Sentient Beings Within: Buddha-Nature and the Great Perfection

2022-11-16T23:39:22-07:00

This paper describes the status of a sentient being in the buddha rather than how the buddha, or buddha-nature, exists in sentient beings. It focuses in particular on how buddha-nature is interpreted by Mi pham (1846-1912) in light of his tradition of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen). The qualities of a buddha, as present or not at the time of a sentient being, is an issue closely associated with Madhyamaka debates in Tibet around “other-emptiness” (gzhan stong) and “self-emptiness” (rang stong). A position that accepts that the qualities of the buddha are primordially present, unconditioned, and thus not newly produced, […]

New research on the concept of buddha-nature in India: the beginnings

Gwen Witt Dorring2022-10-26T05:12:25-06:00

The idea that all living beings carry a buddha embryo within themselves or already have full-fledged buddha-nature is one of the most pervasive ideas in the history of Buddhist thought. Buddhist thinkers have been struggling with the different concepts based on such a thought and its meanings for soteriology and spiritual training. In the 1990s the traditions that promote the idea of buddha-nature were heavily criticized and denounced as being non-Buddhist by a Japanese group of scholars who thought of themselves as “true” followers of Buddhism which, so they claimed, always must be “critical” with regard to its underlying philosophical […]