Tathāgatagarbha, or Buddha‑nature, stands in a deliberately paradoxical relationship to the notion of a permanent self. On the one hand, classical Buddhism insists on anātman: all conditioned phenomena, including what is ordinarily taken to be “self,” are impermanent and without any independent essence. On the other hand, certain Mahāyāna sūtras describe Buddha‑nature with terms such as “eternal,” “pure,” “unchanging,” and even “self,” as if there were a hidden, indestructible core within all beings. This tension has generated extensive debate, because such language seems at first glance to reintroduce exactly what the Buddha denied: a fixed, substantial ātman.

A common way of resolving this tension is to see Tathāgatagarbha language as a form of upāya, a skillful means. The affirmative, almost essentialist vocabulary serves to counter a nihilistic misunderstanding of emptiness and to inspire confidence in the path, rather than to posit a metaphysical soul. In this reading, Buddha‑nature is not an individual ego or personal essence, but another way of speaking about the dharmakāya, or about the emptiness and suchness that underlies all phenomena. The “permanence” attributed to it is not the permanence of a thing, but the non‑arising and non‑ceasing of ultimate reality.

Another influential interpretation understands Tathāgatagarbha as the emptiness of mind itself, described in positive terms. Here Buddha‑nature is the mind’s fundamental purity and capacity for awakening, empty of inherent existence yet “full” of enlightened qualities. It is the potential for Buddhahood present in all sentient beings, rather than a ready‑made, substantial entity hidden inside them. In this sense, it is intimately tied to dependent origination and non‑duality, not to a self‑sufficient inner core.

Across these interpretations, a doctrinal bottom line emerges: Tathāgatagarbha does not function as a Buddhist endorsement of a permanent, personal self. Where the language of “self” appears, it is generally taken as a corrective and pedagogical device, not as a denial of anātman. Buddha‑nature points to the ultimate, selfless nature of reality and to the possibility that this nature can be fully manifest when defilements are removed. The teaching thus preserves the heart of the no‑self doctrine while offering a more affirmative way of expressing the ground and goal of the path.