In last weeks class I was talking about a Buddhist principle known as Buddha nature. This is the teaching that every sentient being has the quality of awakening as their true nature. As much as it may feel that we are searching for peace or freedom or liberation, what we are really doing, according to this teaching, is seeking to come home to ourselves and who we really are when we are no longer caught in the fight with thoughts and feelings and instead be the space in which they are arising.
The sense that there is a me that has to fix this suffering is so strong, and it creates an idea of me in time, where right now I am a mess but one day I will be sorted out and free. What the Buddha nature teaching points to is that right now we are the freedom we seek, but we do not see it. It is like a fish swimming around asking every sea creature it meets “have you seen water?” and they all say “no”. Finally this little fish goes to the wise fish living deep in the ocean in a dark cave and asks this fish “how do I find water?” The wise fish tells the fish who seeks: “you are water, water is in you and around you and is nowhere else but here right now”. The little fish feels bewildered, thinking “how can water be here right now, there’s nothing here that I can see as water, I better carry on searching to find someone who can really tell me how to find water” and with that swims off through the water that this little fish cannot yet perceive.
Wanting to find peace, escape the suffering of our thoughts, be free – it is like the little fish looking for water, not believing that it is here right now. The teachers I know and respect all point to this same teaching, that we are already the freedom we seek. The capacity of knowing, presence, awareness….whatever we call it….that is the awakened state. But we want it to be special. To be amazing and transforming. But if instead we can open to the magic of resting into the state of being that is open to this present moment as it is and embraces it with compassion and sees it with wisdom, then perhaps that is the opening to freedom.
The Buddha said that: “There is the unborn, uncreated, unformed, unoriginated, and therefore there is an escape from the born, created, formed, originated. If it were not for the unborn, uncreated, unformed, unoriginated, there would be no escape from the born, created, formed, originated, but because there is the unborn, uncreated, unformed, unoriginated, there is an escape, there is liberation from the born, created, formed, originated” (Udana VIII.3). According to this text Enlightenment, or the state of freedom, is unborn – therefore it is out of time. It is not a state we reach at some point when we are good enough or have put in enough effort to create it. It is here right now because it is timeless and therefore always present. We just have to wake up to who we really are.
This teaching has been my inspiration since I cam across it 20 years ago and I enjoy finding teachers who point towards the truth of this in their own teachings. The video below is by Jeff Foster and he speaks to a contemporary audience, but in a way that seems to resonate with the Buddha’s words above. At one point he says: “you are not trying to free yourself from thoughts and feelings, you are the freedom….freedom is your nature”. He goes on to talk of the metaphor of the sky, which allows the clouds and different weather events to occur within it: being the space that allows this without being the weather. In the same way if we can start to connect with our ability to know our experience without having to be identified with it or fight it we can be like the sky: allowing fear, sorrow, anger, joy and happiness to arise within our experience but without labelling it ‘mine’ to be held on to or got rid of. It is known, welcomed and allowed to arise and pass away according to its nature.
This is the way Ajahn Chah, the Thai meditation master, taught meditation: to be the one who knows, the participant observer who is both witness and the experience being witnessed.
In the 7 minute video below Jeff Foster describes the state of allowing that resonates so closely with the Buddha’s description of the unborn state of freedom and Ajahn Chah’s teachings. He talks of the difficult emotions as being like a child standing in the doorway of the present moment. So often we slam the door on that child saying he does not belong here. There should be a different child standing in the door. We try to ‘let go of’ the difficult thoughts or feeling, which Jeff says is basically an expression of not wanting them, of being in deep resistance to the thought or feeling. Instead by releasing from the idea of release we are simply present. Sadness is not asking to be let go of, transcended or heeled. All these thoughts and feelings are asking for is to know if there is room for them. So often we say no. Ending this struggle means turning towards whatever thought or feeling is arising and knowing it as it is. That which knows is calm and peaceful: presence is peace and freedom, even if what it is present to is chaos.
This is the challenge for me now in my practice: how to let go of the desire to reach Enlightenment, let go of the thought I can fix myself and be free from any unwanted thoughts and emotions. Instead open to being the space for whatever is arising to exist, and pass away according to its nature…..without then making being present a goal! I enjoy listening to Jeff teach as he speaks to that in me which recognises the truth of what he shares. I hope you may find the same, or have your own teachers who help you connect to your innate wisdom.
