It's Up to You

Each and every Buddha and bodhisattva in the universe, and everyone in this world of humans as well, has been endowed with it. But being ignorant of the fact that you have a Buddha-mind, you live in illusion. Why is it you're deluded? Because you're partial to yourself. What does that mean? Well, let's take something close to home. Suppose you heard that your next-door neighbor was whispering bad things about you. You'd get angry. Every time you saw his face, you'd immediately feel indignant. You'd think, Oh, what an unreasonable, hateful person! And everything he said would appear to you in a bad light. All because you're wedded to your self. By becoming angry, losing your temper, you just transform your one Buddha-mind into the sinful existence of the fighting spirits.

If your neighbor praised you instead, or said something that pleased you, you'd be immediately delighted, even if the praise was totally undeserved and the pleasure you felt unfounded, a product of your wishful thinking. The delight you experience when this happens is due to that same obstinate, constitutional preference to yourself.

Just stop and look back to the origin of this self of yours. When you were born, your parents didn't give you any happy, evil, or bitter thoughts. There was only your Buddha-mind. Afterward, when your intelligence appeared, you saw and heard other people saying and doing bad things, and you learned them and made them yours. By the time you reached adulthood, deep-seated habits, formed in this way of your own manufacture, had emerged. Now, cherishing yourself and your own ideas, you turn your Buddha-mind into the path of fighting spirits. If you covet what belongs to other people, kindling selfish desires for something that can never be yours, you create the path of hungry ghosts, and you change the Buddha-mind into that kind of existence. This is what is known as transmigration.

If you realize fully the meaning of what I've just said, and do not lose your temper, or think you must have this, or de- cide that you don't like that, or have feelings of bitterness or pity—that in itself is the unborn Buddha-mind. You'll be a living Buddha.

- Bankei, The Unborn (Waddell translation), The Hoshin-ji Sermons

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Submitted July 10, 2020 at 01:14AM by kamasii https://ift.tt/2ZP6nLw