"You are your own saviour - who else is there to save You ?"
Dhammapada, verse 160.

The Tathâgatagarbha is not a "school" like the Mâdhyamika or the Yogâchâra and, probably because of its similarity with certain Hindu teachings, never had the same intellectual impact. In Hinduism, the "âtman" is innate and ontologically united with Brahman, God. Insofar as Buddha-nature is given a similar position, criticism cannot be avoided, for such a self-sufficient ground conflicts with the selflessness of the Second Turning.

Crucial texts are the Tathâgatagarbha Sûtra, the Śrîmâlâdevî-simhanâda Sûtra (3rd century) and the Ratnagotravibhâga of Maitreyanâtha (3rd or 4th century). The latter was commented by Sâramati, the first systematizer of the Tathâgatagarbha doctrine. He made a clear distinction between two states of suchness or "tathatâ". Buddhahood represents the pure, undefiled state, whereas everyday existence represents the defiled state (the parallels with the Yogâchâra storehouse consciousness are obvious).

The intent of the Third Turning is to extend Buddhahood to all sentient beings, affirming all sentient beings possess the unalienable potential of enlightenment. While the Second Turning introduces emptiness, the ultimate truth, the Third Turning points to the presence of this ultimate truth in the continuum of every defiled mind. Debates were held to ascertain whether the Tathâgatagarbha doctrine is really different from the Yogâchâra School, for both doctrines were developed in the same period and shared some root texts by Asanga. Moreover, the Tathâgatagarbha literature shows an increasing trend to identify the "tathâgatagarbha", "embryo of the Tathâgata", "seed of Buddhahood" or "matrix-of-One-Gone-Thus" with the "âlaya-prajñâ", the purified, absolute & inherently existing storehouse-consciousness of the Mind Only School. However, attempts to identify this Third Turning with the substantialist "âtman" doctrine are futile and based on wrong logic. The Buddhadharma has no substance-self, and the Third Turning does not reintroduce one (as Critical Middle School Consequentialists argue).

The various, complex interpretations given to this Third Turning can be reduced to two fundamental views :

• either the Buddha-nature is considered to be (a) an inherently existing nature of enlightenment, (b) naturally free from defilements, (c) from the very beginning endowed with all Buddha-qualities (enlightened body, speech, mind & activity) and (d) possessed by all sentient beings. This is the ontological interpretation cherished by the Mind Only School, by Shentong (other-emptiness) and by Dzogchen. It follows from the view accepting the permanent, inherent, ontologically isolated nature of ultimate truth, for once ultimate Buddha-qualities are permanent they must pre-exist in the continuums of sentient beings ;
• or the Buddha-embryo is not in any way identified with a separate ontological substrate, an inherently existing sufficient ground or a sempiternally pure clarity of mind, but solely with the potential of enlightenment. This is the epistemological interpretation followed by Critical Mâdhamakas as Tsongkhapa and his school. The Buddha-potential is just the emptiness of the mind in the continuum of a defiled mind.

In this latter view, all sentient beings, by nature of their sentience, possess the capacity or potential to realize enlightenment ("bodhi") a priori. This mere capacity is not a fully developed Buddha-state (with its co-relative Buddha-qualities) existing inherently from the very beginning (as the Jonangpas claim), but the emptiness of the mind, i.e. its fundamental lack of inherent existence, or not existing in the mode of subsistence. If such were not the case, all sentient beings would already be enlightened and the radiant state of Buddhahood would be merely concealed by defilements ! Then the difference between the Hindu "âtman" doctrine would vanish, would it not ? But how to conceal the Sun ? Given this innate capacity or potential of the mind to realize its own emptiness, secundary conditions must be created to generate or engender Buddhahood, i.e. to use this capacity to transform our defiled condition into that of an Awakened One, a Buddha. To do so, nothing more is needed than to end the false ideation brought about by substantial instantiation of objects of knowledge. While this Buddha-potential is the primary cause or possibility of Buddhahood, inalienable and present from the very beginning, secundary conditions are needed to end the coarse & subtle defilements of the mind obscuring the fruition of this capacity for enlightenment.

These conditions involve the choice to do so and the effort to bring this about.

Choice (free will) & effort are only given to human beings. While all other sentient beings also possess Buddha-potential, they lack the capacity to generate it by absence of these secundary causes. Hell beings hate & suffer continuously. Hungy ghosts constantly wander unsatisfied & greedy. Animals, being stupid, lack mental bodies. Demi-gods, due to their arrogance, abide in constant conflict. Gods are so distracted by their good karma, they have no moment available to concentrate on the ultimate nature of their proud minds. Human beings, over-attached to objects of desire, have the free will to make the proper choice, but mostly do not put in the effort necessary to find the true meaning of their precious lives.

Just like a mustard seed is not identical with the tree, Buddha-qualities are not given or fully developed from the start. Like water takes on the colour of the glass, the emptiness of the mind abides in the defiled continuum. Just like we need exercise to bring about our genetically given capacities, Buddhahood is generated as the result of our conscious efforts to realize the ultimate nature of the mind, i.e. by meditations on emptiness. Without the latter, just like fully operational eyes cannot process light in complete darkness, this capacity will remain unexpressed. Being dormant, suffering continues.

Although yogi's often claim otherwise, praising Buddhahood as sempiternal, they forget classical logic does not allow us to do so. Indeed, the ontological interpretation of the Third Turning cannot divorce the conclusions of the Second Turning, but are intended to complement them. Taking the "tathâgatagarbha" outside the context of this sequence is doing nothing more than to regress & reintroduce the old Vedic "âtman = Brahman" formula, contradicting the selflessness lying at the basis of ultimate truth and the edifice of the Buddhadharma. The Second Turning introduces emptiness (& compassion), while the Third Turning applies it to the mind itself.

The view of the Mâdhamika in general, and of Tsongkhapa in particular, is gradualist or path-oriented. These philosophers consider enlightenment never to be sudden, but the end result of a long process of spiritual evolution, moving through various stages. By accumulating compassion and wisdom, the conditions for awakening arise. By prolonged meditation on compassion Form Bodies ("Nirmânakaya & Sambhogakâya") are generated, and by emptiness meditations the Truth Body ("Dharmakâya") arises. So the two "baskets" of compassion & wisdom act as "causes" leading to enlightenment, and without them, suffering cannot be ended, for the fruit cannot be produced. Given this, Buddha-nature cannot be an ontological a priori and the qualities associated with awakening cannot be considered to be given from the very beginning. They must be caused or generated by the efforts put in a posteriori.

Although the logic of this argument seems clear-cut and powerful, it stands in stark contrast to the direct, nondual, non-conceptual experience of the yogi's of the Mind Only School and the view of the masters of Dzogchen. For these splendid yogic minds, focusing on meditative experience rather than on conceptual logic & philosophy, enlightenment is an uncompounded, continuous state. They ask how compounded, impermanent conditions may act as "causes" producing the permanent ? How can the impure ever produce the pure if the latter is not a given ? For Tsongkhapa, the difference between conventional & ultimate truth is not ontological, implying the ultimate is not a different "pure" reality versus an "impure" conventional one. As all phenomena, Buddhas as well as sentient beings, are self-empty, the latter are able to generate the former. If ultimate truth is deemed to be "split" from conventional reality, as in other-emptiness, this cannot be the case. Hence, the question "How can the impure generate the pure ?" becomes pertinent.

Other-emptiness thinkers relentlessly stress all sentient beings are enlightened sui generis, implying that to realize awakening, nothing more has to be done than to uncover this intrinsic Buddha-nature and its enduring, sempiternal qualities ... This uncovering or unveiling may happen suddenly, only by pointing out the luminous, clear nature of the mind, for ever united with the primordial ground. Once pointed out, the process of clearing away may start ...

Given the resplendent authority of those adhering to this suddenist view, one wonders how to reconcile these conflicting views ?

Perhaps the philosophical view of Tsongkhapa represents the pinnacle of what can be achieved by way of the conceptual mind based on the traditional, linear view on causality ? If so, one may wonder whether another interpretation of process and change may be helpful in solving the tension between gradualists & suddenists ? Suppose we would see sentient beings as dynamical, dissipative, non-linear systems able to self-structure, auto-regulate and trigger autopoiesis (cf. Prigogine & chaos-theory) ? Instead of viewing Buddhahood as the end result, as gradualism demands, we could understand awakening as the fundamental state or self-empty ground-state of the system and our suffering, sentient condition as a lower energy-state of the same system, i.e. as an exception caused by defilements & ignorance caused by a reduced level of negentropy within the system ?

A Buddha, so this view goes, continuously wipes out what needs to be dissipated, unfolding the totality of qualities of his or her ground-potential. A Buddha is "gone-unfolded" (Guenther, 1989), constantly destroying the substantial instantiation of objects. This implies a sapient dynamism relating to continuous self-(re)structuring, a system dissipating entropy, and in doing so "unfolding" Buddhahood because of the ongoing dissipation of excitability and the delusion or the ignorance attributing substance to phenomena. Buddhahood is a dynamic non-unfolded totality of qualities as pure potential. Because this totality is an unbounded wholeness, this dynamism is endless. So, viewing sentient beings from the side of a Buddha, is understanding the causes & conditions of their lack of entropy-dissipation. Instead of seeing sentient beings as the rule and Buddhahood as the exception, we understand awakening as the "ordinary" state and mere sentience as the exception to the rule. This philosophical view begins by positing Buddhahood as a system dissipating igorance and sentience as a symmetry-break away from this natural state.