When the moment arrives

The Buddha said: “If you want to see Buddha-nature, observe cause and effect intimately. When the moment arrives, Buddha-nature manifests.”

To see Buddha-nature is to see our original nature; it is the awakening of consciousness. Awakening from delusion and fixation. Awakening to the fleeting reality of life. To observe cause and effect intimately is seated meditation: to sit like a Buddha and observe everything that appears and disappears. To intuitively understand the limitless relationships between what is arising, what has arisen, and what will arise. Without calculating, without analysing. Intimate vision is the immediate vision of causes and effects.

Seeing cause and effect intimately

To see cause and effect intimately is to realise the interdependence of all things. To understand the inevitable impermanence of every thought, every sensation. Their fleeting nature is itself the body of Buddha. To see the body of Buddha intimately is to awaken together with the great earth, the sun, the moon and the stars.

“When the moment arrives, Buddha-nature manifests” does not mean that we must wait for Buddha-nature to manifest sometime in the future, or that it cannot be actualised until that future arrives. It simply means that it does not manifest when we want it to; it does not follow our will. Cause and effect is the law of karma.

Buddha nature manifests when the moment arrives

Buddha-nature manifests when the moment arrives, beyond intention and non-intention, beyond thought and non-thought. The nature of the Buddha mind manifests everywhere, without distinguishing between inside and outside, between you and others. It is a burst of light, capable of creating a world, an entire universe, with all its stars and planets, all its animals and plants. Let us not make this moment wait.

Nansen
Author of Dharma Zen, l’ull de la joiosa revelació, edicions viena.