Buddha-Nature, Mind and the Problem of Gradualism in a Comparative Perspective

Book

Extensive typological and structural studies in Indian religions and philosophies, or in the traditions of Buddhism, have been few. Little attention has been given to the problems in intercultural transmission raised by the spread of Indian thought and civilization northwards and eastwards, and even less to discovering comparable elements in the different Indian religious and philosophical traditions.

In this book the author investigates a pair of themes in Buddhist thought by considering, in historical and comparative outline, their treatment in some traditions of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. He refers also to parallels in non-Buddhist Indian thought and in Chinese Buddhism. The two themes are 'nature' and 'nurture' in the twin realms of soteriology and gnoseology. (Source: inside jacket)

Citation

Ruegg, David Seyfort. Buddha-Nature, Mind and the Problem of Gradualism in a Comparative Perspective: On the Transmission and Reception of Buddhism in India and Tibet. Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion 13. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1989. https://archive.org/details/buddhanaturemindproblemofgradualismincomparativeperspectivetransmissionbuddhismi_132_P/mode/2up.

Foreword 1
I. The Buddhist notion of an immanent absolute as a problem in comparative
religious and philosophical hermeneutics 17
II. The great debate between 'Gradualists' and 'Simulaneists' in eighth-century
Tibet 56
III. Models of Buddhism in contact and opposition in Tibet: Religious and
Philosophical issues in the great debate of Bsam Yas 93
IV. The background to some issues in the great debate 138
- 1. The giving up of activity and karman 141
- 2. Voluntary death, self-immolation and the samasīsi(n) 147
- 3. The gradual as opposed to the simultaneous/instantaneous and the
  procedure of leaping 150
- 4. The conjunction of quieting and insight and of means and discriminative
  knowledge 182
- 5. Absence of notion (saṃjñā) and non-mentation (amanasikāra) 192
- 6. On a Bhāvanākrama in Bhavya's Madhyamakaratnapradīpa 206
- 7. Silence 209
Index 213

In virtue of both their extent and their contents, the Sūtras treating the tathāgatagarbha – or other systematically related doctrines such as the natural luminosity (prakrtiprabhāsvaratā) of Mind (citta) and the spiritual Germ existent by nature (prakrtisthagotra) – are amongst the most important of the Mahāyāna.
~ in Buddha-nature, Mind and the Problem of Gradualism in a Comparative Perspective, page(s) 18

A fundamental problem at issue very briefly stated, the relation between the Fruit (phala - 'bras bu) — i.e. ultimate and perfect Awakening (anuttarasamyaksambodhi) in buddhahood —, the spiritual Ground (gži) — known as the tathāgatagarbha or Buddha-nature — and the Path (mārga - lam) in all its stages.
~ in Buddha-nature, Mind and the Problem of Gradualism in a Comparative Perspective, page(s) 6