January 2026

Shortly after I began Buddhist training, I realized that I seemed to be seeing more in other people than I had seen before. If someone was afraid, I saw the fear; if someone was proud, I saw the pride; if someone was skeptical, I saw skepticism; if someone was angry, I saw anger.

It may be that sometimes I was seeing something that was really there in other people. But for sure I was seeing aspects of my own spiritual state of mind reflected in other people. I did not recognize that each person who in any way showed me something that needed spiritual help within myself is a Bodhisattva for me. In other words, that person is being used by the Eternal to help me.

In the monastery, we make gassho with our hands together when we meet someone. This is a physical way of giving recognition to the Buddha Nature in another person. Whatever the other person may be doing, the gassho is always the appropriate starting point for any interaction that we may have. This puts first things first: it is true that we all have aspects of self to work on, but all of this work takes place within the context of faith in, and recognition of, Buddha Nature. And this faith and recognition is always what matters most: Buddha Nature is True Reality; everything else is shadows.

Rev. Master Jiyu often said, “Look with the eyes of a Buddha, and you will see the heart of a Buddha.” Here are four simple ways of using Buddhist practice to help ourselves do this:

1. Start with a bow. Accept what is happening, whether one likes it or not.
2. Ask the Eternal for help. Open the heart to what is Real and True—let the shadows look after themselves for awhile.
3. Meditate. Especially when confusion and pain are accumulating, take the time to be still and offer up the whole wad of suffering to the Eternal.
4. Take the Precepts to heart. The Precepts are corrective lenses that help correct a skewed view of the world.

• Like the boundless sky
• And the limitless ocean –
• No end and no beginning;
Training, only training.