Buddha nature

In the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism, buddha-nature is the eternal potential, present in all sentient beings, of awakening and becoming Enlightened. Buddha-nature is considered to be incorruptible, in that no matter what the outward appearance or history of a particular sentient being, buddha-nature is always latently present.

Unlike the Western concept of a soul, buddha-nature is not considered to be an isolated essence of a particular individual, but rather a single unified essence shared by all beings with buddha-nature.

In the Buddhist tradition, it is considered insufficient simply to understand buddha-nature intellectually, or to achieve an intuitive understanding of it. Rather it must be experienced and felt directly, in one's entire mind and body together. Enlightenment in a certain sense consists of a direct experience of one's authentic identity, which is traditionally described as Sunyata (emptiness), the ultimate reality of buddha-nature.

The knowledge of buddha-nature was considered to have been lost to humanity for many eons before its rediscovery by the Buddha when he became Enlightened.

Like many concepts in Eastern religions, buddha-nature defies simple definitions in words. Like other such concepts, buddha-nature is often explained indirectly by parable.

One of the most famous such parables on buddha-nature comes from Zen. According to the story, a monk once approached the Zen master Chao-chou and asked him, "Does a dog possess buddha-nature or not?" Chao-chou replied with the one-word answer "mu". His response, among other things, indicated that the question could not answered with a simple "Yes" or "No." Rather through the contemplation of the question, or the absurdity of it, one may perhaps gain an experience of buddha-nature directly.

The exploration of the meaning of buddha-nature has found renewed vigor in recent decades with the developments of robotics and the possible eventual creation of artificial intelligence. In the 1970s, the Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori popularized the idea that robots, under certain conditions, may possess buddha-nature. Mori has since founded an institute to study the metaphysical implications of such technology.