Shunryu Suzuki told a group of Zen students: All of you are perfect just as you are and you could use a little improvement.
It's a beautifully simple way to express a Buddhist truth - each one of us is a manifestation of Buddha nature. Yes, there are things we should work on: being more open hearted, practicing generosity, avoiding slanderous talk, calming the mind, taming aggressive thought. But don't lose track of the grandeur of the forest while focusing on all the life-scarred trees.
In Pema Chodron's lecture series, Practicing Peace in Times of War, she mentions this quote from Suzuki. Taking it further, in a conversation with her own Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Chodron asks, What is the one thing you would recommend to Westerners pursuing this path? Her teacher's reply: Guiltlessness.
Chodron's teacher said Westerners get caught up in the shame cycle, which serves no one. He said we all act badly, repeatedly - but that is ephemeral, fleeting, impermanent. What is constant and true lies underneath all of that. Our innocent original nature.
It's the old question: Is the glass half empty or half full? Does it matter how we frame the way we look at ourselves? From the pessimist's lens, seeing a flawed human being with occasional moments of goodness? Or from the optimist's lens, seeing a good person with moments of less-than-stellar behavior?
I think it does matter. I wish I had had a Shunryu Suzuki in my childhood, telling me I was perfect, while at the same time encouraging me to keep growing. It might have saved me many, many years of debilitating self-hatred and guilt.
However, that was not my path. I have learned, over the years, to appreciate the rough road, because of where it has brought me. The journey hasn't been easy, but I am very grateful that I have ended up here. Because here, in this Zen community, hearing the dharma talks of my teachers, reading the works of other Buddhists, I am finally finding the comfort I had been seeking all of my life. Not the comfort of "no problems" - there is still plenty of room for improvement. Instead, what I have found is a place of refuge in sangha and dharma, an increasing willingness to sit still with what is painful, and an ever-expanding sense of connection and possibilities.
I am beginning to see my own Buddha nature. And as for the rest of my imperfect self, I am learning to live in the realm of vows:
Beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
Buddha's way is unsurpassable; I vow to become it.
It's a beautifully simple way to express a Buddhist truth - each one of us is a manifestation of Buddha nature. Yes, there are things we should work on: being more open hearted, practicing generosity, avoiding slanderous talk, calming the mind, taming aggressive thought. But don't lose track of the grandeur of the forest while focusing on all the life-scarred trees.
In Pema Chodron's lecture series, Practicing Peace in Times of War, she mentions this quote from Suzuki. Taking it further, in a conversation with her own Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Chodron asks, What is the one thing you would recommend to Westerners pursuing this path? Her teacher's reply: Guiltlessness.
Chodron's teacher said Westerners get caught up in the shame cycle, which serves no one. He said we all act badly, repeatedly - but that is ephemeral, fleeting, impermanent. What is constant and true lies underneath all of that. Our innocent original nature.
It's the old question: Is the glass half empty or half full? Does it matter how we frame the way we look at ourselves? From the pessimist's lens, seeing a flawed human being with occasional moments of goodness? Or from the optimist's lens, seeing a good person with moments of less-than-stellar behavior?
I think it does matter. I wish I had had a Shunryu Suzuki in my childhood, telling me I was perfect, while at the same time encouraging me to keep growing. It might have saved me many, many years of debilitating self-hatred and guilt.
However, that was not my path. I have learned, over the years, to appreciate the rough road, because of where it has brought me. The journey hasn't been easy, but I am very grateful that I have ended up here. Because here, in this Zen community, hearing the dharma talks of my teachers, reading the works of other Buddhists, I am finally finding the comfort I had been seeking all of my life. Not the comfort of "no problems" - there is still plenty of room for improvement. Instead, what I have found is a place of refuge in sangha and dharma, an increasing willingness to sit still with what is painful, and an ever-expanding sense of connection and possibilities.
I am beginning to see my own Buddha nature. And as for the rest of my imperfect self, I am learning to live in the realm of vows:
Beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
Buddha's way is unsurpassable; I vow to become it.
No comments:
Post a Comment