suchness

English[edit]

From English dialect, from Middle English swichnesse (“the quality or nature of a thing”), from Old English swilċnes (“quality”), equivalent to such +‎ -ness. Reinforced also as a calque of Sanskrit तथाता (tathātā).

suchness (usually uncountable, plural suchnesses)

The natural state of a person or thing; quality; character or worth.
- 1654, Walter Charleton, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana:
  The importance of which may be fully and plainly rendered thus; that since nothing in the Universe stands possessed of a Real or True Nature, i.e. doth constantly and invariately hold the precise Quale, or Suchness of their particular Entity, to Eternity; […]
(philosophy, chiefly Buddhism) Existence per se.
Synonyms: tathata, thusness
- ca. 1928, Hans Driesch, "Philosophy of Nature", in, 1928, Edward Leroy Schaub, ed., Philosophy Today: Essays on Recent Developments in the Field of Philosophy, page 431,
  The same relation may prevail between the suchness of willing in men and the realization of that willing.
- 1955, J. D. Salinger, "Franny", in, 1961, Franny and Zooey, 1991 LB Books edition, page 22,
  Without any apparent regard for the suchness of her environment, she sat down.
- 1988, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart: From Mindfulness to Insight Contemplation, Parallax Press, →ISBN, page 94:
  Rather than give an answer, you have to section the tangerine and invite the questioner to have a taste. Doing this, you allow him or her to enter the suchness of the tangerine without any verbal or conceptual description.

existence per se