Key Terms/Tathatā

तथता tathatā

suchness

དེ་བཞིན་ཉིད་

de bzhin nyid

Sanskrit - Noun

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Basic Meaning

Suchness itself, absolute reality, or thusness, as in the ultimate state of being of phenomena.

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Has the sense of

A synonym for emptiness or the nature of things, dharmatā; it can also be used to describe the unity of dependent origination and emptiness. (Source: Erik Pema Kunsang, Lamp of Mahamudra, 1989.)

Read It in the Scriptures

Since the perfect buddhakaya radiates,

Since suchness is undifferentiable, And because of the disposition,

All beings always possess the buddha heart. Ratnagotravibhāga, Verse I.28

— When the Clouds Part, Brunnhölzl, 356–57.

In practice

Usage example

संबुद्धकायस्फरणात् तथताव्यतिभेदतः
गोत्रतश्च सदा सर्वे बुद्धगर्भाः शरीरिणः
saṃbuddhakāyaspharaṇāt tathatāvyatibhedataḥ
gotrataśca sadā sarve buddhagarbhāḥ śarīriṇaḥ
E. H. Johnston as input by the University of the West

།རྫོགས་སངས་སྐུ་ནི་འཕྲོ་ཕྱིར་དང་།
།དེ་བཞིན་ཉིད་དབྱེར་མེད་ཕྱིར་དང་།
།རིགས་ཡོད་ཕྱིར་ན་ལུས་ཅན་ཀུན།
།རྟག་ཏུ་སངས་རྒྱས་སྙིང་པོ་ཅན།
Dege, PHI, 111

In other languages

Tibetan

དེ་བཞིན་ཉིད་

de bzhin nyid

day zhin nyi

Sanskrit

तथता

tathatā

How translators render it

suchnessBuddha-nature Standard, Karl Brunnhölzl, Jeffrey Hopkins, Gyurme Dorje

suchness itselfRichard Barron

thusnessJeffrey Hopkins

realityGyurme Dorje

absolute realityGyurme Dorje

actual truthGyurme Dorje

real natureGyurme Dorje

In the dictionaries

Tshig mdzod chen mo

spros pa dang bral ba'i chos kyi dbyings so

Term type

Noun

Source language

Sanskrit

Topic

tathatā

Related terms

dharmatā