Well as Buddhists following the path, then we get teachings both ways. To encourage us, the teaching that we are all Buddha if we could but see it, and that to be awakened is easier than to be unawakened, and that to a Buddha we are all Buddha already.

However that’s likely to make us lazy “I’m Buddha already nothing to do, so why bother doing anything?”. So then there are the teachings on how rare it is and how precious to be a human, to have a teaching we can follow like this, to have taken birth at a time when there are such teachings and a path to follow. For instance, the teaching of the turtle and the yoke:

“"Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?"

"It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole."

"It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.

"Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"”

Chiggala Sutta: The Hole

So that’s a common meditation in Buddhist traditions - to contemplate the value of this life.

So in a way yes you are Buddha, so is everyone, so are tiny insects, at least in the teachings of some of the schools of Buddhism. And in all the schools we all have that connection to awakening. There is no being that hasn’t got that potential to wake up - and if so - then where is the difference between that maybe far future when they are Buddha and the present?

The whole thing is really rather like a Zen koan. If one could understand this, or relate directly to it, if one didn’t have it as a question, I think one would be awakened and Buddha.

So for anyone to say that you aren’t Buddha is to be overly discouraging, but to say you are Buddha is to promote laziness. No-one else can know anyway, unless they are Buddha already in which case then at least according to some of the schools they will already see you as Buddha.

However to be Buddha is to realize cessation of all unsatisfactoriness. To relate to the flowing changing nature of things, to impermanence, to losing things, to things breaking, to death, to everything falling apart - and - not that you are numb to all that, it’s not that you are able to block off feeling so that everything is kind of dim and clouded - that’s sleeping, trying to sleep your life away, not waking up. But rather to open out to it.

To be able to connect to all that in the innermost most softest gentle part of your being. Trungpa Rinpoche once described the Buddhist path as like swallowing a baby porcupine, to take something spiny and sharp into the most sensitive part of your body, as something you open out to with tenderness and loving kindness. Are you doing that? In every moment of your life? We all have that capability, indeed, we already all are that. When they say we are all Buddha already, it’s like that