The Buddhist Self: On Tathgatagarbha and tman
English
By (author): C.V. Jones
Winner of the 2021 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism
The assertion that there is nothing in the constitution of any person that deserves to be considered the self (tman)a permanent, unchanging kernel of personal identity in this life and those to comehas been a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching from its inception. Whereas other Indian religious systems celebrated the search for and potential discovery of ones true self, Buddhism taught about the futility of searching for anything in our experience that is not transient and ephemeral. But a small yet influential set of Mahyna Buddhist texts, composed in India in the early centuries CE, taught that all sentient beings possess at all times, and across their successive lives, the enduring and superlatively precious nature of a Buddha. This was taught with reference to the enigmatic expression tathgatagarbhathe womb or chamber for a Buddhawhich some texts refer to as a persons true self.
The Buddhist Self is a methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathgatagarbha (otherwise the presence of ones Buddha-nature) and the extent to which different Buddhist texts and authors articulated this in terms of the self. C. V. Jones attends to each of the Indian Buddhist works responsible for explaining what is meant by the expression tathgatagarbha, and how far this should be understood or promoted using the language of selfhood. With close attention to these sources, Jones argues that the trajectory of Buddha-nature thought in India is also the history and legacy of a Buddhist account of what deserves to be called the self: an innovative attempt to equip Mahyna Buddhism with an affirmative response to wider Indian interest in the discovery of something precious or even divine in ones own constitution. This argument is supplemented by critical consideration of other themes that run through this distinctive body of Mahynist literature: the relationship between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings about the self, the overlap between the tathgatagarbha and the nature of the mind, and the originally radical position that the only means of becoming liberated from rebirth is to achieve the same exalted status as the Buddha. See more
The assertion that there is nothing in the constitution of any person that deserves to be considered the self (tman)a permanent, unchanging kernel of personal identity in this life and those to comehas been a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching from its inception. Whereas other Indian religious systems celebrated the search for and potential discovery of ones true self, Buddhism taught about the futility of searching for anything in our experience that is not transient and ephemeral. But a small yet influential set of Mahyna Buddhist texts, composed in India in the early centuries CE, taught that all sentient beings possess at all times, and across their successive lives, the enduring and superlatively precious nature of a Buddha. This was taught with reference to the enigmatic expression tathgatagarbhathe womb or chamber for a Buddhawhich some texts refer to as a persons true self.
The Buddhist Self is a methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathgatagarbha (otherwise the presence of ones Buddha-nature) and the extent to which different Buddhist texts and authors articulated this in terms of the self. C. V. Jones attends to each of the Indian Buddhist works responsible for explaining what is meant by the expression tathgatagarbha, and how far this should be understood or promoted using the language of selfhood. With close attention to these sources, Jones argues that the trajectory of Buddha-nature thought in India is also the history and legacy of a Buddhist account of what deserves to be called the self: an innovative attempt to equip Mahyna Buddhism with an affirmative response to wider Indian interest in the discovery of something precious or even divine in ones own constitution. This argument is supplemented by critical consideration of other themes that run through this distinctive body of Mahynist literature: the relationship between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings about the self, the overlap between the tathgatagarbha and the nature of the mind, and the originally radical position that the only means of becoming liberated from rebirth is to achieve the same exalted status as the Buddha. See more
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