By Laura Bennett

Good morning, everyone.

Before I get into my talk, I’d like to start with a question, and I’d love for you to sit with it for a moment before I go any further.

What comes to mind when you think of Buddha-nature?

Take a breath. Let whatever arises, arise. An image, maybe. A feeling. A memory of something someone once told you. Maybe nothing at all comes up, and that’s fine too. Does anyone want to share what’s coming to mind for you?

I want to say that there are no wrong answers here. But I’d also gently suggest that there are, in a way, no right answers either — because the moment we start describing Buddha nature, defining it, pinning it down with words, it becomes an abstraction. It becomes a concept standing in for the real thing, the way describing a painting could never actually be the experience of standing in front of it. 

And yet, we try anyway. We have to. It’s part of being human, this reaching for language to hold what language can’t quite hold. So this morning, I want to try too, knowing in advance that I’ll fall short — and that falling short is, in its own way, exactly the point.

A Personal Reflection

I want to begin with a personal reflection.

I often go through phases of working with affirmations. I know that’s not for everyone, and that’s fine. But lately, one in particular has been meaningful for me: “I release all fears and limitations.”

I say this to myself, sometimes out loud, sometimes just internally, and when I do, my energy changes, my orientation to the moment changes. Even if only for a moment, I feel myself relax into the present. I stop bracing against what might happen and start meeting what’s actually here — this breath, this room, this moment arising freshly, as if for the first time.

In releasing my fears, my limitations, I feel lighter. I feel more embodied, more free. I feel briefly in touch with something larger than my usual sense of myself—a kind of deeper oneness.

I’ve come to think that this is, in a small, every day way, what it feels like to glimpse Buddha nature. Not to achieve it, because it’s not something to achieve, but to glimpse what was there all along, if only I can stop gripping so tightly to my fears, my limitations, my stories, my delusions.

There’s a story I want to share that speaks to this experience.

The Golden Buddha

It’s a story from Tara Brach’s book Radical Compassion, and I want to read it–

[Read pages 33-34]

“In the mid-1950’s, a new highway in Bangkok was routed through an ancient temple, and the monks were forced to relocate a massive clay statue of the Buddha that had been loved and venerated for many generations. A crane was brought in, but as they began to lift the Buddha, its huge weight shifted, and the clay began to crack. They quickly lowered the statue to the ground and, knowing a storm was coming, covered it with a tarp. 

Later that evening, the abbot went to inspect the damage and make sure the statue wasn’t getting wet. As he shone his flashlight under the tarp, he noticed a gleam of reflected light coming from the largest crack. When he looked more closely, he wondered if there was something underneath the thick clay. He ran to wake the other monks, and together, with chisels and hammers, they began chipping along the cracks. The gleam became brighter and brighter, until finally, after long hours of work, the monks stepped back and stared in awe at the sight before them: a Buddha of solid gold.

Historians believe that several hundred years earlier, the temple monks themselves had covered the statue with clay. Anticipating an attack by a neighboring army, they hoped to protect their precious Buddha from being looted or destroyed. The monks were all killed in the ensuing battle, but the Buddha survived intact. 

When monks today share this story, they say that in the face of threats or challenges, each of us has a habitual way of covering the gold. Our suffering comes when we identify with our protective covering and forget the loving awareness that is intrinsic to our being.”

I’ve thought about that story many times since I first read it. And as I’ve reflected on it, I’ve found myself imagining not just clay, but all the layers we cover ourselves with. In my own mind, those layers have become something like plaster—our fears, our habits, our stories about who we are.

The challenge is not that Buddha nature is missing. The challenge is that we keep mistaking what covers it for who we are.

I think this is why I love our translation of Namu Amida Butsu as “Come As You Are.” One of our practice manual readings (Amitabha Chant 1) puts it this way:

“Come as you are is the invitation of Buddha. Namu Amida Butsu is the invitation we give to ourselves, to others, to all living beings, to the totality of our lives just as they are. So, come as you are. Stop torturing yourself with all those made-up stories of who you think you are and are not. Regardless of who you are or are not, regardless of what you have done or have left undone—and enter the gate of boundless compassion.” [End quote]

Every time I hear those words, I hear an invitation to stop believing that the plaster is who I am.

Because it doesn’t say come once you’re this or that. It says: Come. Exactly as you are. And in that offering, I feel a little bit of the plaster cracking, and I remember, however briefly, that I am never separate from Buddha Nature. I am never separate from boundless compassion. 

The Layers We Mistake for Ourselves

I don’t think we forget our Buddha nature all at once, I think we forget, we cover it, slowly, one layer at a time.

Most of us build on and carry layers of protective paint and plaster. We learn to brace ourselves. We learn to hide. We learn what gets us approval. We learn what keeps us safe. Layer after layer.

Many of these layers were not mistakes. Like the plaster covering the Golden Buddha, they often were formed for good reasons, and with good intentions. 

These unique layers and patterns that each of us have often begin as forms of protection. But over time, something similar to the Golden Buddha story can happen. We forget that they are protections, and we begin to believe they are who we are. We might tell ourselves, “I am an anxious person,” or “I am an angry person,” or “I am a failure,” or “I am not enough.” The protective covering, then, becomes mistaken for our true identity and we suffer. As the passage says, we “forget the loving awareness that is intrinsic to our being.”

Have you ever noticed this in your own life? What stories do you tell yourself about who you are? Which of those stories might actually be protective layers rather than your deepest truth?

[Hold space for a minute to sit with these]

These are not easy questions, and they are ones that we continually come back to (in dharma talks) and work with in Buddhist practice. 

Discovering the Obstacles

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche writes:

“On this path we make two discoveries: one is the discovery of the true nature of our mind, and the other is the discovery of that which obstructs us from seeing this true nature. That is the reality of the relative world. Every discovery is preceded by a preliminary finding: the discovery of the obstacles that have prevented us from seeing what has been there all along.” (p 35, Mind Beyond Death)

I appreciate this quote because it captures that the Buddhist path is not only about discovering our true nature; it is also about discovering what obscures it. In fact, we often encounter the obstacles first. We notice our impatience, our resentment, our fear, our attachment, our self-centeredness, and our confusion.

Sometimes this can feel discouraging. Many people begin meditation or Buddhist practice hoping to become calmer, wiser, or more compassionate. Instead, we often discover how restless our minds are. But maybe this isn’t a failure. Perhaps this is the beginning of wisdom. The dust becomes visible because light is entering the room. Cracks begin to appear in the plaster, and the gold begins to shine through.

Ponlop Rinpoche continues on to say that “Wisdom, or prajna, here is learning how we can overcome these obstacles and realize our innate potential, the basic state of our own mind and heart that is fundamentally pure and awake, that is already free from all defilements. That basic potential in Buddhism is called “buddha nature.”” [End quote]

Buddha Nature can be understood in different ways across Buddhist traditions, but at its core it points toward the profound possibility that awakening is not something foreign to us. It is not something learned. It’s not reserved for certain special people. It is not a reward for perfection. Rather, awakening is intimately connected to what we already are. The gold is already present. The challenge is that we do not always see it, and perhaps more importantly, we often do not trust that it is there.

What This Actually Means, Day to Day

So what does all of this actually mean on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon?

For me, it doesn’t usually show up in dramatic spiritual moments. It shows up when I’m rushing somewhere and I catch myself getting impatient. When I’ve been replaying a conversation in my head for an hour. When I’m convinced I’ve said the wrong thing, or that I’m somehow not enough.

In those moments, nothing about me suddenly becomes peaceful. My anxiety doesn’t magically disappear. My irritation doesn’t evaporate.

But maybe, just maybe, I remember that those experiences aren’t the whole story.

I remember that they are plaster—not the gold itself.

Now, that metaphor can only take us so far.

I do want to be careful here, though, because it’s easy to hear “Buddha nature” and imagine that there’s some perfect, unchanging self hidden deep inside us, just waiting to be uncovered.

But I don’t think that’s what Buddhism is pointing to. We’re not talking about finding a better version of “me.” We’re talking about seeing through the very habit of believing that “me” was ever separate to begin with.

The Golden Buddha story can almost give us the impression that the gold is some hidden object inside us. But that’s not really the point. The gold isn’t another thing we possess. It’s simply another way of pointing toward what the Buddha taught all along: impermanence, non-self, and our deep interconnection. It’s less like discovering something new and more like seeing what has been true all along. It’s waking up from the illusion that we exist on our own, separate from the whole.

Different Fingers, Same Moon

Of course, even saying all of this feels a little risky. Because the moment I start describing Buddha nature, it becomes easy to mistake the description for the experience itself.

Zen teachers often remind us that the finger pointing at the moon isn’t the moon. Every word I’ve offered this morning is just another finger pointing. Helpful, perhaps—but only if it encourages us to look up, to be present.

And what I find beautiful is that Buddhists have been pointing toward this same moon in many different ways for centuries. I don’t think that necessarily means they disagree with one another. I think it means the moon here–Buddha nature– is simply too vast for any one finger to fully indicate.

In the Mahayana tradition, it’s said that when the Buddha awakened beneath the bodhi tree, he expressed this, “Wonder of wonders! All beings, just as they are, are whole and complete! All beings are endowed with Buddha nature! But because of their deluded thinking, they fail to realize it.”

I’ve always loved that image. Not because it tells us we have something special hidden inside us, but because it suggests that nothing essential is missing. Our practice isn’t about becoming whole. It’s about seeing the wholeness that has been here all along.

Dogen, the great Zen teacher, pointed at the same moon with slightly different words. Rather than saying that everything has Buddha nature, he said that everything simply is Buddha nature.

At first that sounds like a small difference in wording, but for me it’s a profound shift. If Buddha nature is something I have, then it’s still separate from me. It becomes another thing I can wonder whether I’ve lost, or whether I have enough of. But if everything is Buddha nature, then there’s nowhere outside of it to stand. Mountains. Rivers. Trees. You. Me. Joy. Grief. Even this very moment—all of it is an expression of the same living reality.

Seen this way, enlightenment isn’t about escaping the ordinary world. It’s about recognizing that we were never separate from it in the first place.

Ordinary and Foolish, and Whole Anyway

This is part of why I’ve felt drawn to Shin Buddhism.

Shinran didn’t describe the spiritual path as a climb toward becoming a flawless person. He spoke instead, quite plainly, about being a bombu — an ordinary, foolish human being. At first that can sound almost bleak, but I’ve come to experience it as something closer to relief. It means I don’t have to perform some finished, enlightened version of myself. I don’t have to convince you, or myself, that I’ve got it all figured out.

Nobuo Haneda writes about how Shinran spent years in rigorous practice, striving with everything he had toward enlightenment, only to find himself worn down by the widening gap between what he aspired to and what he actually experienced. What transformed him wasn’t a technique that finally made him flawless. It was humility. It was the recognition that awakening doesn’t begin with mastering life — it begins with opening to it, cracked plaster and all. And for me, each time I hear the invitation to ‘Come as you are,” I feel that I can open to life a little bit more.

Letting the Cracks Stay

Leonard Cohen wrote a line I love: There is a crack in everything—that’s how the light gets in.

I think that’s true of the Golden Buddha under the plaster, too. It wasn’t a flawless restoration that revealed the gold. It was a crack. An imperfection. A moment where the covering gave way just enough for something deeper to show through.

So maybe that’s what this practice is—not building ourselves into something new, not achieving some final, polished version of who we’re supposed to be, but letting the plaster of our fears and stories wear thin enough, here and there, for the gold that was always underneath to catch the light. Not as an accomplishment, just as a glimpse. Freshly arising, and then gone again—until the next crack, the next breath where we remember to release what we’ve been gripping and meet what’s actually here.

And perhaps every time we say Namu Amida Butsu, we’re allowing ourselves to remember what has been true all along. Allowing ourselves to remember that beneath every fear… beneath every story… beneath every layer of plaster… we have never fallen outside of boundless compassion. We don’t have to become someone else. We don’t have to make ourselves worthy before we come. We don’t have to wait until we’re less anxious, less reactive, less foolish. We simply come. Just as we are. And somehow, in that coming, the plaster cracks a little. The gold catches the light again. We remember that we were never separate from it in the first place.

And maybe, as we learn to come as we are, we learn to let others come as they are, too. We learn to trust that they too, are inseparable from Buddha nature. They too have always been embraced by boundless compassion.

Namu Amida Butsu.