Good morning. I want to talk this morning about Buddha nature. So this topic comes from a question that somebody asked at the Wednesday night sitting group I do in San Francisco. And they asked if Buddha nature was the Buddhist version of God. He said the kingdom of God is within and we say that Buddha nature is, we all have Buddha nature within us. So he wondered if Buddha nature is the Buddhist version of God. And since I do sitting groups, three sitting groups in different Episcopal churches and teach Buddhism at Graduate Theological Union where many of my students are Christian seminarians,

[01:02]

I often get involved in these kinds of questions. So theologically I suppose this depends on what you mean by God. I think that probably has even more meanings than Buddha does. But I noticed that somehow I really wanted to answer yes. Buddha nature is the Buddhist version of God. So I want to talk today about Buddha nature. And particularly I wanted to talk about how we practice Buddha nature. Because in Zen we emphasize rather than some theological abstract discussion, we emphasize how do we practice, how do we actually make the teaching real in our lives. So I wanted to talk about the three aspects of practicing Buddha nature and how that relates to our meditation.

[02:02]

So there's seeing Buddha nature, trusting Buddha nature, and then cultivating or enacting Buddha nature. But before we talk about how to practice Buddha nature, I thought I'd tell some stories just to kind of give us a context for what some of the implications of this word Buddha nature are in our tradition. So maybe the main story about Buddha nature is the story about Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha 2,500 years ago in northern India, who one night sat under the Bodhi tree and had this great awakening. One version of what he understood in his enlightenment, one version of what he saw is that he made

[03:09]

the statement, now I see that all sentient beings in the entire universe are completely endowed with the wisdom and the virtue of the awakened ones, of the Buddhas. Only because of their attachments and their conditioning, they don't realize it. So in some way, Buddha nature is this potential we all have, this direction we all have, this possibility we all have to be Buddha, to express Buddha, to be one with Buddha in our lives. But because of our conditioning, because of our attachments, because of our greed and frustration and anger and our confusion, we don't see this Buddha nature right in front of us. We don't see this possibility of expressing Buddha in our lives. But this idea of Buddha nature as the potential that we all have is very important in Buddhism,

[04:18]

in the Mahayana, great vehicle Buddhism we practice here. Early on in Buddhism in India and in China, there actually was a theory that not everybody has Buddha nature. There was this theory that there were certain people, and they might be very nice people, they might be fine people, but somehow they did not have this seed of Buddha nature in them. There are some people who just, you know, they can't be Buddha, no matter how many lives they go through. This was a theory, actually a well-accepted theory, in early Chinese Buddhism. These people are called achantikas, and it's kind of sad, you know, they don't have Buddha nature. There was an early, a 5th century Chinese scholar and practitioner, though, named Daoxing, who was a very senior person in the Chinese Buddhist community, and he said, you know,

[05:20]

that's not true. Actually, all beings have Buddha nature. And they got really upset with him for saying that, because they had this theory of the achantikas, and they actually excommunicated him, they expelled him from the temple for saying that all beings have Buddha nature. And you know, he was this elder senior monk in the community. Fortunately, a couple of years later, somebody translated the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, a great important sutra in Mahayana Buddhism from Sanskrit to Chinese, and right there it said all beings have Buddha nature. So they brought him back and said, oh, we're very sorry, and please come back to the temple, you were right. Anyway, this is the basic background of Buddha nature, the statement in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra that all beings, without exception, have Buddha nature. All of us have the possibility of awakening. So probably the most famous story in the Zen tradition about this is about the great, great

[06:28]

Zen master, Jao Zhou, some of you may know his name, Joshu in Japanese. Jao Zhou lived in China in the 9th century, and maybe he's the greatest Zen master of all time, if we can say something like that. Mostly just because he lived to be 120 and had lots of time to shitsase. He was great, there are lots of stories about him. And one of the most famous, probably the most famous Zen story, a monk asked Jao Zhou, does a dog have Buddha nature? And Jao Zhou said no, or in Japanese they say mu. I think in Chinese maybe he said woo, anyway, it means no. So this is the first koan, the first teaching story in a lot of Zen traditions, and very important story, and very significant story. Does a dog have Buddha nature? So this isn't just about dogs, this is about us, this skin bag, this greedy, frustrated,

[07:35]

angry, confused person that I am, that we all may be. Even this dog, can this dog have Buddha nature? And Jao Zhou said no. And in a way, that's right, no, there is not something called Buddha nature in Zen, nature we can have. Buddha nature is not something we can possess and put it in a frame and put it up on the wall or put it on a box on a shelf. Nobody has Buddha nature. Now the Buddha said all sentient beings are completely endowed with this Buddha nature. Dogen re-translated that, he said all sentient beings, whole being Buddha nature, all sentient beings completely are Buddha nature. Buddha nature is not something we have, Buddha nature is something we already are, something very deep. So I have to say, even God doesn't have a Buddha nature.

[08:36]

And yet, the teaching is that Buddha nature is everywhere, Buddha nature, this possibility of awakening, this possibility of clarity, this possibility of living with wisdom and compassion is right here, sitting on your cushion right now. But then how do we deal with our dog nature? How do we work with our conditioning and our attachment and our pettiness and our grasping and all of that stuff, which at some point if we practice we have to face all of our ideas and delusions about what Buddha is and what dogs are. How do we deal with that? So, the most common way that this koan, this story about Jajo is used is just to say no

[09:46]

to everything, mu. So in Rinzai Zen particularly, and sometimes in Soto Zen, monks or practitioners just sit with this no, whatever comes up, no, it's not that, no, not that either, not that. So any thought or feeling that comes up, any sensation, just no. There's this kind of absolute no. It's not the no of yes or no, it's the no of no Buddha nature. How do we see this cutting through our confusion, cutting through our craving, cutting through our frustration to be with this Buddha nature? So that's the usual way the story is used, but there's actually a longer version of the story, kind of, kinder, gentler version of the story. And in that story, the full story, the monk asked Jajo, does a dog have Buddha nature?

[10:47]

And Jajo said no. And the monk said, well I thought everything had Buddha nature, why doesn't a dog have Buddha nature? And Jajo said, just because he's caught in karmic consciousness. So we're all caught in karmic consciousness. We're all caught in this particular situation that we're in, this body, this mind, these habits, this particular set of tendencies and confusion and grasping and all of the stuff that we each have, that we have from decades of being alive on this planet. Maybe from previous lives too, Buddhism would say. But anyway, we're caught in this karmic consciousness. We keep wanting things to be better. We keep wanting to get more of the good things and get rid of the bad things. And most of our ordinary life is, as human beings, is caught up in this kind of karmic

[11:52]

consciousness, trying to get things. And in a way that can be wholesome too. There's a wholesome side to karmic consciousness. We might want to be kind and make things better for people and all of those good things. But that's still, there's a way in which that's karmic consciousness and in that case, no. No Buddha nature. That's what Jajo said. But the story goes on. Another time, a monk asked Jajo, does even a dog have Buddha nature? And Jajo said, yes. And the monk asked, how could a dog have Buddha nature? And Jajo said, because he knowingly and willingly transgresses. So in this practice we do, we have this thing called the Bodhisattva vow. The vow to continue to practice together with everyone, to practice together with people,

[12:54]

to come together and express the Dharma, talk the Dharma, listen to the Dharma, see our Buddha nature. And we do this knowingly and willingly. We take on this form. We take on this particular dog body or human body or whatever. And here we are, knowingly and willingly transgressing, stuck in karmic consciousness for the benefit of all beings, doing our best to see this karmic consciousness, to express the Buddha nature right in the middle of this karmic consciousness, to trust this Buddha nature, to settle into this Buddha nature, to be willing to be the Buddha we are, right in this dog body. So we're all potential Buddhas.

[14:00]

We're all Buddhas in process. This is what Buddha sees. Buddha sees that all of us are Buddhas in process, alive, in particular bodies, with particular situations, with particular problems, and hang-ups and confusion, and somehow doing this practice of awakening, right as the person we are. So we knowingly and willingly transgress to show the awakening of dogs and people, and to demonstrate this for all the other people and our practice friends. This is the Buddha nature. This knowingly and willingly transgressing. And yet there's no Buddha nature. So, in Zen, we kind of sit with, right in the middle of yes and no, and we're willing

[15:06]

to be in the middle of yes and no, and not have to grab either yes or no. But just see the next thing. Let the Buddha nature express herself. So I wanted to share some dog stories, and actually some cat stories, too. How many of you share your living space with dogs? Ah, okay. How many of you share your living space with cats? More cat people, okay. Well, I wanted to start with a story about a cat. When I first came to San Francisco Zen Center in the 70s, there was a cat living in, at Zen Center, at Page Street in the building. A big, old, lazy cat named Mewy, black cat. And this was kind of strange, because there was a policy against animals in the building. But Mewy was, I don't know what to say about Mewy, except that the story about, this is

[16:10]

a true story, I actually was able to confirm it this morning from someone who was there. But Mewy wandered into the building one day at Page Street, and before anybody could grab him and put him out, he went right down to the zendo, to the meditation hall in the basement there. And then he went right into the meditation hall, and then he went right up to the abbot seat and got on it, and fell asleep. So we had to let him stay in the building after that. He was a funny cat, kind of cantankerous little guy. But anyway, we don't know what past lives this cat had. So I'll tell a dog story now. Last year I was going around reading from my book on the Bodhisattva figures, the Bodhisattva archetypes. And I was, I read at a bookstore in Pittsburgh where I grew up. And there's not so much Zen yet in Pittsburgh.

[17:11]

It's not like the Bay Area, which is kind of the center of Buddhism in the world. But there was, anyway, there was this old classmate of mine came to the reading. She was actually, she was in grade school and high school with me, and sat next to me in third grade. I remember her most in third grade. Anyway, she came, she's an artist now, and she came specifically to this reading to ask me a question. And she had never heard the story about, you know, Zhao Zhou. She never heard of Zhao Zhou or does a dog have Buddha nature. But she came to ask me about Bodhisattvas and Buddhism because she had this dog who was this wonderful, wonderful creature who was just kind and clear and helpful. And she thought, this dog must be a Buddha. Is it possible that a dog could be a Buddha? That's what she came to ask me. So that's, you know, I feel like the question has been answered. Then there's another dog, because some of you may know, because this is a dog who lives

[18:13]

at Green Gulch named Rozzi. Rozzi lives with Reb Anderson, the senior Dharma teacher here. Rozzi's a Jack Russell Terrier. Little thing. Cute. Rozzi's very good at retrieving pine cones. That's kind of her special practice. But anyway, I was down in Tassajara for this march last month. And Rozzi was there, too, with Reb, who was leading a practice period. And when Reb would come to the zendo, there'd be this procession. There'd be Reb, and then there'd be the jisha carrying the incense. And then there'd be Rozzi, kind of, in this little procession. And she'd get up to the door of the zendo, and she'd stop. And she'd stick her paws on this little, kind of, little entryway to the zendo, and she'd look in. And she'd really, you know, you could tell that she really wanted to be in there. You know, it was really exciting to her. And we would be chanting, and she'd be looking. But she was very good. She never came in. She just stood in the gate and looked in with this great devotion.

[19:18]

So anyway, I don't know if Rozzi has Buddha nature, but you can ask Reb. Then I have another story. I now have a black cat who lives with me. And she's a big black cat, and she likes to curl up on the zabutan. Maybe she just thinks it's kind of protective coloration, but she'll curl up next to the zafu. Sometimes I can't tell, you know, until I see which one is furry, which is the zafu. And she also, sometimes she likes to come up and sit. When I'm sitting at home, she'll come up and stick her paws in my mudra. Or sometimes she'll sit on my lap. So I think she likes zazen. So anyway, there are lots of stories about dogs and cats in the Zen tradition. And one of the most famous is from Zhaozhou's teacher named Nanchuan. He was also a great famous Zen master. So actually, he liked cats and cows. There are many stories about cats and about cows. He said that when he was going to die, he said he would come back as a water buffalo

[20:24]

down the bottom of the mountain where the temple was. And there's also a story about him killing a cat. So that's kind of not such a nice story. But one of the things that Nanchuan said is that Buddhas and ancestors, the Buddhas and the great Zen teachers, don't know it is. Cats and cows know it is. So I think this is an important story about Buddha nature. Buddhas and ancestors don't know it is. Cats and cows know it is. So even Buddhas get confused and don't see it. But cats and cows are just there. No confusion, no grasping. Cats I live with can fall asleep like that. They're just very relaxed. So something about cats and cows and just being present with what's in front of us, that it's very hard for humans to do. So he said that cats and cows know it is.

[21:28]

So sometimes Zen students think that this means that if I could just get rid of all my agitated thinking, when we sit in meditation sometimes there are lots of thoughts and lots of feelings. And we're not cats and cows. We're all confused and trying to figure things out and totally wrapped up in karmic consciousness. And yet we, as human beings, have this wonderful opportunity to find Buddha nature, express Buddha nature in the middle of that situation of thoughts and feelings. So it doesn't work to just get rid of all your thoughts and feelings. I know this is a popular kind of heresy in American Zen. If I can just get rid of all my thoughts then I will be Buddha, like the cats and cows. But it doesn't work that way. So lobotomy Zen is not really the way to go. We actually have to face our thoughts and feelings. This whole question of Buddha nature, we could get into lots of...

[22:39]

I want to get back to talking about how we practice Buddha nature, but just to mention that there are lots of other questions we can talk about. Maybe we'll get to them in the discussion period. Like, do rocks have Buddha nature? Somebody asked. And what about trees? Do old-growth redwoods have Buddha nature? This is actually, in Buddhism today, still a kind of debatable question. I would say yes, but there are very eminent Buddhists who would say no. Only animals and maybe only humans, sentient beings, have Buddha nature. Then there's this funny story in Zen tradition about a student asking a teacher, if you cut an earthworm in two, which side has the Buddha nature? So that's a very silly story, and we can talk about that more later. But the point is that Buddha nature is not something that's limited to human beings.

[23:43]

It's non-anthropocentric. It's profoundly ecological. Buddha nature is about something that is deeper than our human psychology. Maybe it includes that, but it's not just a matter of doing some nice therapeutic meditation, and then we'll see our Buddha nature. This Buddha nature we're talking about is very deep. So that's why the question of dogs and cats and trees and flowers is relevant. But I wanted to talk about what is it to practice Buddha nature for human beings, since I guess we're all mostly human beings here. Are there any dogs or cats in disguise here? Any foxes? Well, it's okay. Everybody's welcome, you know. We sometimes, as in the case of Mewi, we sometimes do let dogs and cats in Zendo, but how do we practice Buddha nature? This is really the question. What is it for us? How do we find our own way of practicing this Buddha nature?

[24:48]

So I think there's three aspects of this, and they all relate to our meditation practice, and they also all relate to how we live in the world every day. So I wanted to read a little passage from Tiantong Hongzhe, this 11th century Chinese sotuzen master from a book I translated a while ago, called Cultivating the Empty Field, because he says it so beautifully, and so I want to just read this little passage and then talk about it more. He says, The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness. Utter emptiness has no image. Upright independence does not rely on anything. Just expand and illuminate the original truth, unconcerned by external conditions.

[25:52]

Accordingly, we are told to realize that not a single thing exists. In this field, birth and death do not appear. The deep source, transparent down to the bottom, can radiantly shine and can respond unencumbered to each speck of dust without becoming its partner. The subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colors and sounds. The whole affair functions without leaving traces and mirrors, without obscurations. Very naturally, mind and dharmas emerge and harmonize. Mind and phenomena arise and harmonize. So this subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colors and sounds. In our karmic consciousness, we do get caught up in colors and sounds. We do get caught up in forms. We do experience the arising of attachments.

[26:56]

And yet, when we practice this Buddha nature, we can settle into this deeper openness, this deeper radiance. So how do we do that? What is this practice of Buddha nature? So it seems to me that the first aspect is just to see this Buddha nature. But, of course, it's very difficult to do that because it's so close to us. And so, right in front of our nose, it's like trying to see your own eyeballs. And yet, there's a kind of way in which we can almost see our Buddha nature, maybe out of the corner of our eyes or in our ears. Sometimes we can see our Buddha nature when other people see it,

[28:03]

and we see them seeing it. Or sometimes we can see our Buddha nature when we see it in other people and see their Buddha nature. So there's this practice of seeing everyone as Buddha. Everyone we know. Even the people you have a hard time with. In some way, there's a Buddha. So seeing our Buddha nature means to see that we are children of Buddha. We are part of Buddha's family. We're connected with Buddha very deeply. But it's very hard to see that sometimes. When we start sitting or maybe when we continue sitting or maybe after many years of sitting still, we see very painfully sometimes how we can't control our thoughts. We can't control our feelings. How these habits and grasping and pettiness

[29:06]

and all of that stuff that is the karmic consciousness, how it still comes up. And we may feel very unworthy and feel like, well, gee, I can't be Buddha. I don't have any Buddha nature. I must be one of those Ajanakas. So just to see our Buddha nature is a difficult practice. And we can't do it by trying to see it directly. If we're doing our life fully, if we're fully engaged in our life and trying to be present and see what's in front of us, sometimes we get these glimpses. And it has to do with seeing all the things that get in the way of our Buddha nature. So this is kind of paradox. So Dogen said that deluded people have delusions about enlightenment.

[30:10]

Enlightened people are enlightened about their delusions. So when we see all this stuff coming up, and we're willing to sit still and upright and right in the middle of this karmic consciousness, this person who we are, in the middle of that, in the middle of all of our problems, that's when we start to see the Buddha nature. It's kind of funny that way. When we're willing to be who we are and watch it carefully and be present with it and be upright right in the middle of it. So this seeing our Buddha nature is the first aspect I want to point to about practicing the Buddha nature. Sometimes there are these experiences where we may have this sudden opening to seeing our Buddha nature. And so there are all these dramatic stories of openings, experiences. In Japanese it's called Kensho, to see the nature.

[31:15]

And some branches of Zen emphasize very much you have to do this, you have to see your Buddha nature. But actually this is just the beginning of our practice. This isn't the end of our practice. We don't see our Buddha nature and then we can forget about it and go back to being in the world and trying to get ahead and get rid of all the people who are in our way and all of that stuff. It's the beginning of our practice when we see our Buddha nature. And yet seeing, getting a glimpse, getting a taste of this Buddha nature, this possibility that's right here in front of us, this continues to be part of our practice. So that's the first aspect. The second is to accept, to trust this Buddha nature. So you may have the experience sometimes in Zazen, in meditation, that it's okay just to be who you are.

[32:19]

We can sometimes have the experience of it's okay to forgive ourselves for being who we are. This is this accepting and trusting of Buddha nature. So most of us probably have had some experience where we feel kind of squashed by all the difficulties and conditions and cruelties and problems of the world and of our lives. But this accepting and trusting the Buddha nature has to do with right in the middle of that, even in difficult situations, how can we trust something deeper? How can we trust our life? Even though things don't always, you know, mean bad things happen. There are tragedies and cruelty and all of that stuff that we have that is so difficult. Still, can we settle on something that doesn't necessarily, you know, fix our problems or solve all our problems,

[33:24]

but that allows us to trust something deeper, to be present in our lives? So this practice of trusting Buddha, of taking refuge in Buddha, of accepting our Buddha nature, this can grow in our meditation practice, this can grow in our taking on the practice of our everyday activities. And then confidence grows out of that. And we still may have all the problems we had before, but there's this Buddha nature that we can start to trust, start to settle on, start to enjoy. So the third aspect of how we practice with this Buddha nature, I would say is the cultivation. This is the hard work of practice. It's cultivation, but it's also expressing our Buddha nature. So as we become familiar and intimate

[34:30]

with our own stuff, with our problems, with our karmic consciousness, we can sometimes let go of these habits and attachments, not hold on to them so much, not react to them, not have to act out. So as we become settled on ourselves, as we become intimate with ourselves, this is the practice of cultivation, and this is also the practice of expressing our Buddha nature. So each of us has our own particular way of being Buddha. Each of us has our own particular expression of this Buddha nature. So in a way, our practice, our zazen, is just a ceremony to express this Buddha nature, to enact this Buddha nature. And from sitting upright and still and settled in the middle of our life,

[35:32]

we can feel maybe how to express this Buddha nature in the difficulties of our everyday activities. So this aspect of our practice is not that our practice isn't some method just to get to see our Buddha nature, but our practice is just this wonderful celebration of Buddha nature. And actually, we are expressing our Buddha nature right now, all of us. We can't help it. This is what Buddha sees, that we are all expressing our Buddha nature in our own way. And we may not see it. We may not believe it. We may be having a hard time. But there's some way in which the Buddha nature is being expressed right now. So the point of this talk

[36:44]

is not any particular words or particular description of what Buddha nature is or isn't, but really just to inspire us all, to inspire myself and maybe some of you, just to continue with this practice of Buddha nature. And it's not that these three things are kind of like, you know, step one, two, three. They all happen together. So even if you haven't seen your Buddha nature, you know, you still can express it. You can still celebrate it. Even if you haven't seen your Buddha nature, you can still settle into it and learn to trust something that you don't see. And even if you don't trust it still, you can cultivate this being present and being upright in the middle of your life and letting your life express your life, letting Buddha nature express herself in you

[37:44]

and in how you share that with everyone else and how you encourage others to express their Buddha nature, even if you don't see it. So we keep doing these three practices together. We keep looking and, you know, so the practice of Bodhisattva vow is to kind of move in the direction of Buddha. We keep looking for this, you know. And at some point, maybe you see it or maybe you remember afterwards that you saw it. You may not even, you may not see it. You may just say, oh, yeah, that was it. And of course, that's not it anymore. But you remember that there was a glimpse, you know, when you were eight years old or something. And still you can go on seeing Buddha nature and learning to trust something deeper than our ideas about who we are and our ideas about what the world is. We can cultivate these Buddha qualities and all of our unwholesome habits

[38:50]

might start to peel away a little bit. And we can be more comfortable with who we are and start to trust that there is something deeper than who we think we are. And then if you celebrate Buddha nature, if you express it, if you allow yourself to do the practices of enacting and expressing Buddha nature, if you take on the ceremony of Buddha nature, you may start to see it. So maybe some of you have stories about dogs or cats or trees that you have seen the Buddha nature of, or maybe you even have seen Buddha nature of friends or even of, occasionally, of your own Buddha nature, or not the Buddha nature that you have, but the Buddha nature that maybe has you. So please enjoy

[39:54]

your Buddha nature, and maybe we can discuss this more in the question period. Thank you.

[39:59]

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