by Dalai Lama
In general, Vaibhāṣikas and Sautrāntikas assert that only sentient beings who will become wheel-turning buddhas — buddhas that initially teach the Dharma in a time and place where it is absent — will attain full awakening. All other sentient beings will attain arhatship. At the time they have completely abandoned all afflictive obscurations, arhats attain nirvāṇa with remainder — the remainder being their polluted bodies produced by afflictions and karma. When they pass away from that life and shed their polluted bodies, they attain nirvāṇa without remainder. At this time, the polluted aggregates no longer remain and the continuity of the mental consciousness is severed, which precludes their entering the Bodhisattva Vehicle.
Buddha Nature according to the Cittamātra School
In Mahāyāna literature, buddha nature, or buddha disposition (buddhagotra),78 is discussed from three perspectives: the Cittamātra, Madhyamaka, and Vajrayāna. All three speak of the naturally abiding buddha disposition and the transforming buddha disposition.
According to Cittamātrins, as explained by Asaṅga in the Compendium of the Mahāyāna (Mahāyānasaṃgraha), buddha disposition is the latency, seed, or potency that has existed since beginningless time and has the potential to give rise to the three bodies of a buddha. A conditioned phenomenon, the buddha disposition is the seed of unpolluted pristine wisdom (T. zag med ye shes kyi sa bon). Saying the buddha disposition is a latency fits in well with the Cittamātra school’s assertion that everything arises as a result of latencies on either the foundation consciousness or the mental consciousness. When this latency of the unpolluted pristine wisdom has not yet been nourished by learning, reflecting, and meditating, it is called the naturally abiding buddha disposition, because it is beginningless. When the same latency has been nourished by learning, reflecting, and meditating on the Dharma, it is called the transforming buddha disposition. It is the same latency, the difference being whether or not it has been activated by means of Dharma practice.
Initially, as the naturally abiding buddha disposition, it is a simple latency that has three characteristics: (1) It has existed since beginningless time and continues from one life to the next uninterruptedly. (2) It is not newly created but is naturally present. (3) It is carried by the foundation consciousness according to the Cittamātra Scriptural Proponents and by the mental consciousness (the sixth consciousness) according to the Cittamātra Reasoning Proponents. This is so because sensory consciousnesses are unstable and only intermittently present.
When the naturally abiding buddha disposition is awakened and transformed by means of learning, reflecting, and meditating, it brings the realization of the ārya path and, at that time, it is called the transforming buddha disposition. In particular, when meditation on great compassion has progressed to the point where the great resolve that takes responsibility to work for the welfare of all sentient beings arises, the Mahāyāna disposition has been awakened.
Citing the Sūtra Unravelling the Thought (Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra), Cittamātra Scriptural Proponents assert three final vehicles — the Śrāvaka and Solitary Realizer Vehicles that culminate in arhatship and the Bodhisattva Vehicle that brings full awakening. The doctrine of three final vehicles states that once śrāvaka and solitary realizer practitioners attain arhatship, they will abide in meditative equipoise on emptiness forever and will not later enter the Mahāyāna and attain the full awakening of buddhahood. The Cittamātra Scriptural Proponents base this on their belief that there are five types of disposition (lineage) — śrāvaka, solitary realizer, bodhisattva, indefinite, and severed. Here “disposition” connotes a source of excellent qualities, and each sentient being has the latency for one of the five dispositions. This latency is an internal predisposition that exists naturally in each sentient being’s foundation consciousness that inclines him or her toward a particular spiritual path.
People display certain signs that are indicative of their buddha disposition. Those with the śrāvaka disposition have strong determination to be free from saṃsāra; they avoid nonvirtue and purify destructive karma, are moved by teachings on the four truths, and live ethically. They take prātimokṣa precepts with the aspiration for their own liberation and dedicate all the merit from their practice for this goal.
Those having the solitary realizer disposition have few afflictions and weak compassion, so they dislike busyness and prefer solitude. Teachings on the twelve links of dependent origination touch them deeply and they meditate primarily on this. Like śrāvakas, they purify destructive karma, create constructive karma, and have strong determination to be free from saṃsāra. Their motivation and dedication are directed toward the liberation of a solitary realizer arhat.
Those with the bodhisattva or Mahāyāna disposition are naturally empathetic and compassionate. They purify and abandon nonvirtue, create virtue, and take prātimokṣa and bodhisattva precepts with the aspiration to attain the full awakening of a buddha. Seeking to work for the welfare of sentient beings, they practice the six perfections and have fortitude to engage in the bodhisattvas’ deeds. Their motivation and dedication is for the attainment of buddhahood.
Persons of these three dispositions are definite in their path. They will not change vehicles but will proceed to the attainment of their own vehicle.
At present, it is uncertain which vehicle those of indefinite disposition will enter. Depending on the spiritual mentor they meet and the Buddhist teachings they learn in the future, they will develop an inclination toward one vehicle or another.
Those whose lineage is severed (icchantika) have engaged in extremely destructive actions or strongly adhere to pernicious wrong views. They have little merit, great negativity, and lack integrity and consideration for how their actions affect others. Not wishing to abandon nonvirtue and lacking insight into the unsatisfactory nature of saṃsāra, they have no interest in liberating themselves or others. Even if they dabble in the Dharma, their motivation is one seeking the pleasures of saṃsāra. Having cut their roots of virtue, they are in a state where, either temporarily or perpetually, they cannot attain liberation or awakening.79
This perspective on the buddha disposition and on three final vehicles is supported by Cittamātra tenets: Because a being’s disposition is truly existent, it cannot change into the disposition of another vehicle. Since it can bring only the result of its respective vehicle, there must be three final vehicles.
Our buddha disposition may be impeded from manifesting when great attachment or strong afflictions overwhelm our minds and when we are too busy to be interested in spiritual practice or don’t see the faults of the afflictions. Thinking our actions lack an ethical dimension and experiencing hindrances such as illness, poverty, or strong karmic obstructions also prevent our disposition from developing.
Certain activities can stimulate our buddha disposition: Learning and reflecting on teachings, living in an environment that is conducive to practice, and abiding near our spiritual mentor or sincere practitioners. Generating the aspiration for virtuous qualities, restraining our senses, abandoning nonvirtue, receiving monastic ordination, purifying obscurations, and so on also invigorate our buddha disposition.
Relying on the Lotus Sūtra (Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra) and the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra, Cittamātra Reasoning Proponents and all Mādhyamikas assert one final vehicle: all sentient beings can enter the Bodhisattva Vehicle and attain buddhahood. The Sublime Continuum by Maitreya and Asaṅga’s commentary on it speak of four types of people whose buddha nature is defiled in that they are not yet ready to enter the Bodhisattva Vehicle, engage in the two collections, and progress on the path to full awakening: worldly people who are infatuated with saṃsāric pleasures, non-Buddhists who hold wrong views, śrāvakas, and solitary realizers. They also discuss the specific obscurations that block these sentient beings and explain their antidotes. Here Asaṅga writes from a Madhyamaka viewpoint that holds that all sentient beings have the buddha nature.
Buddha Nature according to the M
adhyamaka School
The topic of buddha nature (gotra) is found in the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras, Ornament of Clear Realizations, Sublime Continuum (Ratnagotravibhāga, Uttaratantra) by Maitreya and its commentary by his disciple Asaṅga, Bodhisattva Grounds (Bodhisattva Bhūmi), and other Mahāyāna texts. The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra and Nirvāṇa Sūtra speak of buddha essence (garbha), using a more essentialist language. As a Mādhyamika, I prefer presentations that lack the essentialist meaning. Like Ngok Lotsawa, who translated the Sublime Continuum into Tibetan, in the Sūtrayāna context I believe buddha essence primarily refers to the emptiness of the mind.
The Sublime Continuum defines buddha nature as phenomena that have the possibility to transform into any of the buddha bodies. It is of two types — the naturally abiding buddha nature (prakṛtisthagotra, T. rang bzhin gnas rigs) and the transforming buddha nature (samudānītagotra, T. rgyas ’gyur gi rigs). Both exist in all sentient beings whether or not they are on a path.
The naturally abiding buddha nature is the emptiness of the mind that is yet to abandon defilements and that is able to transform into the nature dharmakāya of a buddha. Sakya Paṇḍita described it as the unchanging nature of the mind. In Treatise on the Middle Way Nāgārjuna notes that whatever is the nature of a tathāgata is the nature of sentient beings (22.16).
Whatever is the essence of the Tathāgata,
that is the essence of the transmigrator.
The Tathāgata has no essence.
The transmigrator has no essence.
This empty nature of the mind is beyond the three times (past, present, and future), beyond the realms of cyclic existence, and beyond constructive and destructive karma. Neither virtuous nor nonvirtuous, it can act as the basis for both saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. The Eight-Thousand-Line Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra (Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra) says:
Thus that which is the reality of all things
is not past nor future nor present.
Whatever is neither past, future, nor present
is utterly free from threefold time,
cannot be transferred nor objectified
nor conceptualized nor cognized.
The existence of the naturally abiding buddha nature — the emptiness of inherent existence of ordinary beings’ minds — means that mental defilements can be eliminated. Why? If phenomena existed inherently, they would be independent of everything else and thus would be unable to function, influence one another, or change. The fact that the ultimate nature of the mind is empty of inherent existence indicates that the mind can change.
In addition, all defilements are rooted in fundamental ignorance, the erroneous mental factor that grasps all phenomena as possessing an inherent reality. This erroneous grasping gives rise to attachment, anger, and all other afflictions and supports virtuous polluted mental states as well. From these spring our actions or karma, which cause us to take continual rebirth in cyclic existence. Cultivating insight into the true nature of reality, emptiness, initiates the process of undoing this causal chain. With the development of the wisdom that directly perceives reality — emptiness or suchness — this ignorance can be overpowered and completely eradicated from the mind. The defilements are not embedded in the ultimate nature of the mind. They too lack inherent existence, so when the antidote of the wisdom directly realizing emptiness is applied to them, they can be removed from the mind.
On the basis of recognizing the naturally abiding buddha nature — natural nirvāṇa, or the emptiness of the mind — we can attain the nirvāṇa that is the total pacification of mental defilements. A buddha’s nirvāṇa is nonabiding nirvāṇa, the full purification of the naturally abiding buddha nature.
In some texts the emptiness of the mind is called a cause of buddhahood in the sense that meditation on emptiness purifies the mind of defilements and leads to buddhahood. However, emptiness is not an actual cause because it is a permanent phenomenon that does not change or bring results.
The transforming buddha nature is the seed for the unpolluted mind. It consists of conditioned phenomena that can transform into a buddha’s wisdom truth body. The transforming buddha nature includes neutral mental consciousnesses80 as well as virtuous mental factors, such as love, compassion, wisdom, and faith, and other virtuous mental states, such as bodhicitta, that are progressively developed as a bodhisattva progresses through the ten bodhisattva grounds. The transforming buddha nature also includes consciousnesses that form the collection of wisdom — the principal cause of the wisdom truth body — and the mind visualizing ourselves as a deity, which is a cause for a buddha’s form body. It is possible to increase these virtuous qualities and mental states limitlessly because their base, the clear light mind, is stable and because no antidote exists that can eliminate them. At the time we become buddhas, our naturally abiding buddha nature will become the nature truth body of a buddha, and our transforming buddha nature will become the wisdom truth body of a buddha.
Which of the seven types of awareness can be included in transforming buddha nature? Wrong awarenesses, such as resentment, self-grasping ignorance, and the mind that fantasizes being a star athlete without creating the causes, are not buddha nature. Inattentive awarenesses are not buddha nature because they don’t correctly know their object. Correct assumptions, doubt inclined to the correct conclusion, inferential cognizers, correct mental direct perceivers, and subsequent reliable cognizers are transforming buddha nature. The five paths of the śrāvakas, solitary realizers, and bodhisattvas are transforming buddha nature, as are the ten bodhisattva grounds.81 The emptiness of inherent existence of all these minds is the natural buddha nature.
In short, any neutral or virtuous mind that is not free from defilement and can transform into a buddha’s wisdom dharmakāya is part of the transforming buddha nature. Mental consciousnesses accompanied by manifest afflictions cannot be transforming buddha nature because they are eliminated on the path.
As neutral or virtuous states of mind, the transforming buddha nature consists of impermanent phenomena. As the emptiness of the mind, the naturally abiding buddha nature is permanent. These two buddha natures are one nature. Although they are not exactly the same, one cannot exist without the other. Only the emptiness of neutral and virtuous consciousnesses can be the naturally abiding buddha nature because only the neutral or virtuous consciousnesses that are their bases are the transforming buddha nature.
Because the afflictions are empty of inherent existence, awakening is possible. However, the emptiness of the afflictions is not buddha nature. Since the afflictions are eliminated on the path and cannot be transformed into any of a buddha’s bodies, their emptinesses will similarly cease and cannot become the nature truth body.
Some people speak of inanimate phenomena — rocks, trees, and so forth — as having buddha nature. I believe that they are referring to the fact that these phenomena are empty of inherent existence. Only sentient beings have buddha nature. That we can generate the determination to be free from saṃsāra, bodhicitta, and wisdom indicates that the buddha nature is within us. Because inanimate phenomena lack mind, they cannot generate these virtuous mental states and do not possess buddha nature.
Someone may wonder: Since the emptiness of the mind of a sentient being and the emptiness of the mind of a buddha are the same in being the emptiness of inherent existence, does that mean that sentient beings already have the qualities of buddhas or that they are already buddhas? No, it does not, because the minds that possess that emptiness differ. Tsongkhapa explains in Illumination of the Thought:
It is said, “The buddha nature is that which serves as the cause of āryas’ qualities when observed; thus, here the absurd consequence [that all sentient beings would have the qualities of āryas] is not entailed.” The mere presence of the nature of phenomena (dharmadhātu) does not mean that one abides in the buddha nature in terms of the path. When one observes and meditates on the nature of phenomena through the path, it comes to serve as t
he special cause of āryas’ qualities. At that time one’s buddha nature is regarded as special.82
Emptiness is the “cause” of the wonderful qualities of āryas when we perceive it directly and use that realization to cleanse our minds of defilements. The fact that we have the naturally abiding buddha nature — the empty nature of the mind — does not mean that we have already realized it with a true path — a reliable cognizer that realizes emptiness directly. Only a direct realization of the empty nature of the mind will bring about an ārya’s qualities. When this realization arises in our mind, the emptiness of our minds — our buddha nature — will be regarded as special.
The emptiness of inherent existence of our minds is a permanent phenomenon. It does not change moment by moment, as do conditioned phenomena. While emptiness in general is eternal, when we speak about the emptiness of a specific thing, that emptiness may not always exist. For example, the emptiness of a glass ceases when that glass shatters. An emptiness is posited in relation to an object that is empty; it is one nature with that object — the emptiness of the mind exists in dependence on the mind. The emptiness of an ordinary being’s mind exists as long as that ordinary being does. Because that mind has defilements, its emptiness is together with defilement. When portions of the mind’s defilements have been removed by the true path, the mind becomes an ārya’s mind and its emptiness is the emptiness of an ārya’s mind. When ordinary beings realize emptiness directly and become āryas, the emptiness of the ordinary being’s mind no longer exists; now there is the emptiness of an ārya’s mind. These two emptinesses are both the absence of inherent existence, and to an arya’s mind in meditative equipoise on emptiness, they are undifferentiable.