Mipam on Buddha-Nature: The Ground of the Nyingma Tradition by Duckworth Douglas Samuel

Author:Duckworth, Douglas Samuel [Duckworth, Douglas Samuel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2016-10-23T16:00:00+00:00

STATING OTHER TRADITIONS

The early generations (snga rabs pa) in Tibet explained “The body of a perfect Buddha is radiant” as merely the Wisdom Truth Body encompassing all objects, “thusness” as being similar in type as a mere void, and “possessing heritage” as merely the potential to become a Buddha. They spoke few words, failing to evoke the crucial point from the standpoint of the essential nature in the Uttaratantra scripture.

[568] Regarding this, the genuine heritage is not established by merely the Truth Body encompassing [all] objects because the Buddha’s wisdom—which perceives that which is comprised by others’ continua—simply encompassing all objects is present in all entities. However, merely by this presence there is no reason for all this to become Buddha. As for the Truth Body of one’s own continuum, due to not being manifest now, the evidence is doubtful.

Also, the mere categorized emptiness does not at all have the meaning of heritage. This follows because from the perspective of this thinking, one asserts that this heritage is the potential to newly produce [a Buddha] when conjoined with the conditions of the path despite now having no qualities of Buddha whatsoever—like a seed that is transported to a sprout.* Yet such a quality [of potential transformation] is not at all feasible in the contradistinctive aspect of a non-implicative negation, which is an emptiness of true existence—an unconditioned phenomenon that lacks the ability to perform a function. It is like the way that the aspect of a conditioned seed may conventionally transform into a sprout, but the aspect of a seed’s lack of true existence can never transform into a sprout.

Moreover, [the assertion that] the essential point of the lack of true existence establishes the potential to be a Buddha is also nonsense. Although it is true that if the mind were truly established, there would simply be no potential to be a Buddha, even so, in lacking true establishment, [the potential of] being Buddha is undetermined because even though all phenomena—earth, rocks,† etc.—also lack true existence, who is able to establish that everything that lacks true existence is a potential Buddha? Also, asserting as heritage only the potential to remove obscurations by observing a lack of true existence is nonsense because by only observing emptiness—without reason for cognitive obscurations (shes sgrib) to be relinquished—again it is necessary to become decorated with limitless accumulations according to your position.‡ Calling such a non-implicative negation [569] “Buddha-nature” is a senseless assertion because it becomes a heritage shared with Auditors and Self-Realized Ones. Through this, the potential to be a Buddha is not established because: (1) there is no ability in merely this to establish any legitimacy for the occurrence of omniscient wisdom after abandoning cognitive obscurations, and (2) since there is no cognitive quality within the essence of a nonimplicative negation, it is impossible for that to know anything whatsoever even at the time of being Buddha.

Therefore, in considering this manner of the transforming conditioned heritage (gnas ’gyur ’dus byas kyi rigs), rather

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