Where’s Waldo—Finding A Buddha

My daughter and I loved reading stories together. She liked it since she was fascinated by the stories. I liked it because I loved being with her. The stories were secondary to me, but to her, they were everything. And one of her favorite stories was Where’s Waldo. 

For those of you who don’t know, the Where’s Waldo series are books show page after page of illustrations of thousands of little people engaged in various activities, and within this mass of little people, there is only one little Waldo. The trick is to pick out Waldo from the masses. She loved this game and would squeal with glee when she found Waldo. 

The most challenging pictures (and thus the most considerable challenge) was when Waldo stood in plain sight. Everyone expects Waldo to be hiding behind a fence post, a tree, or a hundred other people, so to discover him in plain sight proves to be the most difficult.

Have you ever wondered what a buddha would look like if he appeared today among the masses? I have, and wondered if he would be wearing a long, flowing robe, have droopy ear-lobes with a URNA in the middle of his forehead? If so, it wouldn’t be too challenging to pick him out. However, expecting a buddha to appear in physical form would reveal my ignorance since “buddha” is not a name like Donald but is instead symbolic, meaning “to awaken,” in the same way that “Christ” is not the last name of Jesus.

Some years ago, during a sesshin, I saw a buddha among those gathered with me, so I know what he looks like. You’re probably suspicious and wondering, “Did he really see a buddha? Was it a phantasm?” Or perhaps you’re just thinking, “this guy has lost it and is really nuts.” Nevertheless, I did see a buddha. As I looked around the room at all those participating in the sesshin, I saw a buddha in each and every person, completely unaware they were a buddha. I looked out at the gorgeous autumn foliage and saw buddhas everywhere. I looked up and saw a buddha on the wings of geese flying south. Everywhere I looked, I saw a buddha just like Waldo in plain sight.

There are three seeming puzzles here. The first is we are looking but not seeing. I experienced the opposite this morning when David—the wonderful man who brings me coffee every morning—appeared at my door. When he came, I not only looked at his exterior, but I “saw” his heart of generosity, and I felt beautiful! Then I told him how special he was, and then he felt beautiful, even though I was wearing my bathrobe, and he was dressed in chef’s clothing. We get so busy and distracted by things that aren’t important that we don’t find buddhas in the masses who surround us. 

A second challenge is that we expect a buddha to appear in a specific and limited form. It didn’t matter to me that David was dressed in the clothes of a chef. What mattered was his golden heart of generosity. And yet a third is that we don’t take seriously what the dharma tells us—That the nature of a buddha is ubiquitous, unbroken, and infinite, awaiting release as a submarine emerges from the depths into plain sight. 

We hear that teaching and think to ourselves, “That irascible blob next to me can’t be a buddha. Just look how poorly he/she behaves. A buddha would never act like that.” Well, if a buddha were bound up in delusions, focused on, and exclusively concerned with the heartaches that others carry, and expectations beyond their plights, then perhaps he/she would act poorly. But such is not the case because the emergence of our awakened buddha transforms everything

I was sad when I saw a buddha in those next to me in the sesshin because they didn’t know of their hearts of gold, and unless they awaken, what good is that enormous, untapped potential? Our broken and disfigured world desperately needs more awakened buddhas. And when we notice, when we see what lies at their depths (and not just how they appear before us), and tell them how lovely they are, their buddha is released from bondage, even when they think otherwise. Each of us alone is just a single Waldo hiding among the masses, but if all of those non-Waldos suddenly turned into Waldo, it would be amazing.

Years ago, I participated in a global effort to map a particular strand of DNA (as a part of the human genome project). My participation occurred through what is known as meta-computing. The idea is ingenious. Some smart people figured out that millions of computers around the world sit idle with available processing time. If all of those computers could be networked using the Internet, it would expand the number-crunching capacity logarithmically. Even a single supercomputer can’t match the combined processing capacity of millions networked together. But this utilization only works when a significant number of people with computers, that sit idly by, choose to participate.

The same is right with all of us. When everyone is asleep and looking for a buddha somewhere else—most notably when they doubt such a thing as a buddha—no participation happens. Do they have an ideology that causes them to deny awakening? Do they instead imagine they alone are awake (but aren’t) and think others are just dumb? It doesn’t matter what doctrine someone holds. What matters is what is. And that is a matter of the heart, not what appears. 
It is really time for everyone in the human race to wake up, stop looking for a buddha behind a fence post, or a tree, and start contributing to the global network. When we look in the wrong places, a buddha will never be found, and the world will continue to suffer. Seeing the unseen is often a matter of observing what is right in front of our faces.

“Merge together with all things. Everywhere is just right. Accordingly, we are told that from ancient to modern times, all dharmas are not concealed, always apparent, and exposed.”
Simply Drop Off Everything—Zen Teachings of Hongzhi Zhengjue