Heidi Nevin's Articles on Lions Roar

Buddhist teacher-practitioners from across traditions share personal moments that gave them insight into the true nature of mind. A Fish Just Swims. By Guo Gu. One time, a monk asked Chan master Shishuang Qingzhu (807–888), “I heard that buddha-nature is like space; is that correct?” Shishuang replied, “It’s present when you sleep; absent when you sit.” Similarly, when asked by a monk whether a dog has buddhanature or not, Chan master Zhaozhou Congshen (778–897) said, “No!” These two examples are like a fish asking another fish, “I heard that fish swim in water. Is that correct? There are such things as fish and water, right?” Ridiculous questions deserve ridiculous answers. Buddhanature is our true nature, already free from self (Skt. atman), vexations (Skt. klesas), and delusions (Skt. avidya). The personal experience of this freedom is called awakening (Skt. bodhi). Mahayana scriptures have already clarified that buddhanature is present everywhere, in all beings, and have provided many metaphors for it (e.g., spacious and vast like the sky or ocean)—so why ask? The presence of self, vexations, and delusions are imaginations. If you dismantle one, the other two can’t exist. We ask because we are trapped in our narrow, myopic perceptions, seeing only good and bad, joy and sorrow, right and wrong, success and failure, having and lacking, fair and unfair, self and other. The self, or the “me, I, and mine,” come into being when we are caught up with these perceptions. This is delusion—it vanishes when we personally experience the emptiness of these perceptions—when we see through the veil of these constructs. This is wisdom, awakening. A fish doesn’t have to imagine the “water” in swimming—it just swims. It’s through swimming that the water is experienced. The important thing is to keep swimming. Similarly, practice does not lead to awakening of buddhanature, which is already here. But it’s absolutely important to keep practicing—swimming—but without imagined notions of having or lacking, seeking and rejecting. The fish is already in the water, and we are already free. Of course, you may think that seeking and rejecting is normal in the function of day-to-day living, but being diligent in the complexity of life doesn’t mean we need to be caught up in deluded thinking. When I was in my early twenties, I practiced so I could rid myself of vexations like guilt and fear. I sought after freedom and awakening. I tried everything, from prolonged seated meditation (sleeping not lying down), to repentance prostrations (several hundred a day), to reading Chan texts. The more I did those things, the more entangled I became. I was seeking and rejecting. Then something shifted; I gave up all of the contrivance and just offered my life to each task at hand—body like a rag, mind like a mirror in all that I did, offering everything to support the monastery and others. One night, when I was just about to sit down on the cushion, suddenly my body, mind, and world dropped away. At the same time, everything was present and clear. The filter of “me, I, mine” was gone. This extended into my daily life and interactions with people and events for over a month. Everything was ordinary, clear, and at peace, as if nothing was happening, yet everything was wondrous, connected, clear. Things moved but they were still; there was coming and going, but it was as if nothing had come or gone. Tasks were busily being done, but it was as if nothing was accomplished. There was no witnessing, no things, no tasks. Motion and stillness, coming and going, presence and absence were irrelevant. Responses to circumstances and things were distinct but without a reference point. Mind functioned freely when tasks required thinking, but ideas flowed without a thinker or self-consciousness. Mundane things like peeing made wonderous connections between the pee and the toilet, yet nothing had transpired. As for the Chan gong’ans (Jp. Zen koans), they became silly children’s books. There were no obstructions anywhere—obstruction and nonobstruction were irrelevant, too. Eventually, “self” subtly crept back, along with self-consciousness. Even though everything was still clear and unified, the difference between the presence and absence of self was like night and day. Having realized the principle of practice—grasping and rejecting nothing but offering myself to all with diligence and humility—the floodgate of buddhanature would subsequently open by itself from time to time; the self would drop away during the day and in sleep. The presence of self, vexations, and delusions are imaginations. If you dismantle one, the other two can’t exist. Awakening is nothing special and has nothing to do with perceptions. Nor is there a thing called buddhanature. But genuine practice is necessary, and you are already free. Nourish the Seed. By Myokei Caine-Barrett. A member of our incarcerated sangha once mentioned that our presence “smelled like freedom.” It brought to mind the following quote from Nichiren Shonin (1222–1282): A singing bird in a cage attracts uncaged birds, and the sight of these uncaged birds will make the caged bird want to be free. Likewise, the chanting of Odaimoku will bring out the Buddha-nature within ourselves. His comment was an opening to further explore the concept of buddha-nature: What was it really? I had learned that buddhanature meant that we all have the seed of buddha within, that we possess the wisdom that illuminates that seed, and that we engage in the practice that manifests that wisdom. Within the Nichiren tradition, we follow the bodhisattva path to fulfill the seemingly impossible promise made by Shakyamuni Buddha, to lead all beings to awakening. Our founder, Nichiren Shonin, grounded our path in the basic practice of chanting the odaimoku, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo (the sacred title). Chanting the odaimoku is the “act that manifests the jewel of the buddha realm hidden within the nine realms of ordinary people.” The odaimoku is often referred to as the “seed of buddhahood.” We chose this path to provide a gateway for others to enter the dharma path, by living our own lives purposefully and embodying the teachings. Most Buddhists understand the principle of the ten realms/worlds consisting of the six realms (hell, hunger, anger, animality, humanity, heaven) and four upper realms, or kinds of sages (sravaka, a “listener” or disciple of the Buddha; pratyekabuddha, one who becomes enlightened on their own; bodhisattva; buddha). These ten realms are an important element of a core concept from the Lotus Sutra known as ichinen sanzen, or “3,000 worlds in a single moment,” which indicates that these ten realms are mutually possessed: each of the ten contains the other nine. Imagine that each of us has a fundamental life condition based on the ten realms—it might be anger, or humanity, or being a sravaka. Mutual possession means that buddha is also present and it’s up to us to make that buddha manifest. The seed of each realm is within, and through practice we learn to work within those realms and manifest the buddha seed in our daily lives. As we become more mindful of the workings of these various realms, we can more comfortably and more easily overcome the lower realms and water the seeds of the buddha. Exploration of the ten realms—and especially their mutual possession—provides a way to open us up to recognizing the experience of being exactly who we are—not to seek or achieve perfection, simply to understand what is. As we strive to elevate the condition of our inner realms, we can examine and connect with each realm “as it is,” facing the realities of our own experiences and what they can teach us. This leads to an acceptance that we essentially have everything we need to navigate this existence so that we can truly walk the path of the Buddha. That we are able to do so underscores the fact that the buddhanature is present within—how could we find something if it did not already exist? As I practiced with this idea, the various ups and downs in my own life became much easier to understand. Because we are not separate and can provide a mirror for each other, every being we encounter offers a gift. Even the bigots encountered allowed me to find the bodhisattva within even as anger and animality arose. I learned to respond with compassion and a healing kindness. I learned that in offering a space of compassion for another, I also provided it for myself. It was the act of following the bodhisattva path that provided a way to touch that buddhanature. The reason buddhas have appeared in the world is to awaken us to the truth that all beings have buddhanature. And this is our task as practitioners, as set forth in the Lotus Sutra, chapter 7, “Parable of the Magic City”: Expound the Dharma, Reveal the Dharma, And cause us to obtain that wisdom! If we attain Buddhahood, Others also will do the same. Untouchable Peace. By Kokyo Henkel. Mind is originally free from all fixed reference points—in Zen it is said that “mind cannot be grasped.” At the same time, mind is luminously clear and aware—as one saying goes, “everyone is radiant light, but when looked for it can’t be found.” This empty clarity of mind is naturally and effortlessly compassionate when facing suffering, since self and other are nondual. The ungraspable, luminous, compassionate nature of ordinary awareness itself is called buddhanature. One time during sesshin, an intensive Zen retreat, a sense of openness and ease arose, and I went to check it out with my teacher, Tenshin Anderson Roshi. I asked, “What if there’s some peace in the midst of all this suffering?” He asked me to tell him about the experience, which I did. We were walking slowly down the path during one of the breaks. He put his arm around my shoulder as we walked, and he asked, “Can anything touch it?” The question surprised me, and I began to investigate. If an experience is any kind of object known by mind, it can...

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