Junk Store Buddha

Junk Store Buddha

Buddhas appear everywhere, and that's very much in keeping with the Mahayana concept of Buddha Fields.  Everywhere we look are Buddhas, awakened ones, and sometimes they actually look like our concept of a Buddha:  for example, this statue like the one we recently saw at a junk store in a small New England town we were passing through.  (We inquired about the purchase price but it was not for sale -- so, priceless!)

But mostly Buddhas look like every single thing -- dogs and cats and clouds and flowers and trash and birth and death.  If everything is a Buddha, how can we ever complain about our lives?  Except that we do, because thoughts and emotions and sense perceptions are also Buddhas, and a complaint is equal to a joyous liberating experience.  So, the instruction is, see everything as an example of the great awakening that fills the universe.  No exceptions!  Everything is the awakened heart!