Recognising the Buddha Within
Are you aware of your spiritual gifts?
‘One person is given the gift of teaching words of wisdom. Another person is given the gift of teaching what he has learned and knows. These gifts are by the same Holy Spirit. One person receives the gift of faith. Another person receives the gifts of healing. These gifts are given by the same Holy Spirit. One person is given the gift of doing powerful works. Another person is given the gift of speaking God’s Word. Another person is given the gift of telling the difference between the Holy Spirit and false spirits. Another person is given the gift of speaking in special sounds. Another person is given the gift of telling what these special sounds mean. But it is the same Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, Who does all these things. He gives to each person as He wants to give.’
1 Corinthians 12: 8–11
I have three unconnected memories floating around in my head.
The first is from when I worked in an adult male prison as a teacher. One afternoon, at the end of the working day, I was in the staff kitchen with a colleague, and we were casually watching all the prisoners return to the wings for their evening meal. As the masses of men with stooped shoulders in regulation grey sweaters and jogging bottoms trudged back to their beds, my friend commented sadly, “What a waste of humanity!”
Now onto the second memory. This time from one of my travels. It was 2019 and I was touring Europe in our Mazda Bongo with my son who was twelve at the time. We’d driven down through Germany to the former Yugoslavia and then taken the ferry across to Italy and had headed up to the Alps. In Switzerland, I had decided to look in on Christoph. Christoph was a guy that I’d met over two decades earlier when we’d both been volunteering on a kibbutz in the Israeli desert. He had been welcoming, funny, cool and one of the most generous souls I’d ever come across. In the years that followed, I’d visited him a couple of times in his native Switzerland but then we’d lost touch. Anyway, I drove the van to his father’s house, and he had recognised me and informed me where his son now lives. We’d gone there but he was out. The neighbour suggested we try the local bar. There we found him, transformed into the town alcoholic. He was happy to see me, but he wasn’t all there. The addiction had transformed him. Afterwards, my son commented to me, “I’d never expected you to take me to see a messed-up guy like that, dad. He’s a loser!”
And the third memory is also from years back. It is of Nick, a guy I used to be friends with when I lived in Bulgaria. He was a teacher as was I and, one evening in the pub, he confessed that he loved teaching high school students the most because, “at that age everything is possible. They have dreams and those dreams can be fulfilled. Later, when reality gets in the way, you know its not possible and we all fall short but at that age, no longer a child but with your adult life ahead of you, anything is possible.”
All of which is well and good but where is this leading you might ask, and what does any of it have to do with the opening quote in which St. Paul lists the gifts of the Holy Spirit that, he claims, different people can receive?
Well, let me explain.
A few weeks ago, I made a pilgrimage. Not to the tomb of a saint as is most common with me, or to the birthplace of a sacred figure. Nor too was it to a place where God or an angel or the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared, or even where a holy miracle took place. No, it was connected to none of those things and yet is commonly considered to be one of the most sacred spots on earth and the holiest place on the planet for adherents of the world’s fourth-largest faith.
Around five hundred years before Christ, an Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama came to a spot near a village where he halted. He had been engaged in a spiritual search for a number of years and had emaciated himself and become an accomplished practitioner of meditation. Even so, he had still not found the bliss and peace that he sought. Under a bodhi tree growing in the place, he sat and began to meditate and there achieved enlightenment, transforming himself from Siddhartha Gautama into the Buddha.
But what did that mean exactly? Well, curiously, few people can truly explain it. Most people explain enlightenment — the attainment of Nirvana — by using negatives. It is an absence of suffering, an absence of attachment and so on. But whatever it was, it was momentous. It transformed Siddhartha and his transformation transformed the world. And so today, a place where no holy figure was born or died, and where no miracle or encounter with God took place, is one of the foremost pilgrimage spots on earth.
Think about that for a moment. It is significant.
To me, what enlightenment is, is the achievement of an individual’s fullest spiritual potential. It is an absence of suffering and attachment and much more because, when one is enlightened, one is so in tune with the Divine, so in touch with one’s deepest self, that naught else matters. And that is no miracle, it does not require God to come down from upon high and point his holy finger at you. Instead, it is something that the person achieves by themselves. Indeed, as many writers point out, to be a believing Buddhist, one doesn’t even need to believe in God.
I am not enlightened. I have been to Bodhgaya, and I have sat under the bodhi tree (well, its descendent) but I did not receive that yearned-for gift of clarity and bliss. Nonetheless, I have been lucky enough to achieve moments of transcendence. On a country lane in Wales whilst walking to Bardsey Island, in the Mass at Roncesvalles, sitting watching swallows dart about in an albergue at Santibáñez de Valdeiglesias. No, I am not yet a buddha but, who knows, maybe one day I shall be…?
And that is the key point here.
Maybe.
One day.
The potential.
Lots of people are aware that in Thailand and several other countries, people greet one another by placing their palms together as if in prayer. What far fewer are aware is the reason why. The greeting is literally a prayer towards the person they are meeting. An acknowledgement, not of the person they are, but the Buddha they could become.
Yes, we all could be Buddha.
Which brings me back to the quote at the beginning, where St. Paul describes the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now, you do not have to be a Christian or even a believer in God to recognise that different people have different gifts. My brother is a talented artist for example. Try as I might, whilst I may be able to produce some semi-decent works of art, they will never be on the same level as his. Nor too can I compose like Mozart or orate like Churchill. But we all do have gifts and, I believe, I have come to understand what mine is.
And as with all gifts, it can be as much of a curse as a blessing.
As St. Paul says, our gifts differ. Some of us are teachers, others public speakers, others good at practical works and so on. This is a fact that is recognised by most people, but what far fewer ever do is actually sit down and reflect upon what their particular gift might be. I remember once when I was on the Camino, speaking to an American pilgrim who was worn out through church work. “But this is what Jesus wants of me so how can I refuse?” he protested when I suggested he slow down a little. “Is it Jesus who wants this or the Church?” I countered. There is a difference and, I believe, that difference can be discerned around whether that work is in line with one’s gifts.
After all, God would not ask you to make something that He has not given you the tools to complete.
But understanding one’s particular gift is not easy and discerning it can take time. I am in my fifth decade on earth, and it is only in the past few years that I believe I have recognised mine. It is a nuanced gift and yet, at its heart, extremely simple.
I can recognise the Buddha within.
What do I mean by this? Well, let’s go back to those three memories.
In the first, those throwaway words by my colleague, really touched me, they hurt me to the core. Seeing those prisoners trudge home after a fruitless day spent incarcerated, was painful. Why? Because each one of those men has such potential, such wonderful potential. They were born to soar like eagles, not be caged like budgerigars. Yet instead, they were “doing time”, counting the days, surviving not thriving.
The simple truth is that most people cannot see that potential. They think we are here to just get through the day. If we are a criminal, then we have wasted our opportunities and cannot turn it around. The leopard does not change his spots. The people who say that are genuine. They are realists. They are telling the truth because that Buddha within each of those men — and within themselves — they simply do not see.
The second memory dealt with Christoph and, again, it was a throwaway remark that cut me to the core. My son called Chris, my friend, a soul that I loved, “a messed-up guy”. That hurt. It hurt because it was true. Chris is messed-up, massively so. Before the alcohol, he had a heroin addiction. He physically died three times and was resuscitated by his girlfriend. He is an awful father, and his kids are feral. He lives in a flat with moss growing in the toilet and where the only decoration is a pile of empty beer cans.
Yet at the same time, beyond that “messed-up guy” he is a wonderful human being with a generous heart and wonderful potential. The problem is, only I could see it. My son couldn’t, society couldn’t. Christoph couldn’t.
But the third memory is different. In that memory there was another remark, but this time it was not throwaway. It was the result of great reflection, and, with it, my friend Nick hit on something profound. Although teenagers are difficult to work with, there is a potential with them, that is much easier to see. That Buddha within shines more brightly than with Christoph or the trudging inmates. And being allowed to work with that, to help bring it out, is an honour.
But also a curse. Most of the kids I worked with in Bulgaria when I knew Nick did not realise their Buddhahood. Some did well, others less so. They are human after all. And when the reality doesn’t match the potential, it can hurt.
Take my friend S. When I first read her work, I could sense the immense talent she possessed, the potential to transform lives in her community and beyond. But the sad reality is that she cannot see that and so has not made the changes she should. She may never do so and that is sad because wasted opportunities scar the soul.
Yes, gifts can be burdens too, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t exercise them and use them to try and change the world.
For the fact is, I could talk about S and how that Buddha within her still sleeps. I could also talk about Christoph whose addictions meant that he has never achieved the transformational life that he could have done. And I could talk about how the majority of those prisoners, after release, will reoffend and return to gaol.
However, instead I shall talk about M.
I first met M in 2008. He was in the first year of a life sentence for murder. He had a minimum of twelve years ahead of him in gaol, the flowering of his youth wasted behind bars. And what made it worse was that he insisted he was innocent.
And yet, from the moment I first saw him, I saw his potential. His Buddha shone brightly and rarely have I met such a kind and gentle man. I helped him as his teacher and then his supervisor for five years until he was moved to another gaol, and then we lost touch.
Years later though, through Facebook, he contacted me. He was back in his native Albania and had finished his sentence. He was also married and with a child.
Two years ago, my son and I went travelling around the Western Balkans and, whilst we were in Albania, we met up. Indeed, M put us up for three days in his flat. Seeing him as a fulfilled individual, doing well, a loving father and husband, almost brought tears to my eyes. At one point, M’s situation had seemed as hopeless as S’s and Christoph’s. Today, the Buddha within him is plain for all to see and, although, like us all, he still has his trials and tribulations, one can never look at him today and see only wasted potential.
Siddhartha found his bodhi tree in Bodhgaya; M in prison. As you walk along the Camino of life stop and think. Where might yours be? Perhaps you are standing right by it this very moment…
Written 22–23/03/2024, Smallthorne, UK
Copyright © 2024, Matthew E. Pointon