Young Dogen had a question that wouldn’t let him go.
The Tendai school taught that all beings possess Buddha-nature from birth. Original enlightenment—hongaku—the idea that enlightenment isn’t something you achieve but something you already are.
If that’s true, Dogen asked, why did the Buddha and all the ancestors practice? Why zazen, why precepts, why training? If you’re already enlightened, what’s the point of the path?
He couldn’t find an answer in Japan. Not one that satisfied. So he went to China.
Under master Rujing’s guidance, Dogen heard the phrase “cast off body and mind” and realized liberation. He returned to Japan and spent the rest of his life writing about what he’d understood.
His answer to his own question fills the Shobogenzo, particularly the fascicle on Buddha-nature: “All existents are Buddha-nature.”
Not “have” Buddha-nature. Are Buddha-nature.
The impermanence of grass and trees is Buddha-nature. Mountains and rivers are Buddha-nature. Even rocks, sand, water—expressions of awakened reality. Everything, sentient and insentient, is the activity of enlightenment itself.
“To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.”
Practice isn’t preparation for enlightenment. Practice is enlightenment expressing itself.
Dogen’s insight was radical even within Buddhism. Most schools treated Buddha-nature as potential—something sentient beings possess that can be actualized through proper practice. A seed that grows into buddhahood if cultivated correctly.
Dogen said no. Buddha-nature isn’t potential. It’s what you are, whether you realize it or not.
And yet.
“Bodhisattvas studying the way should know” requires study. Requires the way. Requires teachers and transmission and monasteries and ordination and proper understanding of the Dharma.
You must still practice. Must still sit zazen. Must still receive transmission from a qualified master in the authentic lineage going back to Buddha himself.
“Just sitting”—shikantaza—sounds simple. But it requires instruction. Posture corrections. Understanding of the form. Years of training under a roshi who can verify your understanding.
Buddhism’s refusal is more subtle than other traditions. It doesn’t introduce stages or veils or ignorance between human and divine. It refuses the concept of divine entirely.
No God to unite with. No Brahman to realize identity with. No Creator to worship or ground to share. Buddhism is explicitly non-theistic.
And yet it describes Buddha-nature, original enlightenment, luminous mind, the dharmakaya. It describes awareness that pervades everything, unconditioned consciousness, the unborn and deathless. It talks about what sounds suspiciously like immanent divinity using vocabulary that carefully avoids any theistic implications.
The famous koan: A monk asks Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have Buddha-nature?” Zhaozhou answers: “Mu”—no, or does not have.
Generations of students have contemplated that answer. The Nirvana Sutra says clearly that all beings have Buddha-nature. Why does Zhaozhou say no?
Because “having” Buddha-nature creates subject-object duality. The dog who has Buddha-nature. The you who has enlightenment. The practitioner who will realize what they possess.
Buddha-nature isn’t something you have. It’s what you are.
So why practice if you’re already enlightened?
Buddhist traditions have various answers. To actualize what’s potential. To purify obscurations. To realize what’s already true. To clear away ignorance that veils your nature.
Each answer reintroduces a gap—between being Buddha-nature and realizing it, between original enlightenment and actualized enlightenment, between the absolute truth that you’re awakened and the relative truth that you’re still suffering.
That gap is where Buddhism builds its authority structure.
Teachers who’ve realized guide those who haven’t. Lineages transmit authentic understanding. Monasteries provide proper practice under supervision. Methods—meditation techniques, precepts, stages of insight—lead toward realization.
Theravada maps specific jhanas and insight stages. Tibetan Buddhism elaborates nine vehicles and countless practices. Zen emphasizes sudden enlightenment but requires years of zazen and koan study.
All pointing to the same insight: your ordinary mind is Buddha-mind. Nothing to attain because nothing is lacking.
And all requiring teachers who can verify you’ve actually realized what was always true.
What does this refusal protect?
The sangha as necessary for awakening. The teacher-student relationship as essential for transmission. The Dharma as requiring proper understanding. The distinction between genuine realization and spiritual bypassing.
Buddhism says: without practice, without guidance, you won’t realize what you are. You’ll stay caught in suffering, unable to recognize the Buddha-nature that was never absent.
The refusal isn’t wrong. People do mistake intellectual understanding for realization. Do use “we’re all already enlightened” to bypass transformation. Do need guidance distinguishing genuine insight from delusion.
But the refusal ensures Buddhism maintains its institutional structure. Teachers with authority. Lineages with legitimacy. Methods that must be followed. Understanding verified by those who already know.
The most non-theistic religion describing something that sounds like God but refusing to call it that, and requiring years of practice to realize what it says you already are.
Same pattern – Different vocabulary:
You are Buddha-nature—but only a qualified teacher can confirm you’ve realized it.
