For a very long time, I have been trying to understand human nature. I think I have been looking for something that doesn’t exist, or at least doesn’t exist in the same sense that a tree outside my window exists. Thinking about my “nature” is confusing because the noun is not based on anything that is concrete and material. I don’t share a common “nature” with other humans, but I do share some of the same potential.
In my Sangha, we sometimes talk about humans having a Buddha nature. This is confusing because it is hard to find actualized Buddhas. So it is misleading to speak of sharing a common nature as though we have a reality in common. Being creatures with Buddha nature only means that we have the potential to become actualized as the Buddha was. Few of us are yet Buddhas. Few of us manifest what we refer to as our Buddha nature.
Being human by nature presents the same confusing notion. While anyone who is identified as homo sapiens sapiens is considered to be human by nature, that does not mean that they are actually human in the same manner as everyone else. I may have the potential to be human, but how that nature is manifest is unique to me.
Not everyone is human in the same way. In the most fundamental way, each of us is differently human. Our human nature is realized in different ways. While we might be considered to have the same nature, what we are is actually different. We are not the same.
Our nature is not something. The only way our human nature is something is if it is actualized in how we act. Our actions put us in the realm of reality. Anything we call human nature is but a collection of potentiality. Much of that potentiality is scarcely realized or actualized. Only fragments of our human nature is manifested.
I think each of us is potentially human in a different way. We certainly manifest a “human nature” in a different way. I think I have been trying to understand human nature in the wrong way, or perhaps have been looking in the wrong place. I think I want to give this more thought.