Selfhood – Tsadra Conferences

Buddha-Nature and Selfhood

Gwen Witt Dorring — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 06:29:45 +0000

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 under the tutelage of Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa’s (1357–1419) conception of a subtle self. On the other hand, the Karma pa does accept a conception of authentic selfhood or transcendent perfection of self (ātmapāramitā) advanced in certain Tathāgatagarbha and Buddhist tantric texts that is said to be realized precisely through understanding selflessness. A touchstone of his attempt to reconcile these two seemingly antithetical views on the relationship between buddha-nature and selfhood is to regard them as complementary rather than contradictory. On this view, the negation of self is regarded as an indispensable moment in the discovery of authentic selfhood, which is in this case synonymous with dharmakāya and resultant buddha-nature. This presentation will explore the broad range of Indian and Tibetan views on buddha-nature and selfhood considered by Mi bskyod rdo rje and show how he presented and defended his own tradition’s position in relation or reaction to these.

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

Gwen Witt Dorring — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 06:24:17 +0000

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 sources that explain tathāgatagarbha to refer to the permanent, indestructible buddhadhātu, and which teach that this constitutes nothing less than the Buddha’s account of the self (ātman).

I contend that the most likely trajectory of buddha-nature thought in India entailed a creative reimagining of the expression tathāgatagarbha away from contentious ‘ātmavādin‘ origins. With reference to the Indian tathāgatagarbha corpus delineated by Takasaki Jikidō, this paper will explore a revised picture of the development of early tathāgatagarbha thought by attending to several related themes: the relationship between buddha-nature and discourse about the self, the claim that it constitutes a ‘secret’ revealed by the Buddha – a complement to the teaching that there is only a single vehicle (ekayāna) to liberation – and the extent to which buddha-nature should be articulated in terms of the original purity of the mind.