釋 恆 清
HENG-CHING SHIH

七十七年一月
227頁

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TATHAGATAGARBHA：
A POSITIVE EXPRESSION OF SUNYATA

HENG-CHING SHIH


The well-known motto of Ch an Buddhism is that
"perceiving the true self, one becomes a Buddha."
The "true self" signifies the Buddha nature inherent
in all sentient beings. The discovering of the "true
self" has become the single most important pursuit
of the Buddhist, especially in Sino-Japanese
Buddhism. On the contrary, early Buddhism teaches
that ultimately no substantial self (i.e.,
`anatman`) can be found, since the self is nothing
but the union of the five aggregates. Modern
Buddhologists as well as the Buddhists have been
intrigued by the inconsistency that one single
tradition teaches both that there is no self on the
one hand, and that the goal of religious life is to
discover the true self, on the other hand.
論 如 來 藏 之 空 性 義