333 – Buddha Is Like an Old-Growth Tree: Practice as Human Maturation
Sometimes it’s difficult to relate to the goal of “awakening” or “enlightenment.” Especially if we’ve gained a hard-won sense of peace with ourselves and our lives, it can seem counterproductive to dwell on some experience or understanding we don’t yet have and then drive ourselves to achieve it. I want to share an alternative way to frame your practice that might kindle your Bodhicitta in a different way.
Quicklinks to Article Content:
Buddhist Practice as the Search for Awakening
Buddha as an Old-Growth Tree
Buddhist Practice as Human Maturation
Impeding Our Own Maturation
Buddhas and Old-Growth Trees: No Two Are Alike
Buddhist Practice as the Search for Awakening
As I have discussed many times on this podcast, it is essential that our Dharma practice be animated by aspiration. The term “buddha” means “awakened being,” so whatever form of Buddhism we practice, it includes the idea that there is something to which we can – and, ideally, will – awaken. Bodhicitta, the Way-Seeking mind that motivates our search for awakening, is the first of my Ten Fields of Zen. Without Bodhicitta you never even begin practice, and if you don’t nurture and sustain your Way-Seeking Mind, your practice will wither and die.
However, sometimes it’s difficult to relate to the goal of “awakening” or “enlightenment.” At some point you might like the idea of attaining a remarkable experience, after which you will be transformed into a saint and untroubled by the vicissitudes of life, but it probably won’t be long before you realize that’s not going to happen. Maybe you have a significant experience of opening or insight, but then it takes a lot of work to translate your understanding into changes in your everyday life.
Most practitioners I know feel fairly ambivalent about so-called awakening or realization. Many aren’t sure what awakening would look like, or they doubt it’s anything relevant to their practice. Despite all the exhortations of the ancestors to awaken, the primary concern of many of us is practical: Decreased stress, greater peace of mind, and the gradual effort to live a more skillful, ethical, and compassionate life.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with focusing on the practical, everyday aspects of practice. After all, that’s where we end up needing to spend most of our time and energy even if we experience some great awakening! However, just focusing on the day-to-day, gradual effort to become a little bit happier and kinder can eventually be… if not boring, then rather underwhelming in terms of motivation. When we relieve some measure of our suffering, it’s easy to conclude things are good enough. We can easily let our efforts at practice slacken, or we may drift away from practice entirely.
Especially if we’ve gained a hard-won sense of peace with ourselves and our lives, it can seem counterproductive to dwell on some experience or understanding we don’t yet have and then drive ourselves to achieve it. I want to share an alternative way to frame your practice that might kindle your Bodhicitta in a different way.
Buddha as an Old-Growth Tree
What if we looked at Dharma practice as a process of facilitating and encouraging maturation? This removes the inaccurate idea of there being a “before” and “after” the achievement of some goal. It incorporates the idea of constant growth and identifies maturity as an admirable quality without disparaging earlier stages. The most mature specimens of long-lived species also offer inspiring models for our practice: Utterly unique and ruggedly beautiful in the way they embody perseverance while deeply marked by their experiences; repositories of great resources that benefit other beings; calm and untroubled by the calamities of this moment because of their broad perspective.
The ideal of a Buddha as a truly mature human being is many-layered and transcendent. A Buddha is calm, peaceful, at ease. They are free from every idea that something is lacking. They see the impermanence and emptiness of all things even as they respond to all beings with generosity and compassion. They have perfect self-knowledge. Freed from self-concern, they are attentive to others and thereby skillful in their actions.
It might be difficult to picture ourselves maturing into a Buddha, given that this ideal presents as such a saintly and perfect being. However, if we look on the ideal of Buddha not as a something to strive for but as a description of true human maturity, perhaps the aspiration to move toward Buddhahood will not seem so far-fetched.
When I try to think of Dharma practice as a process of facilitating and encouraging maturation, I find it helpful to picture a different kind of mature being: An old-growth Douglas-fir tree. It’s difficult to comprehend the difference between a young Doug-fir tree – 5-10 years old, probably about 15’ high, like the one in my yard – and an old-growth tree over 200 years old, especially when the tree is in an old-growth forest.
I love comparing an old-growth tree to a truly mature human being. If you are lucky enough to live in the Pacific Northwest of North America, as I do, you may have had the opportunity to encounter a truly old-growth Douglas-fir, but I will describe one in case you have not.
First, let’s start with a young tree, like the one in my yard. It’s a conifer with a classic conical shape. Douglas-firs are one of the most popular kinds of Christmas trees. As the trees get older and taller – around 30-50 years old and 50-100 feet high – they start taking on a “bottle brush” shape. Their thick, straight trunk is usually devoid of branches until 20-30 feet or more up. Then the branches get thick and craggy. All branches remain of a similar length measured out from the trunk, although the branches still taper at the very top. Douglas-firs are still considered only “mature” versus “old-growth” even when they are over 100 feet high, with a trunk several feet in diameter at breast height (dbh, 4.5 feet up from the ground).
A 10-year-old Douglas-fir in my yard
An Old-Growth Douglas-fir in British Columbia
I will turn to a 1981 US Forest Service Report, “Ecological characteristics of old-growth Douglas-fir forests,” to give you a few descriptions of the kind of old-growth tree I’m imagining as the plant equivalent of a Buddha:
A large, old-growth Douglas-fir is individualistic and commonly has an irregularly arranged, large, coarse branch system, and often, a long crown. It is ideal habitat for specialized vertebrates, such as the red tree vole, northern spotted owl, and northern flying squirrel, as well as nitrogen-fixing lichens… [the red tree] vole may live for many generations in the same tree…
These trees are large; though size varies with site conditions and age, diameters of 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 m) and heights of 165 to 295 feet (50 to 90 m) are typical…
The large, deep, irregular crown, characteristic of many old-growth Douglas-fir trees, is as ecologically important as the massive trunk (fig. 11). A 450-year-old tree typically has the overall shape of a bottle brush (albeit one with many missing bristles), with a cylindrical crown beginning 65 to 130 feet (20 to 40 m) above the ground…
Many lower branches are horizontally flattened, fan-shaped arrays arising from the stub of an older branch and showing evidence of repeated breakage… Upper surfaces of large branches are covered by organic “soil” (several centimeters thick), which is perched on the branches and supports entire communities of epiphytic plants (mainly mosses and lichens) and animals. Large branches are the home of myriad invertebrates, as well as birds and arboreal mammals.
Almost every surface of an old-growth Douglas-fir is occupied by epiphytic plants; more than 100 species of mosses and lichens function as these epiphytes. The dry weight of mosses and lichens on a single old-growth tree ranges from 33 to 66 pounds (15 to 30 kg) (Pike et al. 1977), of which less than half is mosses; this excludes the ubiquitous crust-forming lichens which cannot be separated for weighing…[i]
No description or image can convey the scale and magnificence of these giant trees. When you stand next to them you crane your neck and look up but can only see up through the first few layers of branches, like a mouse looking up at a human knee. It would take you and many friends holding hands to encircle the trunk. The bark is deeply furrowed and covered with an entire ecosystem of mosses, lichens, and ferns. The creatures living the tree canopy are in a world of their own.
When an ancient tree finally falls in an old-growth forest, it can take 100-200 years for the trunk to decay fully, depending on the state and size of the tree when it fell. It returns nutrients to the soil and eventual serves as a “nursery log,” when young trees take root and grow in it.
Buddhist Practice as Human Maturation
An old-growth tree isn’t “superior” to a young tree. Depending on its conditions, a young tree has the potential to develop into an old-growth tree, but that isn’t its purpose. At any stage of its growth the tree is beautiful and valuable in its own right. Still, there is no denying the incredible grandeur of the ancient tree.
Similarly, we can aspire to a Buddha-like maturity as a human being. It isn’t a matter of making Buddhahood our goal and striving for it, it’s a matter of making choices in our lives that are conducive to fulfilling our potential. It’s inspiring to contemplate the beauty of an old-growth human being – wise, stable, strong, benevolent, and serving as a refuge and resource for others. So often we imagine that human growth more or less stops when our physical body stops growing, but that is manifestly untrue.
There’s an important difference between humans and trees, though. Whether a Douglas-fir will last 200 years and grow into a living palace full of creatures depends on where it takes root. The Douglas-fir in my yard will probably last only a few decades before someone decides it’s in the way and cuts it down. The old-growth trees I’ve been describing develop only within old-growth forests with sufficient rainfall, protected from logging. Even if humans didn’t interfere with the landscape, not all forests would be old-growth because of wildfire, wind, and site conditions.
Human beings, on the other hand, choose where and how to live. Our circumstances may be somewhat constrained, but we can make choices that support our growth. That’s what practice is. All aspects of our practice facilitate and encourage continuous maturation: Meditation, mindfulness, ethical behavior, Dharma study, Sangha relationships – everything I describe in my Ten Fields of Zen.
Human maturation includes experiences of awakening – or, as I like to call them, “enlightenments.” Occasionally our insights involve a major shift in perspective that radically realigns our sense of ourselves and the world. More often they are smaller enlightenments that occur as we study the self, let go of attachments, and discover new ways to behave.
Even more of our human maturation happens below the level of our conscious mind. Sometimes people get frustrated with their practice, wondering what happens next, or what they should be doing to speed the process along. I believe a certain degree of spiritual urgency is essential, but the bulk of the work is just showing up for practice day after day, meditation session after meditation session, Sangha meeting after Sangha meeting, year after year.
The changes that are happening within us are rarely noticeable over the course weeks or months, even years. But if you encounter someone who has quietly and diligently practiced for a decade, or two, or three, you will recognize a beautiful, solid quality about them that defies description. At the beginning, they were eager and vigorous like a young sapling. If you had gone away for in the intervening years and then returned, you might be surprised to find them so far along the course of development into a Buddha.
Impeding Our Own Maturation
We can’t sit passively by and count on the process of maturation to happen, like a tree. Think of people you know who are living out their karma or just biding their time before death – such people often get sadder, harsher, meaner, more fearful, and more dysfunctional over time. Every human being has dignity and freedom of choice, so I’m not suggesting we judge people – we never know what’s happening within someone or how they might develop in the future – but on the other hand, we aren’t blind. People, including us, can reach a state of arrested development.
It’s not that, in reaching some place between childhood and buddha-like maturity, there’s something inherently wrong with the way we are. What’s sad is the way we resist or avoid maturity, refusing to change even though circumstances call for it, even though there are more beneficial ways for us to live, even though there are new perspectives and learning experiences available to us.
A tree’s growth and vitality may be constrained by its environment, but it can’t impede its own maturity the way a human being can. As grand as a tree is, it’s much less complicated than a human being. Critically, it lacks sentience, which I think of as an awareness of one’s existence as an individual. Certainly, plants have extensive awareness – of light, moisture, the proximity of other plants, the presence of pests – but I don’t think any of them sit around contemplating their existence as a separate being with its own history, agenda, and future. In contrast, human beings have incredibly complex ideas about themselves. Therefore, the mind must be included in the process of maturation. Our bodies may grow and age, but if the mind doesn’t also grow, we don’t become more buddha-like.
What causes us to impede our own maturation? Many things, including fear of the unknown, insecurity about our competence and place in the world, and attachment to our desires and ideas. One of the biggest obstacles to our maturation is usually a limited self-concept. It may be difficult to imagine ourselves becoming more buddha-like. It’s certainly a challenge to imagine the kind of growth we may need to undergo when it entails a radical transformation of who we think we are. If the 15-foot Douglas-fir sapling in my yard could envision a future for itself, it probably would have hard time believing it could, potentially, grow into a 300-foot old-growth giant.
The story of the Prodigal Son in the Lotus Sutra is about this. After many dispiriting years abroad, the lost son suffers from low self-esteem and does not recognize his father. It takes years for the father to gradually rehabilitate the son and increase his confidence before the son can handle being recognized as the father’s heir. This parable is about our Buddha-Nature, and how it can take a while for us to mature and accept what has been ours all along. (See Episode 289 for more.)
The process of human maturation isn’t always easy. We don’t get to sit still like a tree and passively allow the sun and rain to nourish us. (Although there’s plenty of nourishing going on in addition to our conscious practice.) At times, choosing the path of maturation requires us to do what is hardest to do, or to face daunting situations with a sense of determination and adventure. It may sound dramatic, but to some extent each of us is invited to go on a hero’s journey. In his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), Joseph Campbell describes the narrative pattern of the hero’s journey as follows:
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.
Although we can’t rush or force maturation, we need to participate in the process – maintaining a strong practice to facilitate and encourage our maturation and trying to open ourselves up to the growth that might be in store for us.
Buddhas and Old-Growth Trees: No Two Are Alike
There’s one more way in which comparing Buddhas to old-growth trees is appropriate: No two are alike. Even the scientific report about old-growth Douglas-fir trees I read earlier states that they are “individualistic.” After a couple hundred years, old-growth trees develop great character: Some have had their crowns or large limbs knocked down by lightning or wind; some have survived fires and show blackened scorch marks on their thick bark; some contain large red tree vole nests. Some trees have branches thickened into “witches’ brooms” by mistletoe.
Human beings are much more varied in their maturity than trees, and this is part of our beauty. If we get too fixated on what we think a Buddha looks like, we are likely to impede our own maturation. A Buddha isn’t always male. A Buddha isn’t always unemotional, or a renunciate, or austere. While the ideal of Buddha is perfect, I don’t believe any human being, even truly mature human beings, has ever been perfect. How could they be? What’s perfect in one situation is not perfect in another. A truly mature human being might be short or tall, dignified or goofy, introverted or extroverted, monk or lay. They might be a parent, a friend, a neighbor, a priest, a musician, a policeman, a construction worker, or a bus driver.
What do truly mature human beings – buddha-like beings – have in common? They are comfortable in their own skin. They don’t try to be like anyone else, or put on airs, or strive for recognition. They are satisfied with their current domain, but not because they are afraid to go beyond it. Instead, they know the truth that Dogen points out in Genjokoan, that our path can only be found exactly where we are:
…if there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place. When we make this very place our own, our practice becomes the actualization of reality. When we make this path our own, our activity naturally becomes actualized reality.[ii]
Truly mature human beings are not defensive. They have confidence in themselves, but not because they are attached to fixed ideas; their sense of themselves and the world is stable but fluid. Instead of being burdened by an ideal of what generosity looks like, they give joyously and freely what is theirs to give. They live with appreciation, contentment, and gratitude. When they experience sadness or difficulty, they don’t get stuck in bitterness or depression but take responsibility for the state of their heart-mind.
Although they bring joy and peace of mind to those around them, buddha-like people do not parade around calling themselves buddhas. As Dogen says in “Genjokoan:”
We should not think that what we have attained is conceived by ourselves and known by our discriminating mind. Although complete enlightenment is immediately actualized, its intimacy is such that it does not necessarily form as a view. In fact, viewing is not something fixed.[iii]
I hope you find it helpful to frame our Dharma practice as facilitating and encouraging our maturation as human beings. May you dedicate yourself wholeheartedly to your practice with the faith that it will allow you to develop into a being that fulfills your potential, like the human version of an old-growth tree.
Endnotes
[i] Franklin, Jerry F., Kermit Cromack, Jr., William Denison, Arthur McKee, Chris Maser, James Sedell, Fred Swanson, and Glen Juday. 1981. Ecological characteristics of old-growth Douglas-fir forests. USDA For. Serv. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-118, 48 p. Pac. Northwest For. and Range Exp. Stn., Portland, Oreg. https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/5546.pdf
[ii] Okumura, Shohaku. Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen’s Shobogenzo. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2010.
[iii] Ibid
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