I've been looking at "Everything is the Buddha" from the perspective of a sock in a washing machine.
I (the sock) am going along doing my job, keeping someone's foot warm and dry, feeling pretty good about myself and my place in the world. Then I get taken off the foot, taken out of my role in life (the whole reason I exist!), and thrown into a machine with other items that look and smell different from me. In rushes water and suds and the whole contraption starts agitating and spinning. I'm getting tossed around, entangled with things I have no business getting entangled with, and my whole bewildered being cries out, What is going on? Eventually things slow down. I'm removed from the monstrous tilt-a-whirl, and stuck on a wire in the hot sun (this is an environmentally conscious, energy-saving sock owner). I hang out there not knowing my fate or future. What am I doing here? What will become of me, pinned like a prisoner, unable to move or do what I was created to do? At long last, I'm rescued. I'm folded (ah, back with my own kind!) and placed in my old sock-drawer-home where I await my chance, once again, to fulfill my role of keeping someone's foot warm and dry. Life is back to the way "it should be."
From the sock's limited perspective, only when things are comfortable (or at least familiar) can it feel that "All is well." From a more expansive perspective of the sock-wearing human, we see what the poor, lovable sock doesn't see. We see that all is well, and all has been well through the entire process. We see this because we hold a larger perspective.
When the world feels like a giant tilt-a-whirl, and life as we know it appears to be ended or at least threatened, I like to recall that larger perspective that knows "all is well" through the entire process. Partly because it reassures me, but mostly because it's true. In my experience, it has always been true. From that larger perspective, not only can I see that everything is the Buddha, I feel embraced by everything is the Buddha.
Gasshō,
Rebecca