What is the human nature in Buddhism?

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 동국대학교 불교문화연구원
· 수록지 정보 : 불교학보 / 48호 / 29 ~ 53페이지
· 저자명 : 김종욱

초록

In Buddhism, humans exist not between the relationship of two subjects of the creator and the created, or the heaven and the earth, but they exist between the world of ignorance and the world of awakening solely based on their mindset. It is noteworthy that this existence is not in the form of mere "floating", but in progression of distinctive direction: "realization of awakening from ignorance"(轉迷開悟). The fact that the humans live in a two-tiered complex world of ignorance and awakening and the move from one state to another merely requires the change in the mindset reflects that the study of humans in Buddhism begin with the exploration of mind in the setting of non-essential reality and essential possibility or that of contamination and purity. This scrutiny of humans in the setting of contamination and purity stands in contrast to the view of humans in the setting of rationality and animality, good and evil, and stillness (靜) and motion (動) in the West, Confucianism, and Taoism, respectively. The Buddhist view of humans can be summarized as "mind by nature is pure, and it is not a subject that can be soiled"(心性本淨 客塵所染).
Prajñāparamita-sutra and Madhyamika argue that the basis for the belief "mind by nature is pure, and it is not a subject that can be soiled" lies on the emptiness, but they do not go in-depth to explain what happens inside the mind itself. Yogacara attempts to gain a comprehensive understanding of the setting of purity and contamination expressed in the above belief through the notion of ālaya-vijñāna (阿賴耶識,). Yogacara attempts to compile the two-tiered complexity of ignorance and awakening and contamination and purity embedded in everyday human life and the possibility of realization of awakening from ignorance, which is also expressed as "the acquisition of truth through the transformation of consciousness" (轉識得智) in Yogacara, by the way of ālaya-vijñāna and the three-nature theory. Nevertheless, it puts more emphasis on the notion "the mind is not a subject that can be soiled" that explains the mindset of an ordinary person rather than on the part "the mind by nature is pure." tathāgata-garbha thought belief seeks the integration of the two parts by developing on the notion "the mind by nature is pure." Tathāgata-garbha implies the two-tiered complexity of ignorance and awakening as reflected on the statement "mind by nature is pure, and it is not a subject that can be soiled," and Buddha nature shows that its theoretical foundation lies on the emptiness; both concepts of tathāgata-garbha and Buddha nature point to the possibility of deliverance for sattva. Buddha nature is more than a simple translated term, but it embeds the interaction between the Buddhist philosophy and the traditional Chinese philosophy. Hypostatization of Buddha nature has reaffirmed that Buddha nature can be found in one's mind as human nature to the follower of Buddhism in China. Furthermore, noumenaliation of Buddha nature stirred the realization of the fact that mentalized Buddha nature is no different from the emptiness in true nature as the essential principle of all virtues. It clearly follows that the human nature is Buddha nature, and more specifically "Buddha nature as the emptiness" in Buddhism. Buddha nature as the emptiness can overcome the limitations of humanism to result in the theory of human nature that brings together the nature and humans in harmony. Buddha nature and Dharma nature are both the emptiness, and it follows that nature of humans and the other parts of the world meet in the commonality of the emptiness.

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