coldmountain wrote:Hi everyone,
I'd like to ask for some thoughts regarding the idea of Buddha-nature in some Buddhist schools, and whether there is any meaningful difference Buddha-nature and Hinduism's atman. It has been my understanding that Buddhism has generally tried to deconstruct metaphysical ideas like self and substance. Buddhism, in my understanding, does not want to reify a self or reason about some pregiven essence behind the phenomenal world. Now, perhaps it should be expected that, in spite of this, such notions would resurface within Buddhism, since it seems almost wired into our thinking and, naturally, build into our language to speak in essentialist categories and dualistic terms. But if Buddhism admits that there is some kind of "essence" behind the phenomenal world that is absolute, unchanging, etc., is this not identical to Hinduism's atman metaphysics? For instance, I have read Buddhist teachers who teach of there being a fundamental and unchanging "awareness" that exists absolutely unchanging to itself, and the phenomenal world appears as images in a mirror, leaving the mirror (awareness) unchanged.
Peace and thanks for reading,
Mike
Everything is impermanent,if there was a soul,eventually it would die,fade,etc.Personally,I feel Hindus,Jains,Buddhist,Sikhs,and other Dharmic religions have a special bond.A Hindu may believe in atman,Buddhist in anatman but our religions all attempt to find enlightenment.
