All beings are from the very beginning Buddhas

We had a good class in prison today. Rich was talking about how much the practice of metta bhavana and an awareness of Buddhanature had changed his life. I shared how I’ve become substantially less critical through the practice of metta, and said that although an awareness had had a profound effect at times on how I’ve seen myself, I don’t think it’s penetrated very deeply (he thought the same about himself). I find that sometimes I still get frustrated by people’s actions and judge them not on their potential but on how they behave.

I contrasted this with how I view my daughter. She may sometimes have tantrums or in an attempt to play she’ll throw food or utensils around the kitchen, but I don’t get angry with her. I take the view that she’s still growing up, and that this is just how she is at the moment. I see her potential adulthood, and realize that she’s on the way to becoming a completely different kind of person — one (I assume) who will be less prone to tantrums when she can’t have a cookie right now and who won’t hurl forks across the dinner table.

If only I could see all beings like that. If only I could see them all as being potential Buddhas and not relate to them as if they were forever stuck as they are, or as they seem.

It occurred to me that a line from Hakuin’s Song of Meditation could be used as a sort of mantra: “All beings are, from the very beginning, Buddhas.” I’ve been bringing this line to mind over and over today. I find frustrations arising, but at the thought, “All beings are, from the very beginning, Buddhas,” the frustration and judgment seem to fade.

On the way home from prison I had to stop for gas. It was lunchtime and so the gas station was crowded. I pulled in behind a woman who, it turned out, had gone into the convenience store to buy a 24-pack of soda, leaving the fuel-line filling her tank. She came out of the store and took a very roundabout route to her car, then took her time putting the slab of cans into the passenger seat. Eventually she noticed that the whole time she’d been there her vehicle hadn’t been filling after all. The catch on the pump’s trigger had slipped and the pump wasn’t running. So she had to start filling from scratch. Once her tank was full she then started topping off, one little squirt at a time, as if it was essential that her tank was full to (literally) overflowing. This is the kind of behavior that I can become annoyed at, where one person seems oblivious to what’s going on around her, like whether her tank is actually filling and whether there are people in line behind her.

“All beings are, from the very beginning, Buddhas.” Perhaps she’s having a really bad day. For all I know she’s just had a bereavement and is massively distracted. Perhaps she’s an amazing person who helps others all the time. Maybe she’ll be enlightened before me. I just don’t know. I do know that she has the potential to be amazing, and that makes her amazing already, just as she is.

Comments are closed.