BUDDHA NATURE
Everything
we said about Dharma
follows the aim to preserve our mental tranquillity. There are cases
when this goal seems to be very hard to attain and one comes across
great difficulties even if one devotes himself seriously to the
practise. I would like to take the opportunity to tell you about my
personal experience: When I first came to the West I was confronted
with very different situations and conditions compared to those I was
used to while living and studying in India. I encountered problems
with facing and overcoming those situations even though I am a
Buddhist monk. What has helped me during that period of hardship is a
scripture I have always kept present which says: “Whatever
difficulties one may encounter, a skilful student must never lose his
mental stability”.
The scripture continues by stating: “every
time we engage in a battle against illusions, much destruction will
arise during this battle. But in the opposite case, if there is no
battle, if there is no war against what opposes you, no destruction
will take place and no problem will be solved.”
This scripture, this very short inscription of three lines in Tibetan
has been very helpful to me because I understood that in life we can
only rely on our mental qualities to support us. Our mental qualities
are the most important thing we possess in this life and we can take
them with us to our future lives.
Even
without going into reincarnation but dwelling on our being present in
the moment, we can very well affirm that education and studies are
fundamental questions to our existence. A
properly educated person who has studied has a different lifestyle.
Therefore, while practicing Dharma
in
this world we face many difficulties because we are victims of
confusion. It is therefore inevitable for problems we have to fight
against to arise. A real Dharma
practitioner, whatever hardships he may be confronted with in his
practice, will face them with courage and effortlessness as he is
able to perceive existential problems with extreme clarity. The
essence of this is that having to deal with problems represents one
more possibility to practice Dharma;
problems provide us with a further chance to be consistent.
The
most important, as I mentioned before, is to keep up qualities of
firmness and stability. Stability and tranquillity
characterise the continuity of our practice which provides us with
the opportunity to overcome all problems that arise. When we go
through challenging situations and feel discouraged and without hope,
it means that we are losing our battle. It is necessary to state
more precisely that the word “war” has generally speaking a
negative connotation, comparable to feelings of anger and hatred.
However, the internal battle I am talking to you about lacks such
feelings.
If battling against
our problems were predominated by anger and hatred, it would imply
our defeat and our own destruction. To be able to win we need to
guard mental stability and that type of mental qualities I have been
outlining before. Tranquillity and mental stability are the
instruments that open up the opportunity to win, to resolve our
problems. The source of all our internal qualities is Buddha nature
or as it can also be called, the Little Buddha. Bertolucci
has had obstacles in Nepal while he was shooting the movie “Little
Buddha” because the Nepalese Buddhists were resentful and told him
not to entitle the movie “Little Buddha” as Buddha is not little.
Bertolucci had to promise he would
never use
this title for the movie. When the movie came out he went to see the
Dalai Lama who told him that “Little Buddha” was a perfect title
because there is a “Little Buddha” existing in all of us.
We
often possess internal qualities we do not even know about just like
Bertolucci, who has provided a suitable title to the movie without
knowing it. From a Christian point of view it is as if God had given
him the inspiration.
Therefore,
this Little Buddha that abides in us, a better definition for it
would be “Buddha Nature”, is the source of all our internal
qualities that give us a chance to win the battle against our
problems and the necessary encouragement to defeat delusions. How can
we recognise and become aware of this Buddha Nature in us? With
the understanding of the fact that Buddha Nature is nothing else than
a mental quality.
Everyone of us has consciousness which bears the potential and the
capacity to be peaceful and calm. The nature of consciousness is the
Little Buddha: practically speaking, tranquillity and peace that
pervade us with immense happiness and great joy. Therefore, to
preserve mental tranquillity there is what we call the practice of
Dharma
which represents the most precious good we possess.
This becomes
very obvious if we carry out a mindful introspection.
There is nothing more healthy that provides us with more internal
happiness. To realise it, to comprehend it, to understand it, we must
realise our Buddha Nature. Since we generally do not do it we are not
aware of our having this great internal quality. Everyone
reading this book, therefore everyone of us, and also all animals
possess this precious ability to maintain tranquillity and mental
peace.
Yet,
human beings feature the further potential or rather the possibility
to recognise this quality, given that it is very difficult for the
other beings to understand and particularly to develop it. For this
reason the human form of existence is considered to be the best one
and therefore we must not waste our lives and lose this amazing
opportunity we have. In
a certain sense we have the Buddha, the Enlightenment, placed in our
hands: if we accept or abandon it depends solely on our judgement.
Even
people who have committed crimes and are serving a sentence in prison
have a great opportunity: to develop their own nature for becoming
enlightened. I would like to tell you a short and clarifying story
about a Tibetan monk who has been imprisoned in Tibet for twenty
years. When he was finally released he went to India to speak to the
Dalai Lama. His Holiness asked him about the most horrible event he
had experienced in prison. The monk answered that the worst thing for
him had been the risk of losing compassion. The worst problem the
monk had to deal with was the danger to lose his own compassion as
the people
were
beating and torturing him, therefore he had seriously faced the risk
of giving up his compassion.
This
relates to what I was saying in the beginning: whatever problem we
have to face, we must never lose our mental tranquillity. It has to
accompany us wherever we go. Therefore, if we compare the great
hardship that monk has gone through during imprisonment in Tibet to
our daily difficulties here in the West, their importance become so
minimal compared to what the poor monk has suffered. In fact, not
renouncing compassion and benevolence has allowed him to maintain his
mental stability during twenty years he spent in prison.
Let
us think about it: it is a very crucial point. Fortunately our monk
had the capacity to recognise that compassion and benevolence are the
most important instruments for our present life and also for all
future lives. Keeping tranquillity and peace of mind is the reason
why we practice Dharma:
we certainly do not practice it in order to accumulate material
goods.
Analysing
the question under the viewpoint of cause and effect, in this case we
can affirm that the cause is our Little Buddha, our Buddha Nature,
and the effect is the Big Buddha. So, if the cause is motivated by
Buddha, Buddha will ripen in the effect too. Buddha has to be born
from Buddha, Big Buddha has to be born from Little Buddha. If little
Buddha is within us he will produce Big Buddha in us as a result. But
be careful because when we speak about Buddha here we do not refer to
the physical, historical Buddha. It is the image, the symbol, the
form of his mental qualities representing tranquillity, happiness and
stability.
I
have been to a conference in Naples once and in the end I was told
that I had spoken about daily life but not about death. I answered:
“If you live peacefully you will also die peacefully.” In
general, people I come across are very afraid of dying. But I say: if
you live in a peaceful and calm way you will see that death will not
represent a problem. Learning to live in peace means to learn dying
in the same peaceful way. Learn to live in a joyous way, this is
what is crucial.
I
would like to add a few more thoughts about living in peace. This
rule is at the root of Buddhist practice. Taking refuge in the Three
Jewels, receiving the precepts, is a fundamental act in the context
of cause and effect. Taking refuge in the Buddha,
the Dharma
and the Sangha
is equivalent to taking refuge in our Little Buddha, activating him
while creating the cause is like taking refuge in the moment of the
result. All of this is part of the law of cause and effect. The
theory of cause and effect produces Karma.
The
question arises whether the growth of a flower is dependent on Karma
or not. Not everything is connectable to Karma.
Karma depends on the mental continuum. Therefore, if the growth of a
flower depends on our mental continuum or not is a very complex
question which can be connected to the theory of causality. The
theory of karma
is an overall of the philosophy of cause and effect. But this theory
does not only illustrate karma.
When we talk about karma
we discuss something related to a mental continuum.
Analysing
cause and effect is a very important form of meditation. You always
have to question the reason for what is surrounding you. When you
meet problems do not just confront them blindly but try to find an
answer with a quiet mind. Move a step backwards and analyse the
information you have firmly. Eventually you will find the solution.
This is meditation: awareness, Samatha,
or single-pointed concentration. Samatha
and Vipassana
do not only refer to a certain sitting posture, they have to be
practised constantly. Zen
emphasises Samatha,
which means concentration, while Vipassana
is more prevalent in the Theravada
tradition. Tibetans are specialised in visualisations.
Theravada
is the form of Buddhism practised in the South, in Indochina and
South-Eastern Asia. It is the most ancient form. Ch’an
and Zen
are typical of the Northern areas, of Japan and China. Vajrayana
is the central form of Buddhism because it was passed on from India
to Tibet. Tibetan Buddhism is the most recent form that was directly
introduced from India between the 8th and 10th century. Each
of these traditions has their own characteristics, but in an
ecumenical sense we speak about one form of Buddhism.
