What do you think of when you think about Hanamatsuri? Shakyamuni Buddha’s birthday? Lumbini’s Garden? Kambutsu (bathing the Baby Buddha)? How about a six-tusked elephant?

Right now, I’m wondering if maybe there’s a Baby Buddha ready to be born within each of us. Maybe each time I feel a twinge of caring when I see someone else suffering, each time I get an insight into myself or the world around me, maybe my “inner Buddha” is born. Can I then cultivate it, nourish it, so that someday I become a Buddha myself? There are theories in Buddhism where we each have this potential for awakening within us – this is one understanding of the term “Buddha Nature.”

But maybe it’s harder than it looks. Those insights I mentioned don’t happen for me that often. And even if I do have one, it’s so easy to start thinking more about myself than others again. Maybe my Baby Buddha waits patiently for the next time I have a selfless thought to help someone else, or realize something else about the true nature of things.

If I don’t have this Baby Buddha inside of me, it’s ok. Shinran Shonin did not emphasize this potential for awakening. In fact, in looking at himself he felt that he had NO Buddha Nature inside him – that he was among “those who lack the seed of Buddhahood” (icchantika). And yet even someone like that – someone like me? – can still become Buddha. In fact, this type of person is precisely the object of Amida Buddha’s compassion. Becoming aware of this, one entrusts in the Buddha with great joy and gratitude.

I know that Hanamatsuri is a service that also brings us great joy, to get to bathe the Baby Buddha and listen to the Dharma. For Buddhist Church of Oakland’s 2017 Hanamatsuri Service on Sunday, April 9, our guest speaker is Sensei Blayne Higa, a student from the Institute of Buddhist Studies. If you have a Baby Buddha then bring it along, if not then come bathe ours at the Buddhist Church of Oakland – remember, Kambutsu begins at 9:30!