Does a Dog have Buddha Nature?

Does a Dog have Buddha Nature?

The influential zhentong thinker Shakya Chokden (1428–1507[1]) is quite specific about this, no! And neither do ordinary beings, śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas. What they all do have is a dharmadhātu (Dharma Sphere) and a spiritual affiliation and/or potential (“Disposition”, gotra), on an efficiency scale from 0 to 100%, but no Buddha-Nature. Sorry, only bodhisattvas from the first bhūmi onwards have or rather possess a Buddha-Nature worth mentioning, when they “see” it directly. Becoming a bodhisattva (of the 1st bhūmi) requires a whole set of conditions and three prerequisites (ādhāra), as explained in the Yogācārabhūmi and the Bodhisattvabhūmi[2]. Those lacking the proper predisposition (agotrastha) cannot achieve full Awakening even if they generate bodhicitta and practice it. The further a bodhisattva progresses in his purification process the more he will acquire bits of the 32 marks of a “Great Male” (mahāpuruṣa), like those of the fully awakend Buddha’s rūpakāya. It is specified in the Bodhisattvabhūmi:

“that the bodhisattva cultivates the methods throughout three incalculable aeons. During the first aeon, the bodhisattva may take rebirth in a male or female form (whether human, animal, or other form of reincarnation), but it is then stated that during the second and third aeons the bodhisattva's gender is invariably male.” (Kragh, 2013)

Can a bodhisattva of the 1st bhūmi who possesses Buddha-Nature have a female body, or can a female body possess Buddha-Nature? Not sure, but the more a bodhisattva progresses, the more “Supermale” and the less female he becomes.

“A woman cannot attain unsurpassed true and complete enlightenment. Why is that? [This should be understood] as follows: Once a bodhisattva has passed beyond the first [period of a] countless number of kalpas he abandons the state of being a woman, and [from then on] until he sits at the seat of enlightenment, he will never again become a woman. The entirety of womankind naturally possesses a great many mental afflictions and is subject to inferior wisdom, and it is not possible for [a person with] a mind stream that naturally possesses a great many mental afflictions and is subject to inferior wisdom to attain unsurpassed true and complete enlightenment[3].” (Ārya Asaṅga)

Table 7.2 in Komarovski's article, slightly vandalized by myself, sorry

Yaroslav Komarovski explains Shakya Chokden’s thought which enlightens us on the conditions for realizing the Dharma-Sphere and for “seeing” and “possessing” Buddha-Nature.

“To put it differently, the direct realization of the dharma-sphere necessarily involves its vision as pure of at least some obscurations and imbued with at least some buddha-qualities. Only when this vision has been achieved can the dharma-sphere be treated as the buddha-nature. Because this is impossible for anyone before the first ground, only Mahāyāna āryas have buddha-essence.”

“We can say that according to Shakya Chokden the equation buddha-nature = dharma-sphere holds true starting only from the first bodhisattva ground”. (Komarovsk, 2019)

The Other Emptiness (gzhan stong) View is said to have been made possible through a merging of Yogācāra and Buddha Essence theory in the Five Treaties attributed to Maitreya, the future Buddha who dwells in Tuṣita.

“To sum up, the canonical sources for zhentong are the Five Maitreya Works, Nāgārjuna’s hymns along with the sūtra discourses of the third turning referred to as Essence Sūtras or also Sūtras on the Definitive Meaning.” (Other Emptiness, 2019)

Nāgārjuna’s Hymns, in the zhentong context, refer more specifically to the Dharmadhātustava, attributed to Nāgārjuna, and “the only work of Nāgārjuna that takes a positivistic view of emptiness and the existence of wisdom, in this case represented by the dharmadhātu.” (Tsadra Buddha-Nature).

“The majority of Tathāgatagarbha sūtras describe a primordially complete buddha within that will be disclosed; however, in Yogācāra, one’s buddhahood must be generated from the two potentials: the dharmakāya from the naturally present potential (prakṛtisthagotra, rang bzhin gnas pa’i rigs), and the form kāyas from the acquired potential (samudānītagotra, yang dag pa blang ba’i rigs).

The two doctrines of original Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarba were merged in the Maitreya works”[4]. (Other Emptiness, 2019).

I don’t know how true the first statement is, e.g. how about Gotra theory, but let’s assume every being has “a primordially complete buddha within”. Complete with his three kāyas? Is this “Buddha within” the “Other Emptiness”, which ordinary emptiness is thought to be NOT empty off? Because that would be to throw out the baby with the bathwater? Yogācāra explains in full detail how this baby ought to be cherished and taken care off, to make it develop into a beautiful handsome mahāpuruṣa. Tantra takes care of the inner subtle pneumatic and fluid engineering. There are those who see and don’t see, possess and don’t possess, progress and don’t progress. Some were thought to never make it. Even though all beings have a “Buddha within”, share the same fondamental dhātu, the differences somehow end up more important and determining than the shared essence. Not unlike an infrastructure and a superstructure. And the whole thing is turned upside down, infrastructure and a superstructure, body and mind, locus and super-locus, the universe and the metaverse.

“In discussing the relation between the one vehicle and the three vehicles, the Yogacarins were interested only in the realm of the super-locus. As a result, they understood the three vehicles to coexist as fixed and different entities, while at the same time asserting that Mahāyāna was superior. This pattern resembles the state of affairs prior to the introduction of the idea of the one-vehicle by the Lotus Sutra. Even more pernicious is the fact that the difference between the vehicles and their superior-inferior relationship is ontologically solidified on the basis of a single and real locus, which inevitably leads to an ideology of discrimination. I call this type of dhātu-vāda the "gotra theory," and I consider it to display the same discriminatory traits that we find in the related ideas of kula (clan) and vamśa (lineage) in Indian society.” MATSUMOTO Shirõ - The Lotus Sutra and Japanese Culture in Pruning The Bodhi Tree, Hawai'i Press 1997, p. 388

Related blogs

https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2014/02/un-peu-de-bouddhologie.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2022/01/les-grands-bodhisattvas-sont-au-dessus.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2018/09/jeux-dombres-et-de-lumieres.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2021/02/etre-grand-avant-la-naissance.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2022/05/le-bodhisattvayana.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2022/01/la-matrice-du-bouddha.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2022/01/les-themes-du-bouddhisme-critique.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2022/01/essentialisme-et-meritocratie-de-facade.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2021/02/la-femme-t-elle-la-nature-de-bouddha.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-indefinable-dharmadhatu.html
https://hridayartha.blogspot.com/2022/01/petite-genealogie-des-familles.html

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[1] My biased reading of Yaroslav Komarovski “There Are No Dharmas Apart from the Dharma-Sphere”, Shakya Chokden’s Interpretation of the Dharma-Sphere, published in The Other Emptiness, Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet, Suny Press, 2019.

[2] See 2013, The Foundation for Yoga Practitioners: The Buddhist Yogacarabhumi Treatise and Its Adaptation in India, East Asia, and Tibet (Harvard Oriental Series vol. 75) by Ulrich Timme KRAGH.

[3]The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment, A Complete Translation of the Bodhisattvabhūmi, Ārya Asaṅga, translated by Artemus B. Engle, Snow Lion, 2016.

Tibetan : bud med kyis kyang bla na med pa yang dag par rdzogs pa'i byang chub mngon par rdzogs par 'tshang mi rgya ste/_de ci'i phyir zhe na/ 'di ltar byang chub sems dpa' ni bskal pa grangs med pa dang po 'das pa nyid nas bud med kyi dngos po spangs pas na/ nam byang chub kyi snying po la gnas kyi bar du nams kyang bud med du mi 'gyur ba dang / bud med thams cad ni rang bzhin gyis nyon mongs pa mang ba dang / shes rab 'chal ba yin la rang bzhin gyis nyon mongs pa mang ba'i rgyud dang / shes rab 'chal pa'i rgyud kyis kyang bla na med pa yang dag par rdzogs pa'i byang chub tu mngon par rdzogs par 'tshang rgya bar mi nus pa'i phyir ro/ Source: rNal 'byor spyod pa'i sa las byang chub sems dpa'i sa.

[4] Klaus-Dieter Mathes and Michael R. Sheehy, The Philosophical Grounds and Literary History of Zhentong, published in The Other Emptiness, Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet, Suny Press, 2019