Dear
Sangha, good morning. Today is the 28th of July 1998, and we are in the Upper
Hamlet. We are going to speak English today.
When I was a small boy, at the
age of seven or eight, I happened to see a drawing of the Buddha on the cover
of a Buddhist magazine. The Buddha was sitting on the grass, very peacefully,
very beautifully, and I was very impressed. The artist must have had a lot of
peace within himself, so that when he drew the Buddha, the Buddha was so peaceful.
Looking at the drawing of the Buddha made me happy, because around me people were
not very calm, or very happy. When I saw the drawing of the Buddha I was very
impressed, and I suddenly had the idea that I wanted to become someone like him,
someone who could sit very still and peacefully. I think that was the moment that
I first wanted to become a monk, but I did not know that. I wanted to be like
the Buddha.
You know that the Buddha is not a god, the Buddha was just a human
being like all of us, and he suffered very much as a teenager. He saw the suffering
in his kingdom, he saw how his father King Suddhodana was trying hard to make
the suffering less, but he seemed to be helpless. So the political way did not
seem to him to be a very effective one. As a teenager the young Siddhartha was
trying to find a way out of the situation of suffering. He was always searching
and searching for the way. I think that today many young people also do as the
young Siddhartha did: you look around yourselves, you don't see anything really
beautiful, really good, and really true, so you are confused. You are searching,
looking very hard to see whether there is something really beautiful, really good
or really true to embrace and follow.
I was very young, and yet I did have
that kind of feeling in me. That is why, when I saw the drawing of the Buddha,
I was so happy. I just wanted to be like him. And I was told that if you practice
well, you can be like a Buddha. The Buddha is not a god; the Buddha is just a
human being like us. Anyone that is peaceful, loving and understanding can be
called a Buddha. There were many Buddhas in the past, there are Buddhas in the
present moment, and there will be many Buddhas in the future. Buddha is not the
name of someone; Buddha is just a common name, to designate someone who has a
high degree of peace, who has a high degree of understanding and compassion.
When
I was about eleven, I went for a picnic on the mountain of Na Son, together with
several hundred boys and girls from my school. I was very excited about that picnic,
because I learned that we were going to climb the mountain Na Son, and on the
top was a monk, who lived there as a hermit and practiced in order to become a
Buddha. I had had picnics before, but this one was so special, because I knew
that if I climbed to the top of the mountain I would see the hermit, see someone
who was practicing in order to become like a Buddha. So that was my secret hope,
to be able to meet with the hermit. A hermit is someone who practices alone, who
does not want to be disturbed, and who wants to devote all of his time to the
practice.
At that time I did not know anything about the practice of mindful
breathing, or mindful walking; I did not know what walking meditation was. We
organized in teams of five boys, and we brought with us a few bottles of boiled
water, and rice balls. We squeezed cooked rice into the shape of bread, and it
was so compact that you could cut the rice into slices, and you would eat your
rice with sesame seeds, crushed roast peanuts, and a little bit of salt. I think
that in Plum Village you'll have to organize that kind of picnic some day--just
a slice of rice, eaten with sesame seeds-it's very delicious. Since I did not
know how to practice walking meditation, we tried to climb as quickly as possible.
We got very tired. We had hardly come halfway up the mountain before we were exhausted,
and the worse thing was that we had drunk all our water. We got very thirsty.
So we tried our best, and when we had climbed to the top, we were completely exhausted,
and thirsty; and we were given the order to prepare our picnic.
I did not care
a lot about eating. I wanted to go and look for the hermit. But it was very disappointing-someone
told me that the hermit was not there. Imagine my disappointment! A hermit is
someone who wants to be alone in his hut. Imagine
he learned that three or
four hundred children were coming! So he must have gone somewhere and hidden himself.
I believed that the hermit was still somewhere there in the woods, and that if
I ventured into the woods I might have a chance to see him and talk to him. So
I left my friends, my copains, there, and I went alone into the forest. The forest
was large, and there was not much chance of meeting someone who wanted to hide
himself in it.
A few minutes after I went into the forest, I began to hear
the sound of dripping water. The sound was so clear, so nice--like the sound of
a piano. It was so interesting that I tried to go in the direction of the sound.
Very soon after that I discovered a very beautiful natural well, made of blocks
of stone. The water was very high, and when I saw the water, so clear, so refreshing,
I was so happy, because I was extremely thirsty. To see the water was something
wonderful. So I came close to the well, I looked down, and I could see every detail
at the bottom of the well. The water was so limpid. I used my hand to cup the
water and I drank it. It was so delicious, I cannot describe to you how delicious
it was. I had never drunk anything like that. Believe me, it was much better than
Coca-Cola, even Coca-Cola with ice.
After having drunk the water from the well,
I felt completely satisfied. At that time I could not describe my feeling, but
now I think I can describe my feeling: it was the feeling of being completely
satisfied, when you don't have any more desire, even the desire to meet the hermit.
Very strange-why? Because in that moment, as a small boy, I believed that the
hermit had transformed himself into a well so that I could meet him privately,
in a kind of private audience with the hermit. You know, I had been reading a
lot of fairy tales, so I really believed that the hermit had transformed himself
into a well so that I could meet him personally. So I felt very privileged; I
felt that I was the only one who could have that wonderful opportunity of meeting
the hermit. Then I sat very close to the stones, and I lay down and looked at
the sky. The sky was very blue. I remember also seeing a few leaves of a branch
that was close by, hanging across the sky. Just a minute later, I fell into a
very deep sleep.
I don't know how long I slept, but the sleep must have been
very deep, because when I woke up I did not know where I was. I had to look around
to realize that I was on the top of the Na Son Mountain The space was so special,
the circumstances so special: I alone was allowed into that space to have that
wonderful encounter with the hermit in the form of a well. I did not want to leave
the well. I wanted to stay up there, but I remembered that my friends must have
been waiting for me. I had just suddenly disappeared, and that could have made
them very worried. So I had to leave the natural well with a lot of regret. On
my way down, suddenly a sentence came to my head, not in Vietnamese, but in French:
"I have tasted the most wonderful water in the world." That water may
symbolize a kind of spiritual experience.
When I arrived, my friends asked
me where I had been. I did not say anything-I did not tell them anything. I don't
know why. It seems that I wanted to keep the event as something sacred, I did
not want to share. I had the impression that if I told them about that, I would
lose something. That is why I was not talkative at all, that afternoon. You know,
my first experience with a Buddha was seeing the drawing on the cover of a Buddhist
magazine, of someone sitting on the grass, very peacefully. My second encounter
with the Buddha was when I was on the top of the Mountain Na-Son, and drinking
the water from that natural well. Later on, when I was twelve, I made the determination
that I would ask permission of my mother and father to become a monk, and I kept
that secret for many years. It was when I was about sixteen that I formally made
a request, and it was very fortunate that my parents agreed.
I have told you
that Siddhartha, before he became a Buddha, had already suffered a lot as a young
man, a teenager. He was looking very hard to see a path by which he could bring
happiness to himself and to many people around him, a path which could help him
to transform and to reduce the amount of suffering that he could see in himself
and around him.
(Bell)
I know that the young people must be confused from
time to time. I understand them. I know that by looking around they may not see
something beautiful, something really true or good to follow. Your feeling is
like the feeling of Siddhartha Gautama before he became the Buddha. That kind
of search is legitimate. It is very hard to be there when you don't really see
something truly beautiful, truly good. So many young people in our time do not
know what to do with their lives, just because they don't see any meaning to their
lives. That is why they live in a way that can destroy them, both physically and
mentally. I would like to invite the young people to inquire about the Buddha
as a young man, as someone who was searching for some meaning for his life. The
Buddha practiced, got insight, and with that insight and compassion he spent forty-five
years helping the people of his time, and after his passing away he continued
to serve. Many people today consider themselves to be the students of the Buddha,
practicing in a way that makes it possible for understanding and compassion to
be born in their hearts. When you have understanding and compassion in your heart,
your life has a meaning. You can relate to all living beings around you, and you
know that you can do something, you can be something, that can help relieve the
suffering around you.
Yesterday I got a request from a magazine in North America.
I don't know if you know of the magazine called Self. That is a magazine for young
women in the United States. Arnie says that the circulation of that magazine is
very large: every month they print 1,100,000 copies. They wanted me to write something
about freedom. They asked, "Thay, do you think that genuine freedom is possible
when suffering is still going on around you? Is it possible to be truly free when
so much suffering is going on around you?" I wrote about ten lines, and I
said that suffering is part of life, and suffering has a role to play in life,
because it is only against the background of suffering that we can identify happiness
and wellbeing. If we have not suffered, we have no chance to experience happiness
and wellbeing. So suffering is something that can help us to identify happiness
and wellbeing. To believe in a place where there is only happiness, where there
is no suffering at all--to me this is very naïve. Even if it is truly happiness,
without suffering there is no means to identify it as happiness. If you have never
been hungry, then you cannot experience the joy of having something to eat. If
you have not been away from your beloved one, missing him or her a lot, you cannot
recognize the joy of being close to that person. That is why happiness and suffering
"inter-are."
Also I said that most of the suffering that exists is
due to the fact that we are so ignorant. Most of the suffering that we endure
comes from our craving, our anger, our hate, our discrimination, and our delusions.
If you can get rid of these afflictions in yourself, you can remove a lot of suffering,
in yourself and around you. If you practice the teaching of your spiritual tradition,
you will be able to develop understanding and compassion within you, and the amount
of freedom you enjoy can be measured by the amount of understanding and compassion
you have in your heart. If you have more understanding and compassion, then your
freedom will be greater. With understanding and compassion in you, you can always
help to relieve the suffering around you. Because of that, you are no longer afraid
of suffering. You do not allow yourself to be drowned in the ocean of suffering;
you do not allow suffering to overwhelm you, because you already know how to transform
the suffering within you and around you. You are even capable of smiling at your
own sufferings, and the suffering around you, because that smile proves that you
have confidence in your capacity to transform it. That smile is born from your
awareness that suffering is there, but you can be something, you can do something,
in order to remove the suffering around you every day, every hour. That is why
freedom is possible. I insist that the amount of freedom you enjoy can be measured
by the amount of understanding and compassion that you have in your heart.
I
would like to tell the young people that there are ways to live your life so that
you can bring more understanding and compassion into your heart. Understanding
and compassion are something truly beautiful. If you look deeply into yourself
and around you, you will see that the seed of understanding and compassion is
in everyone, and if we know the practice, the way of mindful living, then we will
be able to generate the energy of understanding and compassion in ourselves. We
can recognize what is beautiful, what is true, what is good, in us and around
us, and our lives suddenly have a meaning. You are there in order to help, to
help relieve the suffering and to bring joy to our daily life. If you have a purpose,
a meaning to your life, you will know how to protect yourself, how to protect
your body, to protect your mind from the destruction that is going on around you.
Your life, your body, and your consciousness will become an instrument for peace,
for compassion, and when you protect yourself, when you protect your body and
your mind, you help protect all of us. You protect your children, you protect
your ancestors, and that is why I would like to tell the young people today that
the roots of goodness, the roots of beauty, the roots of truth are within us.
If we know how to practice mindful living, then we can touch these wonderful factors
in us, and we will be like Siddhartha Gautama, we will see a path to follow, the
path of understanding, the path of love, that can help reduce the suffering in
the world every day.
I have met my hermit in the form of a well. You may have
met your hermit also, but you might not have recognized it. Your hermit may have
been in the form of a tree, a rock, or a person. I think the moment when we meet
the hermit of our life we are transformed, we know where to go. That was my case--when
I met my hermit, I knew where I had to go. That is why I asked my parents to allow
me to become a monk. Becoming a monk is just one way; there are many other ways
that are equally beautiful. So I wish that every one of you here would be able
to meet your hermit very soon. And you must be very attentive in order not to
miss him, because you might meet him, and yet not recognize him. The hermit can
appear to you at any time. But if you are mindful, if you are attentive, when
your hermit appears, you will be able to recognize him at once. It would be a
joy for me if, someday when you meet the hermit, you will write me a letter, saying
"Thay, today I have met my hermit, and I'm very happy, I know where to go
now." Don't forget to do that. When you hear the small bell, you may stand
up, and bow to the Sangha before leaving the meditation hall.
(Bell)
The
Buddha said that every one of us has an island within, an island of peace and
stability within, and we should practice so that we can profit from the existence
of that island within ourselves. When he was eighty, the Buddha knew that he was
going to pass away in a few months, and he knew that his disciples were going
to miss him. During the last six months, around the city of Vaisali, he used to
talk to the monks and the nuns about taking refuge within yourself. The expression
is atadipa. Ata means self, dipa means island. When you go back to that island,
you experience peace and stability. The Buddha is there, the Dharma is there,
and the Sangha is there.
We can describe the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha
as forms of energy. Mindfulness is the kind of energy that helps us to be really
there in the present moment, body and mind united. Mindfulness is the kind of
energy that helps us to touch life deeply in the present moment. Buddha is my
mindfulness, shining near, shining far. So when you have the energy of mindfulness
in yourself, the Buddha is present, and light is there. With mindfulness you can
see the situation more clearly, and you know exactly what to do and what not to
do. We know that the practice of mindful breathing can maintain your mindfulness
alive as long as you wish. Or the practice of walking meditation can also maintain
mindfulness alive as long as you wish. So you might like to keep the Buddha with
you, to invite him to stay with you as long as you like, by the practice of mindful
breathing, mindful walking, mindful sitting. Because that is an energy for your
protection. Buddha is not an abstract idea, Buddha is something very real. Your
Buddha nature is your capacity of being mindful, calm and concentrated. So you
have confidence in the Buddha, because you know that you are capable of generating
the energy of mindfulness in you. What makes a Buddha a Buddha is the energy of
mindfulness. Mindfulness carries within itself the energy of calm concentration,
and if mindfulness is there for some time, insight is born. That is why mindfulness,
concentration and insight go together. So, in your island you have the Buddha.
Visualize a beautiful island within yourself, with beautiful trees, clear streams
of water, birds, all your ancestors, spiritual or blood, and you can encounter
the Buddha, you can take the hand of the Buddha and walk on that island. It is
possible. When you are mindful you are a Buddha at the same time. Taking the hand
of the Buddha and walking is something you can do every day.
Be an island unto
yourself. "As an island unto myself, Buddha is my mindfulness, shining near,
shining far. Dharma is my breathing, guarding body and mind." The Dharma
is there in the island, and I can deeply touch the Dharma inside of me. The Dharma
not as a talk, not as a book, but the living Dharma; because when you practice
mindful breathing, you are generating the living Dharma, the Dharma that does
not need words. When you are practicing mindfulness of breathing or walking, you
yourself become the living Dharma. When we see you, we see the Dharma. And if
you teach, you don't teach with your mouth, you teach with your body, your breath,
your steps. So the living Dharma is something real, not something abstract. You
can afford to have the Dharma anytime you want, available twenty-four hours a
day, if you care to touch it. Dharma is my breathing, protecting body and mind.
Because mindful breathing helps mindfulness to stay alive. The energy of mindfulness
is an energy of protection. We know that the energy of mindfulness generated by
ourselves can protect us, but the mindfulness generated by a sangha
Imagine
one thousand, two thousand, three thousand people, practicing walking meditation
and enjoying every step they make. A lot of energy is born from that kind of collective
practice. I usually organize a day of mindfulness in a practice center called
Spirit Rock in northern California, and we usually have 2500 or 3000 people doing
walking meditation or sitting meditation together. The collective energy of mindfulness
is very wonderful, powerful. If you happen to be in that crowd, and if you open
yourself for that energy to penetrate into you, you can get healing, you can get
transformation. That is why the energy of mindfulness, whether individual or collective,
is the Buddha protecting you. We should practice in order to touch the Buddha
and the Dharma several times a day, in our daily lives. The Sangha is also available.
First of all the five elements within us--form, feelings, perceptions, mental
formations, and consciousness, the five Skandhas--may be in disharmony with each
other when you don't practice. Illnesses, disease, are born when the five elements
are in contradiction, in disharmony. But when you begin to practice mindfulness
of breathing, the energy of mindfulness generated from the practice of mindful
breathing begins to reorganize the Five Elements. The Five Elements begin to come
together and operate in harmony, and that is a Sangha, the Sangha within. Sangha
means harmony, a community living in harmony. So we look into our person, and
we recognize the five elements of our person. The physical aspect is form, and
then there are the feelings, the perceptions, the mental formations and the consciousnesses.
Under the supervision and the guidance of mindful breathing the Five Elements
begin to come together and operate in harmony. Your territory begins to be surveyed
by mindfulness, and you know how to restore peace and harmony within your kingdom
of the Five Elements. The Sangha is inside, it is not only around you, but it
is inside. Therefore, when you go back to the island of self with mindfulness,
you have a wonderful refuge. In difficult moments, you should be able to dwell
in security in that kind of island. Make it available, learn to enjoy and to make
use of that island within yourself. That is the recommendation made by Buddha
when he was eighty.
Suppose there is a storm raging-you don't mind, because
your house is solid. You close all the doors and windows, and although the wind
is blowing fiercely outside, and there is rain and thunder, you still feel safe
within your home. The island of self is like that. You have to practice, to learn,
in order to allow that shelter, that island within yourself to appear for your
use. During your daily life, learn to dwell in that safe island of mindfulness
within you. Then you will be protected from provocations, you will be protected
from anger, and from despair. There are many elements around you that are ready
to invade you, to attack you and to deprive you of your peace and stability. So
you have to organize in order to protect yourself, and to build up the practice
of dwelling in that island of self is the practice recommended by the Buddha.
In
the position of sitting, of walking, while you are doing the cooking, of the washing,
please learn to dwell in that island of self, and feel safe when you do these
things. When you need to go out of the house you can still carry that island of
self with you, and everywhere you go you will feel safe, because you have a safe
island to protect you. Nothing can assail you anymore, because you have that island
of self, available every moment. During your sleep that island is also available.
Before going to sleep, you can go back to that island and feel comfortable there.
No one can remove that island of safety from you. They can steal your money, they
can steal your car, but they can never steal that safe island within yourself.
It is possible to tell the young people to practice this same way. They are very
vulnerable when they go out into society, and if they don't have a refuge inside,
it is very easy for them to get into despair. Please practice taking refuge in
the island of self, and help the young people to do the same.
Every time you
have a strong emotion, like anger or despair, it is as though you are exposed
to a storm. Look at the tree outside the window. She is trying her best to stand
in the storm. When you look at the top of the tree, you see that several small
branches and leaves are swaying back and forward very violently in the wind, and
you have the feeling that they could be broken at any time. We feel very much
the same when we are exposed to the storm of emotions. We feel that we may die
because the emotion is so strong-the fear, the despair, the anger, the unhappiness-but
if you look down a little, you see that the trunk of the tree is firmly rooted
in the soil, and then you have another impression. You know that the tree is going
to stand in the storm. We are like trees also. On this level we are very vulnerable.
So during the storms of emotion, if you dwell on this level, the level of the
brain, the level of the heart, you might be broken, you might feel that you are
not going to be able to stand it, you are going to die. But bring your attention,
down, down, to the navel, a little bit below the navel, and pay attention to the
rising and falling of your stomach, practicing mindful breathing. When you breathe
in your stomach will rise, and when you breathe out, your stomach will fall. To
stop all the thinking, to just focus all your attention on the rise and fall of
your stomach, and to dwell there at the root of your tree, and not to float up
here at the level of the heart or the brain, is a very important practice. If
you can do that for ten minutes, or fifteen minutes, the emotion will go away
and you survive the storm. And if you can survive the storm once, you have confidence.
The next time that depression comes, when a strong emotion comes, you will do
the same. And that confidence is very important in you.
We should know that
we are more, much more than our emotions. An emotion is something that comes,
stays for some time, and goes. Things are impermanent. Nothing can be permanent.
Your emotion is not going to stay there forever. You know that you are more than
your emotions. Why do you have to die because of one emotion? But so many young
people, when they are overwhelmed by their emotions, have the feeling that they
cannot stand it, and the only way to stop the suffering is to go and kill themselves.
That is why the number of young people who commit suicide in our times is so high:
they don't know how to handle their emotions. It's not very difficult - to be
aware that the emotion is just an emotion. It is born, it stays for some time,
and it will go away. Why do you have to die because of it? You are much more than
your emotions.
If you know how to practice taking good care of your tree during
a storm, you will be all right. If you continue to think, to imagine, and if you
give yourself up to the feeling, you will be blown away. You need to know how
to go down to your roots and concentrate all your mind into mindful breathing
and into the rise and fall of your abdomen. The best position is the sitting position,
because in that position you are more solid. I am sure that after about a dozen,
or twenty minutes, your emotion will go away, and you will have proved that you
are stronger than your emotion. But please don't wait until a strong emotion comes
in order to practice, because by that time you will have forgotten the practice.
So, please try right now, every day, and spend a number of minutes practicing
that way. After some time, perhaps twenty-one days, you will have the habit, and
if an emotion comes you will remember to practice. If you have overcome once,
you will have a tremendous confidence in your capacity of dealing with the emotions.
You have to be capable of doing that, and show it to the young people, that is
it is okay to have an emotion, and that we can take care of our emotions. We can
teach the young people to do it, even if they are still very young: "Darling,
you sit with Mommy. I will hold your hand. Let us not think of anything; let us
pay attention to our bellies. Breathing in, it is rising; breathing out, it is
falling." And you can use your mindfulness to support your child, and both
you and your child can practice together. She will develop confidence also, because
after that the crisis will go away, and she will have faith in the practice. Try
your best to put into practice the teaching of the Buddha, going back to the island
of self, enjoying the island of self. Then when you feel agitated, when you feel
insecure, when you feel unstable, just follow your in-breath and out-breath, and
come back to that island of self, and you'll feel all right. These practices are
not complicated-just the good habit of doing that, and you have your refuge.
In
Buddhism we speak of taking refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma,
and the Sangha. But to me, taking refuge is not a matter of belief. It is a matter
of practice. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are not abstract things, things that exist
only in the cloud. Buddha is the energy of mindfulness that you do have, even
if it's not sufficient yet; you know that if you continue the practice you will
cultivate more of it for your protection. Dharma
you know that you can transform
yourself into living Dharma if you know how to live your daily life mindfully,
the art of mindful living. And Sangha
you know you can coordinate, you can
restore harmony between different elements within yourself, and between you and
other members of the community. So Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are very concrete,
you can touch them with your finger, or with your feet. The island of safety is
made of these elements, and to practice like that is to practice protecting yourself
and protecting your beloved ones. If you are safe, then you can help another person
to be safe. Remember when the plane is about to take off: the flight attendant
always reminds you that if it should happen that there is not enough oxygen to
breathe, oxygen masks will be available and you should put on your oxygen mask
first, before helping your child. This is the same thing. You have to make the
island of self available to yourself first, and then you can help the people in
your family, your beloved one, to enjoy the same practice.
(Bell)
In our
midst there is a lady who has cancer. She has been coming to Plum Village every
year and practicing, and every time she gets back the quality of her blood is
always much better than if she had stayed in her own country. It is a pity that
she cannot stay here, because I know that to be here, practicing with a Sangha
and living a simple life, would help her very much with her health. She wrote
to me, "Thay, I am very grateful for the practice, for the Dharma, for the
teaching. I see its value, its effectiveness. I want to live, I don't want to
die. I am still very young." I think this is partly the question of the environment.
Our society is organized in such a way that we live our daily lives without a
lot of peace and stability, and there is a lot of stress. So the question of changing
the environment, whether to go somewhere else, or whether to work together with
other friends to transform the environment where we find it, is very important.
Bring more elements of the Pure Land into your place. Maybe elements of your Pure
Land are hidden somewhere there, somewhere very close to you. Discover them, and
make them available in your immediate surroundings. With some practice of looking
deeply, we might effect some changes in our environment, so that the place will
be safer to live, and healing can take place more easily. This is the problem
of Sangha building. That is why, during all of the retreats that we offer in Europe
and North America, we always urge people to meet to discuss Sangha building, and
also the work of improving the environment.
All of us want to live, we don't
want to die. But the question of living and dying is a deep question within Buddhism,
and the practice of looking deeply can show us that it's not possible for us to
die, because our true nature is the nature of no-birth and no-death. Birth and
death are just two aspects of the same reality. Without dying, birth cannot take
place. We know that many of the cells in our body die every day. If they didn't
die, how could life be possible? How could the new cells be born? So birth and
death help each other to be possible. If we had to mourn and cry and organize
funerals every time a cell died in our bodies, we would not have time left to
do anything else.
When you come to a Buddhist practice center, you might learn
ways to relieve some of your suffering, such as fear, despair, anger, agitation,
and so on. You may learn ways to improve your relationship with the other person,
but the greatest relief you get is by touching your own nature, your true nature
of no-birth and no-death, and that is the ultimate purpose of Buddhist meditation.
We know that meditation means to stop, to be there, to be calmer, to be more concentrated,
so that you can look deeply into what is there in the here and the now. You can
see deeply into the true nature of reality. The insight you get will liberate
you from your fear, your suffering. Looking deeply is the phrase we use to translate
vipashyana, translated sometimes as "insight meditation." You practice
into order to get insight into the true nature of reality. That practice can be
described simply as the practice of looking deeply. But how to look deeply? Do
you have to use your thinking? Or do you have to refrain from thinking in order
to really practice looking deeply?
You have to touch your nature to know who
you truly are. In the beginning we have talked about the wave, and the water.
We know that a wave can live her life as a wave, but she can also live her life
as water at the same time. It would be a pity if a wave did not know that she
is water. To be a wave is wonderful, but to be a non-wave is also wonderful. I
have asked the children to draw a wave, and after that to draw water for me. Water
can be a wave, but water can be a non-wave, and water can be very, very still,
to the point that she can reflect the blue sky and the clouds and the trees perfectly.
We can enjoy being a wave, but we can enjoy just being still water. Where can
we find that stillness? Does it exist in the wave? Yes, because you cannot take
the wave out of the water, and therefore, touching the wave deeply, you touch
the water in within it, and you know that if you can touch the water, you can
touch the capacity of being still. No one denies the fact that water can be still.
So the capacity of being still, the capacity of reflecting things as they are,
you know that is in the water. The Buddha nature, the capacity of understanding,
of loving, of being non-fear, of being liberated, we have it deep within ourselves.
So once we have touched that true nature within ourselves, we can transcend all
kinds of fear. We know that being a wave is wonderful, but being a non-wave is
also beautiful.
I want to live, yes that is the truth, but who forbids you
to live? If you don't live in this form, then you will live in another form. When
the time comes for the cloud to become rain, if the cloud is wise, the cloud will
not be upset, or be scared, because the cloud know that being a cloud floating
in the sky is wonderful, but being the rain falling on the ocean, on the mountain,
on the field, is also wonderful. When you have touched that nature of no-birth
and no-death in you, you can remove your fear, you can remove your anguish, your
suffering. The ultimate purpose of Buddhist meditation is to touch your true nature
of no-birth and no-death. That true nature is sometimes called nirvana.
Nirvana
means extinction. Extinction of what? Extinction of notions such as being and
non-being, birth and death, one and many. We have created all these notions that
become the ground of all our suffering and our fear. Because we have not been
able to touch the true nature of our being, we are caught by these pairs of opposites.
To die, what does it mean? In our minds it means that you are someone, and then
suddenly you become no one. You are something, suddenly you become nothing-that
is our idea of death. But if we observe things deeply, we see nothing like that
in reality. There is nothing that can be reduced to nothing, or to nothingness.
Can you reduce a cloud into nothingness? No, you can only help the cloud to become
rain. You can help the rain to become snow. But you cannot make a cloud into nothingness.
A sheet of paper-can you reduce it into nothingness? No. You may burn it, and
it is transformed in many ways. Part of it will become a cloud, the smoke rising.
Part of it will become the heat, penetrating into the cosmos. Part of it will
become ash, that can be reborn as a flower or a blade of grass, sometime later.
So everything is on their way, on their journey of manifestation of being. You
are also like that. If you don't manifest yourself in this form, then you manifest
yourself in another form. Please don't be afraid of being nothing. Nothingness
is just an idea. Non-being is just an idea. The Buddha said not only is non-being
an idea, but being is also an idea. Reality transcends both being and non-being.
When
conditions are sufficient, something manifests itself, and you describe it as
being. But when the conditions are not sufficient, and it has not manifested,
you describe it as non-being. That is wrong. It's like when you look into space,
into the air. You don't see any color, you don't hear any sound, you don't see
anything, but if you have a radio or a television set, you will capture radio
or television programs, and sights and sounds will manifest themselves. So the
radio or the television set is just one more condition enabling you to see the
signals manifest. Signals are reaching us all the time, signals from satellites,
and because we lack one condition, we believe that they do not exist, but they
do exist. So our notion of being is also a notion. And our notion of non-being
is another notion. Reality transcends both being and non-being. That is the teaching
of the Buddha in so many, many discourses. The typical sentence is like this:
when conditions are sufficient, your body manifests, and you say that the body
"is". And when conditions are not longer sufficient, and your body does
not manifest itself, then you say that there is no body. Your idea of "there
is" and "there is not" are just ideas. Your true nature is free
from these two ideas: being and non-being. That is why, within the teachings of
the Buddha, to be or not to be, that is not the question. The Buddha helps us
to practice stopping, concentrating, calming, in order to be able to direct our
looking deeply into the heart of things, to discover the true nature of reality,
the nature of no birth, no death, no being, no non-being, no coming, no going.
If you come to a practice center, and you don't learn anything about that practice,
it would be a pity.
The Buddha offered us a teaching called the teaching about
the Three Dharma Seals. A seal is something that you use to certify that something
is authentic, it is not a fake. So every teaching that does not bear the mark
of the Three Dharma Seals cannot be described as an authentic Buddhist teaching.
I would like to tell you something about this teaching today, because some of
you have to leave tomorrow.
Impermanence, Anitya, is the first Dharma Seal.
Any teaching that does not bear the mark of impermanence is not a Buddhist teaching.
What does impermanence mean in the context of the Buddha's teaching? Impermanence
means that everything is changing all the time. Nothing can remain the same in
two consecutive moment--you also. The "you" of this minute is no longer
the "you" of a minute ago. So you are not identical to yourself in two
consecutive moments. Intellectually, we understand that, but practically, we don't
behave as if we have seen that truth. When you live with someone close to you,
you might practice impermanence, because impermanence should not be a theory,
it should be a practice, an insight. You dwell in the concentration of impermanence
when you know that you are impermanent, and so is the person who lives with you.
You don't know what will happen to you tomorrow, or what will happen to her tomorrow.
That is why you cherish this present moment as the most important moment, and
you know that everything you can do to make her happy today, you do it, without
waiting until tomorrow. Many of us live in such a way that it seems as if the
other person is going to be there for one million years, and she will remain the
same for ever and ever. That is ignorance, that is the absence of the insight
of impermanence. So the insight of impermanence helps you to be aware that if
there are things you can do today to make him happy, you should do them right
away. This present moment is a wonderful moment when you can feel life as something
real. You don't wait until tomorrow in order to live your life, because you know
that this moment is a very special moment. It is available, and you are able to
recognize it as the only moment when you are able to live deeply. So you touch
life deeply in that moment, because you have the insight of impermanence. You
cherish the presence of the person you love in this very moment, because she is
available only in the here and the now.
Impermanence is not something pessimistic,
because impermanence is the very ground of life. If things were not impermanent,
life would not be possible. If things were not impermanent, your daughter could
not grow up, she would remain like that for ever. If things were not impermanent,
the dictatorial regime would remain like that forever. If things were not impermanent,
the grain of corn that you sowed yesterday would remain a grain of corn for the
whole year. It is because of impermanence that life is possible. If things are
impermanent, it is possible for you to transform your pain and your suffering.
So impermanence is good. You suffer not because things are impermanent, you suffer
because things are impermanent but you believe them to be permanent. That is why
the insight on impermanence helps you not to suffer too much. Impermanence is
an insight, a concentration, a samadhi. You can dwell in the insight of impermanence,
and you will become a very wise person. So if impermanence is a samadhi, a concentration,
an insight, you should not deal with it as a theory. You have to live with it.
One who keeps the insight of impermanence alive within himself can avoid making
a lot of mistakes and can bring a lot of happiness to the people who live around
him.
(Bell)
What is non-self, Anatta (Pali)? It means impermanence. If things
are impermanent, they don't remain the same things forever. You of this moment
are no longer you of a minute ago. There is no permanent entity within us, there
is only a stream of being. There is always a lot of input and output. The input
and the output happen in every second, and we should learn how to look at life
as streams of being, and not as separate entities. This is a very profound teaching
of the Buddha. For instance, looking into a flower, you can see that the flower
is made of many elements that we can call non-flower elements. When you touch
the flower, you touch the cloud. You cannot remove the cloud from the flower,
because if you could remove the cloud from the flower, the flower would collapse
right away. You don't have to be a poet in order to see a cloud floating in the
flower, but you know very well that without the clouds there would be no rain
and no water for the flower to grow. So cloud is part of flower, and if you send
the element cloud back to the sky, there will be no flower. Cloud is a non-flower
element. And the sunshine
you can touch the sunshine here. If you send back
the element sunshine, the flower will vanish. And sunshine is another non-flower
element. And earth, and gardener
if you continue, you will see a multitude
of non-flower elements in the flower. In fact, a flower is made only with non-flower
elements. It does not have a separate self.
A flower cannot be by herself alone.
A flower has to "inter-be" with everything else that is called non-flower.
That is what we call inter-being. You cannot be, you can only inter-be. The word
inter-be can reveal more of the reality than the word "to be". You cannot
be by yourself alone, you have to inter-be with everything else. So the true nature
of the flower is the nature of inter-being, the nature of no self. The flower
is there, beautiful, fragrant, yes, but the flower is empty of a separate self.
To be empty is not a negative note. Nagarjuna, of the second century, said that
because of emptiness, everything becomes possible.
So a flower is described
as empty. But I like to say it differently. A flower is empty only of a separate
self, but a flower is full of everything else. The whole cosmos can be seen, can
be identified, can be touched, in one flower. So to say that the flower is empty
of a separate self also means that the flower is full of the cosmos. It's the
same thing. So you are of the same nature as a flower: you are empty of a separate
self, but you are full of the cosmos. You are as wonderful as the cosmos, you
are a manifestation of the cosmos. So non-self is another guide that Buddha offers
us in order for us to successfully practice looking deeply. What does it mean
to look deeply? Looking deeply means to look in such a way that the true nature
of impermanence and non-self can reveal themselves to you. Looking into yourself,
looking into the flower, you can touch the nature of impermanence and the nature
of non-self, and if you can touch the nature of impermanence and non-self deeply,
you can also touch the nature of nirvana, which is the Third Dharma Seal.
We
have spoken about two dimensions of reality. The first dimension is described
as the historical dimension, dimension historique, and the other dimension, the
ultimate dimension. When we look at a wave, we see that the wave is revealed through
many characteristics. The wave seems to have a beginning and the wave seems to
have an end. The wave seems to have an "up" and a "down".
The wave can be seen as this or that, more beautiful or less beautiful than that,
more intelligent, more spiritual or less spiritual than the other waves. And these
ideas, such as birth and death, beginning or end, high or low, more or less beautiful,
make the life of the wave miserable. If the wave is caught into these notions,
the wave does not seem to understand impermanence and non-self. In fact, the wave
is made of all the other waves. You can calculate that wave is born from the movement
of the water, and looking into the wave, if you make a study of it, you can understand
what is going on in the ocean. It is like the nuclear scientists who said that
one electron is made of all the other electrons. One electron can be simultaneously
here and there, everywhere. That language cannot be easily understood by those
of us who do not know anything about nuclear physics.
Those of us who have
practiced looking deeply into the nature of no-birth and no-death, who understand
the kind of language that the Buddha used, have heard that the wave, while living
her life as a wave, can learn to live the life of water at the same time. If she
can go back to herself, and touch the water within herself, she will get rid of
all these notions: beginning and end, high and low, more or less beautiful. Once
she knows that she is water, then all the fear, all the jealousy, all the discrimination
will vanish, and she will have peace. We are also like that. Touching our true
nature of no-birth and no-death, we will no longer be afraid of anything, whether
that is being or non-being, whether that is beginning or ending, coming or going,
one or many. Nirvana here means the silencing of all notions, including the notions
of coming, going, being, non-being, birth and death. If you have a coin, that
can be an example. You see the head, the tail, two aspects of the franc. One is
impermanence, one is no self; in fact, these are the same, they belong to the
same reality. And there is a third dimension: that is the metal that the piece
of money is made of. It is nirvana, it is the base for the other things. So impermanence
and non-self are what we experience when we begin to touch the world of birth
and death, when we touch the historical dimension. If we know how to touch, we
will touch the nature of impermanence, of non-self. And when we touch this nature
deeply, we touch nirvana. You don't have to leave the world of the phenomena in
order to touch the world of the noumena. You don't have to stop being a wave in
order to become water. You can live your historical dimension deeply, with mindfulness,
then you can touch very deeply your true nature of being.
There was a student
of meditation in Vietnam, who lived in the thirteenth century. One day he heard
his master saying that you should make an effort to enter into the realm of no-birth
and no-death. And the student asked, "Respected Teacher, where can I find
the realm of no-birth and no-death?" and the teacher said, "You can
find it right in the world of birth and death." Where do you tell the wave
to go to find water? You find water right in the wave. So nirvana, the nature
of no-birth and no-death, is right there in the world of birth and death, if you
know how to touch it, because birth and death is only an appearance.
To be
born, what does it mean? In our minds, to be born means that from nothing you
suddenly become something, from no one, you suddenly become someone; but looking
deeply you don't see anything like that. From nothing, how could something become
something? A sheet of paper, before it was born as a sheet of paper, was it nothing?
Or was it something already. The sheet of paper, before it was born, was the sunshine,
the cloud, and the tree. The moment of its birth was only a moment of transformation,
of continuation. So that is not exactly the moment of birth. The moment of your
birth is only a moment of continuation, because before you were born, you have
already been there. From nothing, you can never become something. From no one,
you can never become someone. That is why, instead of singing "happy birthday
to you", we should sing "happy continuation day to you". Also,
at the moment of our so-called death, we can sing the same: happy continuation
to you. You continue in other forms. But you don't need this moment to come in
order for you to continue.
When I look at myself, I see very clearly that I
have begun my continuation a long time ago. If you look at me a little more deeply,
you will find out that I am not only here, I am elsewhere, like an electron, which
is at the same time here, and there. If you get in touch with my disciples, my
students, you recognize my presence in them. If you pick up a book or a tape in
a distant city, you know that I am there. So I am not really only here. I am everywhere.
I have gone into many directions. It is very difficult for you to identify my
presence if you don't practice looking deeply. And it is impossible for me to
die. I will continue for a long time. And I am in you. You cannot reduce me into
nothingness. My practice, my being, my insight, my suffering, my happiness, have
gone very far, so far that I have no means to know. I am now in my own country
giving Dharma talks, doing sitting meditation with other people. I am now in a
distant prison, because there are prisoners who are practicing sitting meditation
and walking meditation using my books. I am in China, I am in Japan, I am in Russia.
So it is not easy to identify my presence, if you don't know how to practice looking
deeply.
In Zen circles, sometimes they may give you a subject of meditation
to ponder: "Tell me, novice, what did your face look like before your grandmother
was born?" That is a very nice invitation to go on a journey to find your
true self, your true nature, the nature of no-birth and no-death. Nirvana is not
something that we don't have, that we have to attain. Just as water is not something
that the wave does not already have: the wave has always been water. We have been
"nirvanized" a long time ago. We need only to go deep into ourselves
to recognize the fact that our ground of being is nirvana. If you come from the
Christian tradition, you might like to call it God--Nirvana, the ground of your
being, the ground of no-birth and no-death. There is no reason for you to be afraid,
and you can enjoy every moment of your daily life that is available to you. The
greatest gift that the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara can make to you is the gift
of non-fear. The insight into the nature of no-birth and no-death is the ultimate
aim of the practice. It would be a pity if you came to a practice center and did
not learn anything about that. There are many discourses of the Buddha on this
subject. Enjoy your studies and enjoy your practice.
(Three bells)
(End
of Dharma talk)