Buddha-Nature

Before I go into studying this book, I'm going to express my reservation. Having Buddha nature in us still doesn't absolve us from practice to get there, the hard spade work, and it's not a foregone conclusion even if you postulate Buddha nature. 

My second qualm is to wonder if it's imported Hinduism. Everyone is god, everything is god, yadda yadda. We're all Buddhas. 

Even so, Buddhism evolves, and develops ideas. We need to use our brains for something and it's fun to study Buddhism. There's an extensive literature on Buddha nature (Wikipedia). Why not look at it?

I haven't seen a more clear articulation of Buddha nature than this video of Kamalashila's 30 minute introduction to a retreat in 2020 on YouTube. He says he's said the story before, he just intimates how thinking about Buddha nature really opened things up for him. He didn't examine it from a philosophical point of view, nor a literary point of view, he asked himself if it would help his practice of Buddhism. And it did. Wonderful. Sympathetic joy to him. I feel like I need to begin to ask if it could help my practice.

Sallie King has a book called Buddha Nature (1991), that came out in 1991. I have to read it now.

Here's a review of the book on jstor. It's not long and mostly a summary. 

This is a complicated book:

I see things in terms of ideas that set the continuum. To counter the excessive individualism of going for enlightenment, the Bodhisattva ideal pushes the altruistic element. 

On the one hand mappo posits that there's been such a degradation of society that nobody can get enlightened any more. The Buddha's life is too remote, his influence has waned, and nobody can get enlightened anymore. 

Countering mappo is Buddha-nature says you're already enlighten and you're trying to realize it. Everyone has Buddha-nature. Icchantika is the idea of a person who can't become enlightened. 

Links:

Buddha Nature Wikipedia

Tathāgatagarbha sūtras