Sentient beings is a technical term in
Buddhist discourse. Broadly speaking, it denotes beings with
consciousness or
sentience or, in some contexts,
life itself.
[Getz, Daniel A. (2004). "Sentient beings"; cited in Buswell, Robert E. (2004). Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Volume 2. New York, USA: Macmillan Reference USA. ISBN 0-02-865720-9 (Volume 2): pp.760 ] Specifically, it denotes the presence of the five aggregates, or
skandhas. While distinctions in usage and potential subdivisions or classes of sentient beings vary from one school, teacher, or thinker to another—and there is debate within some Buddhist schools as to what exactly constitutes sentience and how it is to be recognized—it principally refers to beings in contrast with
buddhahood. That is, sentient beings are characteristically
not enlightened, and are thus confined to the death, rebirth, and
suffering characteristic of
Saṃsāra.
[Kimura, Kiyotaka (1991). ; cited in Philosophy East and West; Volume 41, Number 3, July 1991. University of Hawaii Press: pp.327-340. Accessed 22 October 2008.] However,
Mahayana Buddhism simultaneously teaches (in the
Tathagatagarbha doctrine particularly) that sentient beings also contain
Buddha-nature—the intrinsic potential to transcend the conditions of samsara and attain enlightenment, thereby becoming a Buddha.
In Mahayana Buddhism, it is to sentient beings that the
Bodhisattva vow of compassion is pledged. Furthermore, and particularly in
Tibetan Buddhism and
Japanese Buddhism,
all beings (including plant life and even inanimate objects or entities considered "spiritual" or "metaphysical" by conventional Western thought) are or may be considered sentient beings.
Definition
Getz (2004: p.760) provides a generalist Western Buddhist encyclopedic definition:
Sentient beings is a term used to designate the totality of living, conscious beings that constitute the object and audience of Buddhist teaching. Translating various Sanskrit terms (jantu, bahu jana, jagat, sattva), sentient beings conventionally refers to the mass of living things subject to illusion, suffering, and rebirth (Saṃsāra). Less frequently, sentient beings as a class broadly encompasses all beings possessing consciousness, including Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Classification
Early scriptures in the
Pali Canon and the conventions of the Tibetan
Bhavachakra classify sentient beings into five categories—divinities, humans, animals, tormented spirits, and denizens of hell—although sometimes the classification adds another category of demonic beings between divinities and humans.
See also
