Buddhanature

It's not physical, emotional,
Conceptual, impulsive, conscious--
Or anything else.
It does not dwell in us
Nor we in it.
It does not own us.

If it depended on us
Or on anything else,
It would not be in itself.
How could it be anything but itself?
Could what is not itself
Be buddhanature?

What is it apart from itself
Or something else?
Is it independent of body, feeling, thought,
Impulse or consciousness?
It depends on them now
And is set to continue.

Can you say that
Buddhanature is "contingent"
When what is depended on
And what depends on are empty?

Can you say that
Buddhanature is "empty"
When "empty" and "not empty"
Are mere ciphers?

Fixed ideas of permanence
And transience,
Finitude and infinity,
Have no place when all is well.

Believers believe in buddhas
Who vanish in nirvana.
Don't imagine empty buddhas
Vanishing or not.

When transfixed
On what's unwavering
Beyond fixation's range,
You see no buddhanature.

Buddhanature
Is the nature of this world.
Buddhanature has no nature,
Nor does this world.

---Nagarjuna---