The most famous Koan in Zen literature is probably Joshu’s ‘Mu’ koan which famously starts with a monk asking Joshu, “Does a dog have Buddha nature?”
The question is disingenuous because by the time this dialogue, if it ever happened, could have taken place, the question of who has and who doesn’t have Buddha nature had been decisively resolved.
In the seventh century, there was an argument within Chinese Buddhism, whether Buddha nature was a universal quality, something which all beings had, or if there were some classes of being who didn’t have it. The position was resolved in the most general and generous way possible by declaring that “all living beings had Buddha nature” [ per The Nirvana Sutra]. And that was extended, in due course. And Dogen reformulated that statement to something like, “all Being, Living,is Buddha Nature”.
Buddha nature and the universality of it is very characteristic of Chinese Buddhism, which in turn is intimately connected with the bodhisattva perspective that characterises the Mahayana tradition. The term ‘bodhisattva’ originally just applied to the 500 lives, the Buddha had before becoming Buddha. It gradually became more and more general over time, aided by sutras like the Lotus Sutra. And accompanying that was a shift from the idea of the buddhist path as having the destination for the individual practitioner of Nirvana, to the path having the destination of Buddhahood. And there was an emotional shift in tone too, from quiescence, tranquility, freedom, equanimity, and suchlike towards compassion.
When we sit zazen and chant the Heart Sutra afterwards, immediately after that we chant the Bodhisattva vows, the first one being generally translated as, “all living beings I vow to free them”. How do we interpret that? The way it is formulated, it sounds as if me, having taken a vow to follow the bodhisattva path should comport myself towards all the beings in such a way as to alleviate their suffering.I don’t think that is a particularly helpful way for us to look at the bodhisattva vows, because I think it risks contributing to a kind of spiritual inflation, which is all too common anyway.
People puffing themselves up with a sort of ersatz compassion does none of us any favours.
The perspective of viewing all beings as potential Buddhas, all beings as [present] bodhisattvas, I think, can be better seen in a different way.
It’s not that I’m a bodhisattva, alleviating your suffering. It’s that to me, you’re a bodhisattva, and all beings coming towards me are bodhisattvas, because all beings are teaching me. All that I require to do, and all that anyone’s required to do, is to listen. So the shift that takes place in Buddhism isn’t a shift from, as it were, modest practitioners to heroic bodhisattva practitioners. The shift is moving from a struggle to free ourselves from a world which is seen as either negative or neutral, to participating fully in a world which is our ally. That is a huge shift. And it seems to me that in some respects, the Chinese created something entirely new, not just something which is now merely quaint or archaic which we can safely ignore in favour of junkshop volumes of ‘ here and now’ crap, which often passes for contemporary Zen teaching, but which is invaluable now.
Because it pivots entirely our way of seeing the world.