3:15 pm – Tsadra Conferences https://conference.tsadra.org Buddhist Conferences Thu, 17 Nov 2022 06:39:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.11 Sentient Beings Within: Buddha-Nature and the Great Perfection https://conference.tsadra.org/session/sentient-beings-within-buddha-nature-and-the-great-perfection/ Fri, 13 Sep 2019 06:31:23 +0000 http://conference-wp.tsadra.org/?post_type=session&p=17484 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, is closely connected to the affirmation of an “other-emptiness” view. While Mi pham accepts this position, he also qualifies his assertion by emphasizing the way that the buddha-nature is also empty, and by making a distinction between the way things are (in which all of the buddha’s qualities are primordially present), and the way things appear (in which the qualities of a buddha are newly produced). This paper considers the way his unique treatment of buddha-nature reflects his legacy of the Great Perfection.

]]> New research on the concept of buddha-nature in India: the beginnings https://conference.tsadra.org/session/17591-2/ Fri, 13 Sep 2019 06:15:12 +0000 http://conference-wp.tsadra.org/?post_type=session&p=17591 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 structure. Such normative claims have lost their pervasive power nowadays. During the last decade, research on the earliest history of buddha-nature thought in India has gained a new momentum. Early texts promoting buddha-nature thought in India have been reconsidered and new theories with regard to the origins of the theory of buddha-nature were formulated.

The talk will summarize some of these new findings and discuss possible reasons for why the idea that all sentient beings have buddha-nature possibly made its appearance. It will be argued that the idea is an integral part of Buddhist intellectual history and that it can be linked to other concepts found in older Buddhist writings.

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