Tathātā

Tathātā
Chinese name
Chinese	Chân như
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhēnrú Wade–Giles Chen-ju Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Zan1jyu4 Middle Chinese Middle Chinese Tśjen-ńźjwo
Tibetan name
Tibetan	དེ་བཞིན་ཉིད་
Transcriptions Wylie de bzhin nyid
Vietnamese name
Vietnamese alphabet	chân như
Korean name
Hangul	진여
Transcriptions Revised Romanization Jinyeo McCune–Reischauer Chinyŏ
Japanese name
Kanji	Chân như
Hiragana	しんにょ
Transcriptions Romanization Shin-nyo
Filipino name
Tagalog	Tathata
Sanskrit name
Sanskrit	तथाता
Pali name
Pali	tathatā

Tathātā(/ˌtætəˈtɑː/;Sanskrit:तथाता;Pali:tathatā) is a Buddhist term variously translated as "thusness" or "suchness", referring to the nature of reality free from conceptual elaborations and the subject–object distinction.Although it is a significant concept inMahayanaBuddhism, it is also used in theTheravadatradition.

The Buddha

The Buddha referred to himself as theTathāgata,which can mean either "One who has thus come" or "One who has thus gone",and can also be interpreted as "One who has arrived at suchness".

Theravada Buddhism

InTheravada,this term designates the nature of existence (bhāva), the truth which applies to things. According to theKathavatthu,tathātāis not an unconditioned or un-constructed (asankhata) phenomenon.The only phenomenon which is un-constructedin Theravada isNibbana.

According toBuddhadasa Bhikkhu,tathātāis merely the way things are, the truth of all things: "When tathātā is seen, thethree characteristicsofanicca[impermanence],dukkha[suffering], andanatta[not-self] are seen,sunnata[emptiness] is seen, andidappaccayata[specific conditionality] is seen. Tathātā is the summary of them all – merely thus, only thus, not-otherness. "

Mahayana Buddhism

Tathatā in the East Asian Mahayana tradition is seen as representing the base reality and can be used to terminate the use of words. A 5th-century Chinese Mahayana scripture entitledAwakening of Faith in the Mahayanadescribes the concept more fully:

In its very origin suchness is of itself endowed with sublime attributes. It manifests the highest wisdom which shines throughout the world, it has true knowledge and a mind resting simply in its own being. It is eternal, blissful, its own self-being and the purest simplicity; it is invigorating, immutable, free... Because it possesses all these attributes and is deprived of nothing, it is designated both as theWomb of Tathagataand theDharma Bodyof Tathagata.

R. H. Robinson, echoingD. T. Suzuki,conveys how theLaṅkāvatāra Sūtraperceives dharmata through the portal ofśūnyatā:"TheLaṅkāvatārais always careful to balance Śūnyatā with Tathatā, or to insist that when the world is viewed as śūnya, empty, it is grasped in its suchness. "

Madhyamaka

In theMadhyamakaMahayana tradition, Tathātā is an uncompounded permanent phenomenon, (as isNirvana– in Madhyamaka, not being products, all absences are uncompounded and permanent – not everlasting, but not subject to decay and dissolution). Tathātā is the natural absence of intrinsic/inherent existence or nature. It is a natural absence, because intrinsic existence (or the equivalent synonyms) is a fiction, or a non-existent: Intrinsic existence is the faulty object of an ignorant consciousness. All fictions, being fictions, are naturally absent. So, because of this, the fiction of inherent existence is absent from all phenomena, and that absence is Tathātā.

See also

• Ten suchnesses
• Reality in Buddhism
• Dharmadhatu
• Ziran(Daoism)
• Tattva(Hinduism)
• Haecceity(from Latin, "this-ness" )
• Quiddity(from Latin, "what-ness" )

Sources

• Buswell; Lopez (2014),The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism