Buddha-nature, Buddha-dhatu or Buddha Principle (Skt: Tathāgatagarbha; Jap: Bussho), is taught differently in various Mahayana Buddhism traditions. Broadly speaking Buddha-nature is concerned with ascertaining what allows sentient beings to become Buddhas.

Buddha-nature (Classical Chinese: 佛性, modern pinyin fó xìng) literally corresponds to the Sanskrit Buddha-dhātu - "Buddha Element", "Buddha-Principle", but seems to have been used most frequently to translate the Sanskrit "Tathāgatagarbha". The Sanskrit term "tathāgatagarbha" may be parsed into tathāgata ("the one thus gone", referring to the Buddha) and garbha ("root/embryo"). The latter has the meanings: "embryo", "essence"; whilst the former may be parsed into "tathā" ("[s]he who has there"^{[clarification needed]} and "āgata" (semantic field: "come", "arrived") and/or "gata" ("gone").

For the various equivalents of the Sanskrit term "tathāgatagarbha" in other languages (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese), see Glossary of Buddhism, "tathagatagarbha"

Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera (known to most as Ajahn Brahm), born Peter Betts in London, United Kingdom on 7 August 1951, is a Theravada Buddhist monk. Currently Brahm is the Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery, in Serpentine, Western Australia, the Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia, Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of Victoria, Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of South Australia, Spiritual Patron of the Buddhist Fellowship in Singapore, and Spiritual Patron of the Bodhikusuma Centre in Sydney.

Peter Betts came from a working-class background and went to Latymer Upper School. He won a scholarship to study Theoretical physics at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. After graduating from Cambridge he taught in high school for one year before traveling to Thailand to become a monk and train with the Ajahn Chah Bodhinyana Mahathera. Brahm was ordained in Bangkok at the age of twenty-three by the Abbot of Wat Saket. He subsequently spent nine years studying and training in the forest meditation tradition under Ajahn Chah.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche (pronounced Yon-gay) (b. 1975) is a teacher and master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. He has authored two best-selling books and oversees the Tergar Meditation Community, a global network of Buddhist meditation centers.

Mingyur Rinpoche was born in Nepal in 1975 the youngest of six brothers. From the age of nine, his father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, taught him meditation, passing on to him the most essential instructions of the Dzogchen and Mahamudra traditions.

At the age of eleven, Mingyur Rinpoche began studies at Sherab Ling Monastery in Northern India, the seat of Tai Situ Rinpoche. Two years later, Mingyur Rinpoche began a traditional three year retreat at Sherab Ling. At age twenty, Mingyur Rinpoche became the functioning abbot of Sherab Ling. At twenty-three, he received full monastic ordination. During this time Mingyur Rinpoche received important Dzogchen transmissions from Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche

In 2007 Rinpoche completed the construction of Tergar Monastery in Bodhgaya, India, which will serve large numbers of people attending Buddhist events at this sacred pilgrimage site, serve as an annual site for month-long Karma Kagyu scholastic debates, and serve as an international study institute for the Sangha and laity. The institute will also have a medical clinic for local people.

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo is a Tibetan Buddhist nun in the Drukpa Lineage of the Kagyu school. She is an author, teacher and founder of the Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in Himachal Pradesh, India. She is best known for being one of the very few Western yoginis trained in the East, having spent twelve years living in a remote cave in the Himalayas, three of those years in strict meditation retreat.

Vicki Mackenzie, who wrote Cave in the Snow about her, relates that what inspired the writing of the book was reading Tenzin Palmo's statement to a Buddhist magazine that "I have made a vow to attain Enlightenment in the female form - no matter how many lifetimes it takes".

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo was born Diane Perry in the East End of London in June 1943. Although spiritualist meetings were held in her childhood home, she realized at the age of 18 that she was a Buddhist when she read a library book on the subject. She moved to India at 20, where she taught English at the Young Lamas Home School for a few months before meeting her root lama, the 8th Khamtrul Rinpoche. In 1964 she became only the second Western woman to be ordained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, receiving the name Drubgyu Tenzin Palmo, or 'Glorious Lady who Upholds the Doctrine of the Practice Succession'. The ordination was as a shramanerika, or novice nun, the highest level of ordination currently available for women in the Tibetan tradition where the bhikshuni sangha has died out. However, with the support of her teacher, in 1973 Tenzin Palmo received the full bhikshuni ordination in Hong Kong, one of the first Western women to do so.