BUDDHA-NATURE

Buddha-nature is a concept and doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism which asserts that all sentient beings can attain an enlightenment that is appropriate to their particular form of existence. The idea has its origins in the concept of "dharma" which conceives the natural world to be populated by beings with their own unique nature. According to this idea it is the duty of beings to be true to the nature that existence has bestowed upon them or that is appropriate to their particular level of evolutionary development.

For example, it is not the dharma of a hippopotamus to hunt Gazelle. Neither is it the dharma of a lion to spend the day wallowing in muddy waters and eating vegetation.  The Tibetan Buddhist lama Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche states in a similar way that a stone does not have the potential to produce oil, and so no matter how much you might press it and grind it—even if you use modern tools and machinery—you will never extract any oil from it. A sesame seed, on the other hand, does have the potential to produce oil, and by pressing it in the right way, sesame oil can and will be produced.

According to the Buddha, the fundamental or true nature of the human being is compassion, and as Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Christianity assert, it is the peculiar nature of the human being to be free from the passions, and to gain knowledge of the unconditioned ground of existence, called either God or Brahman in theistic religions. This knowledge of the unconditioned ground is called in Buddhism bodhi.

The idea of Buddha-nature as it applies to human beings has historically been associated with a doctrine known as the Tathāgatagarbha.  This states that a human being has an inborn potential to become fully enlightened and it is the responsibility of a person who has realized this state to help awaken this innate intelligence in their fellow human beings.