Tathata

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Tathata ( Skt. Tathata तथता Chinese  真如 , Pinyin Zhenru , W.-G. chen-ju ; Tib. De bzhin nyid ; Kor. 진여 , jinyeo ; Jap. 真如 , Shinnyo ; Viet. Chân or Chon như ; dt approximately:. Suchness or suchness ) is a term in Buddhism (especially in Mahāyāna ) for the form of true or fundamental reality (but not this reality itself), mostly in relation to the assumed aspect of emptiness or essential inanity.

In the Buddhist tradition it is said of it that it can only be experienced , but not realized through language. Who experiences reality in this form, i.e. H. as it is, according to the Buddhist understanding, has overcome all faulty knowledge. The historical Buddha , Siddhartha Gautama , claimed this and therefore also called himself Tathāgata .

The Yogācāra schools, one of the few Buddhist teaching traditions that make positive statements in relation to Tathata, understand it as a purification of the consciousness from any object reference , whereby the factors of existence are to be recognized in their highest sense. Pure, illusion-free knowledge of the Tathata is thus synonymous with mere awareness without grasping, thinking or making out of meaning. As part of the unconditional elements ( asaṃskṛta-dharma ) in the categories of the 100 factors of existence, Tathata is also a condition for the possibility of knowledge in general.

A fundamental analysis of the fourth-century Yogācāra schools is as follows:

"20: All things that are represented by any imagination form the imagined being . This is not available.
21: The dependent being, on the other hand, is the idea that arises from causes . The perfect (essence) is its constant freedom from the preceding.
22: Therefore this is to be called neither different nor not different from the dependent (being), like impermanence etc. As long as this has not happened, that is not seen.
23: With regard to the threefold being of this threefold being, the being of all givens has been taught.
24: The first is insubstantial in character. The second turn because he not have his due. Another lack of essence results from it,
25: that it (= the third, namely the perfect being) is the highest reality ( paramārthaḥ ) of the givens . This is also the suchness because it is always so. And moreover, it is mere knowledge. "

- Vasubandhu : "Proof that (everything) is only knowledge, in thirty verses" ( Triṃśikā Vijñaptimātratāsiddhiḥ ).

The concept of suchness has often become the subject of theoretical debates within Buddhism. The Japanese Kegon-shū (which, however, adhered to the Tathata term itself) criticized the view of the Hossō-shū (Japanese Yogācāra offshoot) that there could be something like an objectless consciousness: this would simply be unconsciousness and therefore could not be a source of Be experience.

But the concept of the Tathata proved to be problematic not only in epistemological terms. Since it was ascribed both absoluteness and unconditionality in connection with ( eternal ) being from an ontological point of view and the phenomena were occasionally even identified with the Tathata, some Buddhist teaching traditions denied its practicability or validity or the interpretations resulting in such ascriptions as this contradicts other fundamental Buddhist concepts.

Nevertheless, the concept of Tathata proved to be powerful within the history of Buddhist philosophy. So argued Saicho , founder of the Tendai shū , in his famous writing in 817 out confrontation with the Hosso scholars Tokuitsu ( 徳一 ; ca. 760-835) to the correct interpretation of Buddha nature and icchantika and represented against Tokuitsu the view Buddha-nature would belong to all being , since Tathata is, as it were, the essence of all being in which it manifests itself . Tendai scholars later adopted this Tathata conception in order to make plausible the doctrine of original enlightenment ( 本 覺 思想 , hongaku shisō ), according to which every being is already in a state of enlightenment and only needs to realize this state. The work Shinnyo kan ( 真如 観 ), which was ascribed to Genshin ( 源 信 ; 942-1017) but was not written until the 12th century, goes into this and recommends the reader to be aware day and night that he is identical with Tathata. Also Kūkai , founder of the Shingon shū , used the concepts Tathata and Buddha Nature, which he thought she would be the nature of Dharmakörpers .

literature

  • Erich Frauwallner : Philosophy of Buddhism . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1969 3 .
  • Daigan Lee Matsunaga and Alicia Orloff Matsunaga: Foundation of Japanese Buddhism; Vol. I; The aristocratic age . Buddhist Books International, Los Angeles and Tokyo 1974. ISBN 0-914910-25-6 .
  • Gregor Paul : Philosophy in Japan: from the beginning to the Heian period; a critical investigation . Iudicium, Munich 1993. ISBN 3-89129-426-3 .
  • Jacqueline I. Stone, "The Contemplation of Suchness," in: George J. Tanabe, Jr. (Ed.): Religions of Japan in Practice , Princeton Readings in Religions , Princeton University Press, Princeton 1999. ISBN 0-691-05788 -5 . Pp. 199-209.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frauwallner 1969 3 , p. 117 et passim; Matsunaga and Matsunaga 1974, p. 88. et passim; Paul 1993, p. 143 et passim; Stone 1999, p. 199 .; Charles Muller : Digitional Dictionary of Buddhism, Lemma 真如
  2. ↑ Paul 1993, p. 144.
  3. ↑ Frauwallner 1969 3 , p. 282.
  4. ↑ Paul 1993, p. 145.
  5. ↑ Matsunaga 1974, p. 88; Frauwallner 1969 3 , pp. 117f.
  6. ↑ a b Paul 1993, p. 147.
  7. ↑ Quoted from Frauwallner 1969 3 , p. 388f.
  8. ↑ Paul 1993, p. 148.
  9. ↑ Paul 1993, pp. 270, 271, 273, 274.
  10. ↑ Paul 1993, pp. 284ff.
  11. ↑ Paul 1993, p. 274.
  12. ↑ Stone 1999, pp. 199-204.
  13. ↑ Paul 1993, p. 306.