Ten suchnesses

The Ten suchnesses (Chinese: 十如是 shí rúshì; Japanese: 十如是 jū nyoze) are a Mahayana doctrine which is important, as well as unique, to that of the Tiantai (Tendai) and Nichiren Buddhist schools of thought. The doctrine is derived from a passage found within the second chapter of Kumarajivas Chinese translation of the Lotus Sutra, that "characterizes the ultimate reality (literally, “real mark”) of all dharmas in terms of ten suchnesses." This concept is also known as the ten reality aspects, ten factors of life, or the Reality of all Existence.

The list of ten suchnesses is neither found in Dharmarakshas Chinese translation nor in the Tibetan edition or any of the extant Sanskrit manuscripts.

The Sanskrit editions of the Lotus Sutra list only five elements:

Only the Thus Come One knows all the dharmas:

what are the dharmas, how are the dharmas, what are the dharmas like, of what characteristics are the dharmas, of what nature are the dharmas; what they are, how they are, what they are like, of what characteristics they are, of what nature are the dharmas, only the Thus Come One has had direct experience in those dharmas.

Kumarajiva translates the passage in chapter two as:

Only a Buddha and a Buddha can exhaust their reality, namely the suchness of the dharmas, the suchness of their marks, the suchness of their nature, the suchness of their substance, the suchness of their powers, the suchness of their functions, the suchness of their causes, the suchness of their conditions, the suchness of their effects, the suchness of their retributions, and the absolute identity of their beginning and end.

The discrepancy between Kumarajivas translation and the Sanskrit editions might be due to Kumarajivas use of a manuscript variant but Groner and Stone suggest that "the expansion of this list to ten is probably Kumarajlvas invention and may well be presaged in a passage in the Dazhidulun that includes nine aspects."

The following definitions are given by the Soka Gakkai English Buddhist Dictionary Committee and describe what each suchness means in more detail:

The above three suchnesses describe the reality of life itself. The next six suchnesses, from the fourth through the ninth, explain the functions and workings of life.

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