Episode 37 – Meditation and Buddhanature

Meditation is based on the understanding that the deepest nature of human beings—buddhanature—is the capacity to grow and flourish and awaken, to express kindness and generosity and compassion • meditation is a way of removing the obstacles that block our connection with our deepest nature • in this way meditation practice is like sculpting: we are taking away everything that’s not the sculpture; we are removing everything that is not expressive of our basic fundamental nature • another image of buddhanature is that of an onion: step-by-step we remove layers of the onion; the trick here is that when we finally get to the center of the onion, there’s nothing there • yet another image is that we are scraping off all the barnacles that make movement impossible, that imprison us with kind of a crustiness of heart and mind • in one sense meditation feels like a project: we need discipline and inspiration to continue in this practice • but the irony is that in the practice of meditation, our doing is really an undoing • we don’t need to do anything • we have what we need; we just need to allow ourselves to experience it.