With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Suki has taken to sleeping on the top of the back of the living room sofa. From this vantage point she can both sleep and scan. In the car she sits upright on the center console. Suki is awake. If a dog has buddha-nature, what does it say about the nature of that nature?
Is it still buddha nature when not realized? And what exactly, would that say about the buddha nature, if it were, or, on the other hand, if it weren’t?
One aspect of buddha nature is that it is inherent in everything. It pervades the universe and some argue it is the universe itself. We might think of it as a Buddhist form of panentheism. It is in everything, but is not the thing itself.
Another aspect of the buddha nature is its manifestation. I have said the buddha nature is essentially universal process, a sort of infinite, in all directions and all times, metabolism. We might say that whatever it takes to support this metabolism is an aspect of the manifestation of its nature. Some might argue, therefore, that killing in order to eat is a manifestation of the buddha nature. On our walks in the desert we see hawks seeking mice. We might simply assert this is the natural way, but such an assertion is not quite accurate. We could say, “poor mice” or “happy hawks.” In this we recognize the buddha nature of killing to survive, but also recognize our feelings about the predator and prey.
Dogen says flowers fall even though we love them and weeds grow even though we do not like them. In this he is saying something about the buddha nature. It is pervasive, contained in both weeds and flowers, but it is also in our feelings about these things and their fate. We might realize our attachment to flowers and our disdain for weeds, but we practice to recognize they are all part of the buddha nature itself.
So, hawks are happy when they eat mice. Mice are happy when they eat grain. Grains are happy when they eat from the soil. The soil is happy when it eats from everything that dies. When we realize the universal oneness of this process, there is no birth or death. We each experience our birth and death and realize the value we place on these, we realize our buddha nature. We are happy when we realize our truth.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Suki has taken to sleeping on the top of the back of the living room sofa. From this vantage point she can both sleep and scan. In the car she sits upright on the center console. Suki is awake. If a dog has buddha-nature, what does it say about the nature of that nature?
Is it still buddha nature when not realized? And what exactly, would that say about the buddha nature, if it were, or, on the other hand, if it weren’t?
One aspect of buddha nature is that it is inherent in everything. It pervades the universe and some argue it is the universe itself. We might think of it as a Buddhist form of panentheism. It is in everything, but is not the thing itself.
Another aspect of the buddha nature is its manifestation. I have said the buddha nature is essentially universal process, a sort of infinite, in all directions and all times, metabolism. We might say that whatever it takes to support this metabolism is an aspect of the manifestation of its nature. Some might argue, therefore, that killing in order to eat is a manifestation of the buddha nature. On our walks in the desert we see hawks seeking mice. We might simply assert this is the natural way, but such an assertion is not quite accurate. We could say, “poor mice” or “happy hawks.” In this we recognize the buddha nature of killing to survive, but also recognize our feelings about the predator and prey.
Dogen says flowers fall even though we love them and weeds grow even though we do not like them. In this he is saying something about the buddha nature. It is pervasive, contained in both weeds and flowers, but it is also in our feelings about these things and their fate. We might realize our attachment to flowers and our disdain for weeds, but we practice to recognize they are all part of the buddha nature itself.
So, hawks are happy when they eat mice. Mice are happy when they eat grain. Grains are happy when they eat from the soil. The soil is happy when it eats from everything that dies. When we realize the universal oneness of this process, there is no birth or death. We each experience our birth and death and realize the value we place on these, we realize our buddha nature. We are happy when we realize our truth.
Be well.
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