According to the Lotus Sutra, which Shakyamuni Buddha taught near the end of his life, Buddhahood exists as the highest potential present in every human being. It is a state of perfect freedom, in which each person is aware and awakened to the eternal and ultimate truth that they are a spiritual, eternal being, living a human experience.
We are a a spiritual being, because at our core, within our Buddha nature, we are connected with the Mystic Law. According to Daisaku Ikeda, in Life an Enigma, a Precious Jewel, “In the innermost depths of all beings there is the primal life-force and it causes living beings to live. The same force supports inorganic matter and works it into the harmonies and rhythms of the great cosmic existence. In Buddhism it is called the Mystic Law. It is what is called God in other religions, but it is different from God in that it is perfectly immanent in the cosmos and in human life. It is not as force outside the cosmos. It is the cosmos itself. The true nature of the cosmos and of life is the fusion into entity of the physical law of life and the spiritual law of life.” “The spiritual law of all living beings is founded on cosmic life itself.”
We are one with it in the same way that an individual wave is one with and has the same qualities of the ocean.
That universal, spiritual, some would say a divine core, is creative, unlimited and not bound by any life circumstance. it embodies, compassion, vitality, a deep wisdom and unshakeable happiness. When we are awakened to the reality of our lives, that we are one with universal life, we can be called a Buddha.