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Friday, August 3, 2018

Buddha-nature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Buddha-nature or Buddha Principle refers to several related terms, most notably tathāgatagarbha and buddhadhātu. Tathāgatagarbha means "the womb" or "embryo" (garbha) of the "thus-gone" (tathagata), or "containing a tathagata", while buddhadhātu literally means "Buddha-realm" or "Buddha-substrate". The terms refer to the notion that the luminous mind of the Buddhas is inherently present in every sentient being, and will shine forth when it is cleansed of the defilements, c.q. when the nature of mind is recognised for what it is.

Etymology

Tathāgatagarbha

The term tathāgatagarbha may mean "embryonic tathāgata",[3][4] "womb of the tathāgata",[3] or "containing a tathagata".[5] Various meanings may all be brought into mind when the term tathagatagarbha is being used.[5]

Compound

The Sanskrit term tathāgatagarbha is a compound of two terms, tathāgata and garbha:[3]
  • tathāgata means "the one thus gone", referring to the Buddha. It is composed of "tathā" and "āgata", "thus come",[3] or "tathā" and "gata", "thus gone".[3][6] The term refers to a Buddha, who has "thus gone" from samsara into nirvana, and "thus come" from nirvana into samsara to work for the salvation of all sentient beings.[3]
  • garbha, "womb",[3][7] "embryo",[3][7] "center",[7] "essence".[8][note 5]

Asian translations

The Chinese translated the term tathāgatagarbha as (traditional Chinese: 如来藏; ; pinyin: rúláizàng,[3] or "Tathāgata's (rúlái) storehouse" (zàng).[10][11] According to Brown, "storehouse" may indicate both "that which enfolds or contains something",[11] or "that which is itself enfolded, hidden or contained by another."[11] The Tibetan translation is de bzhin gsegs pa'i snyin po, which cannot be translated as "womb" (mngal or lhums), but as "embryonic essence", "kernel" or "heart".[11] The term "heart" was also used by Mongolian translators.[11]

Western translations

The term tathagatagarbha is translated and interpreted in various ways by western translators and scholars:
  • According to Sally King, the term tathāgatagarbha may be understood in two ways:[3]
  1. "embryonic tathāgata", the incipient Buddha, the cause of the Tathāgata,
  2. "womb of the tathāgata", the fruit of Tathāgata.
According to King, the Chinese rúláizàng was taken in its meaning as "womb" or "fruit".[3]
  • Wayman & Wayman also point out that the Chinese regularly takes garbha as "womb",[9] but prefer to use the term "embryo".
  • According to Brown, following Wayman & Wayman, "embryo" is the best fitting translation, since it preserves "the dynamic, self-transformative nature of the tathagatagarbha."[4]
  • According to Zimmerman, garbha may also mean the interior or center of something,[12] and its essence or central part.[13] As a tatpurusa[note 6] it may refer to a person being a "womb" for or "container" of the tathagata.[14] As a bahuvrihi[note 7] it may refer to a person as having an embryonic tathagata inside.[14] In both cases, this embryonic tathagata still has to be developed.[14] Zimmerman concludes that tathagatagarbha is a bahuvrihi, meaning "containing a tathagata",[note 8] but notes the variety of meanings of garbha, such as "containing", "born from", "embryo", "(embracing/concealing) womb", "calyx", "child", "member of a clan", "core", which may all be brought into mind when the term tathagatagarbha is being used.[5]

Buddha-nature

The term "Buddha-nature" (traditional Chinese: 佛性; ; pinyin: fóxìng, Japanese: busshō[3]) is closely related in meaning to the term tathāgatagarbha, but is not a translation of this term.[3][note 9] It refers to what is essential in the human being.[16]

The corresponding Sanskrit term is buddhadhātu.[3] It has two meanings, namely the nature of the Buddha, equivalent to the term dharmakāya, and the cause of the Buddha.[3] The link between the cause and the result is the nature (dhātu) which is common to both, namely the dharmadhātu.[16]

Matsumoto Shirō also points out that "Buddha-nature" translates the Sanskrit-term buddhadhātu, a "place to put something," a "foundation," a "locus."[17] According to Shirō, it does not mean "original nature" or "essence," nor does it mean the "possibility of the attainment of Buddhahood," "the original nature of the Buddha," or "the essence of the Buddha."[17]
In the Vajrayana, the term for Buddha-nature is sugatagarbha.

Indian origins

The idea of Buddha-nature originated in India, and was further developed in China, due to the different culture Buddhism had to adapt to. It was the result of an interplay between various strands of Buddhist thought, on the nature of human consciousness and the means of awakening.[18][19][20]

Awakened Mind

Luminous mind

According to Wayman, the idea of the tathagatagarbha is grounded on sayings by the Buddha that there is an innately pure luminous mind[21] (prabhasvara citta[22]), "which is only adventitiously covered over by defilements (agantukaklesa)"[22] This luminous mind is being mentioned in the Anguttara Nikaya:[23] "Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements."[24][note 10]

The Mahāsāṃghika coupled this idea of the luminous mind with the idea of the mulavijnana, the substratum consciousness that serves as the basis consciousness.[21]

Pure consciousness

From the idea of the luminous mind emerged the idea that the awakened mind is the pure, undefiled mind. In the tathagatagarbha-sutras it is this pure consciousness that is regarded to be the seed from which Buddhahood grows:
When this intrinsically pure consciousness came to be regarded as an element capable of growing into Buddhahood, there was the "embryo (garbha) of the Tathagata (=Buddha)" doctrine, whether or not this term is employed.[21]
Gregory comments on this origin of the Tathagatagarba-doctrine: "The implication of this doctrine [...] is that enlightenment is the natural and true state of the mind."[22]

The early Buddha-nature concept as expressed in the seminal 'tathagatagarbha sutra' named the Nirvana Sutra is, according to Kevin Trainor, as follows: "Sentient beings are said to possess a sacred nature that is the basis for them becoming buddhas [...] this buddha-nature is in fact our true nature [...] universal and completely unsullied by whatever psychological and karmic state an individual may be in."[2]

Dharma-dhātu - The realm of the Buddha

Mahayana Buddhism developed new ideas on the appearance of the Buddha. These ideas first appeared in the Lotus Sutra, which distinguishes between the heavenly Buddha and earthly Buddhas.[25]

Lotus Sutra

The Lotus Sutra, written between 100 BCE and 200 CE, further developed and popularized the doctrine of the Buddha-nature. It influenced subsequent later sutras.[26]

The tenth chapter emphasizes, in accordance with the Bodhisattva-ideal of the Mahayana teachings, that everyone can be liberated. All living beings can become a buddha, not only monks and nuns, but also laypeople, śrāvakas, bodhisattvas, and non-human creatures.[26] It also details that all living beings can be a 'teacher of the Dharma'.

The twelfth chapter of the Lotus Sutra details that Buddha-nature is universal among all people, even the historical Devadatta has the potential to become a buddha.[27] The story of Devadatta is followed by another story about a dragon princess who is both a nāga and a female, whom the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī proclaims will reach enlightenment immediately, in her present form.

Avatamsaka Sutra and universal Buddhahood

According to Wayman, the Avataṃsaka Sūtra (1st-3rd century CE) was the next step in the development of the Buddha-nature thought after the concept of the luminous mind:
[W]here it is taught that the Buddha's divine knowledge pervades sentient beings, and that its representation in an individual being is the substratum consciousness.[21]
The Avataṃsaka Sūtra does not contain a "singular discussion of the concept",[4] but the idea of "a universal penetration of sentient beings by the wisdom of the Buddha (buddhajñāna)" was complementary to the concept of the Buddha-womb.[4] The basic idea of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra is the unity of the absolute and the relative:
All in One, One in All. The All melts into a single whole. There are no divisions in the totality of reality [...] [I]t views the cosmos as holy, as "one bright pearl," the universal reality of the Buddha. The universal Buddhahood of all reality is the religious message of the Avatamsaka-sutra.[28][note 11]
All levels of reality are related and interpenetrated. This is depicted in the image of Indra's net. This "unity in totality allows every individual entity of the phenomenal world its uniqueness without attributing an inherent nature to anything".[29]

Trikaya

Around 300 CE, the Yogacara school systematized the prevalent ideas on the nature of the Buddha in the Trikaya or three-body doctrine. According to this doctrine, Buddhahood has three aspects:[30]
  1. The Nirmana-kaya, or Transformation-body, the earthly manifestation of the Buddha;
  2. The Sambhogakāya, or Enjoyment-body, a subtle body, by which the Buddha appears to bodhisattvas to teach them;
  3. The Dharmakāya, or Dharma-body, the ultimate nature of the Buddha, and the ultimate nature of reality.[citation needed]
They may be described as follows:
The first is the 'Knowledge-body' (Jnana-kaya), the inner nature shared by all Buddhas, their Buddha-ness (buddhata)
[...] The second aspect of the Dharma-body is the 'Self-existent-body' (Svabhavika-kaya). This is the ultimate nature of reality, thusness, emptiness: the non-nature which is the very nature of dharmas, their dharma-ness (dharmata). It is the Tathagata-garbha and bodhicitta hidden within beings, and the transformed 'storehouse-consciousness'.

Tathāgatagarbha Sutras - the essence or potentiality of Buddhahood

The tathāgatagarbha sūtras originated in India, but their ideas were more influential in the development of East Asian Buddhism.[18] The earliest tathāgatagarbha sūtra is the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra.[31] The most important of those sutras is Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra.[32][31] Another influential sutra, especially in Chinese thought, is the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra.[33] The Uttaratantra gives a synthesis of tathāgatagarbha-thought,[4] and gives an overview of authoritative tathāgatagarbha sutras.[33]

Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra

The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra (200-250 CE) is considered (...) "the earliest expression of this (the tathāgatagarbha doctrine) and the term tathāgatagarbha itself seems to have been coined in this very sutra."[34] It states that one is already or primordially awakened.[35][36][37]

Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra

The Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra (3rd century CE[38]), also named The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimala, centers on the teaching of the tathagatagarbha as "ultimate soteriological principle".[39] Regarding the tathāgatagarbha, it states:
Lord, the Tathagatagarbha is neither self nor sentient being, nor soul, nor personality. The Tathagatagarbha is not the domain of beings who fall into the belief in a real personality, who adhere to wayward views, whose thoughts are distracted by voidness. Lord, this Tathagatagarbha is the embryo of the Illustrious Dharmadhatu, the embryo of the Dharmakaya, the embryo of the supramundane dharma, the embryo of the intrinsically pure dharma.[40]
In the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra there are two possible states for the tathāgatagarbha:
[E]ither covered by defilements, when it is called only "embryo of the Tathagata"; or free from defilements, when the "embryo of the Tathagata" is no more the "embryo" (potentiality) but the Tathagata (actuality).[41]
The sutra itself states it this way:
This Dharmakaya of the Tathagata when not free from the store of defilement is referred to as the Tathagatagarbha.[42]

Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra

The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra (written 2nd century CE) was very influential in the Chinese reception of the Buddhist teachings.[20] According to Shimoda Masahiro, the authors of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra were leaders and advocates of stupa worship. The term buddhadhātu originally referred to relics. In the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, it came to be used in place of the concept of tathāgatagārbha. The authors used the teachings of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra to reshape the worship of the physical relics of the Buddha into worship of the inner Buddha as a principle of salvation.[15] Sasaki, in a review of Shimoda, conveys a key premise of Shimoda's work, namely, that the origins of Mahayana Buddhism and the Nirvana Sutra are entwined.[43]

According to Sallie B. King, it does not represent a major innovation, and is rather unsystematic,[44] which made it "a fruitful one for later students and commentators, who were obliged to create their own order and bring it to the text".[44] According to King, its most important innovation is the linking of the term buddhadhatu with tathagatagarbha.[44] The sutra presents the Buddha-nature or tathagatagarbha as a "Self". The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra refers to a true self. "The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṅa Sūtra, especially influential in East Asian Buddhist thought, goes so far as to speak of it as our true self (ātman). Its precise metaphysical and ontological status is, however, open to interpretation in the terms of different Mahāyāna philosophical schools; for the Madhyamikas it must be empty of its own existence like everything else; for the Yogacarins, following the Laṅkāvatāra, it can be identified with store consciousness, as the receptacle of the seeds of awakening.[45] Paul Williams states: "[...] it is obvious that the Mahaparinirvana Sutra does not consider it impossible for a Buddhist to affirm an atman provided it is clear what the correct understanding of this concept is, and indeed the sutra clearly sees certain advantages in doing so."[46] but it speaks about Buddha-nature in so many different ways, that Chinese scholars created a list of types of Buddha-nature that could be found in the text.[44] Paul Williams also notes:
Nevertheless the sutra as it stands is quite clear that while [...] we can speak of [the tathagatagharba] as Self, actually it is not at all a Self, and those who have such Self-notions cannot perceive the tathagatagarbha and thus become enlightened (see Ruegg 1989a: 21-6).[46]

Ratnagotravibhāga or Uttaratantraśāstra

The Ratnagotravibhāga, also called Uttaratantraśāstra (5th century CE), is a śāstra (commentary) in which
[T]he various insights and developments of the above texts (all of which served as its sources) were to be comprehensively synthesised into the most authoritatively complete analysis of the tathāgatagārbha theory.[4]
It gives an overview of authoritative tathāgatagarbha sutras, mentioning the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra, the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra, Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, the Aṅgulimālīya Sūtra, the Anunatva-Apurnatva-Nirdesa and the Mahābherīharaka-sūtra.[33] It presents the tathāgatagarbha as "an ultimate, unconditional reality that is simultaneously the inherent, dynamic process towards its complete manifestation".[47] Mundane and enlightened reality are seen as complementary:
Thusness [tathata] defiled is the Tathagatagarbha, and Thusness undefiled is Enlightenment.[41]
According to the Ratnagotravibhāga, all sentient have "the embryo of the Tathagata" in three senses:[48]
  1. the Tathāgata's dharmakāya permeates all sentient beings;
  2. the Tathāgata's tathatā is omnipresent (avyatibheda);
  3. the Tathāgata's species (gotra, a synonym for tathagatagarbha) occurs in them.
The Ratnagotravibhāga equates enlightenment with the nirvāṇa-realm and the dharmakāya.[41] It gives a variety of synonyms for garbha, the most frequently used being gotra and dhatu.[47]

Connecting the concepts

Tathagatagarbha and Alayavijnana

According to Kalupahana, the Madhyamaka of Nagarjuna, but also the Yogacara of Vasubandhu are a later reaction to the "emergence of absolutist tendencies". Nagarjuna's work is founded on the prajnaparamita-sutras, which reach back to the anatman doctrine.[49][page needed], [50][page needed]

Abhidhamma - The seed of awakening

The Buddha-nature doctrine may be traced back, in part, to the abhidharmic debates over metaphysics. Those arose among the Nikāya schools as they attempted to reconcile various perceived problems.[citation needed]

One problem is how to integrate the doctrine of anatta with the idea of karma and rebirth. The anatta-doctrine stipulates that there is no underlying self, while the idea of karma and rebirth seems to implicate an underlying essence that's being reborn. A solution to this problem was the proposition of the existence of karmic seeds. The karmic effects of the human deeds lie dormant, as seeds, until they germinate in this or a next life. Not an individual self, but these karmic seeds are the base for the generation of a following life.[citation needed]

This concept of "seeds" was espoused by the Sautrāntika in debate with the Sarvāstivādins over the metaphysical status of phenomena (dharmas). It is a precursor to the ālaya-vijñāna, the store-consciousness of the Yogācāra school which contains all these seeds.[51] Originally ālaya-vijñāna simply meant defiled consciousness: defiled by the workings of the five senses and the mind. It was also seen as the mūla-vijñāna, the base-consciousness or "stream of consciousness" from which awareness and perception spring.[49]

According to Yogacara, awakening is the result of a seed that comes from outside the human psyche, namely by hearing the teaching.[22]

Yogacara

Vasubandhu gives an analysis of the workings of the human mind and consciousness, based on the analysis of the working of the five skandhas. Vasubandhu's original analysis leaves ample room for the proposition of a transcendent essence[note 12], but was interpreted in an idealist way by later followers.[49][50]
To account for the notion of Buddha-nature in all beings, with the Yogacara belief in the Five Categories of Beings, Yogacara scholars in China such as Tz'u-en (慈恩, 632-682) the first patriarch in China, advocated two types of nature: the latent nature found in all beings (理佛性) and the Buddha-nature in practice (行佛性). The latter nature was determined by the innate seeds listed above.[52]

Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra

The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (compiled 350-400 CE[50]) synthesized the tathagatagarba-doctrine and the ālāya-vijñāna doctrine. The Lankavatara Sutra "assimilates Tathagata-garbha thought to the Yogacara-viewpoint, and this assimilation is further developed in [...] The Treatise on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana".[31] According to the Lankavatara Sutra tathāgatagarbha is identical to the ālaya-vijñāna, known prior to awakening as the storehouse-consciousness or 8th consciousness.[53] The ālāya-vijñāna is supposed to contain the pure seed, or tathagatagarbha, from which awakening arises.[22]

The Lankavatara-sutra contains tathagata-garba thought, but also warns against reification of the idea of Buddha-nature, and presents it as an aid to attaining awakening:
Is not this Tathagata-garbha taught by the Blessed One the same as the ego-substance taught by the philosophers? The ego as taught by the philosophers is an eternal creator, unqualified, omnipresent, and imperishable.


The Blessed One replied: [...] it is emptiness, reality-limit, Nirvana, being unborn, unqualified, and devoid of will-effort; the reason why the Tathagatas [...] teach the doctrine pointing to the Tathagata-garba is to make the ignorant cast aside their fear when they listen to the teaching of egolessness and to have them realise the state of non-discrimination and imagelessness[54]
According to Alex and Hideko Wayman, the equation of tathagatagarbha and ālāya-vijñāna in the Lankavatara fails:
It is plain that when the Lankavatara-sutra identifies the two terms, this scripture necessarily diverges in the meaning of one or both of the terms from the usage of the term Tathagatagarbha in the earlier Sri-Mala or of the term ālāya-vijñāna in the subsequent Yogacara school.[55][note 13]

Tathāgatagarbha and Buddhadhātu

The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra linked the concept of tathāgatagarbha with the buddhadhātu.[44] Kosho Yamamoto points out that the Nirvana Sutra contains a series of equations: "Thus, there comes about the equation of: Buddha Body = Dharmakaya = eternal body = eternal Buddha = Eternity."[58]

The Buddha is presented as (an) eternal being, transcending normal human limitations:
What is the Tathagata [Buddha]? [...] He is one who is eternal and unchanging. He is beyond the human notion of "is" or "is-not". He is Thusness [tathata], which is both phenomenon and noumenon, put together. Here, the carnal notion of man is sublimated and explained from the macrocosmic standpoint of existence of all and all. And this Dharmakaya is at once Wisdom and Emancipation [moksha]. In this ontological enlargement of the concept of existence of the Buddha Body [buddhakaya], this sutra and, consequently, Mahayana, differs from the Buddha of Primitive Buddhism.[58]
The Buddha-nature is always present, in all times and in all beings. This does not mean that sentient beings are at present endowed with the qualities of a Buddha, but that they will have those qualities in the future.[59] It is obscured from worldly vision by the screening effect of tenacious negative mental afflictions within each being.[note 14] Once these negative mental states have been eliminated, however, the Buddha-dhatu is said to shine forth unimpededly and the Buddha-sphere (Buddha-dhatu/ visaya) can then be consciously "entered into", and therewith deathless Nirvana attained:[60]
[T]he tathagatagarbha is none but Thusness or the Buddha Nature, and is the originally untainted pure mind which lies overspread by, and exists in, the mind of greed and anger of all beings. This bespeaks a Buddha Body that exists in a state of bondage.[61]

Popularisation in Chinese Buddhism

The tathagatagarbha-sutras originated in India, but their ideas were more influential in the development of East Asian Buddhism.[18]

Early Chinese Buddhism

When Buddhism was introduced to China, in the 1st century CE, Buddhism was understood through comparisons of its teachings to Chinese terms and ways of thinking. Immortality and emptiness, central notions in Taoism, gave a frame of reference for the understanding of reincarnation and sunyata.[62]

In the Chinese thinking of that time reincarnation was only possible if there was a soul or essence to reincarnate. Early Chinese Buddhism therefore assumed that this was also the teaching of the Buddha. In the 6th century CE it dawned that anatman and sunyata are central Buddhist teachings, which make the postulation of an eternal self problematic.[62]

Another point of confusion was the Two truths doctrine of Madhyamaka, the relative truth and the absolute truth. Chinese thinking took this to refer to two ontological truths: reality exists of two levels, a relative level and an absolute level. But in Madhyamaka these are two epistemological truths: two different ways to look at reality. Based on their understanding of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra the Chinese supposed that the teaching of the Buddha-nature was, as stated by that sutra, the final Buddhist teaching, and that there is an essential truth above sunyata and the two truths.[62]

The Awakening of Faith

The Awakening of Faith was very influential in the development of Chinese Buddhism.[20] While the text is attributed by the faithful to [[Aśvaghoṣa]], no Sanskrit version of the text is extant. The earliest known versions are written in Chinese, and contemporary scholars believe that the text is a Chinese composition.[63][64]

The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana offers a synthesis of Chinese buddhist thinking.[65] It sees the Buddha-nature doctrine as a cosmological theory, in contrast to the Indo-Tibetan tradition, where the soteriological aspect is emphasized.[66] It described the "One Mind" which "includes in itself all states of being of the phenomenal and transcendental world".[66] It tried to harmonize the ideas of the tathāgatagarbha and ālāya-vijñāna:
In the words of the Awakening of Faith — which summarizes the essentials of Mahayana — self and world, mind and suchness, are integrally one. Everything is a carrier of that a priori enlightenment; all incipient enlightenment is predicated on it. The mystery of existence is, then, not, "How may we overcome alienation?" The challenge is, rather, "Why do we think we are lost in the first place?"[20]
In the Awakening of Faith the 'one mind' has two aspects, namely tathata, suchness, the things as they are, and samsara, the cycle of birth and death.[65] This text was in line with an essay by Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty (reign 502-549 CE), in which he postulated a pure essence, the enlightened mind, trapped in darkness, which is ignorance. By this ignorance the pure mind is trapped in samsara. This resembles the tathāgatagarba and the idea of the defilement of the luminous mind.[65] In a commentary on this essay Shen Yue stated that insight into this true essence is awakened by stopping the thoughts - a point of view which is also being found in the Platform Sutra of Huineng.[65]

The joining together of these different ideas supported the notion of the ekayāna, the one vehicle: absolute oneness, all-pervading Buddha-wisdom and original enlightenment as a holistic whole. This synthesis was a reflection of the unity which was attained in China with the united Song dynasty.[67]

Chan Buddhism

In Chan Buddhism, the Buddha-nature tends to be seen as the (non-substantial) essential nature of all beings. But the Zen tradition also emphasizes that Buddha-nature is śūnyatā, the absence of an independent and substantial "self".[20]

Chan masters from Huineng in 7th-century China[68] to Hakuin Ekaku in 18th-century Japan[69] to Hsu Yun in 20th-century China,[70] have all taught that the process of awakening begins with the light of the mind turning around within the 8th consciousness, so that the ālayavijñāna, also known as the tathāgatagarbha, is transformed into the "bright mirror wisdom". The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra presents the Chan/Zen Buddhist view of the tathāgatagarbha:
[The Buddha said,] Now, Mahāmati, what is perfect knowledge? It is realised when one casts aside the discriminating notions of form, name, reality, and character; it is the inner realisation by noble wisdom. This perfect knowledge, Mahāmati, is the essence of the Tathāgata-garbha.[71]
When this active transformation is complete, the other seven consciousnesses are also transformed. The 7th consciousness of delusive discrimination becomes transformed into the "equality wisdom". The 6th consciousness of thinking sense becomes transformed into the "profound observing wisdom", and the 1st to 5th consciousnesses of the five sensory senses become transformed into the "all-performing wisdom".

According to Heng-Ching Shih, the teaching of the universal Buddha-nature does not intend to assert the existence of substantial, entity-like self endowed with excellent features of a Buddha. Rather, Buddha-nature simply represents the potentiality to be realized in the future.[72]

Hsing Yun, forty-eighth patriarch of the Linji school, equates the Buddha-nature with the dharmakāya in line with pronouncements in key tathāgatagarbha sūtras. He defines these two as:
the inherent nature that exists in all beings. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, enlightenment is a process of uncovering this inherent nature … The Buddha nature [is] identical with transcendental reality. The unity of the Buddha with everything that exists.[73][74]

Korean Buddhism

In the Korean Vajrasamādhi Sūtra (685 CE), the tathāgatagarbha is presented as being possessed of two elements, one essential, immutable, changeless and still, the other active and salvational:
This "dharma of the one mind", which is the "original tathagatagarbha", is said to be "calm and motionless" ... The Vajrasamadhi's analysis of tathagatagarbha also recalls a distinction the Awakening of Faith makes between the calm, unchanging essence of the mind and its active, adaptable function [...] The tathagatagarbha is equated with the "original edge of reality" (bhutakoti) that is beyond all distinctions - the equivalent of original enlightenment, or the essence. But tathagatagarbha is also the active functioning of that original enlightenment - 'the inspirational power of that fundamental faculty' .... The tathagatagarbha is thus both the 'original edge of reality' that is beyond cultivation (= essence) as well as the specific types of wisdom and mystical talents that are the byproducts of enlightenment (= function).[75]

Japanese Buddhism

Nichiren Buddhism

Nichiren (1222–1282) was a Buddhist monk who taught devotion to the Lotus Sutra as the exclusive means to attain enlightenment, and the chanting of Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō as the essential practice of the teaching. Nichiren Buddhism includes various schools with diverging interpretations of Nichiren's teachings.

Nichiren Buddhism views the Buddha nature as "The inner potential for attaining Buddhahood", common to all people.[76] Based on the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren maintained that "all living being possess the Buddha nature",[77] being the inherent potential to attain Buddhahood: "The Buddha nature refers to the potential for attaining Buddhahood, a state of awakening filled with compassion and wisdom."[78]

The emphasis in Nichiren Buddhism is on "revealing the Buddha nature" - or attaining Buddhahood – in this lifetime [79] through chanting the name of the Dharma of the Lotus Sutra: "[T]the Buddha nature within us is summoned forth and manifested by our chanting of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo."[80]

The potential for Buddhahood exists in the whole spectrum of the Ten Worlds of life, and this means that all people, including evil doers, have Buddha nature,[81] which remains as a dormant possibility or a theoretical potential in the field of emptiness or non-substantiality until it is materialized in reality through Buddhist practice.

In his letter "Opening the Eyes of Wooden and painted Images" [82] Nichiren explains that insentient matter (such as trees, mandalas, images, statues) also possess the Buddha nature, because they serve as objects of worship. This view regards the Buddha nature as the original nature of all manifestations of life – sentient and insentient – through their interconnectedness:
This concept of the enlightenment of plants in turn derives from the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life, which teaches that all life—insentient and sentient—possesses the Buddha nature.[83]

Zen Buddhism

The founder of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism, Dōgen Zenji, held that Buddha-nature (busshō 佛性) was simply the true nature of reality and Being. This true nature was just impermanence, becoming and 'vast emptiness'. Because he saw the whole universe as an expression of Buddha-nature, he held that even grass and trees are Buddha nature.
Therefore, the very impermanency of grass and tree, thicket and forest is the Buddha nature. The very impermanency of men and things, body and mind, is the Buddha nature. Nature and lands, mountains and rivers, are impermanent because they are the Buddha nature. Supreme and complete enlightenment, because it is impermanent, is the Buddha nature.[84]
The founder of Sanbō Kyōdan lineage of Zen Buddhism, Yasutani Haku'un Roshi, also defined Buddha-nature in terms of the emptiness and impermanence of all dharmas:
Everything by its very nature is subject to the process of infinite transformation - this is its Buddha- or Dharma-nature.
What is the substance of this Buddha- or Dharma-nature? In Buddhism it is called ku (shunyata). Now, ku is not mere emptiness. It is that which is living, dynamic, devoid of mass, unfixed, beyond individuality or personality--the matrix of all phenomena.[85]
A famous reference to Buddha-nature in the Zen-tradition is the Mu-koan:
A monk asked Zhaozhou Congshen, a Chinese Zen master (known as Jōshū in Japanese), "Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?" Zhaozhou answered, "It does not." (wú Chinese, mu in Japanese)[86]

Shin Buddhism

The founder of the Jōdo Shinshū of Pure Land Buddhism, Shinran, equated Buddha-Nature with shinjin.[87]

Tibetan Buddhism

The dominant Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism favours the rangtong Prasaṅgika Madhyamaka philosophy over Yogacara and Buddha-nature thought.[88] Other schools, especially the Jonang,[89] and the Rimé movement have tended to accept the shentong, "other-empty", Madhyamaka philosophy, which discerns an Absolute which "is empty of adventious defilements which are intrinsically other than it, but is not empty of its own inherent existence".[90] This understanding and interpretation of the tathagatagarbha-teachings has been a matter of intensive debates in Tibet.[91]
According to the Nyingma and Sakya schools, tathāgatagarbha is the inseparability of the clarity and emptiness of one's mind. According to the Jonang school, it refers to the innate qualities of the mind which expresses itself in terms of omniscience etc. when adventitious obscurations are removed.

Gelug

The 14th Dalai Lama, an important Gelug figure, speaking from the Madhyamaka philosophical position, sees the Buddha-nature as the "original clear light of mind", but points out that it ultimately does not exist independently, because, like all other phenomena, it is of the nature of emptiness:
Once one pronounces the words "emptiness" and "absolute", one has the impression of speaking of the same thing, in fact of the absolute. If emptiness must be explained through the use of just one of these two terms, there will be confusion. I must say this; otherwise you might think that the innate original clear light as absolute truth really exists.[92]
Jeffrey Hopkins conveys the same understanding:
The basis of purification is the Buddha nature, which is viewed in two ways. One is the clear light nature of the mind, a positive phenomenon, and the other is the emptiness of inherent existence of the mind, a negative phenomenon, a mere absence of inherent establishment of the mind.[93]

Nyingma

Speaking for the Nyingma school, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche sees an identity between the Buddha-nature, dharmadhātu (essence of all phenomena and the noumenon) and the Three Vajras, saying:
Dharmadhatu is adorned with dharmakaya, which is endowed with dharmadhatu wisdom. This is a brief but very profound statement, because "dharmadhatu" also refers to sugata-garbha or buddha nature. Buddha nature is all-encompassing ... This buddha nature is present just as the shining sun is present in the sky. It is indivisible from the three vajras [i.e. the Buddha's Body, Speech and Mind] of the awakened state, which do not perish or change.[94]
The Nyingma meditation masters, Khenchen Palden Sherab and Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal, emphasise that the essential nature of the mind (the Buddha-nature) is not a blankness, but is characterised by wonderful qualities and a perfection that is already present and complete:
The nature of the mind is not hollow or blank; it is profound and blissful and full of wonderful qualities... meditation practice reveals our true nature as being totally perfect and complete.[95]
They add:
The true nature of mind is beyond conception, yet it is present in every object. The true nature is always there, but due to our temporary obscurations we do not recognize it ... The primordial nature is beyond conceptions; it cannot be explained ... cannot be encompassed by words. Although you can say it is clarity and vastness, you cannot see it or touch it; it is beyond expression.[96]
Speaking in the context of Nyingma, Dzogchen Ponlop expresses the view that there exists within vajrayana Buddhism the doctrine that we are already buddha: ‘... in the vajrayana, we are buddha right now, in this very moment’[97] and that it is legitimate to have ‘vajra pride’ in our buddha mind and the already present qualities of enlightenment with which it is replete:
Vajra pride refers to our pride and confidence in the absolute nature of our mind as buddha: primordially, originally pure, awake and full of the qualities of enlightenment.[98]

Dzogchen

Germano relates Dzogchen, via Buddha-nature to Madhyamaka, Yogācāra and Abhinavagupta:
...the Great Perfection represents the most sophisticated interpretation of the so-called "Buddha nature" tradition within the context of Indo-Tibetan thought, and as such, is of extreme importance for research into classical esoteric philosophic systems such as Madhyamaka and Yogacara, while also providing fertile grounds for future explorations of the interconnections between Indo-Tibetan and East Asian forms of Buddhism, as well as between Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and contemporary Indian developments such as the tenth century non-dual Shaivism of Abhinavagupta.[99]
The 19th/20th-century Tibetan Buddhist scholar, Shechen Gyaltsap Gyurme Pema Namgyal, sees the Buddha nature as ultimate truth,[100] nirvana, which is constituted of profundity, primordial peace and radiance:
Buddha-nature is immaculate. It is profound, serene, unfabricated suchness, an uncompounded expanse of luminosity; nonarising, unceasing, primordial peace, spontaneously present nirvana.[101]

Kagyu

In the Kagyu tradition, Thrangu Rinpoche sees the Buddha nature as the indivisible oneness of wisdom and emptiness:
The union of wisdom and emptiness is the essence of Buddha-hood or what is called Buddha-nature (Skt. Tathagata-garbha) because it contains the very seed, the potential of Buddhahood. It resides in each and every being and because of this essential nature, this heart nature, there is the possibility of reaching Buddhahood.[102]

Jonang

The Jonang school, whose foremost historical figure was the Tibetan scholar-monk Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, sees the Buddha-nature as the very ground of the Buddha himself, as the "permanent indwelling of the Buddha in the basal state".[103] Dolpopa comments that certain key tathāgatagarbha sutras indicate this truth.

Moreover, the Buddhist tantric scripture entitled Chanting the Names of Mañjuśrī (Mañjuśrī-nāma-saṅgīti), repeatedly exalts, as portrayed by Dolpopa, not the non-Self but the Self, and applies the following terms to this ultimate reality : 'The Buddha-Self, the beginningless Self, the solid Self, the diamond Self'. These terms are applied in a manner which reflects the cataphatic approach to Buddhism, typical of much of Dolpopa's writings.[104]

Dolpopa further expressed the viewpoint that the Buddha-nature transcends the chain of dependent origination. It is not empty of its own ultimately real essence, but only of extraneous, transitory and relative phenomena.

Dr. Cyrus Stearns writes on Dolpopa's attitude to the 'third turning of the wheel' doctrines (i.e. the Buddha-nature teachings):
The Third Turning of the Dharma Wheel presented the teachings on the Buddha nature, which are the final definitive statements on the nature of ultimate reality, the primordial ground or substratum beyond the chain of dependent origination, and which is only empty of other, relative phenomena.'[105]
In the Ghanavyuha Sutra (as quoted by Longchenpa) this Buddha essence is said to be the ground of all things:
... the ultimate universal ground also has always been with the Buddha-Essence (Tathagatagarbha), and this essence in terms of the universal ground has been taught by the Tathagata. The fools who do not know it, because of their habits, see even the universal ground as (having) various happiness and suffering and actions and emotional defilements. Its nature is pure and immaculate, its qualities are as wishing-jewels; there are neither changes nor cessations. Whoever realizes it attains Liberation ...[106]

The Rimé movement

The Rimé movement is an ecumenical movement in Tibet which started as an attempt to reconcile the various Tibetan schools in the 19th century. In contrast to the Gelugpa, which adheres to the rang stong, "self-empty", or Prasaṅgika point of view,[107] the Rimé movement supports shen tong (gzhan tong), "other-empty", an essential nature which is "pure radiant non-dual consciousness".[89] Ringu Tulku says,
There has been a great deal of heated debate in Tibet between the exponents of Rangtong, (Wylie: Rang-stong) and Shentong, (Wylie: gZhan-stong) philosophies. The historic facts of these two philosophies are well known to the Tibetologists.[citation needed]
Jamgon Kongtrul says about the two systems:
Madhyamika philosophies have no differences in realising as 'Shunyata', all phenomena that we experience on a relative level. They have no differences also, in reaching the meditative state where all extremes (ideas) completely dissolve. Their difference lies in the words they use to describe the Dharmata. Shentong describes the Dharmata, the mind of Buddha, as 'ultimately real'; while Rangtong philosophers fear that if it is described that way, people might understand it as the concept of 'soul' or 'Atma'. The Shentong philosopher believes that there is a more serious possibility of misunderstanding in describing the Enlightened State as 'unreal' and 'void'. Kongtrul finds the Rangtong way of presentation the best to dissolve concepts and the Shentong way the best to describe the experience.[108]

Modern scholarship

Modern scholarship points to the various possible interpretations of Buddha Nature as either an essential self, as Sunyata, or as the inherent possibility of awakening.

Essential self

Shenpen Hookham, Oxford Buddhist scholar and Tibetan lama of the Shentong tradition writes of the Buddha-nature or "true self" as something real and permanent, and already present within the being as uncompounded enlightenment. She calls it "the Buddha within", and comments:
In scriptural terms, there can be no real objection to referring to Buddha, Buddhajnana [Buddha Awareness/ Buddha Knowledge], Nirvana and so forth as the True Self, unless the concept of Buddha and so forth being propounded can be shown to be impermanent, suffering, compounded, or imperfect in some way ... in Shentong terms, the non-self is about what is not the case, and the Self of the Third Dharmachakra [i.e. the Buddha-nature doctrine] is about what truly IS.[109]
Buddhist scholar and chronicler, Merv Fowler, writes that the Buddha-nature really is present as an essence within each being. Fowler comments:
The teaching that Buddha-nature is the hidden essence within all sentient beings is the main message of the tathagatagarbha literature, the earliest of which is the Tathagatagarbha Sutra. This short sutra says that all living beings are in essence identical to the Buddha regardless of their defilements or their continuing transmigration from life to life... As in the earlier traditions, there is present the idea that enlightenment, or nirvana, is not something which has to be achieved, it is something which is already there... In a way, it means that everyone is really a Buddha now.[110]

Sunyata

According to Heng-Ching Shih, the tathāgatagarbha/Buddha-nature does not represent a substantial self (ātman). Rather, it is a positive language expression of emptiness (śūnyatā), which emphasizes the potentiality to realize Buddhahood through Buddhist practices. The intention of the teaching of tathāgatagarbha/Buddha nature is soteriological rather than theoretical.[72]

Paul Williams puts forward the Madhyamaka interpretation of the Buddha-nature as emptiness in the following terms:
… if one is a Madhyamika then that which enables sentient beings to become buddhas must be the very factor that enables the minds of sentient beings to change into the minds of Buddhas. That which enables things to change is their simple absence of inherent existence, their emptiness. Thus the tathagatagarbha becomes emptiness itself, but specifically emptiness when applied to the mental continuum.[111]

Critical Buddhism

Several contemporary Japanese scholars, headed under the label Critical Buddhism, have been critical of Buddha-nature thought. According to Matsumoto Shiro and Hakamaya Noriaki, essentialist conceptions of Buddha-nature are at odds with the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination.[112][113]

Sallie B. King objects to their view, seeing the Buddha-nature as a metaphor for the potential in all beings to attain Buddhahood, rather than as an ontological reality.[114] Paul Williams too has criticised this view, saying that Critical Buddhism is too narrow in its definition of what constitutes Buddhism. According to Williams, "We should abandon any simplistic identification of Buddhism with a straightforward not-Self definition".[115]

Multiple meanings

Sutton agrees with this critique on the narrowness of interpretation. In discussing the inadequacy of modern scholarship on Buddha-nature, Sutton states,
One is impressed by the fact that these authors, as a rule, tend to opt for a single meaning disregarding all other possible meanings which are embraced in turn by other texts".[116]
He goes on to point out that the term tathāgatagarbha has up to six possible connotations. Of these, he says the three most important are:
  1. an underlying ontological reality or essential nature (tathāgata-tathatā-'vyatireka) which is functionally equivalent to a self (ātman) in an Upanishadic sense,
  2. the dharma-kāya which penetrates all beings (sarva-sattveṣu dharma-kāya-parispharaṇa), which is functionally equivalent to brahman in an Upanishadic sense
  3. the womb or matrix of Buddhahood existing in all beings (tathāgata-gotra-saṃbhava), which provides beings with the possibility of awakening.[117][118]
Of these three, Sutton claims that only the third connotation has any soteriological significance, while the other two posit Buddha-nature as an ontological reality and essential nature behind all phenomena.
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An atomically thin layer of water stores more energy and delivers it faster, researchers discover

Could lead to thinner batteries, faster storage for renewable-based power grids, or faster acceleration in electric vehicles
May 3, 2017
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/an-atomically-thin-layer-of-water-stores-more-energy-and-delivers-it-faster-researchers-discover
A high-resolution transmission electron microscope image of layered, crystalline tungsten oxide dihydrate, which acts as a better supercapacitor (similar to a battery) than plain tungsten oxide (without the water layer). The “stripes” are individual layers of atoms separated by atomically thin water layers; the gray area on the left is empty space. 6.9 Angstrom = 0.69 nanometer. (credit: James B. Mitchell et al./Chemistry of Materials)

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that a material* that incorporates atomically thin layers of water can store more energy and deliver it much more quickly than the same material without the water.

The proof-of-concept finding could “ultimately lead to things like thinner batteries, faster storage for renewable-based power grids, or faster acceleration in electric vehicles,” according to Veronica Augustyn, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and corresponding author of a paper in the journal Chemistry of Materials describing the work.

A basic goal of current energy-storage research is to combine the high energy-density (amount of energy stored) of batteries with the high power density (speed of charge/discharge) of capacitors. The new finding is a step in that direction — it could allow for an increased amount of energy to be stored per unit of volume, faster diffusion of ions through the material, and faster charge and discharge.

Crystallographic structures of tungsten oxide dihydrate (WO3.2H2O) and tungsten oxide (WO3). Dehydration of the layered hydrated phase (left) under heat treatment in air or in vacuum yields the anhydrous structure (right). (credit: James B. Mitchell et al./Chemistry of Materials)

In this research, the scientists compared two materials: a crystalline tungsten oxide and a layered, crystalline tungsten oxide dihydrate, which consists of crystalline tungsten oxide layers separated by atomically thin layers of water. When charging the two materials for 10 minutes, the researchers found that the regular tungsten oxide version stored more energy than the hydrate version. But when the charging period was only 12 seconds, the hydrate version surprisingly stored more energy than the regular material and stored energy more efficiently, wasting less energy as heat.

“Incorporating these solvent layers could be a new strategy for high-powered energy-storage devices that make use of layered materials,” Augustyn says. “We think the water layer acts as a pathway that facilitates the transfer of ions through the material. We are now moving forward with National Science Foundation-funded work on how to fine-tune this ‘interlayer,’ which will hopefully advance our understanding of these materials and get us closer to next-generation energy-storage devices.”

* The new material acts as a “pseudosupercapacitor” (between a battery and a supercapacitor, which is used in applications requiring many rapid charge/discharge cycles rather than long term compact energy storage, such as in cars, buses, and trains). The new material improves both energy density and power density.  

Abstract of Transition from Battery to Pseudocapacitor Behavior via Structural Water in Tungsten Oxide

The kinetics of energy storage in transition metal oxides are usually limited by solid-state diffusion, and the strategy most often utilized to improve their rate capability is to reduce ion diffusion distances by utilizing nanostructured materials. Here, another strategy for improving the kinetics of layered transition metal oxides by the presence of structural water is proposed. To investigate this strategy, the electrochemical energy storage behavior of a model hydrated layered oxide, WO3·2H2O, is compared with that of anhydrous WO3 in an acidic electrolyte. It is found that the presence of structural water leads to a transition from battery-like behavior in the anhydrous WO3 to ideally pseudocapacitive behavior in WO3·2H2O. As a result, WO3·2H2O exhibits significantly improved capacity retention and energy efficiency for proton storage over WO3 at sweep rates as fast as 200 mV s–1, corresponding to charge/discharge times of just a few seconds. Importantly, the energy storage of WO3·2H2O at such rates is nearly 100% efficient, unlike in the case of anhydrous WO3. Pseudocapacitance in WO3·2H2O allows for high-mass loading electrodes (>3 mg cm–2) and high areal capacitances (>0.25 F cm–2 at 200 mV s–1) with simple slurry-cast electrodes. These results demonstrate a new approach for developing pseudocapacitance in layered transition metal oxides for high-power energy storage, as well as the importance of energy efficiency as a metric of performance of pseudocapacitive materials.

References:

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Holism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Holism (from Greek ὅλος holos "all, whole, entire") is the idea that systems (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic) and their properties should be viewed as wholes, not just as a collection of parts.

The term holism was coined by J. C. Smuts in Holism and Evolution.[3][4] It was Smuts' opinion that holism is a concept that represents all of the wholes in the universe, and these wholes are the real factors in the universe. Further, that Holism also denoted a theory of the universe in the same vein as Materialism and Spiritualism.[3]:120–121

Synopsis of Holism and Evolution

After identifying the need for reform in the fundamental concepts of matter, life and mind (chapter 1) Smuts examines the reformed concepts (as of 1926) of space and time (chapter 2), matter (chapter 3) and biology (chapter 4) and concludes that the close approach to each other of the concepts of matter, life and mind, and the partial overflow of each other's domain, implies that there is a fundamental principle (Holism) of which they are the progressive outcome.[3]:86 Chapters 5 and 6 provide the general concept, functions and categories of Holism; chapters 7 and 8 address Holism with respect to Mechanism and Darwinism, chapters 9-11 make a start towards demonstrating the concepts and functions of Holism for the metaphysical categories (mind, personality, ideals) and the book concludes with a chapter that argues for the universal ubiquity of Holism and its place as a monistic ontology.

The following is an overview of Smuts' opinions regarding the general concept, functions, and categories of Holism; like the definition of Holism, other than the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the editor is unaware of any authoritative secondary sources corroborating Smuts' opinions.

Structure

Wholes are composites which have an internal structure, function or character which clearly differentiates them from mechanical additions, aggregates, and constructions, such as science assumes on the mechanical hypothesis.[3]:106 The concept of structure is not confined to the physical domain (e.g. chemical, biological and artifacts); it also applies to the metaphysical domain (e.g. mental structures, properties, attributes, values, ideals, etc.)[3]:161

Field

The field of a whole is not something different and additional to it, it is the continuation of the whole beyond its sensible contours of experience.[3]:113 The field characterizes a whole as a unified and synthesised event in the system of Relativity, that includes not only its present but also its past—and also its future potentialities.[3]:89 As such, the concept of field entails both activity and structure.[3]:115

Variation

Darwin's theory of organic descent placed primary emphasis on the role of natural selection but there would be nothing to select if not for variation. Variations that are the result of mutations in the biological sense and variations that are the result of individually acquired modifications in the personal sense are attributed by Smuts to Holism; further it was his opinion that because variations appear in complexes and not singly, evolution is more than the outcome of individual selections, it is holistic.[3]:190–192

Regulation

The whole exhibits a discernible regulatory function as it relates to cooperation and coordination of the structure and activity of parts, and to the selection and deselection of variations. The result is a balanced correlation of organs and functions. The activities of the parts are directed to central ends; co-operation and unified action instead of the separate mechanical activities of the parts.[3]:125

Creativity

It is the intermingling of fields which is creative or causal in nature. This is seen in matter, where if not for its dynamic structural creative character matter could not have been the mother of the universe. This function, or factor of creativity is even more marked in biology where the protoplasm of the cell is vitally active in an ongoing process of creative change where parts are continually being destroyed and replaced by new protoplasm. With minds the regulatory function of Holism acquires consciousness and freedom, demonstrating a creative power of the most far-reaching character. Holism is not only creative but self-creative, and its final structures are far more holistic than its initial structures.[3]:18, 37, 67–68, 88–89

Causality

As it relates to causality Smuts makes reference to A. N. Whitehead, and indirectly Baruch Spinoza; the Whitehead premise is that organic mechanism is a fundamental process which realizes and actualizes individual syntheses or unities. Holism (the factor) exemplifies this same idea while emphasizing the holistic character of the process. The whole completely transforms the concept of Causality; results are not directly a function of causes. The whole absorbs and integrates the cause into its own activity; results appear as the consequence of the activity of the whole.[3]:121–124,126 Note that this material relating to Whitehead's influence as it relates to causality was added in the second edition and, of course, will not be found in reprints of the first edition; nor is it included in the most recent Holst edition. It is the second edition of Holism and Evolution (1927) that provides the most recent and definitive treatment by Smuts.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

The fundamental holistic characters as a unity of parts which is so close and intense as to be more than the sum of its parts; which not only gives a particular conformation or structure to the parts, but so relates and determines them in their synthesis that their functions are altered; the synthesis affects and determines the parts, so that they function towards the whole; and the whole and the parts, therefore reciprocally influence and determine each other, and appear more or less to merge their individual characters: the whole is in the parts and the parts are in the whole, and this synthesis of whole and parts is reflected in the holistic character of the functions of the parts as well as of the whole.[3]:88

Progressive grading of wholes

A "rough and provisional" summary of the progressive grading of wholes that comprise holism is as follows:[3]:109
  1. Material structure e.g. a chemical compound
  2. Functional structure in living bodies
  3. Animals, which exhibit a degree of central control that is-primarily implicit and unconscious
  4. Personality, characterized as conscious central control
  5. States and similar group organizations characterized by central control that involves many people.
  6. Holistic Ideals, or absolute Values, distinct from human personality that are creative factors in the creation of a spiritual world, for example Truth, Beauty and Goodness.

Indications of holism in philosophy

In philosophy, any doctrine that emphasizes the priority of a whole over its parts is holism. Some suggest that such a definition owes its origins to a non-holistic view of language and places it in the reductivist camp. Alternately, a 'holistic' definition of holism denies the necessity of a division between the function of separate parts and the workings of the 'whole'. Effectively this means that the concept of a part has no absolute foundation in observation, but is rather a result of a materialist structuring of reality based on the necessity of logical and distinct units as a means to deriving information through comparative analysis. It suggests that the key recognizable characteristic of a concept of 'true' holism is a sense of the fundamental truth of any particular experience. This exists in contradistinction to what is perceived as the reductivist reliance on inductive method as the key to verification of its concept of how the parts function within the whole. Equally the potential for recognising the clarity of holistic experience within the logical terms of maths is limited by the abstract nature of numbers. In terms of real life measurements numbers have no scale or dimensional properties so have to rely on experimentally verified units (e.g. inches, volts, calories etc.), to describe reality. It is this reliance on the holistic integrity of experience which leads to the recognition that intuitive perception rather than mathematical calculation is the source of the truth of effective theories. (See references Holism, 2016.)

Philosophy of language

In the philosophy of language this becomes the claim, called semantic holism, that the meaning of an individual word or sentence can only be understood in terms of its relations to a larger body of language, even a whole theory or a whole language. In the philosophy of mind, a mental state may be identified only in terms of its relations with others. This is often referred to as "content holism" or "holism of the mental". This notion involves the philosophies of such figures as Frege, Wittgenstein, and Quine.[5]

Epistemological and confirmation holism

Epistemological and confirmation holism are mainstream ideas in contemporary philosophy.

Ontological holism

Ontological holism was espoused by David Bohm in his theory[6] on the implicate and explicate order.

Spinoza

The concept of holism played a pivotal role in Baruch Spinoza's philosophy.[7][8]

Hegel

Hegel rejected "the fundamentally atomistic conception of the object," (Stern, 38) arguing that "individual objects exist as manifestations of indivisible substance-universals, which cannot be reduced to a set of properties or attributes; he therefore holds that the object should be treated as an ontologically primary whole." (Stern, 40) In direct opposition to Kant, therefore, "Hegel insists that the unity we find in our experience of the world is not constructed by us out of a plurality of intuitions." (Stern, 40) In "his ontological scheme a concrete individual is not reducible to a plurality of sensible properties, but rather exemplifies a substance universal." (Stern, 41) His point is that it is "a mistake to treat an organic substance like blood as nothing more than a compound of unchanging chemical elements, that can be separated and united without being fundamentally altered." (Stern, 103) In Hegel's view, a substance like blood is thus "more of an organic unity and cannot be understood as just an external composition of the sort of distinct substances that were discussed at the level of chemistry." (Stern, 103) Thus in Hegel's view, blood is blood and cannot be successfully reduced to what we consider are its component parts; we must view it as a whole substance entire unto itself. This is most certainly a fundamentally holistic view.[9]

Indications of holism in physical science

Agriculture

There are several newer methods in agricultural science such as permaculture and holistic planned grazing (holistic management) that integrate ecology and social sciences with food production. Organic farming is sometimes considered a holistic approach.

Chaos and complexity

In the latter half of the 20th century, holism led to systems thinking and its derivatives. Systems in biology, psychology, or sociology are frequently so complex that their behavior is, or appears, "new" or "emergent": it cannot be deduced from the properties of the elements alone.[10]

Holism has thus been used as a catchword. This contributed to the resistance encountered by the scientific interpretation of holism, which insists that there are ontological reasons that prevent reductive models in principle from providing efficient algorithms for prediction of system behavior in certain classes of systems.[citation needed]

Scientific holism holds that the behavior of a system cannot be perfectly predicted, no matter how much data is available. Natural systems can produce surprisingly unexpected behavior, and it is suspected that behavior of such systems might be computationally irreducible, which means it would not be possible to even approximate the system state without a full simulation of all the events occurring in the system. Key properties of the higher level behavior of certain classes of systems may be mediated by rare "surprises" in the behavior of their elements due to the principle of interconnectivity, thus evading predictions except by brute force simulation.

Complexity theory (also called "science of complexity") is a contemporary heir of systems thinking. It comprises both computational and holistic, relational approaches towards understanding complex adaptive systems and, especially in the latter, some argue that it can be seen as the polar opposite to reductive methods. General theories of complexity have been proposed, and numerous complexity institutes and departments have sprung up around the world. The Santa Fe Institute is arguably the most famous of them.

Ecology

The Earth seen from Apollo 17.

Holistic thinking is often applied to ecology, combining biological, chemical, physical, economic, ethical, and political insights. The complexity grows with the area, so that it is necessary to reduce the characteristic of the view in other ways, for example to a specific time of duration.
John Muir, Scots born early American conservationist,[11] wrote "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe".

More information is to be found in the field of systems ecology, a cross-disciplinary field influenced by general systems theory.

Medicine

In primary care the term "holistic," has been used to describe approaches that take into account social considerations and other intuitive judgements.[12] The term holism, and so-called approaches, appear in psychosomatic medicine in the 1970s, when they were considered one possible way to conceptualize psychosomatic phenomena. Instead of charting one-way causal links from psyche to soma, or vice versa, it aimed at a systemic model, where multiple biological, psychological and social factors were seen as interlinked.[13]

Other, alternative approaches in the 1970s were psychosomatic and somatopsychic approaches, which concentrated on causal links only from psyche to soma, or from soma to psyche, respectively.[13] At present it is commonplace in psychosomatic medicine to state that psyche and soma cannot really be separated for practical or theoretical purposes.[citation needed] A disturbance on any level—somatic, psychic, or social—will radiate to all the other levels, too. In this sense, psychosomatic thinking is similar to the biopsychosocial model of medicine.[citation needed]

Many alternative medicine practitioners claim a holistic approach to healing.

Neurology

A lively debate has run since the end of the 19th century regarding the functional organization of the brain. The holistic tradition (e.g., Pierre Marie) maintained that the brain was a homogeneous organ with no specific subparts whereas the localizationists (e.g., Paul Broca) argued that the brain was organized in functionally distinct cortical areas which were each specialized to process a given type of information or implement specific mental operations. The controversy was epitomized with the existence of a language area in the brain, nowadays known as the Broca's area.[14]

Indications of holism in social science

Architecture

Architecture is often argued by design academics and those practicing in design to be a holistic enterprise.[15] Used in this context, holism tends to imply an all-inclusive design perspective. This trait is considered exclusive to architecture, distinct from other professions involved in design projects.

Branding

A holistic brand (also holistic branding) is considering the entire brand or image of the company. For example, a universal brand image across all countries, including everything from advertising styles to the stationery the company has made, to the company colours.

Economics

With roots in Schumpeter, the evolutionary approach might be considered the holist theory in economics. They share certain language from the biological evolutionary approach. They take into account how the innovation system evolves over time. Knowledge and know-how, know-who, know-what and know-why are part of the whole business economics. Knowledge can also be tacit, as described by Michael Polanyi. These models are open, and consider that it is hard to predict exactly the impact of a policy measure. They are also less mathematical.

Education reform

The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives identifies many levels of cognitive functioning, which can be used to create a more holistic education. In authentic assessment, rather than using computers to score multiple choice tests, a standards based assessment uses trained scorers to score open-response items using holistic scoring methods.[16] In projects such as the North Carolina Writing Project, scorers are instructed not to count errors, or count numbers of points or supporting statements. The scorer is instead instructed to judge holistically whether "as a whole" is it more a "2" or a "3". Critics question whether such a process can be as objective as computer scoring, and the degree to which such scoring methods can result in different scores from different scorers.

Psychology

Psychology of perception

A major holist movement in the early twentieth century was gestalt psychology. The claim was that perception is not an aggregation of atomic sense data but a field, in which there is a figure and a ground. Background has holistic effects on the perceived figure. Gestalt psychologists included Wolfgang Koehler, Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka. Koehler claimed the perceptual fields corresponded to electrical fields in the brain. Karl Lashley did experiments with gold foil pieces inserted in monkey brains purporting to show that such fields did not exist. However, many of the perceptual illusions and visual phenomena exhibited by the gestaltists were taken over (often without credit) by later perceptual psychologists. Gestalt psychology had influence on Fritz Perls' gestalt therapy, although some old-line gestaltists opposed the association with counter-cultural and New Age trends later associated with gestalt therapy. Gestalt theory was also influential on phenomenology. Aron Gurwitsch wrote on the role of the field of consciousness in gestalt theory in relation to phenomenology. Maurice Merleau-Ponty made much use of holistic psychologists such as work of Kurt Goldstein in his "Phenomenology of Perception."

Teleological psychology

Alfred Adler believed that the individual (an integrated whole expressed through a self-consistent unity of thinking, feeling, and action, moving toward an unconscious, fictional final goal), must be understood within the larger wholes of society, from the groups to which he belongs (starting with his face-to-face relationships), to the larger whole of mankind. The recognition of our social embeddedness and the need for developing an interest in the welfare of others, as well as a respect for nature, is at the heart of Adler's philosophy of living and principles of psychotherapy.
Edgar Morin, the French philosopher and sociologist, can be considered a holist based on the transdisciplinary nature of his work.

Mel Levine, M.D., author of A Mind at a Time,[17] and co-founder (with Charles R. Schwab) of the not-for-profit organization All Kinds of Minds, can be considered a holist based on his view of the 'whole child' as a product of many systems and his work supporting the educational needs of children through the management of a child's educational profile as a whole rather than isolated weaknesses in that profile.

Anthropology

There is an ongoing dispute as to whether anthropology is intrinsically holistic. Supporters of this concept consider anthropology holistic in two senses. First, it is concerned with all human beings across times and places, and with all dimensions of humanity (evolutionary, biophysical, sociopolitical, economic, cultural, psychological, etc.) Further, many academic programs following this approach take a "four-field" approach to anthropology that encompasses physical anthropology, archeology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology or social anthropology.[18]

Some leading anthropologists disagree, and consider anthropological holism to be an artifact from 19th century social evolutionary thought that inappropriately imposes scientific positivism upon cultural anthropology.[19]

The term "holism" is additionally used within social and cultural anthropology to refer to an analysis of a society as a whole which refuses to break society into component parts. One definition says: "as a methodological ideal, holism implies ... that one does not permit oneself to believe that our own established institutional boundaries (e.g. between politics, sexuality, religion, economics) necessarily may be found also in foreign societies."[20]

Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim developed a concept of holism which he set as opposite to the notion that a society was nothing more than a simple collection of individuals. In more recent times, Louis Dumont[21] has contrasted "holism" to "individualism" as two different forms of societies. According to him, modern humans live in an individualist society, whereas ancient Greek society, for example, could be qualified as "holistic", because the individual found identity in the whole society. Thus, the individual was ready to sacrifice himself or herself for his or her community, as his or her life without the polis had no sense whatsoever.

Cosmomorphism

The French Protestant missionary Maurice Leenhardt coined the term "cosmomorphism" to indicate the state of perfect symbiosis with the surrounding environment which characterized the culture of the Melanesians of New Caledonia. For these people, an isolated individual is totally indeterminate, indistinct, and featureless until he can find his position within the natural and social world in which he is inserted. The confines between the self and the world are annulled to the point that the material body itself is no guarantee of the sort of recognition of identity which is typical of our own culture.[22][23]

Theology

Holistic concepts are strongly represented within the thoughts expressed within Logos (per Heraclitus), Panentheism and Pantheism.[citation needed]

In theological anthropology, which belongs to theology and not to anthropology, holism is the belief that body, soul and spirit are not separate components of a person, but rather facets of a united whole.
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New 3D printing method may allow for fast, low-cost, more-flexible medical implants for millions

Cuts time to create implants from days or weeks to hours, potentially saving lives
May 15, 2017
Original link:  http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-3d-printing-method-may-allow-for-fast-low-cost-more-flexible-medical-implants-for-millions
UF Soft Matter | Silicone is 3D-printed into the micro-organogel support material. The printing nozzle follows a predefined trajectory, depositing liquid silicone in its wake. The liquid silicone is supported by the micro-organogel material during this printing process.


University of Florida (UF) researchers have developed a method for 3D printing soft-silicone medical implants that are stronger, quicker, less expensive, more flexible, and more comfortable than the implants currently available. That should be good news for the millions of people every year who need medical devices implanted.

Model 3D-printed silicone trachea implant (credit: University of Florida)

Currently, such devices — such as ports for draining bodily fluids (cerebral spinal fluid in hydrocephalus, for example), implantable bands, balloons, soft catheters, slings and meshes — are mass produced and made through molding processes. To create customized parts for individual patients with molding would be very expensive and could take days or weeks for each job.
The 3D printing method cuts that time to hours, potentially saving lives.

The ability to easily replace silicone implants at low cost is especially important for children, where “implants may need to be replaced frequently as they grow up,” Thomas E. Angelini, an associate professor of mechanical engineering  of the UF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, explained to KurzweilAI. Angelini is senior author of a paper published May 10, 2017 in the open-access journal Science Advances.

The research could also pave the way for new therapeutic devices that encapsulate and control the release of drugs or small molecules for guiding tissue regeneration or assisting diseased organs, such as the pancreas or prostate, according to lead author Christopher O’Bryan, a UF mechanical and aerospace engineering doctoral student.

UF Soft Matter | Water is pumped from one reservoir to another using a 3D-printed silicone valve. The silicone valve contains two encapsulated ball valves that allow water to be pumped through the valve by squeezing the lower chamber. The silicone valve demonstrates the ability of the UF 3D-printing method to create multiple encapsulated components in a single part — something that cannot be done with a traditional 3D-printing approach.

Abstract of Self-assembled micro-organogels for 3D printing silicone structures

The widespread prevalence of commercial products made from microgels illustrates the immense practical value of harnessing the jamming transition; there are countless ways to use soft, solid materials that fluidize and become solid again with small variations in applied stress. The traditional routes of microgel synthesis produce materials that predominantly swell in aqueous solvents or, less often, in aggressive organic solvents, constraining ways that these exceptionally useful materials can be used. For example, aqueous microgels have been used as the foundation of three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting applications, yet the incompatibility of available microgels with nonpolar liquids, such as oils, limits their use in 3D printing with oil-based materials, such as silicone. We present a method to make micro-organogels swollen in mineral oil, using block copolymer self-assembly. The rheological properties of this micro-organogel material can be tuned, leveraging the jamming transition to facilitate its use in 3D printing of silicone structures. We find that the minimum printed feature size can be controlled by the yield stress of the micro-organogel medium, enabling the fabrication of numerous complex silicone structures, including branched perfusable networks and functional fluid pumps.

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