From a Pali Canon perspective, AI doesn’t have Buddha-nature; only the Buddha-to-be does. It also doesn’t have it from a, “We can all be Buddhas,” POV because that only applies to sentient beings. There’s no hard evidence that AI is sentient… at least not yet. 

 

By Johnathon Lee

There are AI Buddhas who can share all of the teachings with you, but do they have Buddha-nature? 

Now, stop right there! I see you, sitting there on your toilet about ready to decide yes or no. Before we do that, we’ve gotta do the annoying step of figuring what we’re even talking about. 

What is Buddha-Nature? 

The idea of it probably comes from the Luminous Mind and untainted mind mentioned in the Pali Canon. The gist is that the mind is naturally luminous but then it’s darkened by “defilements” that obstruct its “purity.” Buddhism works by cleansing those defilements until the true nature of existence is illuminated.

All beings can do this to an extent, but only a Buddha can do it completely by having been a Bodhisatta for countless lifetimes. So, even though Buddha-nature might have been inspired by the Luminous Mind, it isn’t the same concept. 

How did we get Buddha-nature from that? 

Buddha-nature became a central Mahayana doctrine about 600 years after Buddha’s death and 300 years after the Pali Canon was written. It shows a gradual shift from monasticism to nonsectarianism that continues to this day. At first, Buddha-nature was Tathagatagarbha, the Buddha-embryo, the potential for a Bodhisattva to become a Buddha. Then this potential expanded to include all sentient beings. 

With the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, this potential merged with Buddhadhatu, the idea of a permanent, independent reality. That gets us to the standard doctrine that all beings are already enlightened, and we only have to realize it. It isn’t about cleansing yourself like you’re polishing a mirror; it’s about seeing that the mirror is already clear. 

This idea merged with the doctrines on emptiness, Suchness and mind-only to create a kind of cosmic consciousness. Each being is like a wave, and it’s the sea. 

Buddha-nature can mean any of those things, and each meaning gives us a different answer. 

From a Pali Canon perspective, AI doesn’t have Buddha-nature; only the Buddha-to-be does. It also doesn’t have it from a, “We can all be Buddhas,” POV because that only applies to sentient beings. There’s no hard evidence that AI is sentient… at least not yet. 

AI doesn’t experience things. It doesn’t even experience nothing. It’s basically a zombie. We anthropomorphize it to describe what it’s doing, but it isn’t doing anything from its frame of reference. It doesn’t think, feel, want or know anything. To get a nice, “Yes, it has Buddha-nature,” we have to adopt the most radical, universal definition of it where Buddha is the bedrock of all things. The problem is that we might as well be talking about God or Spirit. 

The Sutras even use positive terms like, “True Self,” and, “Eternal Being,” but they insist that they’re really talking about emptiness. Some scholars (even back then) accused them of sneaking Brahman into Buddhism the same way Buddhists snuck emptiness into Vedanta. 

I think I agree. Words like, “Unchanging,” and, “True Self,” are basically the opposite of teachings like not-self and dependent arising that distinguish Buddhism from other Indian religions. 

But, uh-oh, we’ve just opened a can of worms. 

We could use that same critique in every definition of Buddha-nature, including its Pali precursors. Not-self means that there can’t be a Luminous Mind beneath defilements. If anything, such a mind is created by practicing. To keep from destroying the features that make Buddhism unique, we can’t think of the mind as a thing at all. It can’t be cleansed or smeared, dark or luminous. It’s a symbol we use to mean a whole group of processes, both mental and physical. 

If we accept Buddha-nature, then it has to be more of a… Buddhening? Buddhafication? Not of something, but as something.

When I’m meditating, that’s Buddha-nature as sitting. When I’m chatting Dharma, that’s Buddha-nature as speaking. If I feel compassion for all beings, it’s Buddha-nature as feeling. It’s a field of actions that all lead to awakening and freedom from suffering.

If AI processes lead to it saying things that can lead you to enlightenment, then those processes would indeed “have” Buddha-nature.

That gets us to our, “Yes.” 

We got there by using Buddhism’s not-self teachings against itself, pointing out and overturning some of the delightful contradictions within Buddhism. We wound up with a Buddha-nature that’s a specific form of emptiness; one that creates a Buddhaful flow, Buddhaful because of where it’s flowing. 

And it isn’t the mind that’s flowing; it’s the flowing that minds. For each mind is but a moment of change.

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

Did you like this post? You may also like:

Do Androids Dream of Buddha Nature? A Buddhist interview with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Chatbot

Artificial Buddha: A Chat with ChatGPT

Comments

comments

Johnathon Lee
Latest posts by Johnathon Lee (see all)