When The True Self Accepts Its Function - Hongzhi Zhengiue

So why does it seem sometimes to be so hard to realize this? gazing ahead beyond any precipitous barriers.

What is he talking about? What are these precipitous barriers? Perhaps we all know these precipitous barriers.

Perhaps they have been on the cushion with us.

Who knows? But how could there be barriers? For heaven's sake, we are plowing the clouds and sowing the moon.

How could there be any barriers? But you may have noticed that we are very good at beating ourselves up, right? That background ache in the heart of not being enough, not smart enough, not worthy enough, whatever our particular sense of not being enough, of lack is, given our particular karma, we all know this ache in the heart.

this undercurrent of dukkha, suffering, dis-ease, this dis-ease that we feel, the pervasive feeling that whatever is happening isn't quite as it should be, including me.

Have you ever felt that? Do you know what I'm talking about? This suffering, the alleviation of which the entire path is wound around.

So why is it so difficult? And in us, dukkha manifests as this sense of lack, of deficiency.

And it not only burdens our heart, but it limits us.

It holds us back from living fully authentic, fully compassionate, fully awakened lives.

And in some religions, certainly the religion I grew up in, this lack was couched in terms of original sin, right? You were born bad, you must repent, and you must change.

We have a different take on Buddha nature, probably why you are all here.

We are already awakened beings, already perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

And the negativity that obscures this perfection is impermanent, gazing ahead beyond any precipitous barriers.

Within the field, they plow the clouds and sow the moon.

Easy, right? No limits, perfect, complete, even in the midst of perceived barriers.

So the confidence that we yearn for in our own goodness, in our own good heart, is not something to be achieved.

It is simply something to be realized, to be uncovered.

And this profound potential is waiting to be realized, to shine through in every moment, in every place.

Things cannot but shine.

with this light, that includes us.

Or as Lady Gaga would say, "'Cause baby, you were born this way," right? Or as Dogen would say, everybody is Buddha nature.

And of course, beyond birth, beyond death.

And the mystics of all the wisdom traditions, the poets, the artists, all speak to this light shining forth.

I read recently that even Albert Camus, at the end of his life, wrote, in the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.