Buddha-nature · Skt: tathāgatagarbha; Chin: fo-xing (佛性)

Buddha-nature is the Mahāyāna claim that awakening is not something foreign to be acquired but a capacity every being already carries. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on Japanese Zen states the position flatly: “all sentient beings have buddha-nature” in Mahāyāna Buddhism, which is to say they hold “the possibility to be awakened from fundamental ignorance” and “to become a Buddha”. The Indian background is the image of a garbha, a seed or embryo. A range of Mahāyāna texts held “that all sentient beings have ‘within’ them a ‘seed’ or ‘embryo’ (garbha) of enlightenment: the innate capacity to be like the Buddha himself”. In Chinese, the term used to translate buddhadhātu was fo-xing, which “literally means ‘Buddha-nature’ and carries with it dispositional or relational accents deriving from the indigenous Chinese notion of ‘nature’”.

That premise changes what practice is for. Chan drew the conclusion directly: “since we are all originally enlightened (benjue) practice is not a process of acquisition, but one of restoration”, and “the point of Chan is to see one’s own ‘original nature’ (benxing) and realize ‘authentic heartmind’”. Japanese Zen keeps the same emphasis in kenshō, “seeing into one’s nature”, which is described as occurring “when the activity of ego-consciousness is arrested”.

It is worth saying what the teaching is not. Read alongside the rest of Buddhist thought, buddha-nature “could be seen as a propensity for entering into enlightening forms of conduct and relationship, rather than as a substantial essence”, which is to say it is not a hidden permanent self. It belongs to the Mahāyāna, and Chan and Zen made it the centre of their practice. Our full guide is buddha-nature.