The Unsellable Condo in Vinings is now back on the market. Remember the UCV? Well, I stopped by Coldwell Banker today, and gave the realtor a key, signed way too much paperwork, and now it's back on the market again. Wanna buy a condo?

I stopped at the condo on the way home from work, first time since last December, just to see how the place was holding up. It wasn't looking very good. They're apparently in the middle of some sort of repair and painting project, so each building looks half unfinished. Plus they apparently dug up the parking lot in front of my building for some reason and left bare gravel where the asphalt once was. U-G-L-Y. I think it's going to be on the market for a while again.

On top of that, the unit right next door to mine is also apparently now up for sale, if the "For Sale" in the window is any indication. So not only is it a hard sell to start with, but now my vacant unit has to compete with a fully furnished unit right next door.

Actually, it's hard to believe that I actually lived there once. It now seems so . . . well, not me. So I ask you, what has changed? The building . . . or me?

Before Coldwell Banker, I had lunch with sensei. He shared this exchange of letters with me, which I am now sharing it with you:

Dear Sensei:

I am working up a presentation and I have run into the question as to whether "Original Nature" and "Buddha-Nature" are one and the same. I believe they are but I can't find a source that directly says they are. Can these terms be used interchangeably? If the answer is very complex, I believe I will leave it out of my presentation at this time. If the answer is both yes and no, as so many answers are, I can live with that. If the answer is silence that will be really interesting. In any event...thank you for reading this.

Gassho,
D.

Very good, Don; you will do well in your presentation.

Yes, these are virtually interchangeable, and should not be a source of confusion or debate. The former is actual while the latter is also a matter of right aspiration or view.

The buddha in buddhanature is not the historical Buddha (thus no capital) but it means "awakened nature," the same awakening that Buddha experienced and is innate in all human beings, though not in all sentient beings.

The original nature is that which we share with all sentient beings, and would be analogous to "somokushin," or hridaya in Sanskrit, the "mind of grass and trees" expounded by Master Dogen in "Hotsu-Bodaishin, Establishment of the Bodhi-Mind," chapter #70 Shobogenzo (Nishijima and Cross) Book 3, P.265. This in my opinion is one of the most important fascicles of Master Dogen, clarifying the Buddhist theoretical underpinnings of reality.

Beings with innate buddhanature do not necessarily know it. This means they have not awakened to it, but the original nature is there. Buddhanature is meaningless for all practical purposes unless one awakens to it. Original nature is skewed toward realization of buddhanature but will not necessarily realize it in this lifetime.

Another fascicle, "Bussho, Buddha-Nature," #22, Book 3, p. 1, you should probably read to understand buddhanature as action, not as a static state of existence.

Gassho,
Sensei