If you don't take refuge in your own nature, there is nowhere else to take refuge.
*Master Huineng (China, Chan Buddhist Patriarch, d. 713). The Platform Sutra. In Red Pine. Three Zen Sutras: The Heart, The Diamond, and The Platform Sutras.
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Coming up a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian, I was taught my nature was horrid. Everyone was born rotten. I was born "in sin" or "a sinner" or "sinful [full of sin]." I was "totally depraved," the Southern Baptists taught me. God was a gem, and I was gross. That is a rough beginning point for a child. "Hey, little boy. You're a trashcan!" "Hey, kids! You're reeking sewers."
In Buddhism, we begin from another place: innocence, purity, compassion. Master Huineng can say for us to take shelter in our nature. Why? Our nature is not a trashcan or sewer. Our nature is Buddha, or buddha-nature.
In Christian terms, our nature is christlike or godly - yes! from the start. We are holy. We can act unholy, but we are holy. Unholy is unholy, for such is a denial of our true nature. Even better, we are neither holy nor unholy, for our nature cannot be worded, for it does not fit inside any language.
Huineng says when bowing to the first of the Triple Gems (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha), the Buddha, we are not bowing to a buddha, Gautama Buddha, who lived centuries ago, or any other of the buddhas. Yet, neither are we bowing to our personality, or personhood. And we are not bowing to a nature which we own or belongs only to us. There is one buddha nature, not many. There is, finally, one buddha.
Our nature is skylike or spacelike. Many things move through the sky. Space contains all the planets, stars, and galaxies. The sky does not reject anything. And nothing changes the nature of the sky. The sky is sky, for it remains untouched space. Purity, then, is this unstained, unsullied openness and receptivity. So, there is nothing moral about this. The receptivity makes compassion possible.
You cannot logically say the sky is good or bad. When smoke is in the sky, the sky is not smokey. There is sky and smoke. The sky is free of such distinctions and judgments. So, you - you, not you alone or the ego-sense.
A theist can say, "But I'm to take refuge in God." Okay. But using God to bypass your nature is unworkable. It makes no sense. It is like trying to walk north by walking south or to sing and chew gum at the same time. You can try, and you will get very frustrated.
A big problem is theists separating God and their true nature. Yet, if you go to God, you go to yourself. You may not think this way, for you are taught not to think this way. God is somewhere out there. Yet, there is no out there. If you could get there, you would not have gone anywhere. As the Teacher says, "... there is nowhere else to take refuge," for the simple reason that there is no out there somewhere.
Rumi reminds us of the importance of silence in realizing the truth of our nature. He speaks of the tongue becoming quiet like a flower. Outside of learning to be still and silent regularly, I doubt anyone realizes what Rumi and Huineng are saying to us -
Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me. Is someone here? I ask. The moon. The full moon is inside your house. My friends and I go running out into the street. I'm in here, comes a voice from the house, but we aren't listening. We're looking up at the sky. My pet nightingale sobs like a drunk in the garden. Ringdoves scatter with small cries, Where, Where? It's midnight. The whole neighborhood is up and out in the street thinking, The cat burglar has come back. The actual thief is there too, saying out loud, Yes, the cat burglar is somewhere in this crowd. No one pays attention.
Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God, God is in the look of your eyes, in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self, or things that have happened to you There's no need to go outside. Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.
A white flower grows in quietness. Let your tongue become that flower.
*"Be Melting Snow." In Coleman Barks, Ed. The Essential Rumi.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024. Permission is given to use photographs and writings with credit given to the copyright owner.
*Brian is an ordained lay Buddhist of the Plum Village lineage, Root Teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, and practitioner in Open Heart Sangha North, Bath, Maine. He, also, serves as a Buddhist, interspiritual chaplain, providing remote care and facilitating groups in correctional facilities.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
