2. The Buddha-nature: Solution to Individual and Social Problems

The life contains issues of personality, social relations, and surrounding living environment. So, modern life is the life of personality, family and society in the present modern world. The life itself will be meaningless if it exists alone; therefore, when mentioning the life, people usually refer to the meaning of life such as the happiness or suffering of life, etc. The concept of meaning of life is very subjective because it depends on the knowledge and recognition of each person. But individual knowledge is deeply rooted in the philosophical and religious concept of human and the world. Modern scientific knowledge has its roots in western philosophy, while eastern knowledge is based on eastern civilization. All philosophies, religions and sciences are to provide significance and worth for the human life. Therefore, the Buddha-nature is really a doctrine of great worth only if it has a meaning of life.

In our human existence, there are not only our personal complex endowed with many elements, such as physical body, senses, perception, consciousness, and various mental states as desires, instincts, anger, ignorance, happiness, sadness, etc.; but also social relationship and natural environment. Family may also be considered as a special social relationship. The meaning of life, in conventional speaking, comes from all faces of life such as joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, happiness and suffering, etc. So our ordinary life may be said to consist of the complex of all these things which are always working in the dual contradiction of subject and object, being and non-being, etc. It may be termed as the life of discrimination and critique. And there is neither real happiness nor real meaning in this kind of life, because, as the last words of the Buddha presented above, the nature of all phenomena is decay and impermanent.

The life is impermanent, so the happiness we have today may disappear tomorrow. This is the suffering due to separation from loved ones.

The life is changeable, so the dislike we hate may come back with us again. This is the suffering due to meeting with what we hate.

The life is unsure, so the aim we plan may be lost. This is the suffering due to unfulfilled wishes.

The life is conditioned, so our body and mind may be not well, not harmonized. This is the suffering due to the raging aggregates.

And there are so many sufferings in the life that man cannot avoid such as rebirth, old-age, sickness, and death. Thus, the life is suffering; this is reality, not mere theory. And the Buddha came into existence to end those sufferings and bring real happiness for the life.

Happiness, according to Buddhism, is the end of all sufferings. The end of sufferings is not only the emptiness of the forms of sufferings, i.e. there is no presence of sufferings, but also the attitude and conception of sufferings are not real in its essence. This conception and attitude of the life and its sufferings are one of the subject-matter of the thought of Buddha-nature. Whenever we recognize sufferings are unreal, at that time we are free from sufferings although they are still present there. This concept relates to the attitude and conception if the life as it is that the Buddha-nature brings them to us.

The Buddha-nature as depicted in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra is identical with the Ālayavijñāna, being the essence of the world, but also containing all images or forms of the world. In other words, the essence of all things in the world is really eternal, bliss, true, pure, non-dual, thusness; and all things appear as they are. However, because of the ego-grasping of selfof-person and self-of-thing coming from the Manas, the thing is seen as not it innately is. Through the dualistic discrimination of the manas and the manovijñāna, thing is now covered with name, form, and unreal quality such as being or nonbeing, suffering or happiness, permanence or impermanence, arise and cease, etc. Seeing the thing by this way is called seeing by the noble wisdom of the Buddha-nature as described in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra.

Therefore, sufferings of the life are only the wrong reflection and discrimination of the Manas in mind. Sufferings are really destroyed from the root if they are realized by this transcendental wisdom of the Buddhanature.

Thus, the thought of Buddha-nature in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra provides us the special way of ending sufferings, brings us the real meaning and happiness of life. This special way that is seeing directly into the real essence of all things as they are by the noble wisdom. The meaning of life in accordance with the wisdom of the Buddha-nature is that sufferings and ordinary happiness of the life are unreal. When there is neither discrimination nor interpretation, everything is here because it has to be here. At that time, we are called Dharmakāya and the world becomes tathatā, i.e., “such-ness” or “as-it-is”. There is here no name, no value, and no meaning. All greed, anger and illusion are absent. So, the personal life reaches its real meaning and happiness when the Buddha-nature is realized.

However, the Buddha-nature is also endowed with compassion which is a great sympathy for the sufferings of the others. With compassion, happiness of the personal life will become happiness of the social life. The Bodhisattvas at the eighth stage can attain Nirvāṇa with the bliss of the Samādhi, but they will not enter into Nirvāṇa because they wish to save living beings in accordance with their compassion. Suppose that in a society, one lives for the others and the others live for one, that society is definitely real happy and very meaningful. Thus, the Buddhanature endowed with wisdom and compassion is the source of happiness and meaningfulness of the life.

According to the theory of Mind-only in Laṅkāvatārasūtra, the world is the reflection of the Mind, i.e. the Ālayavijñāna or Tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, when the inner mind is the equilibrium and peace, the world will be peaceful. This is not only the message, but also the way, the method, the treatment for the chaos of this modern world.

The mind is peace, the world will be peace; in turn, the mind is violent, the world will be violent. We witness today the modern world in general is operated by the western minds in the tendencies of materialism, individualism and nationalism based on the egoism. In western countries, the individualism is elevated as high as possible in all social relationships. These tendencies lead to the problems of the modern life. The problems facing human life are many. We have individual problems from the basic needs such as food, properties, money, job, disease, etc., to higher needs as love, career, rank, self-esteem, power, etc., and the highest need of spiritual and faithful satisfaction. They appear very complicated, as actually they are; but greed, anger and illusion of the common man are same, from which problems of family, society and nature arise. For examples, man needs petrol for energy, so petroleum and gas are taken out from the earth resulting in many vacuum spaces in the earth, therefore, the earth‘s crusts are easy to slide leading the earthquake. The energy crisis is also the nature of wars. Thus, all problems of the modern world originate from human mind.

The Buddha-nature as depicted in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra is identical with the Ālayavijñāna, the source of all human minds, when it is obscured by greed, anger and ignorance. In this case, the problems of individual, family and society appear. When the Ālayavijñāna is cleansed from all defilements, the Buddha-nature exposes under the name Dharmakāya. In this situation, all problems of the life and the world end. Thus, the thought of Buddha-nature through the description of the Laṅkāvatārasūtra is not a vague metaphysical concept, but it is associated closely with the practical life of individuals, family and society. Therefore, it is very necessary for us to cultivate our mind to realize our Buddha-nature, the state of purity, calm, eternality, self-control, and full of compassion. By this way, we can reach the highest stage of spirit that is to be able to control our karmas and evil minds when living in the chaos of modern society.