Key Terms/Bodhigarbha
Basic Meaning
An alternative term for tathāgatagarbha found in early Nyingma sources. Though it is back-translated as bodhigarbha, this term does not seem to be found in Sanskrit sources. However, in other contexts, the Tibetan byang chub snying po is often used to translate the Sanskrit term bodhimaṇḍa, which is often translated as the "seat of enlightenment."
Has the sense of
Buddha-nature in its ultimate sense as the primordially existing essence of buddhahood present in all beings. It is treated as a Tantric/Dzogchen equivalent of the more Sūtra-based terms tathāgatagarbha and sugatagarbha.
Usage example
Rongzompa states in his commentary on the Guhyagarbha Tantra,
དེ་ལ་བདེ་བར་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ནི།
།ཐུན་མོང་དུ་གྲགས་པ་སེམས་ཅན་རྣམས་བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་རྒྱུ་ཅན་ཟག་མེད་ཀྱི་ས་བོན་དང་ལྡན་པ་འོ།་།ཞེས་འདོད་དོ། །ཟབ་མོ་ལྟར་ན་སེམས་ཀྱི་རང་བཞིན་ཉིད་བྱང་ཆུབ་ཡིན་པས་བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སྙིང་པོའོ།
"The term *sugatagarbha is widely known in ordinary [scriptures] which claim that all sentient beings possess the cause of awakening [and] are endowed with the seed of incorruptibility. According to the profound [scriptures], it is called the ‘quintessence of awakening’ (*bodhigarbha) because the very nature of mind is awakening."
-Translated in David Higgins. The Philosophical Foundations of Classical rDzogs chen in Tibet: Investigating the Distinction Between Dualistic Mind (sems) and Primordial Knowing (ye shes). Wien: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien, Universität Wien, 2013, p. 177.
1) supreme enlightenment 2) Bodhgaya 3) bodhichitta; point of enlightenment; heart of enlightenment; the heart of awakening.
