Buddha-Nature and Selfhood

2022-11-16T23:39:23-07:00

The eighth Karma pa Mi bskyod rdo rje’s (1507–1554) prolific writings on tathāgatagarbha contain several extended disquisitions on the topic of how buddha-nature relates to different conceptions of selfhood. On the one hand, he broadly rejects, along the lines of standard Madhyamaka critiques of the belief in self (ātmagrāha), any equation between buddha-nature and a self. While his critiques take in the controversial current of early Indian buddha-nature theory that had equated buddha-nature with a true self, their primary target is ‘Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal’s (1392-1481) identification of buddha-nature with a subtle self, which was allegedly made […]

Buddha-Nature and Selfhood2022-11-16T23:39:23-07:00

Selfhood, Secrecy, Singularity: Reassessing the Early Life of the Tathāgatagarbha in India

2022-11-16T23:39:24-07:00

The early history of buddha-nature teaching in India is in the process of some reassessment. Michael Radich’s contention that there is good reason to take the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra as our earliest source for an account of the tathāgatagarbha invites a fresh look at the wider corpus of Indian literature concerned with this expression, and with it the affirmation that what is essential to a Buddha (buddhadhātu) abides in all sentient beings. My research has focused on a revised trajectory of how buddha-nature was conceptualized in the first five hundred years of the Common Era, informed by the hypothetical primacy of Indian […]

Selfhood, Secrecy, Singularity: Reassessing the Early Life of the Tathāgatagarbha in India2022-11-16T23:39:24-07:00
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