You Are the Buddha

It is said that the number of Buddhas is " more numerous than the grains of sand on the banks of the Ganges ". That's an abundance of Buddhas, no doubt enough to enlighten the world millions of times over. Buddha means " the person who knows ", who has attained Bodhi or enlightenment, woken up from the dream of existence, left the wheel of suffering behind forever.

Perhaps every human is the Buddha, each of us sitting under our private Bo tree spinning out our perception of who and what we are and what the drama is that plays itself out, in and around us. Each of us deep inside the core of every cell experiences consciously or unconsciously the source of energy that patterns itself into emotions, people, objects. That nucleus explodes into the outbreath of Brahma , the Big Bang, the unexplained orgasm that conceives the Universe.

Caught in the exigencies of every day life, we forget who we really are. We lose contact with our intrinsic Buddhahood. This meditation is to help you bring that core of yourself to consciousness again.

Be comfortable. Sit crosslegged, lie down, cuddle up in a chair. We don't have to be a pretzel - it doesn't really matter as long as you're conscious. Be conscious, attentive, aware.

Is your belly tense? Relax it. Let your face sag, your mouth droop, your eyes soften. Your shoulders, legs, mouth, neck loosen. Emotions are clouds drifting through you, anxiety, fear, boredom, happiness, contentment, amusement, hope or despair. Your eyes close now, not to darkness but to the shifting patterns against the screen of your eyelids, a dance of crystalline fragments that are small bursts of light, protons exploding on a laboratory screen.

Let go the niggling ache, the clench of worry. Watch your thoughts as they appear out of nowhere, crest and disappear again into nowhere. They are your thoughts - nobody to blame for them, no external friend or enemy to create them, just mysterious patterns, phantasmagoria flickering in and out of being.

As you become conscious of your breath and soften yourself, a glowing golden light outlines your body. This golden light radiates from your fingers, your face, your hair, your torso, gold radiance gently bordering your chest and back, your thighs and legs, your feet. As you breathe in and out, you feel the glow surrounding you in a luminous aura. Watch as your body itself disappears. All that is left is a gleaming outline of gold. Your emotions fade away; your flesh evaporates. In their place is space, the magnificent emptiness of dark space, bordered with gold .

Stars enter that space field; the luminosity of emptiness is filled with points of light. Watch and feel as the stars cluster gently into galaxies, vast nebulae spiraling through their eternal life changes. You are aware that within you, in ages of time too vast to be counted, these stars are born, grow, shine, change, whirl in vast turnings - and slowly die. And they are all contained within that field of gold that outlines and illuminates your body. As the endless galaxies dance in perpetual mutation, you feel the wave of the Universe within you and watch the enormous spectacle. This movement of the spheres is the ballet of time and space.

The gold rim of forever expands eternally. The stars move out from each other; space opens itself up infinitely, perpetually filling itself with new star systems. Yet this ultimate light show is all taking place within the golden borders of yourself. Watching it, feel the limitless space.

And now, relaxed and easy, we roll the edges of this universe in; the stars fold away one by one. Like the turning of a soft surf, the fading of a distant cloud, the night skies disappear, and your body returns to your consciousness.

Gold is still glowing around the contours of your body as you become aware of your breath and the rise and fall of your chest. Each breath brings nourishment and life to every cell of your body. You recognize that each cell is its own complete universe. Entities so minute that we can only make out their lineaments with high powered microscopes, live out their life cycles within each cell, birthing, reproducing, and dying. Just as the stars form planetary systems, galaxies, nebulae, the cells of your body specialize, producing separate organs, each organ designed for its unique role in your own unique ecological system.

Your eyes read books, see movies, go on-line and allow you to touch the lives and ideas of people whom you will never meet. Through them you admire the blooming of flower and child. Through them you observe the transient human melodramas and reach out to see trees, highways, the infinite spectacle of creation. Like the eyes of an ancient Egyptian deity, your eyes are all bordered with gold.

Your nose allows you to intake the incense of sweet burning white sage in ceremonies of cleansing. Through it you smell the garbage on the streets of cities, the healing odors of food cooked with love, the smell of disinfected death in great hospitals. It too is outlined with gold.

Your ears are jewels edged with gold. Because of the amazing complexity that lies within their recesses, the delicate spiral of the cochlea, the hammer and anvil and all the miraculous parts that normally lie beyond our consciousness, we hear the words of wise women and men, the songs of birds, the awesome music of composers whose bodies are long dead.

Your magnificent brain crackles with lightning and thunder as thought, perception, cognition race from it in grand leaps across synapses that communicate with the rest of the body, and it too lies in a cradle of gold.

Like the gold that surrounds every part of you, the essence of you is non-corruptible. Although everything in life including your flesh, is transitory, ephemeral as the thoughts you have watched coming and going, our core, like gold, is impervious to change. Here in this wonderfilled being which is you, in every cell of this being, lies the Universe. This is Who You Really Are. This is what you have always been and will be forever.

Sit tranquil a while and be quiet. Let mind take you swinging from space to space or feel inside yourself the small still point of creation which lies beyond mind..

When you are ready, breathe deeply once more and return to your every day self. Open your eyes and gaze around you with gratitude for the miracles you have experienced. Although you may lose consciousness of the golden aura, it still surrounds you. It is with you always.

You truly exist in all realities at once.

You are in every leaf, every child, every star, in the smallest ant or gnat, yes, every machine and thought, the oil well and the symphony, the Bible and the silicon chip, the dark mass of the universe which exists beyond our comprehension.

You contain the largest galaxy and the smallest cell.

You are the Buddha.

Enlightenment is not some strange knowledge existing in faraway realms which you must struggle to attain. It has been with you always, waiting only for your acknowledgment and attention. Remember that you can always take the time to return to infinite consciousness. In the midst of turmoil, in the joy of eternal springtimes, in all of the daily melodramas, Buddha awaits your attention ready to stretch out a hand which is your hand or smile a smile which is your smile. Take a deep breath and feel your body.

Give love and thanks. You deserve it.