Tathātā (; ; ) 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 in
Mahayana
Mahāyāna ( ; , , ; ) is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, Buddhist texts#Mahāyāna texts, texts, Buddhist philosophy, philosophies, and practices developed in ancient India ( onwards). It is considered one of the three main ex ...
Buddhism, it is also used in the
Theravada
''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' (anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or ''Dharma (Buddhi ...
tradition.
The Buddha
The Buddha referred to himself as the
Tathāgata, 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
In
Theravada
''Theravāda'' (; 'School of the Elders'; ) is Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed ''Theravādins'' (anglicized from Pali ''theravādī''), have preserved their version of the Buddha's teaching or ''Dharma (Buddhi ...
, this term designates the nature of existence (''bhāva''), the truth which applies to things. According to the ''
Kathavatthu'', ''tathātā'' is not an unconditioned or un-constructed (''asankhata'') phenomenon. The only phenomenon which is un-
constructed in Theravada is
Nibbana.
According to
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, ''tathātā'' is merely the way things are, the truth of all things: "When tathātā is seen, the
three characteristics of
anicca mpermanence dukkha uffering and
anatta ot-selfare seen,
sunnata mptinessis seen, and
idappaccayata pecific conditionalityis 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 entitled ''
Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana'' describes the concept more fully:
R. H. Robinson, echoing
D. T. Suzuki, conveys how the ''
Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra
The ''Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra'' (Sanskrit: लङ्कावतारसूत्रम्, "Discourse of the Descent into Laṅkā", , Chinese: 入楞伽經) is a prominent Mahayana Buddhist sūtra. It is also titled ''Laṅkāvatāraratnasūt ...
'' perceives dharmata through the portal of
śūnyatā
''Śūnyatā'' ( ; ; ), translated most often as "emptiness", " vacuity", and sometimes "voidness", or "nothingness" is an Indian philosophical concept. In Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and other Indian philosophical traditions, the concept ...
: "The ''Laṅkāvatāra'' is 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 the
Madhyamaka
Madhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; ; Tibetic languages, Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the Śūnyatā, emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no Svabhava, ''svabhāva'' d ...
Mahayana tradition, Tathātā is an uncompounded permanent phenomenon, (as is
Nirvana
Nirvana, in the Indian religions (Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism), is the concept of an individual's passions being extinguished as the ultimate state of salvation, release, or liberation from suffering ('' duḥkha'') and from the ...
– 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
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Ten suchnesses
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Reality in Buddhism
Reality is the sum or aggregate of everything in existence; everything that is not imaginary. Different cultures and academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways.
Philosophical questions about the nature of reality, existence, or ...
*
Dharmadhatu
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Ziran (
Daoism
Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...
)
*
Tattva (
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...
)
*
Haecceity
Haecceity (; from the Latin , 'thisness') is a term from medieval scholastic philosophy, first coined by followers of Duns Scotus to denote a concept that he seems to have originated: the irreducible determination of a thing that makes it ''this ...
(from Latin, "this-ness")
*
Quiddity
In scholastic philosophy, "quiddity" (; Latin: ''quidditas'') was another term for the essence of an object, literally its "whatness" or "what it is".
Etymology
The term "quiddity" derives from the Latin word ''quidditas'', which was used by the ...
(from Latin, "what-ness")
References
Sources
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{{Buddhism topics
Buddhist philosophical concepts