Our Buddha potential

We have quite a full house today. Very nice. Today we’ve been usually talking about one particular verse in a text, but I think I’ll talk about something different today. Today’s cloudy, and so the clouds are in the sky. We can’t see the nature of the sky, but the sky is still there even when the clouds are are in it. That’s the analogy that’s often used for our Buddha nature, our Buddha potential. That it’s like the open clear spacious sky, and then our afflictions are like the clouds that come in the sky. When we have anger or jealousy or pride or confusion or greed or on and on and on, all of those things, they’re like the clouds in the sky. They’re not the nature of the sky. They’re there temporarily.

What blows the clouds of mental afflictions away is the wisdom that realizes the ultimate nature. That’s the thing that we’re trying to develop in our practice, is that kind of wisdom. Like a big fan except with the weather, the clouds can come back again, but once we have this wisdom firmly in our mind, then it can be used to cleanse the afflictions from our mindstream so that they can never occur again.

Everybody has this Buddha nature, this potential to become a fully enlightened Buddha. It’s important that we remember it when we think of ourselves and really believe in ourselves and our own potential. It’s important that we think about it when we see other people, because other people may be acting in a confused way or they may be experiencing great suffering, to realize that that isn’t their ultimate nature, that they too have this potential to become a fully enlightened being, because that clear open spaciousness of the mind is always there. It can never be removed. We just have to realize it. That’s our job.