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In The Flower Ornament Sutra’s seventh book word is out that Sakyamuni Buddha has attained true awakening. Beings show up in droves. Their hope? That he might teach them.
And he does. In fact he appears to each as the exact Buddha each being needs. Manjushri, watching all this happen, just can’t keep quiet about it: “All the Buddhas in the worlds in the ten directions know that the inclinations of sentient beings are not the same and so they teach and train them according to their needs and capacities!”
Hmmm. So who is our Buddha? And what is he or she teaching us? Is it our child, our puppies, our partner? Our boss? Our President? The person sitting next to us in the meditation hall?
The answer: Everyone is our Buddha. One might teach us heedfulness. I think of my extremely organized younger sister who, even when we were in grade school, set out her entire uniform the night before school so she could put it on in about three minutes while the rest of us ran around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to piece enough of our uniforms together to get through the day without too many demerits.
Or, last week I drove to Providence, Rhode Island, to check it out. The Rhode Island School of Design has been on my mental screen as a possible future endeavor for too long to not see what it was like. The Bed and Breakfast I stayed in was pretty wild. First, there were no lights anywhere, even inside. And I arrived at night. Not good. But my room, when I found it, was adorable. Good. But then, the towels were dirty. Not good. But the bed was comfy. Good. The entire stay was a parade of good/not good moments. The owner couldn’t have done a better job of forcing me to see my own parade of mental states.
Who is my Buddha? I think of Issa, only a few months old, who becomes completely enraptured each time his mother breast feeds him. Or Bhanumant, who was a dervish of energy last weekend when she decided to clean the entire abbey, top to bottom, in a day.
The ducks on the river in Providence, never changed their pace or direction for the afternoon I watched them, even though at least three weather fronts hit. Rain, snow, sleet. No matter. Tranquility.
Who is my Buddha? The fellow who ran the Bed and Breakfast tried hard to give me a decent breakfast even though it was clear that the most simple chores were difficult. When he dropped the bagels off of the serving plate and they went flying up like a cloud, and then fell all over the dining room he refused to stop trying to bring me a plate filled with baked goods even though it took him a couple of tries. His concentration was palpable.
I stopped in a café in the middle of the afternoon. Italian. A young woman came in with her grandmother. The grandmother sat down at a small table by the window while the young woman went up to the counter to ream into the owner about all the things wrong with the sandwiches he had delivered to them. At first the man was funny and teased her. But when she wouldn’t back down he really argued hard with her, refusing to give her any money back since she had eaten the food. Through all of this, the grandmother sat quietly, with a small smile on her face, not missing a thing. She just waited for the two of them to calm down, which they did. Equanimity.
Thinking about the week, I realized that we are surrounded, each of us, by people, places and things that are literally throwing the factors of enlightenment at us. Heedfulness. Discrimination of mind states. Energy. Rapture. Tranquility. Concentration. Equanimity. And…..they always have been. Its just that, finally, I’ve noticed. I’m guessing Manjushri is grinning pretty wide right about now.
