāna, however, focused as it was on the long and arduous transformation from delusion and suffering into enlightenment.

This changed in the early centuries of the Common Era, when scriptures teaching buddha-nature began to circulate and gain attention. These were the so-called buddha-nature scriptures, such as the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, and the Śrīmālādevīsūtra. Drawing on the Mahāyāna doctrine of the Buddha as a universal principle of enlightened mind, they taught that enlightenment is an essential factor of human existence. Rather than be transformed into a buddha, these scriptures taught, one need only reveal one's true nature to become free.

The buddha-nature teachings spread to China starting in the fifth century; there they inspired the composition of the Awakening of Faith and Chinese doctrines such as original enlightenment and sudden enlightenment, becoming part of the standard doctrine of all East Asian Buddhist traditions. Tibetans knew of buddha-nature theory as early as the seventh century, but the teachings spread widely only in the eleventh century, following the translation of the Ratnagotravibhāga, a fifth-century Indian treatise. Since then,buddha-nature has been a principal topic of philosophical interpretation, doctrinal debates and spiritual practice in Tibet.

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The Texts

Buddhism has a vast trove of scriptures, known as sūtras and tantras, that are said to be the authentic word of the Buddha. Buddhists revere these books, although they are considered subject to interpretation, and there are an enormous number of commentaries elucidating and expanding on the teachings. The seeds of buddha-nature doctrine are sprinkled throughout this literature. A core group of scriptures that initially taught buddha-nature known as the tathāgatagarbha sūtras date between the second and fourth centuries CE. These include the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, the Śrīmālādevīsūtra, and several others. The famous Laṅkāvatārasūtra was also important for buddha-nature theory. In East Asia the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna (大乗起信論) and the Vajrasamādhisūtra are the most influential treatises in spreading buddha-nature theory.

In Tibetan Buddhism, there exists a great number of writings on buddha-nature, which are either translated from Indic sources or original Tibetan compositions. However, there is a single core text studied in all Tibetan Buddhist lineages and in the current academic study of buddha-nature called The Treatise on the Ultimate Continuum (Gyü Lama in Tibetan, Uttaratantra in Sanskrit). Also known as the Ratnagotravibhāga, this text was originally composed in Sanskrit and translated into Tibetan sometime in the eleventh century, and many commentaries on it have been written right up to the present day. It is used as a fundamental source for buddha-nature teachings on this website.

In this short video Karl Brunnhölzl, translator of the Gyü Lama into English, discusses the questions about the origins and authorship of the text.

On the source texts

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