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If we all have Buddha nature by birth - why seek enlightenment and engage in spiritual practice??
zenmyste
Veteran
Dogen Zenji also asked this question.. When he was a young Monk at 'Mount Hiei', He didnt get the answer from his masters and therefore set off to find the answer.
Does anyone know what answer he found? I cant find any information on this actual question.
And what would be your answer if you have one??
Cheers guys.
Does anyone know what answer he found? I cant find any information on this actual question.
And what would be your answer if you have one??
Cheers guys.
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Comments
If we are all buddhas then why do we need to ask that. Why do we need to practice if we all were born with Buddha nature.
So have you got an answer?
Dogen asked this question years ago. So according to you, this is proof he wasn't a buddha.just based on the fact he's asking the question. However many years later, he was supposed to have attained full enlightenment. But he wasn't a buddha!
So what's the difference between a buddha and an enlightened being.
(Whenever I talk on these threads, I usually refere to enlightenment when I speak of truth and personal experiences. I know that none of us are buddhas. But what's the difference according to you.
Namaste! X
So, @seeker242, you're saying we need a spiritually activated charcoal filter?
Another analogy is the sun behind clouds. The sun is always there but until the clouds roll away you don't see the sun in the sky.
These are from the Jewel Ornament of Liberation (one of) THE text for the lam rim path of Tibetan Buddhism.
To seek the end of greed, hatred and delusion is to seek the end of suffering.
Free of suffering or not free... that is the only distinction.
Before we knew anything about oxygen, we were still breathing the stuff
The subjective mind in the meditation
ânanda, as you decide to give up the state of a sràvaka to practise with the Bodhisattva Vehicle in order to possess the Buddha.s All-Wisdom, you should see clearly if the causeground (used as) a point of departure and its fruit-ground (i.e. realization) are compatible or not. ânanda, if you use your worldly mind as a causal point of departure, you will fail in your search for the Buddha Vehicle which is beyond birth and death. Therefore, you should inquire into all the creations (of the mind) which in this material world are subject to change and destruction. ânanda, which one of them does not decay? Yet you have never heard that space can perish. Why? Because it is not a created thing.
The objective phenomena in the meditation
In your body, that which is solid is the element of earth, that which is liquid is the element of water, that which is warm is the element of fire and that which moves is the element of wind. These four restraining elements divide your pure, perfect, absolute and enlightened Bodhi into seeing, hearing, knowing and discerning: hence the five turbid conditions (kaùàya) from the beginning to the end.What is turbidity? ânanda, take for instance clear water which is so by nature, and dust, earth, ashes and sand which are obstructive by nature. If someone throws earth and dust into clear water, the former will lose their obstructive qualities and the latter its clearness: the result is dirty water which is called turbid. Your five turbid conditions are like that dirty water. ânanda, when you see space in the ten directions, your perception and the void are inseparable, and since the void is bodiless and your perception unenlightened, both unite into one falseness which is the first layer, called turbid kalpa......
The Shurangama Sutra :thumbsup:
Some of you have mentioned buddha did this and did that...
But I'm not asking anything about what buddha did.
I just want to know, 'some traditions say we all have buddha nature and are enlightened. If this is so then we do we not know and why do we seek enlightenment if we already are enlightened?
Is the answer ignorance? If so then why wasn't dogen satisfied with this. And what answer did dogen eventually find. Because he wasn't a buddha was he? He was just enlightened!
Namaste!
However many of the great pandits of India and so forth put the path to enlightenment down in such precise terms that with a right teacher it is unmistakeable what is to be done. Different traditions for different levels of person.
Ah that's your mistake right there... Buddha-nature and Enlightenment are two different things. To have Buddha-nature does not mean to be Enlightened.
We all share the same nature (called Buddha-nature) regardless of whether we know it or not, but to know that nature fully is to free yourself of the suffering that is caused by ignorance. When you fully know your nature, the nature of the mind and all phenomena, thought and action that otherwise would have led to suffering is abandoned.
The path to Enlightenment is the path to knowing your Buddha-nature.
Learning that nature leads the mind to abandon the fetters and eventually to total unbinding (Nirvana).
Does that make sense? It's as simple as I could think to make it.
So one can become enlightened. But isnt a Buddha??
"To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever."
After he found his answer, he returned to Japan and one of the first things he did was write the text known as "Fukan Zazengi" (Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen), a short text emphasizing the importance of and giving instructions for zazen, or sitting meditation. AKA instructions on how to "cast off" these things he spoke of above. Because he understood that, as he said himself "Studying Zen ... is Zazen" and there is this "division" stated below. But when he spoke of Zazen, he always spoke of a specific kind, Shikantaza. He taught that practicing Shikantaza was very important because of this below, which is found in the Fukan Zazengi text he wrote.
And yet, if there is a hairsbreadth deviation, it is like the gap between
heaven and earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. Suppose you are confident in your understanding and rich in enlightenment, gaining wisdoms at a glance, attaining the way and clarifying the mind, arousing an aspiration to reach for the heavens. You are playing in the entranceway, but you are still short of the vital path of emancipation.
He considered Zazen to be an essential practice and taught that it was very necessary to do, even though he called it "non-doing" it was still something that was done, so to speak.
"Fukan Zazengi" (Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen)
http://files.meetup.com/542903/Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen.pdf
we train to peel the useless layers and make the bodhi nature shine.
In Theravada, the word Buddha means he who found and taught Buddhism... Siddhartha Gautama. Enlightened individuals other than the Buddha are called Arahants (worthy ones). The Buddha stated that his realization and freedom is the same as that of an Arahant.
In Mahayana, the word Buddha/buddha can refer to both Siddhartha Gautama and anyone else who has fully awakened (instead of the word Arahant). Semantics are often at the core of our misunderstandings and arguments.
Some believe that there's a difference between the enlightenment of the founder of Buddhism and that of others, but that just seems to be deifying the Buddha rather than understanding the Buddha.
We have to learn to not limit our “selves” in this way.
We just have to realize that we are “who we are before we think about it”.
The smaller our false sense of self gets the bigger our freedom will be.
When we no longer have a separate self - when we are nothing - we are one with everything.
So in short: technically we don’t have to become enlightened; we have to learn to stop limiting ourselves to a deluded state of mind.
The samboghakaya is the second body of the buddha. It is the message of truth and bliss that is apparent to bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas have penetrated the phenomenal world and seen that anger, greed, and delusion are essenceless. The sangha as mentioned in the triple gem. Our feeling of wellness at times is a precursor of samboghakaya. We feel well when we are more at peace and let go.
Siddhartha and Padmasambava are examples of nirmanakaya buddhas. The message of the dharma is not just for bodhisattvas. The whole trikaya including the emptiness of dharmakaya is not without a heart. From this heart of compassion buddhas manifest in the world apparent to us beings mired in samsara.
but from there, to say that there's only one samyak buddha per era is... non sense.
bound to it again. The Buddha ask us to awaken to our nature becos we are capable of greater things but we are the ones who choose to settle for the smaller things and continue to think that these smaller things are the greater things to be accomplished.
You don't do zazen (or any practice) in order to awaken because this creates a dualistic separation between you and awakening. This is reiterated in many koans again and again.
I love Dogen, but he's can seem awfully strange at first. Shohaku Okumura's book Realizing Genjokoan was the first book I read that finally started to help me understand what in the world Dogen is going on about. If you're really interested in Dogen, I highly recommend this book as an introduction to him. Because Dogen often approaches Buddhism FROM a non-dualistic angle, his use of language can seem bizarre at first, since language, by nature, is dualistic. Once you understand his peculiar logic, it gets better.
Another good introductory book is Francis Dojun Cook's How To Raise and Ox.
This is also why Dogen (and the Soto school, of which he was its primary founder in Japan) placed emphasis on shikantaza zazen, literally "just sitting." Shikan- ("just") means there is "nothing extra"-- everything is complete in itself in shikantaza. In reality, it is not simply you that is sitting, the entire universe itself is sitting-- nothing more, nothing less. (Shikantaza has its roots in "silent illumination" in Ch'an)
It is ultimately an act of the greatest trust that everything that is, is complete in itself. There is nothing to hold back, nothing to hold onto, hence "dropping away body and mind" and ultimately, "dropping off is dropped off" too (this is just another way of expressing the existential realisation of emptiness, and the emptiness of emptiness).
Of course, this led to unfounded charges of quietism. Dogen's Zen still needs to be seen in the light of the two truths. Yes, everything is perfect as it is, AND YET at the same time, we do what needs to be done-- but without clinging to the results (even if our aims are "good" or "noble" or whatever). There is ultimately no abiding anywhere-- there is nothing to abide with, after all! It is the deepest trust in the wholeness.
Some people don't seems to understand this "logic," and I would imagine Dogen wouldn't appeal to a lot of Buddhists (and that's cool), but I've found my own practice deepening because of his writings.
"People are already abundantly endowed with the Dharma in every part of
their being, but until they do the training, It will not emerge. And unless they
personally confirm It for themselves, there is no way for them to realize what It is."
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/Shobogenzo_Complete.html
Taigen Dan Leighton also has a lovely translation of Hongzhi (basically Dogen's Chinese counterpart in "silent illumination") called Cultivating the Empty Field which is reminiscent of Dogen, but not quite so difficult to read.
John Daido Loori's collection of writings (ancient and modern), The Art of Just Sitting is a good resource for meditation instruction in shikantaza (it was my first book actually when I first became interested in practicing Zen Buddhism). Very handy, with different opinions and approaches.
In meditation we try to maintain a state of mindful awareness, allowing our senses as well as other mental activity (thoughts etc.) to arise and pass without reaching out and grabbing them. Without clinging to them and following them into distraction. This clues us in that our thoughts, feelings and other mental activities are arising due to their own conditions and not due to any kind of intent on our part, that they're not really "ours" at all; that if we attach to these as "I", we might as well say what we see and hear is us/ours too! This eventually leads us to examining the awareness component itself, to see that it too is a conditioned phenomena dependent upon other phenomena, empty of self.
Our Buddha nature is covered by a bad habits and defilement, only through diligence and practice can we remove the these things and uncover our Buddha nature. Plus Buddhas comes to be from wanting to save all sentient beings.
Thinking we can get enlightened without work is a delusion. Dangerous one at that.
That why practice is about observing our thoughts, that weave the web of illusion that blinds us, rather than about "doing more".It is about DROPPING all that extraneous to the pure self.
Does a dog have Buddha Nature?
Buddha Nature is not a thing. One does not "have" Buddha Nature. One does not "not have" Buddha Nature.
I imagine Dogen's answer was similar.
Thanks for the gift of the question.