Hành Trình Vô Ngã by
Vô Ngã Vô Ưu
Transcript of Thich Nhat Hanh English Dharma Talks
16 We are our Ancestors and The Sutra on Measuring and
Reflecting
Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh
on March 26, 1998 in Plum Village, France.
Dear Friends,
Today is the 26th of
March and we are in the New Hamlet in the Spring Retreat.
When we hear the
sound of the bell, we should open ourselves up to allow all the generations of
ancestors in us to hear the bell at the same time as we do. It means we
shouldn’t imprison ourselves in a shell of self – we should allow our ancestors
to listen to the bell at the same time. That is our practice at that moment,
because all the generations of ancestors, including our father and our mother
are in us in a very concrete way - in every cell of our body. The body contains
the mind – the soma contains the psyche, and we could say that the mind also
contains the body. That means that the psyche contains the soma and that psyche
includes feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness and we
should learn to see our mental formations are made out of cells, just as the
body is made out of cells. The cells of the body contain the cells of the
consciousness and the cells of the consciousness contain the cells of the body.
Psyche and soma are
just two sides of the same reality. There isn’t one that precedes the other,
just like the particle and the wave are two aspects of the same reality. The
wave contains the particle, just as the particle contains the wave. The reality
of us is the reality of body and mind. We could call ourselves psyche and we
could call ourselves soma, but in fact psyche and soma are two aspects manifesting
from one reality. If we look into one cell of our body, or one cell of our
consciousness, we recognize the presence of all the generations of ancestors in
us – that is the truth. Our ancestors are not just human beings. Before human
beings appeared we were other species. We have been trees, plants, grasses,
minerals, squirrels and deer. We have been monkeys and one-celled animals and
all these generations of ancestors are present in each cell of our body as well
as our mind and we are the continuation of this stream of life. Therefore, when
we hear the bell, it is not a separate "I" which is listening to the
bell, but it is the stream, the vast stream of life, and this is the practice
of no-self. We talk a lot about no-self. We could talk about it very fluently
but we don’t practice no-self, we just talk about it. When we hear the sound of
the bell and we allow all the generations of ancestors and all our descendants,
which are already present in our body, to hear it also then we are experiencing
the reality of no-self which the Buddha taught. No-self is not some vague idea,
but it is a reality which we carry in our very person and we only need to
listen properly to the bell and we can go beyond the shell of self. We can go
beyond the prison of the idea of a separate self and we allow the sound of the
bell to penetrate every generation of the past and the future which is in us.
We were earlier
talking about guava fruit. Even when the guava fruit is not yet ripe, it has
all its seeds of future trees. When we are only 4 years old we think we can
only be a child 4 years old... we can only be a little brother, but in fact we
are already a mother, already a father. A little novice of 12 or 13 years old
plays the role of a disciple, but he already has his own disciples in his
person and he has disciples of his disciples in his person already. So when he
hears the sound of the bell, the young novice must open his heart so that all
the generations of ancestral teachers can hear the bell at the same time, so
that all the generations of his blood family can hear the bell at the same
time, and so that all the generations of his future students, in him now, can
hear the bell. And if he practices like that, he is practicing ‘no-self’ and he
is able to see the wonder of no-self and he is giving a Dharma talk on no-self.
To listen to the bell like that is to hear the bell according to the highest
teachings.
When we take a step
on the green grass of spring, we walk in such a way that allows all our
ancestors to take a step with us. our peace, our joy, our freedom, which are in
each step, penetrate each generation of our ancestors and each generation of
our descendants. If we can walk like that, that is a step taken in the highest
dhyana. When we take one step we see hundreds and thousands of ancestors and
descendants taking a step with us, and when we take a breath we are light, at
ease, calm. We breathe in such a way that all the generations of ancestors are
breathing with us and all the generations of our descendants are also breathing
with us... if we breathe like that, only then are we breathing according to the
highest teachings. We just need a little mindfulness, a little concentration
and then we can look deeply and see. At first we use the method of
visualization and we see, as we walk, all the ancestors putting their foot down
as we put our foot down, and gradually we don’t need to visualize any more –
each step we take, we see that that step is the step of all people in the past.
When you are cooking
a dish of food - something you have learnt from your mother or your father, a
dish that has been handed down through generations of your family – you should
look at your hand and smile because this hand is the hand of your mother, the
hand of your grand-mother. Those who have made this dish are making this dish
now and that is the truth! We are not the inventors of this dish, we are just
continuing. We see our mothers hand, our grand-mothers hand, and the hands of
all our ancestors making this dish. When we are in the kitchen cooking, we can
realize the highest teachings – we don’t have to go into the meditation hall to
practice this. We have so many opportunities, the problem is – do we know how
to make the most of them? We have our teacher, we have our Sangha, we have our
dharma teachings, we have all the conditions that are necessary to do this and
we should use these opportunities. This is not a theory, this is real
experience of our daily life... it is real life.
In the past, your
grandfather – did he play volleyball? No, he didn’t, because in those days they
didn’t have volleyball... Did your grandmother go jogging every day? Did your
grand-mother have the opportunity to practice dwelling in the present moment
while she was walking... while she was running? When we are running we should
allow our grandmother to run in us, and it is the truth that your grandmother
is running in you. She is in each cell of your body. You carry all your
ancestors in you when jogging, when doing walking meditation and when you are
realizing the practice of dwelling happily in the present moment. Maybe other
generations didn’t have the opportunity to practice like this. Now we have the
opportunity. We have received the practice as taught by our teachers and when
we do that practice we bring happiness and joy to countless generations of
ancestors, whether we’re practicing walking, running, or breathing.
We have produced Plum
Village in order to be able to do these things, because in the town, in the
society, we don’t have the right conditions to be able to walk like we do, to
be able to breathe, to smile like we do, to wash clothes and to cook like we do
in Plum Village. An environment where we can feel at ease, where we can do
these things in a very leisurely way, in order to practice dwelling happily in
the present moment. We know that many people have supported, and have brought
time and energy to give us an environment where we can take steps at ease,
where we can breathe in and out like this... where we can cook like this...
where we can practice like this. And when we practice like this, we are doing
it for all times – for the past and for the future. Thanks to our taking steps
like this, and breathing and smiling and sitting like this, we are able to
liberate so many generations. We liberate them by getting out of the shell of
our separate self.
Western
psycho-therapy aims at healing and bringing us a self which is stable and
wholesome, but the psycho-therapy in the West is still caught in the idea of
‘self’. Psycho-therapy in the West can bring about a little transformation, a
little healing, but it cannot go very far because Western psycho-therapy is
still caught in the idea of a ‘self’. According to Western psycho-therapy, the
family can bring about ease and peace and joy; but because of misfortune our
family has not been able to bring about that. So now, how can our practice take
us out of this misfortune so that we can, once again, bring back happiness and
peace in our lives. Western psychology is based on the idea that we had a self
that was happy and at peace and joy and we have to revive and restore that
state of peace, happiness and joy that we had before. But in the light of the
practice of Buddhism, for as long as we are caught in the idea of a separate
self, ignorance is still in us – in our body and in our mind. Therefore, the
practice of no-self is the most wonderful way to heal. Practicing no-self is to
get out of the narrow idea of the self, to see the intimate relation between
what is self and what is not-self. That way, ignorance is healed and all the
suffering, the anger, the jealousy, and the fear, will disappear, and the fruit
which is achieved is a thousand times greater than the healing which is based
on the idea of a separate self.
We are people who
have problems... psychological problems, and we ask ourselves questions like –
"Who am I? When my mother and father came together, did they want me to
come into this world or did they just come together and I was the result...
rather like a misfortune, an accident... Did they want to have me or did I just
appear as an accident? My mother and father came together in a thoughtless way
and because of that I came into this world..." If I think like that, I
will suffer. There are people who say, "When I came into this life did my
parents want to keep me or did they want to destroy me – did they want to have
an abortion?" Many people suffer when they think that their parents may
have wanted to have an abortion. "Who am I? Was I wanted? What is the
meaning of my life?" We are inclined to ask questions like that and when
we try and answer those questions we suffer because we are caught in an idea of
a separate self. When a young child grows up and if he knows that in the past,
his mother had wanted to have an abortion, that child will suffer a lot. He
knows that his parents didn’t want to have that child and it was an accident
that the child was born and if the child knows that, he will suffer very much
and that suffering will bring about illnesses. How will the psycho-therapist be
able to help that child? "Does my life have a meaning? Where do I come
from? Who am I?" These questions can be the source of abnormalities, of
sufferings in the life of a person, but if we look deeply, according to the way
the Buddha taught, we can see the reality of no-self and we will no longer ask
questions like that. This is one of the essential points which we learn in the
Sutra on the Middle Way. First of all we see that we are a continuation of a
stream of life. Whether our parents wanted us or not is not so important. Maybe
our father and mother didn’t want us, or didn’t want us yet, but our
grandparents and our ancestors wanted us to come into life and that is the
truth. The truth is that our ancestors, our grandparents, always want a
continuation. If it’s not this generation, it will be the next generation.
There are always generations who want us to be their continuation and if we can
answer that way, then the child will not suffer from thinking their parents
didn’t want them, because any parents have their ups and downs – their good
moments and their not-so-good moments. Sometimes they are full of love and
sometimes they are full of anger, and this love and anger is not the only thing
that they have. It is not only from them, but from all generations and when we
can see that their love and their anger comes from all generations, we no
longer blame our parents. We see that our parents have good things as well as
very unwholesome things.
In the East, we are
forced to someone to marry someone we hate and we say, "Why do our parents
make us marry this person we don’t like?" But after we have lived with
this person for two or three years, we discover that the person they made us
marry is very likeable and we thank our parents – we see that our parents had a
certain wisdom in judging that person to be a good husband and they had a good
reason to allow this coming together to happen. We all have friends, who in the
beginning we didn’t like at all - we hated them! When we saw that person we
hated them so much, but after a while we discover that person is a very good
friend and therefore that moment of hatred is not everything. It is just a
moment; it is not eternal and after that moment of hatred there are moments of
great love and therefore hatred and love are just on the surface. Deeper than
that is something else and when we can see that, we are not sad and we don’t
say things like – "Do my father and mother love me or not?", because
maybe, at one point during the pregnancy, they didn’t want me, but after I was
born they loved me very much and they are very happy I was born. So we see we
are our father and mother. We see we are our grandparents and when we get out
of the shell of self we are no longer made to suffer by the question "Was
I wanted?" Therefore, when we study Buddhism and practice according to the
no-self teachings of Buddhism, we are able to liberate ourselves and also
liberate numberless generations of ancestors and descendants in us.
In our childhood we
may have been through stages of great difficulties. We have been wounded, we
have had traumas and we generally do not want to remember those stages of
suffering. In us there is a protective defense mechanism, we want to defend
ourselves against our suffering. Every time we are in touch with the experience
of suffering, we cannot bear it and therefore the thing called "defense
mechanism" tries to hide these things deep down in our unconscious mind
and when someone comes along and digs up these sufferings, we cry, we weep, we
are sorrowful and we cannot eat for a couple of days. But running away from our
suffering is not the best way to deal with it. Therefore, in Buddhism we are
taught that we should practice mindfulness. We should produce the energy of
mindfulness and return and embrace the young child who is wounded in us. That
young child can have been very heavily wounded – very severely wounded, but
because, for many decades, we haven’t had the strength to deal with it, we have
tried to run away from that suffering. We have not dared to face it and
therefore the wounded child in us continues to suffer and is asking for care
and love, but we do the opposite – we run away. We are always running away,
because we are afraid of suffering and therefore the method of Buddhism is to
practice in such a way that we produce the energy of mindfulness and with the
energy of mindfulness we are no longer afraid. We are able to return and we are
able to recognize that child in us. We are able to embrace that child in us and
we are able to talk to that child in us. When we have the energy of mindfulness
we have the capacity to embrace that child like we would embrace a young brother
or sister who has been wounded and we say, "I have, in the past, left you
alone – I have gone away from you... now I am very sorry. I am going to embrace
you…" We have to embrace that child and, if necessary, we have to cry
together with that child perhaps while we are doing sitting meditation. We have
to talk to that child with the language of love... We can go into the forest
and do that. We can call that child a little sister or little brother.
Among us there are
people who have practiced this and after a period of practice there has been a
diminution of their suffering and a transformation. After that, the
relationship between that person and their brothers and sisters and friends
become much easier, because they have come back to themselves and healed the
wounded child in themselves. The people around us, our brothers and sisters,
may also have a severely wounded child in them and we can help them if we have
managed to help ourselves. And therefore, after we have healed ourselves, we
see the relationship between ourselves and others has become much better, much
easier. We see more peace, more love in us. In Buddhism, we see that that
wounded child is not just us... not only us. It may also be our mother, because
our mother has suffered throughout her life. Our father has suffered, and our
mother and father did not meet the Dharma in order to be able to look after the
wounded child in themselves and therefore, that wounded child in us is our
mother who has been wounded as a child. So when we are embracing the wounded
child in us, we are embracing all our mothers of generations in the past – all
the wounded children of our past generations. This practice is not a practice
for ourselves alone, but it is a practice for numberless generations of ancestors
and descendants. Therefore, when we are able to embrace the child who has been
wounded in us, we are able to embrace our mother and our father. Maybe our
father and our mother had suffered and the baby, the child, in them has not yet
been looked after, not yet been healed, and so we heal the wounded child in us
for our father, for our mother, and for our grandparents. If we don’t do it
now, when will we do it? Now we have our teacher. Now we have our friends. Now
we have our Sangha... and we don’t do it, so when will we do it? The years and
months we spend in Plum Village are not to give us knowledge, to form us in
Buddhist studies, because Plum Village is not a university for us to come and
receive the heap of knowledge which, later on, we will take with us in order to
get a job or in order to teach to others. Plum Village is a place where we are
able to practice embracing and transforming the wounded child in us. In us, the
wounded child is always there, is always waiting, and we have abandoned it. Now
we have to return to her and recognize her; accept her presence, embrace her,
weep with her, and with the energy of mindfulness, heal her. And in the light
of the Sutra on the Middle Way, we know that this child, who has been wounded,
is not just us, but it is also the child of other generations. It is the
wounded child of our mother, the wounded child of our father, the wounded child
of our grandparents and when we practice, we practice for all our ancestors.
Where is that child?
That child is lying in each cell of our body. There is no cell of our body
which does not have that wounded child in it. The cells of our consciousness
and the cells of our body. Our consciousness is made of cells and in each cell
of our consciousness, of our mental formations, that wounded child is there –
abandoned, severely wounded. We don’t have to look for that child a long way
away in the past... 3 million years ago. We don’t have to look for that child
in our childhood or in the time of our great-grandparents because all the truth
of that wounded child, all the suffering of that wounded child is lying, right
now, in the present moment, in each cell of our body and our consciousness. We
just have to go back to ourselves and be in touch and we will see all of this.
You are inscribed in each cell of your body and your mind. You don’t have to go
back to the past, that child lies in the present. The wounds, the suffering,
the sadness... it is present in every cell of your body just as the awakened
wisdom of your ancestors, of the Buddha, the happiness of the Buddha, is also
present in every cell of your body. You should know how to return to it and
make use of it – these elements of happiness, of awakened wisdom, in order to
produce the energy of mindfulness and embrace the child who has been wounded.
The wounds, as well as the happiness, are in each and every one of your cells.
The Buddha, the ancestors, and the teachers have handed down this awakened
wisdom that is lying in each cell of your body. You just need to return, with
your breathing and your steps to produce the energy of mindfulness and wisdom
and that energy will embrace and heal you, and it will heal the wounded child
in you.
We are people who
have ignorance in each cell of our body and our mind. That ignorance is called
Avidya – lack of clarity. It means the "inability to see" things
which are just lying there, we don’t know that they’re there. Avidya – no
seeing, no clarity. This term is in Buddhism, it means lack of light, lack of
insight, lack of seeing... That wounded child is lying there and we don’t even
know the wounded child is there. The wounded child in us is a reality, but we
can not see it and that inability to see it is called ignorance. This child has
been severely wounded. It really needs us to return to it and accept it, to
embrace it, but we don’t know that it’s there and we are running away from it.
That attitude – if you don’t want to use ‘ignorance’... what do you call it? We
are looking to make money, making profit, but at the same time we are not aware
of what is really happening in us, and that ignorance brings about energies
that make us sick. In each cell of our body, each cell of our consciousness,
there is this ignorance. It is like a drop of ink in a glass of water. That
ignorance is in each cell of our body. It stops us from seeing reality and it
pushes us in the direction of darkness so that we do things which are foolish
and which make us suffer even more and which makes the wounded child in us even
more wounded. That energy of darkness is called ‘impulse’ and everyday our
impulses push us to do things, to say things, which are ignorant because the
basis of our impulses is ignorance. We are sad, we are angry, we blame, we are
jealous... all these things are the energy of impulse and the basis of that is
ignorance. These impulses – we do not see them. They lie in our consciousness.
Our consciousness is ‘wrong’ consciousness. It is full of ignorance and
impulse.
Buddhist psychology
has two parts. One we talk about is ‘mind consciousness’ and the other is
‘store consciousness’. In Western terms we talk about the ‘unconscious’ and the
‘subconscious’ and in Buddhism these two things are contained in the Alaya
consciousness, the store consciousness. We push our severely wounded child down
into those regions. The deeper, the better. The child is calling, crying out
for help from those places, but we don’t hear and all this is ignorance and
therefore, ignorance has brought about our present consciousness. In each cell
of our body and in every cell of our consciousness, we have the subconscious
and the unconscious, and the energy of them pushes us to live our daily life
superficially and foolishly, bringing about more and more suffering for
ourselves and those who live around us. Therefore, what we are learning in the
practice is - from ignorance, to make clarity. How can we have light in the
darkness? We are walking in the dark, so we do things opposite to what we want
to do and we know that we want light. Light means being able to light up a lamp
and we have to take that light out of our body and our consciousness. Because,
in our body and our consciousness, not only is there ignorance and impulses,
but there is also awakened understanding because we have been handed down the
seeds of understanding by our ancestors. The thing is... we never use them!
Buddha has handed them down to us; our teacher has handed down to us; we
receive them and we hide them away. We store them away and we don’t use them.
It is like we have a lamp which we never light up and that lamp is called
mindfulness and the oil of that lamp is our breathing, our steps, our smile,
our working in mindfulness. We have to light up that lamp. Light up the lamp of
mindfulness and the light will shine out and the darkness will cease, will
dissipate.
When light is there,
there will not be ignorance and when ignorance retreats, these impulses are no
longer produced because clarity brings about a different energy which is called
‘bodhicitta’. The great aspiration – the ‘mind of love’ - it is also energy, just
like impulses are energy, but this is an energy with light in it and impulses
are full of darkness. When we have lit up the lamp, we have a different energy
than when we are in darkness. That is the energy of understanding, of
bodhicitta, and when we have the energy of bodhicitta already, our
consciousness is illumined and so it’s called ‘prajna’, ‘wisdom’. Wisdom and
consciousness have the same basis, but we can talk about consciousness only
when it has ignorance in it, but when consciousness is lit up by bodhicitta, we
no longer call it ‘consciousness’, we call it wisdom, prajna, understanding. If
we have the wisdom of bodhicitta in each cell of our body and of our
consciousness, there is happiness. We have a ‘manifestation’ body –
Nirmanakaya. We still have eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body, but in each cell
there is love, there is bodhicitta, there is wisdom and understanding.
Therefore, the key of the practice is to light up the lamp. We have a gatha
which is very good... whenever we turn on the light, we say, "Lighting up
the candle, I make an offering to all the Buddhas, the numberless Buddhas, to
lighten up the face of the earth." Before I light the lamp, I breathe and
I say this gatha. I see that the ignorance of my mind gives way to the light of
my mind. In our mind, there is the light of understanding and in the room,
there is the light of the lamp. It is not enough just to turn on the light,
because if you just turn on the light, or light the candle, that is only an
outer light. We have to turn on the inner light, the light of mindfulness. So
when the young novice has just become a monk, he has to learn these poems so
that every time he lights the lamp, he can light up understanding in his heart
as well. If he doesn’t do that, however many times he turns on the light in the
room, he will never change the darkness in his mind into the light of his mind.
When we can say that
we have forgotten the wounded child in ourselves, we feel great compassion for
that child. We see how we have to practice our breathing and our mindful
walking in order to be able to be stable enough to embrace that child, to
comfort and heal that child. If the light of mindfulness is great, if it is
clear, if it is sufficient, we will see that that child is not just ourselves, but
it is also our mother, our father. Our mother and our father have suffered and
they have not had the opportunity to embrace the child in them, so we are doing
it for them. Because the wounded child in us is also our father, is also our
mother... ask yourself – is there any understanding that is greater than that
understanding? We talk a lot about understanding, but is any understanding
higher than the understanding of Buddhism? When we can smile, we know we are
smiling for our mother and our father, we know we are liberating our mother and
our father. If we practice like that then the questions which make people
suffer – "Who am I? Did my mother really want me? Did my father really
want me? What meaning does my life have?" - all those questions become meaningless.
In the Sutra on the Middle Way, the Sutra on Interdependent Arising, and the
Sutra on Great Emptiness, we will see that if we can only practice, we will be
able to go beyond these questions which make people suffer so much. We don’t
need those sufferings any more.
We don’t need to go
to Ireland or go to China to find our roots. We don’t need to go back to the
old native land. We just need to be in touch with every cell in our body. We
can find out it’s because of father, mother and all of our ancestors who are
present in a very real way in each cell of our body. Even the bacteria are our
ancestors, and the awakened understanding has been transmitted to us from all
generations and all the sentient beings, but also insentient beings – so-called
beings without feelings – have their own wisdom. Scientists today talk about
life as matter which is inert. Before there was life this world, this universe,
was a kind of... in the West we call it ‘primordial soup’... from which
everything came. All the neutrons, electrons, the inert matter, became living
matter. It began to be a fungi, an amoeba, and then fish. They always use the
word matter, because they have been influenced into thinking that in the
beginning there was just matter, there was just soma. They don’t see that
matter contains spirit. Object of perception is also perception. The thing
which they call matter - the object of our perception - is also perception, so
it is also mind. So mind contains matter and matter contains mind. They are two
faces of the same reality, sometimes something manifests as matter and
sometimes something manifests as mind. The elementary particle can be called a
wave or it can also be called a particle, because sometimes it appears as a
wave and sometimes it appears as a particle, it is both things. You would say
"Something cannot be both form – both particle and wave – those two
things... how can they be one?", but in fact, these two things are one. We
are both father and child, sometimes we manifest as father and sometimes we
manifest as child... or mother. As soon as the guava fruit is born, it has
guava seeds in it, so it is already a mother or a father.
So this is ‘thinking
matter’, they say that human beings are ‘thinking matter’. The matter now has
thinking in it or thinking manifests from matter. Scientists say that there was
a stage when human beings first stood up, they no longer crawled along, and
they call the human species at that time ‘homo erectus’. Then afterwards they
had a kind of man called ‘homo habilis’, and then ‘homo sapien’, and ‘homo
sapien’ is the thinking matter. Now we have another expression, ‘homo
conscious’, which means the human being who is aware, who is mindful. A human
being who knows – "I will get sick... I will grow old... I will die...",
that is a person who is aware and because of that awareness, that person
suffers more. That awareness brings about anxiety and fear, called ‘anguish’,
and this brings about ill health. People ask, "Do other species have less
awareness and therefore do not have the suffering of thinking ‘Oh, I will get
old, I will die’ ", If other species do have that awareness it is a slight
awareness. if they get sick, they get sick and they don’t have to worry about
getting sick. But because human beings have this ‘anguish’, we have questions
of philosophy, like "Who am I? What will happen to me?", we have the
kind of questions that people sometimes asked, as recorded in the Sutras,
"Did I exist in the past? If I did exist in the past, what kind of animal
was I? Was it a beautiful animal? Was it an ugly animal... Was I a frog? Will I
exist in the future, and if I exist in the future, what kind of animal will I
be? Will I have a beautiful face? Will I have a long tail?" All these
questions that we ask come from this anguish and it brings about a lot of
illness.
Did my parents want
me? Was it an accident that I was born? Does anybody love me? All those
questions make us suffer so much! And they come from our thinking - from this
anguish, but the capacity to be aware – that is, the human being who is mindful
– that is what will save us. That awareness will help us to know that the
environment of this planet belongs to all species and will help us to realize
that the human species is destroying the environment. When people are aware of
these sufferings... they have come from political oppression... have witnessed
injustice in society... When people can really see these things, they have the
capacity to stop what they are doing and to help others to stop in order to go
in a different direction which will not destroy our planet. Our awareness
brings about our anxiety and our anguish, but if we know how to use that
awareness, that mindfulness, we will be able to see the state we are in and we
know what we should do and what we should not do in order to be able to
transform and bring about peace and happiness and life for the future. The
Buddha was one of the most beautiful people of the human species who we call
‘homo conscious’. We have the homo erectus; the homo habilis (the skillful
man), and we have the homo sapiens – (the thinking man). But now we have the
expression ‘homo conscious’, (the aware man). It is an expression which has
been used by people – it was not invented by me.
So when we are having
a meal, we should eat in such a way that allows leisure, ease and happiness,
because it is really a deep practice to eat together. Just as with your
breathing and working, eat in such a way that your ancestors can eat with you.
Your father eats with you, your grandfather and grandmother eat with you. Sit
at ease, like someone who has no problems, no anxiety. The Buddha taught us
that when we eat we should not allow ourselves to be lost in meaningless
thinking and conversation. We should dwell in the present moment to be deeply
in touch with the food and the Sangha around us. Eat in such a way that we are
happy, at ease, that we have peace, so that each of our ancestors and
descendants in us can benefit. In former times, when I was 4 or 5 years old,
every time my mother went to the market, she brought me back a cake made of
bean paste. Before my mother came back, I would be playing in the garden with
the snails and the pebbles, and when my mother came back I was very happy to
see her and I took the cake that she gave me and I went off to eat it in the
garden. I knew I mustn’t eat it quickly. I wanted to eat it slowly - the
slower, the better. I’d just chew a little bit off the edge to allow the
sweetness of the biscuit to go into my mouth and I’d look up at the blue sky.
I’d look down at the dog. I’d look at the cat. That is how I ate the cake and
it took me half an hour to eat it. I had no worries... I wasn’t worried about
fame, honour, about profit... so that cake of my childhood is a souvenir. All
of us have lived moments like that, when we are not craving for anything, not
regretting anything. We are not asking ourselves philosophical questions like
"Who am I?" Are we able to eat a cake like that now? Drink a cup of
tea like that? Enjoy ourselves in our environment? We come to Plum Village to
learn to do these things again, the things which we thought we could no longer
do. We have come to learn how to walk again. To walk solidly, like a free
person, without spirits chasing after us. We have come here to learn how to
sit. To sit at ease as if we are sitting on a lotus flower, not sitting on hot
coals. Sitting on hot coals, we just jump up and down the whole time – we lose
all our peace. Here, we learn how to breathe, how to smile; we learn how to
cook. Our mother taught us how to eat, how to drink, how to stand up, how to
walk, how to speak... everything! Now we have to learn these things over again.
We have to be born again in the light of the true Dharma, the true teachings of
the Buddha.
We are going to study
the Sutra on Shining the Light. This is not a Sutra spoken by the Buddha, it is
a Sutra spoken by Mahamoggallana. It is in the canon and in the canon we see
there are sutras not only spoken by the Buddha, but also spoken by the disciples
of the Buddha. We are very happy about this, because we see the continuation of
the Buddha right in the life time of the Buddha. Often after his disciples had
given teachings, the Buddha would praise them and say, "If I had spoken, I
would have said exactly the same...", so we see how the Buddha supported
and encouraged his students and we see how the continuation of the Buddha was
there, even in the lifetime of the Buddha. The original name of this sutra; was
Anumana , which means ‘Measuring and Reflecting’, it is very necessary for
monks and nuns. In the Chinese canon, it is called the Sutra on Inviting.
Besides Shariputra, Mahamoggallana, Ananda and Katyayana, there are nuns, such
as Dharmadhina, who gave talks. These talks by nuns have also been recorded in
the Sutras.
SUTRA ON MEASURING
AND REFLECTING: (Wednesday Evening)
Thus have I heard. At
one time the Venerable Mahamoggallana was staying with the Bhagga people in
Sumsumaragira, in the Deer Park in the Bhesakala grove. The Venerable Mahamoggallana
addressed the bhikkhus: "Dharma friends." "Yes friend",
they replied to the Venerable Mahamoggallana. The Venerable Mahamoggallana
spoke as follows:
"It is possible
that a monk should make the following request: "Speak to me, Reverend
Monks." If he is difficult to speak to, endowed with qualities which make
him difficult to deal with, intolerant, not good at grasping what is taught,
then those who practice the path of sublime conduct with him will think he is
not one to be spoken to, he is not one to be instructed, he is not someone we
can have confidence in. What are the qualities which make someone difficult to
approach?
We should know that
Mahamoggallana was one of those who had a part in building the Sangha.
Shariputra and Mahamoggallana were given the role of building Sangha, so that
the Sangha would have happiness. Of course, there were other monks beside
Shariputra and Mahamoggallana who also practiced Sangha-building. However, we
know that these were the two monks who played that role most of all. We know
that when Shariputra passed away, Ananda could not stand up because the passing
away of Shariputra left a huge gap in the Sangha. When we study the sutra, we
see how, in the time of Buddha, there were monks in the Sangha who did not go
along with the Sangha. There were people whose behaviour did not allow other
monks to approach them and to help them, so these people lived like a drop of
oil in a bowl of water. They could not make progress and they could not bring
happiness to themselves or the Sangha and, aware of this, Mahamoggallana gave
this teaching, so that everyone in the Sangha could practice. When we live in
the Sangha and there is harmony, we can enjoy ourselves, we can talk to anybody
in the Sangha and be happy, and we can also make others happy. But if we are
not able to communicate with other members of the Sangha, if nobody wants to be
close to us, then we are isolated and when we are isolated we cannot be happy
and we cannot make the Sangha happy.
In the past, there
was a practice of silence... that is, it is like ‘putting into Coventry’, to
‘isolate’. We don’t talk to that person at all, and in the temple they
practiced that. They used the method of isolating that person, as that person
causes suffering to happen in the Sangha. Everybody is silent with regard to
that person; they don’t talk to that person. But in the practice of Plum
Village, we have never needed to use the practice of isolation as we have other
methods. When we isolate someone, it is as if we have given up hope in that
person. We feel we cannot teach that person any more. In the beginning, people
try their best to help the person, but after a while they give up hope. They
say that there is no benefit for that person to stay here and there is no
benefit for us for that person to stay here and so they use the final practice
they can use, and that is to isolate that person. So we know that practice is
the final effort and it really shows that the Sangha has failed and the person
who was isolated has failed as well. Isolation means we have failed, we are
defeated, we have no capacity to intervene in order to help that person and to
help the Sangha.
In the past they
didn’t talk about ‘shining the guiding light’, which is what we practice today.
But, in fact, the practice of shining the guiding light did exist in the time
of the Buddha. In the practice of the Parivarana ceremony, the monks would
shine lights on each others practice, but in Plum Village we practice shining
light in the practice throughout the year, not just once a year. Before someone
receives the precepts, before someone becomes a dharmacharya, during retreats
and at the end of retreats, we practice ‘shining the guiding light’. If we’ve
practiced this ‘shining the guiding light’ it means that we haven’t given up
and that we intervene with the strength of the Sangha in order to help. If one
person shines light, it is not enough to help that person transform, but if the
whole Sangha shines the light, it is. Imagine there is someone in the Sangha
who is isolated and will not listen to anyone else and nobody likes to come to
that person and help them. If we allow that situation to continue a long time,
until we have no other way but to practice isolation - it is a great shame. It
is a great shame for the Sangha and a great shame for the person who is
isolated, so we need to have another method to use and that is ‘shining guiding
light’.
In the sutra,
Mahamoggallana suggests methods – not just for one person, but for everyone in
the Sangha to use. Because we do not want to become a part of the Sangha which
no one dares to approach, because we haven’t got the capacity to listen deeply,
because we have very heavy habit energies which we follow without knowing that
we’re making others suffer. When we live in a Sangha, we take refuge in that
Sangha and we make use of that Sangha to encourage us, to support us and teach
us. If we isolate ourselves, if we don’t know how to obey, if we are not easy
to speak to, even though our brothers and sisters want to help us, they cannot
and finally we have to leave our Sangha. It is a great shame for us, and a
great shame for our Sangha. So, when we read the Sutra, we can learn from
Mahamoggallana and we can apply what we learn in our daily life. At the same
time, we are able to see the methods which, in the time of the Buddha,
Mahamoggallana taught and which, today, we are still practicing in Plum Village
and which we can contribute to future generations for their practice, without
having to use the method called isolation. Mahamoggallana brings up the reasons
which make it impossible for us to be able to talk to someone set apart in the
Sangha. If he has wrong desires and is controlled by his wrong desires, that is
the reason which makes it difficult for us to talk to him. In the most recent
English version it says; A bhikkhu has evil wishes and is dominated by evil
wishes... I have translated ‘evil wishes’ as ‘wrong desires’. In Chinese, it
means some sort of infatuation - some sort of attachment.
When a part of a
Sangha is overwhelmed by an attachment and it stops the rest of the Sangha from
being able to approach that person, we don’t want anybody to mention to us that
we are attached. We have some kind of attachment to another person in the
Sangha or a person outside the Sangha and the Sangha knows about it. Some
people may have come and have pointed it out to us, but we always try to avoid
it, we don’t want the help of the Sangha. This attachment is the first reason
that Mahamoggallana gives as a reason which makes it impossible for the Sangha
to be able to approach us and talk to us. This brother, this sister, is caught
in their attachment and therefore the Sangha cannot approach them and help
them. Are we in that situation? Do we have some wrong desire, some wrong
attachment that is going to isolate us, just as it has isolated the other
person in the Sangha? That is called ‘looking in the mirror’ - we see that
others who have been attached have been isolated, and they cannot accept
whenever anybody comes to encourage them to do differently. So the first thing
which makes it difficult for the Sangha to approach us and talk to us is when
we are caught in a wrong attachment. It means that our attachment is
unwholesome. It is an attachment with another person in the Sangha, or somebody
outside the Sangha.
The second reason is
that he only knows how to praise himself and criticize others. The bhikkhu who
praises himself and despises others is difficult to approach. There are people
who only want their self-pride to be protected and they haven’t the capacity to
praise anybody else in the Sangha, except themselves. They can only talk about
the weaknesses of other people. They have no capacity to praise others in the
Sangha. That has happened - it happens in all of the hamlets. There are people
who have never opened their mouth to praise one of their brothers or sisters.
They only wait until their brothers and sisters have some weakness or
short-coming and then they talk about it, and if somebody can’t see our good
points and praise our good points, then we cannot bear it. We don’t have the
capacity to praise anyone else, we don’t have the capacity to ‘water the
flowers’ of others, and we cannot speak well of others. Standing before that
person we cannot talk about their positive things, and we cannot talk about
their positive things to other people either, if we are like that then we will
be isolated in our Sangha. This is someone who really wants to be praised.
Everybody has positive and negative points, but some people only want to talk
about the negative things of other people, they’re very stingy, very mean. We
know that the other person has short-comings and they have to transform those
short-comings, but we have to be able to see the positive things in that person
too. Sometimes we just see the unwholesome things and they blind us to the
wholesome things in that person. The other person has made us suffer one time
and when we look at that person, all we see is that one time they made us
suffer. We are unable to see all the goodness and sweetness they have
contributed to the Sangha. We are never able to open our mouth to praise
people.
Now, when we see
somebody like that in the Sangha, we come back to ourselves and we ask
ourselves – "Am I like that? Am I someone who just sees the faults of
others and am I not able to see or talk about the good points in other
people?" And when someone just wants to be praised and wants to despise
others, we see that person and we ask ourselves, "Am I like that? Do I
want to be isolated because I’m like that?" If we have some prejudice
about one of our brothers or sisters, we have to practice and ask ourselves the
question: "Besides the weaknesses I see in that person, have they any
strengths?" And we have to number those strengths. When I talk to another
person about that person, can I talk about the good points of that person to
others, and if I can’t then I’m isolating myself. Or, in the case of a person
who is easily angered... A bhikkhu who is angry and who is mastered by his
anger is difficult to approach. Maybe we don’t have a very cruel nature, but we
may get angry very easily. People get tired of that and they don’t want to get
near us, they don’t dare talk to us. They don’t want to have a conversation
with us because we get angry so easily. We are easily mastered by our anger and
that means we cannot be master of ourselves when we are in that state. When
somebody gets angry easily and cannot be master of themselves, they are easily
isolated and other parts of the Sangha don’t dare come near that person, to
converse with them, to help them. But we have to ask ourselves – if somebody
else in the Sangha is like that, am I like that too? Do I easily get angry? Am
I easily mastered by my anger?
The fourth reason is
the bhikkhu who is angry and because of his anger he bears a grudge and is
difficult to approach. There’s some people who, once they have gotten angry,
forget everything... they are not angry anymore. But there are the people who
get angry and then they bear a grudge afterwards and the light of their eyes
and their words and their way of behavior makes us want to go and sit somewhere
else. Because he holds a grudge, we avoid that person as if he were a leper. He
doesn’t manifest his anger in an expressive way, but holds that grudge and that
grudge influences his way of speech, his way of thinking and his actions. When
we bear a grudge like that the Sangha will not want to talk to us. A bhikkhu is
angry and because of his anger he talks unkindly and people don’t dare come
near him because of this and so he’s isolated. He gets angry and it shows on
his face and in his speech that he is angry and when we speak in an angry way,
people don’t dare come near us.
A bhikkhu who, when
corrected, corrects in turn the one who has corrected him, is difficult to approach.
Instead of saying "Thank you for having pointed out my fault to me",
he corrects that person in return. When you say "You think you are better
than me, do you?", or "I know I didn’t close the door in mindfulness,
but your lack of mindfulness is even greater than mine"... if we say
something like that then that person won’t correct us any more. If two or three
people correct us and we act like that then nobody will want to correct us any
more and we will be isolated. We have to look and see if we’re like that
because we must not become an element of the Sangha like that. A bhikkhu, who,
when corrected, disparages the one who corrected him is difficult to approach.
Disparages means, "Your practice is so bad already and you don’t look
after your own practice... all you think about is other peoples faults..."
The ninth thing is –
a bhikkhu who, when corrected, retorts, is difficult to approach. We see that
the person is trying to help us, but we also want to blame them in return... so
the advice of the others is not received by us and no-one will dare to approach
us. Sometimes the other person doesn’t really show us the mistake we have made.
They are talking about something else, but because we have an internal
formation, thinking that people are going to criticize us, when they say
something we think they are criticizing us even when they’re not. So we
disparage that other person, we retort to that other person, even though that
person isn’t even trying to correct us. We think that people are taking a
devious route in order to criticize us, when in fact they are not even talking
about us at all.
The tenth thing is a
bhikkhu who, when corrected, evades the question by asking another or changes
the subject. He evades the question by asking other questions. There are people
like that. So, a bhikkhu, who, when corrected, evades the question by asking another
changes the subject. He acts in a ‘gross’ way... somebody whose actions are
‘gross’ has evil intention and nobody wants to come near him. Someone who is
jealous and sulky may make people afraid of them and if we have these
characteristics they will avoid us. A person who is jealous does not know how
to share the merit and cannot practice no-self. When they see the other person
is happy... the other person is loved and valued, they cannot bear it. They ask
"Why am I not valued? Why am I not loved? The other person is loved, is
valued... has that person done something such as saying unkind things about me
behind my back which has made them valued and made me not valued?" But if
we see there are people around us who are loved and valued, it should make us
happy because that person is my brother, my sister, and when they are happy I
can share their happiness. Being able to do that makes me light and fresh and
we know that when another is light and fresh, we are also. When we are light
and fresh, we are loved and we are valued, but if we are jealous then we lose
all our fresh-ness and all our light-ness and therefore we are not able to
enjoy or profit from the good qualities of others. Therefore, jealousy can
destroy our happiness and the happiness of the Sangha and make it impossible
for others to be able to approach us. That kind of person is unmindful...
17 Sutra on Measuring and Reflecting
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