See the statue in the rags: people you look down on
When someone seems contemptible, recall the buddha statue wrapped in rotten rags that travellers pass by in disgust.
Why it works
In the seventh simile, travellers on a dangerous road walk past a bundle of rotten rags in disgust; only when a divinity has it opened does the buddha image inside receive the veneration it deserves. Zimmermann reads the message as: nobody, however contemptible they may appear, should be looked upon as such, because everyone has a nature deserving of veneration. The Ratnagotravibhāga names contempt for beings regarded as inferior as one of the faults the teaching is given to remove. Social psychology finds a parallel: people widely believe that others have a morally good “true self,” and being asked to consider an out-group member’s true self has been found to reduce bias in judgments and in giving.
How to do it
- Notice a moment of contempt — a person you have written off, dismissed or felt superior to.
- Picture them as the bundle of rags on the road: everything you dislike is the cloth.
- Ask what might be wrapped inside — not a story that excuses them, only the possibility of something you cannot currently see.
- Notice whether your next words or actions toward them shift, even slightly.
- If the person is harming you or others, keep the boundary exactly where it is; this practice changes how you see, not what you allow.
Evidence
The simile and its interpretation are from Zimmermann’s study (p. 38); contempt for inferior beings as a fault the teaching addresses is from Ratnagotravibhāga I.156–157 as he discusses it (p. 82). Newman, Bloom and Knobe found that observers tend to see others’ true selves as fundamentally good, and a 2025 registered replication by Lee and Feldman supported their main findings. De Freitas and Cikara found that thinking about another person’s true self reduced intergroup bias in evaluations and in donations. These studies test a related everyday belief, not this practice. (mechanistic)
The research concerns a lay belief in a “true self,” which is not the same as buddha-nature and which many Buddhist thinkers would reject. The intergroup studies were brief experiments, and their effects outside the lab are unknown.
Sources
- Zimmermann, M. (2002). A Buddha Within: The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra — The Earliest Exposition of the Buddha-Nature Teaching in India. Bibliotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica VI. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University (open-access edition).
- Newman, G. E., Bloom, P., & Knobe, J. (2014). Value judgments and the true self. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(2), 203–216.
- Lee, S. C., & Feldman, G. (2025). Revisiting the link between true-self and morality: Replication and extension Registered Report of Newman, Bloom, and Knobe (2014) Studies 1 and 2. Royal Society Open Science, 12(6).
- De Freitas, J., & Cikara, M. (2018). Deep down my enemy is good: Thinking about the true self reduces intergroup bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 74, 307–316.
Common mistake
Treating someone’s hidden goodness as a reason to tolerate ongoing harm — seeing the statue does not mean staying on the road with someone who is hurting you; that slide is one of the forms of spiritual bypassing.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Buddha-Nature (Tathāgatagarbha): A Buddha Hidden in Every Being
- Contemplate one of the nine similes
Take one image from the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra — a buddha in a withered lotus, honey among bees, gold in filth — and let it reframe how you see what covers you.
- See afflictions as visiting stains
When anger, envy or shame arrives, recognise it as something visiting the mind rather than the mind itself.
- Practise as uncovering, not becoming
Reframe the point of practice from turning into someone better to removing what covers what is already there.
- Meet discouragement with the poor woman’s simile
When you have given up on yourself, recall the woman in the poorhouse who despised herself while carrying a future king.
- Hold your own worth and others’ as the same
Recognise buddha-nature in yourself and in others in the same breath, so it lifts self-respect without feeding self-importance.
- Ask whether what you are picturing is a self
When buddha-nature starts to feel like a pure inner you, test the idea against no-self and emptiness, as Buddhist schools have done for centuries.
- Dōgen’s turn: stop searching inside
Instead of hunting for a buddha hidden within, try Dōgen’s reading — that the whole of changing existence is buddha-nature.
Related concepts
- Anatta: The Buddhist Teaching of No-Self in Practice
What the no-self insight actually means — and the practices that make it useful, not nihilistic
- Non-Dual Awareness, Made Practical
Effortless mindfulness and the recognition of open, aware presence
- Zen Practice (Zazen and Beyond)
Zazen, shikantaza, koans, and beginner’s mind — mechanisms and honest evidence
- Self-Compassion, Made Practical
The three components, the mechanisms, and where the evidence is strong
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