What is the Buddha nature?

What is the Buddha nature?

Three pounds of flax

or something

t. D.T Suzuki

That really depends on which sect you ask stretching back to the early ~18 schools. Some asserted a buddhanature and others rejected such things.

It isn't even merely a difference between Indic or East-Asian rooted traditions, but rather even within these categories there are a lot of differences between sects.

For example in Indo-Tibetan Buddhisms (different sects) buddha nature can refer to the mere potentiality to causally achieve buddhahood, all the way to the other end where it refers to the original purity of the nature of consciousness itself (the nature of which isn't actually any more cognizant than a surface of a mirror is to its reflections).

These traditions in turn have different readings of the great Indian commentators that they place so much emphasis on.

I personally find the Dzogchen tradition to have the most robust and fascinating understanding of what Buddhanature is, but this isn't a topic which can be fleshed out easily in a post or two.

To snatch every mother fucker birthday, sensei

>Buddha
.We are all potential Buddhas who haven't woken up yet

Buddha nature is compassion. We all feel compassion from time to time - these are the seeds of becoming a Buddha. It is through enhancing them that we will attain enlightenment. Hence, all beings have Buddha nature.

Śūnyatā
Next question

What about niggers and chinks?

What do you guys think of Nichiren Diashonin's Buddhism tho?

People sayt that's the last thing he wrote so those are his final teachings.

>potential Buddhas
Everyone is already imminently a """""Buddha""""", right now. The only difference between a so called Buddha and a so called sentient being is that a Buddha no longer strays from direct non-conceptual knowledge of the nature of their mind (buddhanature). In reality there are no "Buddha" and no "sentient beings".

Look into the commentaries by Vimalamitra, he destroys the notion that we are "potential" Buddhas and that Buddhanature is a potentiality. Buddhanature rather literally abides in the body right now, this is the very thrust of Vajrayana.

heretic who worships a book

If Buddha nature was merely Śūnyatā than inert matter would have Buddha nature, but it in fact does not.

Not according to my nigga Dogen
All being is Buddha Nature. To assume merely sentient beings to have Buddha Nature is to disrespect the right Buddha Dharma, because this would imply a non-reciprocal relationship between subject-object perception.

zen is truly the most autistic version of buddhism

It is the Puritanism to Mahayana's protestantism

Sorry friend you totally misunderstand Dogen, someone who himself evolved considerable in his thinking as he aged.

Dogen didn't believe that inert matter had the ontological character of Buddha nature, if he had he would have fallen into Bahamanical deviation and would be in the extreme minority of Buddhist masters. He is referring to appearances in the mind.

Zen isn't something other than Mahayana.

>Nichiren

Easily one of the least interesting strains of Buddhist thought. A boring cult really.

He purposely translated 一切衆生悉有仏性如來常住無有變易 (All sentient beings without exception have the Buddha-nature and Tathagata abides forever without change) from the nirvana sutra as 一切衆生、悉有仏性、如来常住、無有変易 to emphasize (All are sentient beings, all being is the Buddha nature, Tathagata is permanent, non-being, being, and change) to emphasize, and further elaborate that even grass, trees, mountains are Buddha nature. He believed ontologically speaking, everything is infinitely Buddha nature. This is the only way co-dependent origination makes any sense.
>He is referring to appearances in the mind.
Are you perhaps a disciple of the Yogacara school?

>Are you perhaps a disciple of the Yogacara school?
No such thing as 'the yogacara school'. And no.

>> to emphasize, and further elaborate that even grass, trees, mountains are Buddha nature. He believed ontologically speaking, everything is infinitely Buddha nature.
That doesn't clearly follow from the section in question, you are reading it in.

> This is the only way co-dependent origination makes any sense.
This is a goofy thing to say and is really your own limitation. General pratītyasamutpāda is topic given much more prominence by Indian and Tibetan philosophers and they in don't share your frankly bizarre view.

As for Dogen and his evolving views, I would consider reading some Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shirō.

>No such thing as 'the yogacara school'. And no.
Educate yourself considering it was highly influential at its peak
>That doesn't clearly follow from the section in question, you are reading it in.
It does; read his treatise on Buddha-nature in the Shobogenzo. He is saying, and says again and again that all being has Buddha Nature. You can deny it, but he write it and explains it very thoroughly if you take the time to read it.
>given much more prominence by Indian and Tibetan philosophers and they in don't share your frankly bizarre view.
The traditional reading is that beings have Buddha nature as a potentiality, further implying that it is an object to be realized by a subject. Object and subject, potentiality and actuality are non-substantial, as per the basic tenets of Mahayana. The only way this is resolved is if all being is buddha-nature, rather than sentient beings merely possessing Buddha nature as the traditional reading testifies.
And it isn't my view, it's Dogen's. This view is supported by the critical Buddhist scholarship that you so kindly suggest.

>Educate yourself considering it was highly influential at its peak

No, there was no single Yogacara school, there were very distinct schools that held to very different views. It is fucking absurd to call both false-aspectarians and helf-eggists "The Yogacara school".

Their positions are very interesting, but as they adopted an increasing number of indefensible conventional positions the weight of criticism eventually resulted in the death of the various schools. Though of course the prominence of subsequent synthesis positions are more common than not.

As such, there is no such thing in modern times as "being a disciple of 'the yogacara school'" (whatever the hell that would be).

>Shobogenzo

Again, you're citing earlier works clearly unfamiliar with the progression of his thought and the clarifying he does over time. And no, even in the shobo there is no evidence of the sort of ontological claims you believe. You really don't know how to read Buddhist materials. Next up you're going to tell me that Yeshe Tsogyal was asserting a beginningless, universal Buddha and that Semde texts are out and out mentalist.

>further implying that it is an object to be realized by a subject.

Nope. Having non-conceptual 'knowledge' of Buddha nature isn't at all like having a typical knowledge or being aware of a percept. It is explicitly resting in the "unfindability" of the nature of mind itself which involves no object nor apprehending subject-as-being. You sound like a first year Zen student.

>all being is buddha-nature
Inert matter itself isn't being. Do you not realize the irony of bringing up Yogacaryan lines of thought and then going this quasi-cittamatrin line of thought?

>This view is supported by the critical Buddhist scholarship that you so kindly suggest.

Please show me exactly where Noriaki suggests that in no uncertain terms Dogen in the end concluded that inert matter ontologically had Buddha nature.

Nonetheless, Indian commentators are very clear about this. East-Asian topical Buddhism are far more prone to absurd deviations like yours.

>As such, there is no such thing in modern times as "being a disciple of 'the yogacara school'"
It is a figure of speech, my autistic friend. "Do you subscribe to the yogacara doctrine". I'm glad that you don't, as I agree their positions are indefensible.
>Again, you're citing earlier works clearly unfamiliar with the progression of his thought and the clarifying he does over time.
Earlier works, really? The treatises within it were written up until he died, and the Shobogenzo itself was compiled after his death, I didn't know he was still writing then.
>And no, even in the shobo there is no evidence of the sort of ontological claims you believe. You really don't know how to read Buddhist materials.
Please dig up D.T. Suzuki and Masao Abe and tell them this as well, then, because not only did I read it in Dogen, I also read it in their commentaries of it.
>. Having non-conceptual 'knowledge' of Buddha nature isn't at all like having a typical knowledge or being aware of a percept.
This why Dogen corrects the teaching; to have Buddha nature within sentient beings is a ridiculous proposition because it confines a non-conceptual, not non-conceptual process to a definite subject and definite time. You sound not only like an autist, but a dull and unintelligent one.
>Inert matter itself isn't being
In being and non-being, inert matter is certainly being on level of conventional reality.
>Do you not realize the irony of bringing up Yogacaryan lines of thought
I brought up Yogacara as an insult, to insult you.
>Nonetheless, Indian commentators are very clear about this.
Please clear this up for me, then. No, I don't want to hear it actually. This conversation bores me.
>East-Asian topical Buddhism are far more prone to absurd deviations like yours.
I was not aware non conceptual conceptuality was conventionally logical

>Do you subscribe to the yogacara doctrine
Again, you are full of shit.
>The treatises within it were written up until he died
And unless you pay attention to the progression of said treatises over time you end up reading earlier content into later works and making blunder after blunder.
>I also read it in their commentaries of it.
No you didn't. Your pic is a perfect example of your error. Inert matter isn't in the category of "all beings". Nonliving beings is an artifact from pre-Buddhist Jap ideas and still refers to beings with a mind.
> because it confines a non-conceptual, not non-conceptual process to a definite subject and definite time.
You clearly don't understand what non-conceptual means here and are engaging in imputing fantasies (read: conceptual) onto this.
>I brought up Yogacara as an insult, to insult you.
Yet you subscribe to the idea that inert matter is "being" at the level of conventional reality, an idea specific to particular strains of yogacara thought.
>but a dull and unintelligent one.
^
>I was not aware non conceptual conceptuality was conventionally logical
Clearly.