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In Mahāyāna, The "Tathāgatagarbha Sutras" are a collection of Mahayana sutras which present a unique model of Buddha-nature, i.e. the original vision of the Buddha-nature as an ungenerated, unconditioned and immortal Buddhic element within all beings. Even though this collection was generally ignored in India[1], East Asian Buddhism provides some significance to these texts. The Tathāgatagarbha Sutras include the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra, Srimaladevisimhanada Sutra, Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra and Angulimaliya Sutra. Related ideas are in found in the Lankavatara Sutra and Avatamsaka Sutra. Another major text, the Awakening of Faith, was originally composed in China in a Chinese language. [2]
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The Sanskrit term "tathāgatagarbha" may be parsed into tathāgata ("the one thus gone", referring to the Buddha) and garbha ("root/embryo").[3] The latter has the meanings: "embryo", "essence";[4] whilst the former may be parsed into "tathā" ("[s]he who has there" and "āgata" (semantic field: "come", "arrived") and/or "gata" ("gone").[5]
For the various equivalents of the Sanskrit term "tathāgatagarbha" in other languages (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese), see Glossary of Buddhism, "tathagatagarbha"
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Some of the earliest and most important Tathāgatagarbha sūtras have been associated by scholars with certain early Buddhist schools in India. Brian Edward Brown, a specialist in Tathāgatagarbha doctrines, writes that it has been determined that the composition of the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra occurred during the Īkṣvāku Dynasty in the 3rd century CE, as a product of the Mahāsāṃghikas of the Āndhra region (i.e. the Caitika schools).[6] Wayman has outlined eleven points of complete agreement between the Mahāsāṃghikas and the Śrīmālā, along with four major arguments for this association.[7] Sree Padma and Anthony Barber also associate the earlier development of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra with the Mahāsāṃghikas, and conclude that the Mahāsāṃghikas of the Āndhra region were responsible for the inception of the Tathāgatagarbha doctrine.[8]
Key texts associated with this doctrine are the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra, which contains a series of very striking, concrete images for what the tathāgatagarbha is, Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra, which states that this doctrine is ultimate rather than provisional or "tactical", and perhaps most importantly the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, which likewise insists that the tathāgatagarbha teaching is "absolutely supreme" (uttarottara), the "final culmination" and "all-fulfilling conclusion" of the entirety of Mahāyāna Dharma.
The later Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra presents the tathāgatagarbha as being a teaching completely consistent with and identical to emptiness and synthesizes tathāgatagarbha with the emptiness (śūnyatā) of the prajñāpāramitā sutras. Emptiness is the thought-transcending realm of non-duality and unconditionedness: complete freedom from all constriction and limitation.
In the Anguttara Nikāya, the Buddha refers to a "luminous mind".[9] The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra describes the tathāgatagarbha as "by nature brightly shining and pure," and "originally pure," though "enveloped in the garments of the skandhas, dhātus and ayatanas and soiled with the dirt of attachment, hatred, delusion and false imagining." It is said to be "naturally pure," but it appears impure as it is stained by adventitious defilements.[10] Thus the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra identifies the luminous mind of the canon with the tathāgatagarbha.[11] It also equates the tathāgatagarbha (and ālaya-vijñāna) with nirvana, though this is concerned with the actual attainment of nirvana as opposed to nirvana as a timeless phenomenon.[11][12] The canon does not support the identification of the "luminous mind" with nirvanic consciousness, though it plays a role in the realization of nirvana.[13][14] Upon the destruction of the fetters, according to one scholar, "the shining nibbanic consciousness flashes out of the womb of arahantship, being without object or support, so transcending all limitations."[15]
The Buddha-nature is equated in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra with the changeless and deathless true self of the Buddha.[16] In the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, however, it is said that the tathāgatagarbha might be mistaken for a self, which according to this sutra, it is not.[17] This Buddha-nature is described in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra to be incorruptible, uncreated, and indestructible. It is eternal awakeness (bodhi) indwelling samsara, and thus opens up the immanent possibility of liberation from all suffering and impermanence.[18]
Every being has Buddha-nature (Buddha-dhatu). It is indicated in the Angulimaliya Sūtra that if the Buddhas themselves were to try to find any sentient being who lacked the Buddha-nature, they would fail. In fact, it is stated in this sutra that the Buddhas do discern the presence of the everlasting Buddha-nature in every being:
Even though all Buddhas themselves were to search assiduously, they would not find a tathāgata-garbha (Buddha-nature) that is not eternal, for the eternal dhātu, the buddha-dhātu (Buddha Principle, Buddha Nature), the dhātu adorned with infinite major and minor attributes, is present in all beings.[19]
The eternality, unshakeability and changelessness of the Buddha-nature (often referred to as "tathagatagarbha") is also frequently stressed in the sutras which expound this Buddha element. The Śrīmālā Sūtra, for example, says:
The development of the Buddha-nature doctrine is closely related to that of Buddha-matrix (Sanskrit: tathāgatagarbha). In the Anunatva-Apurnatva-Nirdeśa, the Buddha links the tathāgatagarbha to the Dharmadhātu (ultimate, all-equal, uncreated essence of all phenomena) and to essential being, stating:
What I call "be-ing" (sattva) is just a different name for this permanent, stable, pure and unchanging refuge that is free from arising and cessation, the inconceivable pure Dharmadhatu.[21]
This eternal refuge of the Dharmadhātu or Buddha-dhātu is transcendentally empty of all that is conditioned, afflicted, defective, and productive of suffering. It is equated in the Nirvāṇa Sūtra with Buddhic Knowledge (jñāna). Such Knowledge perceives both non-self and the self, emptiness (śūnyatā) and non-emptiness, wherein "the Empty is the totality of samsara [birth-and-death] and the non-Empty is Great Nirvana."[22]
It is a recurrent theme of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra that the Buddha-nature is indestructible and forever untarnished. Professor Jeffrey Hopkins translates several passages from the sutra in which the Buddha speaks of this topic and defines the Buddha-nature as pure, eternal, truly real self:
... that which has permanence, bliss, Self, and thorough purity is called the "meaning of pure truth".Permanent is the Self; the Self is thoroughly pure. The thoroughly pure is called "bliss". Permanent, blissful, Self, and thoroughly pure is the one-gone-thus [i.e. Buddha];
Self means the matrix-of-one-gone-thus [i.e. the tathagatagarbha/ Buddha-nature]. The existence of the buddha-nature in all sentient beings is the meaning of "Self".
The buddha-nature, by its own nature, cannot be made non-existent; it is not something that becomes non-existent. Just the inherent nature called "Self" is the secret matrix-of-one-gone-thus [i.e. tathagatagarbha / Buddha-nature]; in this way that secret matrix cannot be destroyed and made non-existent by anything.[23]
In explaining what is meant by sentient beings' having the Buddha-nature, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra distinguishes three ways of understanding the term "to have":
Good son, there are three ways of having: first, to have in the future, secondly, to have at present, and thirdly, to have in the past. All sentient beings will have in future ages the most perfect enlightenment, i.e., the Buddha nature. All sentient beings have at present bonds of defilements, and do not now possess the thirty-two marks and eighty noble characteristics of the Buddha. All sentient beings had in past ages deeds leading to the elimination of defilements and so can now perceive the Buddha nature as their future goal. For such reasons, I always proclaim that all sentient beings have the Buddha nature.
Thus according to Heng-Ching Shih, the teaching of the universal Buddha nature does not intend to assert the existence of substantial, entity-like self endowed with excellent features of a Buddha. Rather, Buddha-nature simply represents the potentiality to be realized in the future.[24]
This type of interpretation of the Buddha-nature is not, however, universally accepted by Buddhists or scholars. Shenpen Hookham, Oxford Buddhist scholar and Tibetan lama of the Shentong tradition, for example, writes of the Buddha-nature or "true self" as something real and permanent, and already present within the being as uncompounded enlightenment. She calls it "the Buddha within", and comments:
In scriptural terms, there can be no real objection to referring to Buddha, Buddhajnana [Buddha Awareness/ Buddha Knowledge], Nirvana and so forth as the True Self, unless the concept of Buddha and so forth being propounded can be shown to be impermanent, suffering, compounded, or imperfect in some way ... in Shentong terms, the non-self is about what is not the case, and the Self of the Third Dharmachakra [i.e. the Buddha-nature doctrine] is about what truly IS.[25]
Buddhist scholar and chronicler, Merv Fowler, writes that the Buddha-nature really is present as an essence within each being. Fowler comments:
The teaching that Buddha-nature is the hidden essence within all sentient beings is the main message of the tathagatagarbha literature, the earliest of which is the Tathagatagarbha Sutra. This short sutra says that all living beings are in essence identical to the Buddha regardless of their defilements or their continuing transmigration from life to life... As in the earlier traditions, there is present the idea that enlightenment, or nirvana, is not something which has to be achieved, it is something which is already there... In a way, it means that everyone is really a Buddha now.[26]
An important Sanskrit treatise on the Buddha-nature, the Ratnagotravibhāga sees the Buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) as "suchness" or "thusness" - the abiding reality of all things - in a state of tarnished concealment within the being. The idea is that the ultimate consciousness of each being is spotless and pure, but surrounded by negative tendencies which are impure. Professor Paul Williams comments on how the impurity is actually not truly part of the Buddha-nature, but merely conceals the immanent true qualities of Buddha mind (i.e. the Buddha-nature) from manifesting openly:
The impurities that taint the mind and entail the state of unenlightenment (samsara) are completely adventitious ... On the other hand from the point of view of the mind's pure radiant intrinsic nature, because it is like this it is possessed of all the many qualities of a Buddha's mind. These do not need actually to be brought about but merely need to be allowed to shine forth. Because they are intrinsic to the very nature of consciousness itself they, and the very state of Buddhahood, will never cease.[27]
The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra presents the tathāgatagarbha as a virtual Buddha-homunculus, a fully wisdom-endowed Buddha, "a most victorious body ... great and indestructible",[28] inviolate, seated majestically in the lotus posture within the body of each being, clearly visible only to a perfect Buddha with his supernatural vision.[28] This is the most "personalist" depiction of the tathāgatagarbha encountered in any of the chief Tathāgatagarbha sutras and is imagistically reminiscent of Mahāyāna descriptions of the Buddha himself sitting in the lotus posture within his own mother's womb prior to birth: "luminous, glorious, gracious, beautiful to see, seated with his legs crossed" and shining "like pure gold ..."[29]
Other tathāgatagarbha sutras (notably the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra) view the tathāgatagarbha in a more abstract, less explicitly personalist manner. But all are agreed that the tathāgatagarbha is an immortal, inherent transcendental essence or potency and that it resides in a concealed state (concealed by mental and behavioural negativities) in every single being, even the worst - the icchantika.
Although attempts are made in the Buddhist sutras to explain the tathāgatagarbha, it remains ultimately mysterious and allegedly unfathomable to the ordinary, unawakened person, being only fully knowable by perfect Buddhas themselves. As the Śrīmālā Sūtra states:
the tathāgatagarbha is the sphere of experience of the Tathāgatas [Buddhas] ...
It cannot even be seen clearly even by 10th-level (i.e. highest level) bodhisattvas - although they vaguely perceive its presence. Yet once it is fully "seen and known", on that morning the bodhisattva "attains the sovereign self" (aishvarya-atman) and Buddhahood is achieved.[30] The Nirvāṇa Sūtra, which presents itself as the final teachings of the Buddha on the tathāgatagarbha, makes clear that there are two kinds of self of which he speaks: one mundane and mutable, the other Buddhic and eternal. The first is denied as truly real, while the second is affirmed as the only true reality.[31] In this same sutra the Buddha explains that he proclaims all beings to have Buddha-nature (which is used synonymously with "tathāgatagarbha" in this sutra) in the sense that they will in the future become Buddhas.[32] In the later[33] Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra it is said that the tathāgatagarbha might be mistaken for a self, which it is not.[34] In fact, the sutra states that it is identical to the teaching of no-self.[35]
In some sutras the tathāgatagarbha is presented as being possessed of two elements, one essential, immutable, changeless and still, the other active and salvational. As Professor Robert E. Buswell Jr. writes[36] in connection with the Vajrasamādhi Sūtra:
This 'dharma of the one mind', which is the 'original tathagatagarbha', is said to be 'calm and motionless' ... The Vajrasamadhi's analysis of tathagatagarbha also recalls a distinction the Awakening of Faith makes between the calm, unchanging essence of the mind and its active, adaptable function ... the tathagatagarbha is equated with the 'original edge of reality' (bhutakoti) that is beyond all distinctions - the equivalent of original enlightenment, or the essence. But tathagatagarbha is also the active functioning of that original enlightenment - 'the inspirational power of that fundamental faculty' .... The tathagatagarbha is thus both the 'original edge of reality' that is beyond cultivation (= essence) as well as the specific types of wisdom and mystical talents that are the byproducts of enlightenment (= function). ....
The tathāgatagarbha itself thus needs no cultivation, only uncovering or dis-covery, as it is already present and perfect within each being.
Jeffrey Hopkins, also elucidates this idea of the tathāgatagarbha:[37]
An unknown treasure exists under the home of a poor person that must be uncovered through removing obstructive dirt, yielding the treasure that always was there. Just as the treasure already exists and thus requires no further fashioning, so the matrix-of-one-gone-thus [i.e. the tathāgatagarbha], endowed with ultimate buddha qualities, already dwells within each sentient being and needs only to be freed from defilements.
The tathāgatagarbha doctrine later became linked (in syncretic form - e.g. in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra) with doctrines of Citta-mātra ("just-the-mind") or Yogācāra. Yogācārins aimed to account for the possibility of the attainment of Buddhahood by ignorant sentient beings: the tathāgatagarbha is the indwelling awakening of bodhi in the very heart of samsara. There is also a tendency in the tathāgatagarbha sutras to support vegetarianism, as all persons and creatures are compassionately viewed as possessing one and the same essential nature - the Buddha-dhatu or Buddha-nature. (See: vegetarianism in Buddhism.)
Some of the most important early texts for the introduction and elaboration of the tathāgatagarbha doctrine are the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Tathāgatagarbha Sutra, the Śrīmālā-Sūtra, the Anunatva-Apurnatva-Nirdeśa Sūtra, and the Angulimaliya Sūtra; the later commentarial and exegetical-style texts, the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna scripture and the Ratna-gotra-vibhāga summation of the tathāgatagarbha idea had a significant influence on the understanding of tathāgatagarbha doctrine.
The concept of the tathāgatagarbha is closely related to that of the Buddha-nature; indeed, in the Angulimaliya Sūtra and in the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, which latter is the lengthiest sutra dealing with the immanent and transcendent presence of the tathāgatagarbha within all beings, the terms "Buddha-nature" (Buddha-dhātu) and "tathāgatagarbha" are synonyms.
Belief and faith in the true reality of the tathāgatagarbha is presented by the relevant scriptures as a positive mental act and is strongly urged; indeed, rejection of the tathāgatagarbha is linked with highly adverse karmic consequences. In the Angulimaliya Sutra, for instance, it is stated that teaching only non-self and dismissing the reality of the tathāgatagarbha karmically lead one into most unpleasant rebirths, whereas spreading the doctrine of the tathāgatagarbha will bring benefit both to oneself and to the world. We read:
Those who were donkeys in previous lives and paid no attention to the Tathâgata-garbha are now poor and eat coarse food as donkeys do. In future lives, too, apart from being poor, they will be born into lowly kshatriya [military] families. These are none other than the people who have no faith in the Tathâgata-garbha and cultivate the notion of no-Self, for they will be like prostitutes, outcastes, birds and donkeys ... People who lack learning and have wrong views get angry with those who teach the Tathâgata-garbha to the world, and [those unlearned people] expound non-Self in place of the Self as their doctrine. He who teaches the Tathâgata-garbha, even at the expense of his own life, knowing that such people are inexperienced with words and lacking in balance, has true patience and teaches for the benefit of the world.
Caution is required when discussing the doctrine of the tathāgatagarbha (as presented in the primary tathāgatagarbha-sutric texts), so that the tathāgatagarbha does not become inaccurately denigrated or reduced to a "mere" tactical device or become dismissed as just a metaphor with no actual ontological reality behind it in the here and now. It is incorrect from the perspective of the tathāgatagarbha sutras to view the tathāgatagarbha solely as some future as yet non-existent potential or as a vacuous emptiness. The tathāgatagarbha is not constrained by time, not subsumed within the past-present-future confines of temporality, but is changeless and eternal. Conversely, it is erroneous to construe the tathāgatagarbha as a tangible, worldly, mutating, passion-dominated, desire-driven "ego" on a grand scale, similar to the "ego-lie" composed of the five mundane skandhas (impermanent mental and physical constituents of the unawakened being). The tathāgatagarbha is indicated by the relevant sutras to be one with the Buddha, just as the Buddha is the tathāgatagarbha at the core of his being. The tathāgatagarbha is the ultimate, pure, ungraspable, inconceivable, irreducible, unassailable, boundless, true and deathless quintessence of the Buddha's emancipatory reality, the very core of his sublime nature (Dharmakāya). The tathāgatagarbha is, according to the final sutric teaching of the Mahāyāna Nirvāṇa Sūtra, the hidden interior Buddhic self (ātman), untouched by all impurity and grasping ego. Because of its concealment, it is extremely difficult to perceive. Even the eye of insight (prajñā) is not adequate to the task of truly seeing this tathāgatagarbha (so the Nirvāṇa Sūtra): only the "eye of a Buddha" can discern it fully and clearly. For unawakened beings, there remains the springboard of faith in the tathāgatagarbha's mystical and liberative reality.
It is possible to do a Madhyamaka interpretation of tathāgatagarbha literature. [38]
Of disputed authorship, the Ratnagotravibhāga (otherwise known as the Uttaratantra), is the only Indian attempt to create a coherent philosophical model based on the ideas found in the Tathāgatagarbha Sutras.[39] The Ratnagotravibhāga especially draws on the Srimaladevisimhanada Sutra.[40] Despite East Asian Buddhism's propensity for the concepts found in the Tathāgatagarbha Sutras, the Ratnagotravibhāga has played a relatively small role in East Asian Buddhism.[41] This is due to the primacy of sutra study in East Asian Buddhism.[42]
The role of the tathāgatagarbha in Zen can not be discussed or understood without an understanding of how tathāgatagarbha is taught in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra. It is through the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra that the tathāgatagarbha has been part of Zen (i.e., Chan) teaching since its beginning in China. Bodhidharma, the traditional founder of Chan-Zen in China, is traditionally known for carrying the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra with him when he came from India to China. The early Zen/Chan teachers in the lineage of Bodhidharma's school were known as the "Laṅkāvatāra Masters"[43] The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra presents the Chan/Zen Buddhist view of the tathāgatagarbha:
[The Buddha said,] Now, Mahāmati, what is perfect knowledge? It is realised when one casts aside the discriminating notions of form, name, reality, and character; it is the inner realisation by noble wisdom. This perfect knowledge, Mahāmati, is the essence of the Tathāgata-garbha.[44]
Because of the use of expedient means (upāya) by metaphors (e.g., the hidden jewel) in the way that the tathāgatagarbha was taught in some sutras, two fundamentally mistaken notions arose: first that the tathāgatagarbha was a teaching different from and somehow more definitive than the teaching of emptiness (śūnyatā), and second that tathāgatagarbha was believed to be a substance of reality, a creator, or a substitute for the ego-substance or fundamental self (ātman) of the Brahmans.[45] Responding to these two mistaken notions, in Section XXVIII of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, Mahāmati asks Buddha, "Is not this Tathagata-garbha taught by the Blessed One the same as the ego-substance taught by the philosophers?"
The Blessed One replied: No, Mahamati, my Tathagata-garbha is not the same as the ego taught by the philosophers; for what the Tathagatas teach is the Tathagata-garbha in the sense, Mahamati, that it is emptiness, reality-limit, Nirvana, being unborn, unqualified, and devoid of will-effort; the reason why the Tathagatas who are Arhats and Fully-Enlightened Ones, teach the doctrine pointing to the Tathagata-garbha is to make the ignorant cast aside their fear when they listen to the teaching of egolessness and to have them realise the state of non-discrimination and imagelessness. I also wish, Mahamati, that the Bodhisattva-Mahasattvas of the present and future would not attach themselves to the idea of an ego [imagining it to be a soul]. Mahamati, it is like a potter who manufactures various vessels out of a mass of clay of one sort by his own manual skill and labour combined with a rod, water, and thread, Mahamati, that the Tathagatas preach the egolessness of things which removes all the traces of discrimination by various skilful means issuing from their transcendental wisdom, that is, sometimes by the doctrine of the Tathagata-garbha, sometimes by that of egolessness, and, like a potter, by means of various terms, expressions, and synonyms. For this reason, Mahamati, the philosophers' doctrine of an ego-substance is not the same as the teaching of the Tathagata-garbha. Thus, Mahamati, the doctrine of the Tathagata-garbha is disclosed in order to awaken the philosophers from their clinging to the idea of the ego, so that those minds that have fallen into the views imagining the non-existent ego as real, and also into the notion that the triple emancipation is final, may rapidly be awakened to the state of supreme enlightenment. Accordingly, Mahamati, the Tathagatas who are Arhats and Fully-Enlightened Ones disclose the doctrine of the Tathagata-garbha which is thus not to be known as identical with the philosopher's notion of an ego-substance. Therefore. Mahamati, in order to abandon the misconception cherished by the philosophers, you must strive after the teaching of egolessness and the Tathagata-garbha.[46]
Also as described in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra,[47] in Chan/Zen the tathāgatagarbha is identical to the ālayavijñāna known prior to awakening as the storehouse-consciousness or 8th consciousness. Chan/Zen masters from Huineng in 7th century China[48] to Hakuin in 18th century Japan[49] to Hsu Yun in 20th century China,[50] have all taught that the process of awakening begins with the light of the mind turning around within the 8th consciousness, so that the ālayavijñāna, also known as the tathāgatagarbha, is transformed into the "bright mirror wisdom". When this active transformation is complete the other seven consciousnesses are also transformed. The 7th consciousness of delusive discrimination becomes transformed into the "equality wisdom". The 6th consciousness of thinking sense becomes transformed into the "profound observing wisdom", and the 1st to 5th consciousnessses of the five sensory senses become transformed into the "all-performing wisdom".
As D.T. Suzuki wrote in his introduction to his translation of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra,
Let there be, however, an intuitive penetration into the primitive purity (prakritiparisuddhi) of the Tathagata-garbha, and the whole system of the Vijnanas goes through a revolution.
This revolution in the system of consciousness (vijñāna) is what Chan/Zen calls "awakening" (kensho), seeing into one's own nature.
Therefore, in modern-Western manifestations of the Zen Buddhist tradition, it is considered insufficient simply to understand Buddha-nature intellectually. Rather tathāgatagarbha must be experienced directly, in one's entire bodymind. Enlightenment in a certain sense consists of a direct experience (gata) of the essence or womb (garbha) of thusness (tathā) and this is the tathāgatagarbha of one's own mind, which is traditionally described and designated as emptiness (śūnyatā).
The Zen tradition often uses a koan to evoke the revolution in consciousness of the turning of the light back to the tathāgatagarbha or Buddha-nature. According to one of the most famous koans, a monk once approached the Zen master Chao-chou (Japanese: Jōshū) and asked him, "Does a dog possess Buddha-nature or not?" Chao-chou replied with the one-word answer "Wú" (pronounced "mu" in Japanese), which literally means "there is no" or "without", and in post-Han Chinese philosophy, "non-being". Through an inquiring contemplation of the question and response, one may come to detach from the phenomena of externals in which the six sense consciousnesses are usually enthralled and realize the turning around of the light of the mind to gain a direct insight into the tathāgatagarbha of Buddha-nature.
Good son, there are three ways of having: first, to have in the future, Secondly, to have at present, and thirdly, to have in the past. All sentient beings will have in future ages the most perfect enlightenment, i.e., the Buddha nature. All sentient beings have at present bonds of defilements, and do not now possess the thirty-two marks and eighty noble characteristics of the Buddha. All sentient beings had in past ages deeds leading to the elimination of defilements and so can now perceive the Buddha nature as their future goal. For such reasons, I always proclaim that all sentient beings have the Buddha nature.