This term (also rendered here as “inherent existence” and “inherent nature”) literally means “own-being” and can be used in an ordinary sense to denote the most fundamental or characteristic quality, property, or nature of things. In Mahāyāna literature it is also used in several different ways in the examination of the ontological status of phenomena, most frequently in statements denying that phenomena may ultimately possess any such existence or nature, objectively in their own right, apart from ignorantly attributed concepts and designations. However, in the Yogācāra system and later literature the incompleteness of an ontological status is described in three or more successive levels or aspects that also use modulations of the same term; see “three natures.”

The inherent nature of a phenomenon; in the present text, this is possibly a reference to the buddha-nature, or tathāgatagarbha.

The inherent nature of a phenomenon; in the present text, this is possibly a reference to the buddha-nature, tathāgatagarbha.

See “intrinsic nature.”

See “intrinsic nature.”

See “intrinsic nature.”

This term denotes the ontological status of phenomena, according to which they are attributed with existence in their own right, inherently, in and of themselves, objectively, and independent of any other phenomena such as our conception and labeling. The absence of such an ontological reality is defined as the true nature of reality, emptiness.

“According to Sāṁkhya, the prime substance, from which the material universe evolves, as opposed to puruṣa, pure consciousness.” (Reat, 39 n5).

A fundamental ontological principle of the non-Buddhist Sāṅkhya tradition. Prakṛti is the undifferentiated potentiality that contains all possible transformations of thought and matter. It can either persist in an unmanifest or manifest state, manifesting only when it comes into contact with the second fundamental Sāṅkya principle, puruṣa, a basic mode of timeless awareness. When these two come into contact, the internal complexities of cognition and perception and the external complexities of the material world progressively unfold, thereby creating the known universe.

Svabhāva is usually rendered as “self-nature,” sometimes as “own-being,” both of which have a certain literal validity. However, neither artificial term has any evocative power for the reader who has no familiarity with the original, and a term must be found that the reader can immediately relate to his own world to fulfill the function the original word had in its world. In our world of identities (national, racial, religious, personal, sexual, etc.), “identity” is a part of our makeup; thus, when we are taught the ultimate absence of identity of all persons and things, it is easy to “identify” what is supposedly absent and hence to try to understand what that entails.

See “inherent existence.”