Maybe it's the fact that the Buddha lived so long ago, that Buddhism has been around for over 3,000 years. But the ideas of "enlightenment" and "Buddha nature" have taken on mythic status. Becoming enlightened seems to be the work of a lifetime. But then I read something like this:

[Right posture] is not just form or breathing. It expresses the key point of Buddhism. It is a perfect expression of your Buddha nature. If you want true understanding of Buddhism, you should practice this way. ...when [the Buddha] found himself, he found that everything that exists has Buddha nature. That was his enlightenment. Enlightenment is not some good feeling or some particular state of mind.

That's from "Zen Mind, Beginner's MInd" by Shunryu Suzuki. I am trying to learn a way of being that goes beyond being a good or bad person, saved or damned; a life without "should" or "should not." Here's what else he has to say:

Good and bad are only in your mind. So we should not say, "This is good,” or "This is bad.” Instead of saying bad, you say, "not-to-do"!

There are a lot of things in my life I would qualify as bad. But rather than not do these "bad" things, I am quite likely to do them repeatedly, fighting myself into exhaustion and only a small step closer to being a "better" person. Doing "bad" things means I am spending my time judging myself, and, being found guilty of doing bad, I have no choice but to condemn myself.

What fun.

To think "not-to-do" rather than "bad," god what a relief. If the best advice for doing the good things I feel I should is "just do it" (and I do think that is the best advice), then the best advice for going the other direction "just don't do it." It really is that simple, but only when I release the good-bad deathgrip.

Easier said than done, of course, at the age of 50. So I'm not really talking much about it, just reminding myself that it's not good/bad but do/don't do. Remove the judgments from my actions. Understand my Buddha nature, live in that enlightenment, and be free — at last — of the eternal fear of being bad. And having to be punished.