Original enlightenment or innate awakening () is an East Asian Buddhist doctrine often translated as "inherent", "innate", "intrinsic" or "original" awakeness.
This doctrine holds all sentient beings are already enlightened or awakened in some way. In this view, since all beings have some kind of awakeness as their true nature, the attainment of insight is a process of discovering and recognizing what is already present, not of attaining some goal or developing a potential.Stone, Jacqueline. 'From Buddha Nature to Original Enlightenment: "Contemplating Suchness" in Medieval Japan' in Mathes, Klaus-Dieter, and Casey Kemp, eds. Buddha Nature Across Asia. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 103. Vienna: Arbeitkreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien, University of Vienna, 2022. As such, people do not have to become Buddhas through religious cultivation, they just have to recognize that they already are awake, just like Buddhas. Original enlightenment thought is related to Indian Buddhist concepts like Buddha-nature and the luminous mind. The doctrine is articulated in influential East Asian works like the Awakening of Faith and the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, and was also influenced by the teachings of the Huayan school on the interpenetration of all phenomena.
Original enlightenment is often contrasted with "acquired", "initial", "actualized" or "the inception of enlightenment" (), which is a relative experience that is attained through Buddhist practices and teachings by an individual in this life.
Original enlightenment is an influential doctrine of various schools of East Asian Buddhism, including Chan / Zen, Tiantai and Huayan. Inherent enlightenment was also often associated with the teachings of sudden enlightenment which was influential for Japanese Zen. The original enlightenment idea was also important for Korean Buddhism, especially Korean Seon. It was a central teaching in medieval Japanese Buddhist traditions like Shingon, Tendai, and also for some of the new Kamakura schools like Japanese Zen.
History
Indian roots The doctrine of innate enlightenment developed in Chinese Buddhism out of various Indian Mahayana ideas, such as the Buddha-nature (tathagatagarbha) doctrine, the luminous mind and the teachings found in various Mahayana sources, including the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Ghanavyuha, Śrīmālādevī, Tathagatagarbha sutra, Nirvana sutra, and the Ratnagotravibhāga.Gregory, Peter N. (2002), Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism, p. 167. University of Hawai’i Press, Kuroda Institute, (originally published Princeton University Press, 1991, Princeton, N.J.), ISBN 0-8248-2623-X
The influential Huayan-Chan scholar, Guifeng Zongmi, cites various Indian Mahayana sources for this idea. He cites a passage from the Avatamsaka Sutra which states, "When one first raises the thought [of awakening], one attains unexcelled, perfect awakening." He also cites the Nirvana Sutra, which states: "The two, raising the thought [of awakening] and the ultimate, are not separate."Broughton, Jeffrey (2009), Zongmi on Chan, p. 39. New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-14392-9
The Prajña translation of the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra (translated by the Indian monk Prajña) also mentions the term, stating: "When the buddhas and bodhisattvas realize enlightenment, they convert the ālaya and attain the wisdom of original enlightenment" (Taisho no. 10 n0293 p0688a08).
Origins in China
The Chinese term itself is first mentioned in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana (c. 6th century).Sueki Fumihiko, "Two Seemingly Contradictory Aspects of the Teaching of Innate Enlightenment (hongaku) in Medieval Japan", Japanese Journal of Religious Study 22 (1-2), pp. 3-16, 1995. PDF According to this treatise:
The Awakening of Faith also identifies inherent enlightenment with "true suchness" (真如, tathātā), the mind which is pure in itself, and the tathagata-garbha.Shirato, Waka. “Inherent Enlightenment (‘Hongaku Shisō’) and Saichō’s Acceptance of the Bodhisattva Precepts.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 14, no. 2/3, 1987, pp. 113–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30233979. Accessed 4 May 2024. According to Jacqueline Stone, the Awakening of Faith sees original enlightenment as "true suchness considered under the aspect of conventional deluded consciousness and thus denotes the potential for enlightenment in unenlightened beings."
The idea is further discussed in the influential commentary to the Awakening of Faith titled On the Interpretation of Mahāyāna (Shi Moheyan lun, 釈摩訶衍論, Japanese: , Taisho no. 1668). Original enlightenment is also found in other influential East Asian works, like the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment and the Vajrasamadhi Sutra.
The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment explains inherent enlightenment or "Perfect Enlightenment" as the source of all phenomena (which are ultimately illusory), drawing on essence-function thought:Good sons, all sentient beings' various illusions are born from the perfectly enlightened marvelous mind of the Tathagata, just like the sky-flowers come to exist in the sky. Even though the illusory flowers vanish, the nature of the sky is indestructible. The illusory mind of sentient beings also vanishes based on illusion, and while all illusions are utterly erased, the enlightened mind is unchanged. The term also appears in the 8th century Amoghavajra translation of the Humane King Sutra:
What these various Chinese sources have in common is that they understand the idea of original enlightenment as the "essence" of things in the framework of essence-function thought (tiyong) and thus see it as the ultimate source or basis for all phenomena.
The term is also found in the Platform Sutra (c. 8th to 13th century), a central text for Zen Buddhism:
Development in the mainland In medieval China, the doctrine of original enlightenment developed in the East Asian Yogacara, Huayan and Chan Buddhist schools. The Huayan scholar Fazang presents an extensive analysis of the idea in his commentary on the Awakening of Faith. According to the Japanese scholar of hongaku thought, Tamura Yoshirō (1921–1989), "It was here in Huayen doctrine, a "philosophy of becoming", based on the idea of one principle or one mind, that the concept of original enlightenment first took on special significance".
Original enlightenment was also an important and widely pervasive doctrine in Chinese Chan and in the other continental Zen traditions. The Huayan-Chan scholar monk Guifeng Zongmi wrote about the idea from a Chan perspective, while also promoting the doctrine of sudden enlightenment, followed by gradual cultivation. Korean figures like Wŏnhyo, influenced by the thought of Zongmi, introduced the concept to Korean Buddhism, where it also had a considerable impact. The topic of original enlightenment was widely discussed and developed in Korea by figures like Wônhyo (617–686), Jinul (1158–1210), Kihwa (1376–1433) and Hyujông (1520–1604). According to Charles Muller, "all four of these men wrote extensively on the matter of the relationship between innate and actualized enlightenment."Muller, Charles. "Innate Enlightenment and No-thought: A Response to the Critical Buddhist Position on Zen". Toyo Gakuen University, A paper delivered to the International Conference on Sôn at Paekyang-sa, Kwangju, Korea, August 22, 1998. As such, the foundational view of the Korean Sôn tradition is grounded on the view of original enlightenment and essence-function metaphysics influenced by scriptures like the Platform Sutra, Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, and the Awakening of Faith.
The teaching of the Awakening of Faith was eventually adopted into the Tiantai school by figures like the patriarch Zhanran (711–782). However, as Stone writes, Tiantai figures like Zhanran appropriated these ideas "in a manner consistent with their own metaphysics, that is, as denoting the interpenetration of the mind and all phenomena without assigning priority to either and without notions of original purity." As such, in classic Tiantai thought, original enlightenment is not an original source or a pure one mind (as in the Awakening of Faith), it merely refers to the doctrine that all phenomena (dharmas) are mutually inclusive and interrelated. The doctrine of original enlightenment also influenced the idea that insentient things also had buddha-nature, a doctrine popularized in some quarters of the Tiantai school which further integrated Huayan ideas into Tiantai.
However, since the founder of Tiantai, Zhiyi (538–597) had famously rejected the doctrine of the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith of an originally pure mind that gives rise to the phenomenal world, some parties in the Tiantai school rejected the adoption of the idea into Tiantai.Stone, Jacqueline. Review of Hanano Jūdō [花野充道], Tendai hongaku shisō to Nichiren kyōgaku [天台本覺思想と日 蓮教學] (Tendai Original Enlightenment Thought and Nichiren Doctrinal Studies). Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 20 (2011): 259–268. École Fançaise d’Extrême-Orient, Paris, 2013. This Song era Tiantai debate was part of the so called "home mountain" (shanjia) vs. "off mountain" (shanwai) debates. The "off mountain" faction supported the original enlightenment view, which was influenced by the thought of Zongmi and Yongming Yanshou, and promoted the existence of the "one pure formless mind" like the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith.Ziporyn, Brook (1994). Anti-Chan Polemics in Post-Tang Tiantai. Journal of the international Association of Buddhist Studies 17 (1), 26-65 The Tiantai patriarch Siming Zhili (960–1028) famously defended the home mountain faction and argued against the Awakening of Faith—original enlightenment view.Ziporyn, Brook. Anti-Chan Polemics in Post-Tang Tiantai. Journal of the international Association of Buddhist Studies Volume 17 • Number 1 • Summer 1994
In Japanese Buddhism Kūkai (774–835), founder of Shingon Buddhism, was one of the first Japanese authors to discuss original enlightenment. He was fond of the Awakening of Faith (and the Shi Moheyan lun commentary), so his view of the teaching is based on these sources.
In Tendai
The doctrine of innate enlightenment (jp: hongaku) was also very influential in the Tendai school. The Tendai founder Saichō, in various works like his Kenkairon, Jubosatsukaigi, and his commentary on the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings, discusses the concept of the pure mind and the buddha-nature in a way which prefigures later Tendai hongaku thought. For example, in his discussion of the bodhisattva precepts in the Jubosatsukaigi, Saichō writes:These are the single precepts of the Tathagata, the diamond treasure precepts. They are the precepts which are (based on) the eternally abiding Buddha-nature, the foundational source of all sentient beings, pure in itself and immobile like space. Therefore by means of these precepts one manifests and attains the original, inherent, eternally abiding Dharma-body with its thirty-two special marks (DDZ 1:304). Original enlightenment thought became particularly important for the tradition during the time from the late Heian cloistered rule era (1086–1185) through the Edo period (1688–1735). During the late Heian and Kamakura periods, new texts were produced which focused specifically on original enlightenment and a new branch of Tendai developed, called hongakumon, which emphasized this teaching. These texts include the Contemplation of Suchness (Shinnyokan), the Honri taikō shu, Hymns on Inherent Enlightenment (Hongaku-san), with commentaries to it titled Chu-hongaku-san and Hongaku-san shaku, Shuzen-ji ketsu. During this time, lineages of secret oral transmission of hongaku teachings (kuden) also developed within Tendai.