You you you Hello and welcome In today's meditation we're going to get in touch with Buddha nature the capacity that all of us have to awaken We need to be awake present Fully in touch with life as it is with an open heart Capable of meeting the 10,
000 joys and sorrows of each day And this capacity this Buddha nature quality My teacher Thich Nhat Hanh likes to say about Buddha nature that It may be difficult for you to accept that the seed of a Buddha is in you But we all have the capacity for faith awakening understanding and awareness And that is what is meant by Buddha nature.
There is no one Who does not have the capacity to be a Buddha?
How does this land for you right now For some of us it might be like sure of course For others no way You don't have to believe me,
But just try the practice and see what happens In this meditation I'm gonna share a few images and parables from Discourses from the Buddhist tradition that explain or that inspire us to Cultivate this Buddha nature this capacity for awakening And some of the images and Stories might resonate more with you than others and just try them out.
You don't need to think about them too much You can let the images just drop into your mind And play with them sit with them let them pass out if they don't feel interesting or resonant That's why I'm gonna offer a few But as much as possible to spring openness presence curiosity and see what happens when you spend some time with these images that have been passed down for thousands of years and Get in touch with this capacity This energy of yes,
I can wake up.
Yes,
It is possible to live with compassion and wisdom It is possible To find freedom here and now So the first image is of a honeycomb protected by a swarm of bees For most people that's something to avoid There's nothing precious there and yet for a skillful beekeeper.
They know there is something amazing In there in that Mound protected by swarming potentially dangerous bees They know how to navigate the bees they know how to get into the combs And re-access and enjoy this precious delicious honey And they know how to get into the combs delicious,
Honey,
So There may be parts of you that feel dangerous to access that feel worthless that feel unimportant But what if There was honey in there and through cultivating the skillful means the wisdom and compassion it was possible to get to this sweet honey within that you don't even necessarily know is there We're gonna take a few minutes in silence And you can play with this image in your mind if you'd like to visualize or for some folks it may be just sort of Get in touch with more of a felt sense a kinesthetic relationship to honey or anything else that really draws you and Just holding this concept of what if there's hidden honey within Huh?
You may just drop in the image and let it pass away and continue a breathing or a body-based meditation Just see what happens when you interact play with this image You You You you You you You what if you knew how to access the honey in the honeycomb of your mind?
You You You You The second image is that of a piece of gold A big chunk of gold That's actually in the middle of a garbage heap No one knows it's there It's been trampled on it's been dumped on It's got you know old food and dirt stuck to it But it's still gold.
It does not matter what happens to it and It is said in the scripture That when a wise person with the The divine eye who can you know see beyond just this form?
Passes by they can see the gold there and all that's needed is to clean and wash it and it's perfectly good You can use it to make jewelry You can use it to buy a house The gold is not cannot The gold cannot be ruined by any circumstances and so too for each of us There is gold that may be lightly covered or deeply hidden by the trials and dramas of our lives and Yet it is equally possible Through wisdom practices and other other methods To clean and cleanse this gold and access it So we're gonna spend a few minutes,
What would it be like to imagine to know and trust?
There is gold within us But even our deepest Hardships and the habits that keep us the most stuck cannot ruin This awakened capacity within Sometimes I Almost feel myself holding a piece of gold in my hand to get in touch with this sense Or imagining it deep deep within my belly And just breathe knowing yep,
There is gold there even if I can't see it right now And sometimes feeling the shine Huh,
Maybe I'm in touch with a little bit of it.
So play with this image Visualize it feel it Maybe just repeat the word gold if that's helpful or you can let it go and just see what happens having been in touch with This image letting it rest and consciousness Letting it go Letting it go You You You trust the gold You You You This next image comes from a mango seed If you ever eaten a mango,
You know that there's the soft fleshy pulp juicy and delicious for some of us And yet the center this pit is Hard and big doesn't really look like anything That could be useful and yet within the pit lies the seed And if you plant and if the seed grows it will grow into a mango tree and produce fruit that can feed many people for a long time and So too within each of us lies a buddha seed And when it's planted and tended it will grow into a tree of awakening Can you trust can you tend this seed within?
It Takes time to grow It takes practice it takes cultivation But it's the seed that does the growing itself.
We just help it so all the practices or teachings you may engage in all the the good plans Or the retreats attended All the moments of turning towards kindness and wisdom instead of reactivity Each of these moments is that tending the seed?
And sometimes it looks like the seed isn't growing But it just takes time Can we really trust That it's worth tending the seed of awakening That with enough time with enough cultivation all of us can grow a tree of awakening Let yourself tune into this image maybe visualizing a mature mango tree full of mangoes Getting to be fed by them maybe imagining a seed growing if you've ever seen a seed sprout or Tending a seedling And you can also just let this image drop into your mind let it fade away stay with a Regular meditation practice if you're used to focusing on breath or body or sounds just Let this idea of the mango seed Permit your consciousness see if it's a tool that you can use to access faith To continue this practice You You You you You tending this tree of awakening You You You you Any and everything we need is already here within You You You You
