Hành Trình Vô Ngã by
Vô Ngã Vô Ưu
Transcript of Thich Nhat Hanh English Dharma Talks
36 Meditations for the Sick and Dying
Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh
on August 11, 1996 in Plum Village, France.
Today is the eleventh
of August 1996, we are in the Lower Hamlet, and our Dharma talk will be in
English. Today we are going to learn the practice of the four mantras, because
this is the kind of practice that I would like everyone to bring home and do every
day. It’s very pleasant and it’s easy. A mantra is a magic formula. Every time
you pronounce a mantra, you can transform the situation right away; you don’t
have to wait. It is a magic formula you have to learn to recite when the time
is appropriate. And the condition that makes it effective is your mindfulness,
your concentration. It means that this mantra can only be recited when you are
perfectly mindful and concentrated. Otherwise, it would not work. But you don’t
need to be mindful or concentrated one hundred percent; even eighty percent can
produce a miracle. And we all are capable of being mindful and concentrated.
The first mantra is
“Darling, I am here for you.” I wish that children from Italy would practice it
in Italian, French children would practice in French, Vietnamese in Vietnamese,
and so on. We don’t have to practice it in Sanskrit or Tibetan. Why do we have
to practice this mantra, “Darling, I am here for you?” Because when you love
someone, you have to offer him or her the best you have. And the best that you
can offer your beloved one is your true presence. Your true presence is very
important to him or to her.
I know a young man of
eleven or twelve years old. One day his father asked him, “Tomorrow will be
your birthday. What do you want? I’ll buy it for you.” The young man was not
very excited. He knew that his father was a very rich person — the director of
a large corporation — and he could afford to buy anything the young man wanted.
He was extremely rich, so it was no problem at all to buy a birthday gift for
his son. But the young man didn’t want anything. He was not very happy, and not
because he did not have many things to play with. He was not happy because his
father was not with him — he was always absent. He never spent enough time at
home. He traveled like an arrow. And what the young man needed the most was the
presence of his father. He had a father, but it did not seem very clear that he
had a father, because the father was so busy.
You know when someone
is rich, he has try to work very hard in order to continue to be rich; that is
the problem. Once you are rich, you cannot afford to be poor. That is why you
have to use all your time and energy in order to work, work, work, day and
night, in order to keep being rich. And I have seen many people like that. So
the father does not have time for his children. Although the children in
principle have a father, they don’t really have one. What they need the most is
the presence of their father beside them. So the young man did not know what to
say. But finally he got enlightened. He said, “Daddy, I know what I want.”
“What?” And the father was waiting for an electric train, or something like
that. The young man said, “I want you!” And it is very true, that children — if
they don’t have their father or their mother beside them — are not very happy.
So what they want the most is the presence of the person they love.
When you love
someone, the most precious gift you can make to him or her is your true
presence. That is why you have to practice in such a way that you are there.
You are there one hundred percent and you look at him or her, and you say,
“Darling, I am really here for you.” That is the greatest gift that we can make
to our most beloved one. But this is not only a statement. You know a mantra is
not a statement. A mantra is something you utter out of reality — that means
you have to be there one hundred percent in order for what you say to become a
true mantra. So in order to be really there you need one minute or two of practice
— you breathe in: “Breathing in, I am calm, breathing out, I smile. Breathing
in, I am really here, breathing out, I’m really here.” You do that a few times,
and suddenly you are really there. It’s wonderful. You are not caught with your
problems, you are not caught with your projects, you are not caught by the
future, or by the past. You are really there, available, to the person you
love. Then when you are sure that you are truly there — body and mind together
— you go in the direction of the person you love, and looking at him or her
mindfully, knowing that that person is really there and you are there, you
smile and you say, “Darling, I am here for you, I am really here for you.”
To many of us that is
the greatest gift that we can make to our beloved one. If the father understood
that, he would practice mindful breathing or walking for a few minutes, he
would stop all his projects, he would cancel one of his meetings and just sit
down, really close to his boy, and he would put his arm around the little boy,
and look into the eyes of his boy and say, “Darling, this time I’m really here
for you.” That is a very wonderful moment, that is a moment when life is really
real and deep: father is there and son is there. Love is there because they are
there for each other, they are available to each other. When you love someone,
you have to make yourself available to the person you love. And this is the
practice of meditation — to make yourself available one hundred percent as a
gift to the person you love.
So I’d like the
children to write that formula down on a sheet of paper in their own language,
beautifully, and decorate it with flowers and fruits and birds. When you go
home, you stick that mantra on your wall and you practice every day with the
person you love. “Darling, I am really here for you,” that is the first mantra.
My friends in America have painted that mantra on a tee-shirt. If you want, you
might like to make a tee-shirt and paint that magic formula in Italian or
French or German or Dutch. When you wear that tee-shirt, “Darling, I am here
for you,” you might just look at that person and point to the mantra on your
tee-shirt and smile.
The second mantra is,
“Darling, I know you are there, and I am very happy.” This is also a very easy
mantra to practice. Because to love means to acknowledge the presence of the
person you love. In order to acknowledge that he is there or she is there, you
have to have the time. If you are too busy, how can you acknowledge his or her
presence? And the most important condition for doing this mantra is that you be
there one hundred percent. If you are not there one hundred percent, you cannot
recognize his or her presence. When you are loved by someone, you need that
person to recognize that you are there — whether you are very young or seventy
years old or eighty years old, you still behave the same way. We always need
the other person to acknowledge that we are here. We want to be embraced by his
or her attention. Not only children need that but adults also need that. We need
to be embraced by the energy of mindfulness of the other person. So if you are
there one hundred percent and you go to the other person, you look at him or
her, you smile and you say, “Darling, I know you are there and I am very
happy.” That is to recognize the presence of the person you love and to say
that you are very happy that she is still alive, available to us at any time.
You know such a practice can make the other person very happy right away — you
don’t need to wait five minutes. That is the Buddhadharma — effective right
away. If you are shy, you have to learn. You have to lock the door, turn the
light off, and try to practice the mantra, “Darling, I know you are there, and
I am very happy.” And when you are sure that you can do it, open the door and
go to him or her and practice.
You know, I practice
that not only with people, but I practice that with the moon, the Morning Star,
the magnolia flowers. Last year when I went to Korea, I was housed in a
Protestant seminary and my little house was surrounded by magnolias, and it was
springtime. The magnolia blossoms were very beautiful. They are a white color —
like snow. I practiced walking meditation among the magnolia blossoms. I felt
so happy, so wonderful. So I would stop and look closely at each magnolia
flower. I smiled, breathed in and out and I said, “Darling, I know you are
there, and I am very happy,” and I bowed to the flower. I was very happy, and I
thought that the magnolia flower was happy also, because when people recognize
your presence and appreciate your presence, you feel that you are worth
something. Of course, the magnolia flowers were very, very precious to me.
Sometimes I look at
the full moon with mindfulness, I practice breathing in and out, and I tell the
full moon the mantra: “Full moon, beautiful full moon, I know you are there,
and I am very happy.” And I was really happy at that moment. I was a free
person — I was not assailed by worries or fear or any projects. And because I
was free, I was myself. I had the time and opportunity to touch the wonders of
life around me, and that is why I could touch the full moon and I practiced the
mantra with the full moon. This afternoon you might like to practice the mantra
with somebody, or just practice the mantra with a tree or a butterfly, because
they are all wonderful.
We are in the
meditation hall and all of us can hear the sound of the rain. To me the sound
of the rain is something wonderful. In the Upper Hamlet we have a veranda
baptized the “listening-to-the-rain” veranda. If you are a free person you only
need to sit there and listen to the rain, and you can be very happy already,
because the rain is something wonderful. I very often think of the rain as
bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. After several weeks without rain, the vegetation
begins to suffer and when the rain comes you can see that all the trees and
bushes are very happy. I think they enjoy the sound of the rain, as I do, very
much. Sitting in the meditation hall or sitting in the “listen-to-the-rain”
veranda, you can appreciate the sound of the rain and you can be very happy
just sitting there.
So happiness is
possible with mindfulness, because mindfulness helps us to realize what is
there — so precious. Those of us who still have a mother, we should be happy.
Those of us who still have a father, we should be happy. Those of us who still
have eyes in good condition to be able to look at the moon, we should be happy.
There are many things that can make us happy now. And that is the practice of
mindfulness — namely, the practice of Buddhist meditation. So please write down
the second mantra on another sheet of paper in your best handwriting, and
decorate it with colors — with flowers, fruits, leaves, birds, and so on, and
hang it in your room. I am certain that if you practice the first and the
second mantra, you will make many people around you very happy. And don’t tell
me that the practice is difficult — it is not.
[Bell]
The third mantra is
also easy to practice. You practice this mantra when you see that the person
you love suffers. She is crying, or he is crying. Or if they are not crying,
they look very unhappy. If you claim to be a lover, then you have to know what
is happening to the person you love, and mindfulness helps you to notice that
something is wrong within that person. Of course, if you are there one hundred
percent for him or for her, you will notice very soon that the person you love
suffers. If you don’t know that the person you love suffers, you are not
mindful; you are not an ideal lover, because there is no mindfulness in you.
Those of us who claim to be true lovers should practice mindfulness, we have to
practice meditation, because how can you love if you are not there? You can
only love when you are there and in order to be there you have to practice
being there, whether by mindful breathing or mindful walking, or any kind of
practice that can help you to be really there, as a free person, for the person
you love. So because you are there, you are mindful — that is why you noticed
that the person you love suffers. Right in that moment you have to practice
deeply, to be there one hundred percent. You go to him or to her, and you
pronounce the third mantra, “Darling, I know you suffer, that’s why I am here
for you.”
When you suffer, you
want the person you love to be aware of your suffering — that’s very human,
that’s very natural. You suffer, and if the other person you love does not know
that you suffer, if he ignores your suffering, you suffer much more. So it
would be a great relief if the person we love knows, is aware, that we are
suffering. Therefore your task, your practice as a lover is to come to him or
her to offer your true presence and utter the third mantra, “Darling, I know
you suffer, that is why I am here for you.” Before you can do anything to help,
she suffers less already, because she knows that you are aware of her
suffering. So the effect of the practice is instantaneous — quicker than if you
make instant coffee — very quick. The more you are concentrated, the more you
are mindfulness, the greater will be the effect of your practice. And children
can practice this very well. Every time they see their brother or their sister
suffer, every time they see Mommy crying, they should learn how to practice.
They have to practice breathing in and out deeply and go to that person and
take his hand or her hand and say, “Darling, I know you suffer and I’m here for
you, really, I’m here for you.” This a great relief.
The fourth mantra is
only for adults because it’s a little bit complicated. This third mantra, also,
I would like you to write down in English, Italian, or German in your best
writing style — calligraphy — and you should decorate it with a lot of love and
care. Make it into a masterpiece. And don’t wait until you are home to make it —
I am asking you now to write down the three mantras here and decorate them very
beautifully. When you go home, put them on the wall of your room or maybe in
the living room — it’s up to you. But my expectation is that you be able to
practice them. And this is not the practice of children alone, this is the
practice of everyone. Even if she is seventy or eighty, she still can practice;
even if he is eighty he still can practice them and this can make a lot of
happiness in the house. You try a few weeks, and you’ll see — the situation in
the home will be transformed very drastically. Communication is restored. We
are concerned with the happiness and the sorrow and the suffering of every
other member in the family. And of course this practice is easy, simple, and
everyone can do it.
Now when you hear the
small bell, please stand up and bow to the Sangha before you go out.
[Bell — children leave]
In the time of the
Buddha there was a lay person whose name was Anathapindika. His real name was
Sudatta. Anathapindika was a name given to him by the people in the city
because they loved him. He had a good heart. He was a rich tradesman, business
man, but he spent a lot of his time and money taking care of poor people,
people who were abandoned, children, orphans, and so on. That is why the title
“Anathapindika” was given to him by the people of his city Shravasti — it means
“the person who takes care of the isolated ones, the unhappy ones,” and so on.
It was he who invited the Buddha to come and teach in his country. The Buddha
before that stayed in the country of Magadha.
Anathapindika during
one of his trips to Magadha found out about the presence of the Buddha. He was
very greatly inspired by the teaching of the Buddha, that is why he invited the
Buddha to his country, Kosala. And it is he who purchased the most beautiful
park close to the city of Shravasti and offered it to the Buddha as a monastery
— the first monastery in that country. Later on, it was called the Jeta Park,
because the owner of the park had been the prince, whose name was Jeta.
Anathapindika took great pleasure in serving the Buddha and the Sangha, and his
family was a happy family because his wife and all the three children followed
the teaching of the Buddha. But he was not given all the teachings of the
Buddha, because at that time people thought that lay people were too busy and
should receive only the kind of teachings they could afford to do. So the
deepest kind of teachings were only given to monks and nuns. It was
Anathapindika who made it clear to the monks and nuns that there were lay
people who were very capable of practicing the deepest teachings of the Buddha,
and he said, “Please, Venerables, go back and tell the Lord that there are many
lay people who are too busy and who cannot afford to learn and practice the
deeper teaching of the Buddha, but there are among lay people those who are
very capable of learning the practice and these teachings.”
Anathapindika was
very sick, he was about to die — this was after serving the Buddha for about
thirty years. The Buddha went to him and visited with him, and after that he
charged the Venerable Shariputra — one of his best disciples — to take care of
Anathapindika. And one day Shariputra learned that Anathapindika was extremely
sick — he might pass away at any time — so he went to the room of his younger
brother in the Dharma, the Venerable Ananda, and asked him to come along for a
visit. So both of them went to the house of Anathapindika.
When Anathapindika
saw both of them coming, he was very glad. He tried to sit up but he was too
weak; he could not. Shariputra said, “My friend, just remain where you are. You
don’t have to try hard to sit up, we will bring a few chairs and sit next to
you.” And after having said that, Shariputra asked, “Dear friend,
Anathapindika, how do you feel in your body? Is the pain in your body
increasing or decreasing?” And Anathapindika said, “Venerables, the pain in me
is increasing all the time; I suffer very much, it does not decrease.” And when
Shariputra heard that he said, “Why don’t we practice meditation on the Three
Jewels? Let us practice breathing in and out and focus our attention on the
wonderful Buddha, the wonderful Dharma, and the wonderful Sangha.” And he
offered guided meditation to Anathapindika and both of the monks also sat there
and practiced together with the lay person who was dying. So, two monks
supported a lay person practicing in this very crucial moment.
Shariputra was an
extremely intelligent person. He was like the right hand of the Buddha, taking
care of the community of monks, teaching many of them as a big brother, and he
knew exactly what the dying Anathapindika needed. So he offered first of all
meditation on the Three Jewels, because he knew very well that the greatest joy
of Anathapindika was to serve the Buddha and the Sangha. He did everything to
make the Buddha comfortable and the Sangha comfortable. Therefore meditating on
the Buddha, on the Sangha, would bring joy and happiness that would
counterbalance the pain in the body. All of us have to learn this, because in
us there are seeds of suffering, there are seeds of joy. If you know how to
touch the seeds of joy, they will be watered and the energy of happiness and
joy will be strong enough to counterbalance — to make the person suffer less.
The Buddha is the one
who has the capacity of being there, of being mindful, of being understanding,
of being able to love and accept, of being joyful. There are the ten titles of
the Buddha that people would repeat in order to touch those qualities — the joy
and the peace of the Buddha.
After meditating on
the Buddha, they meditated on the Dharma. The Dharma is a path that can bring
relief and joy and peace to us right away — we don’t need to wait. The Dharma
is not a promise of happiness in the future. The practice of the Dharma is not
a matter of time — as soon as you embrace the Dharma and practice, you begin to
get relief and transformation right away.
And the Sangha is
composed of members who practice concentration, mindfulness, wisdom, joy, and
peace. To let your mind touch these wonderful jewels — that can water the seed
of happiness in you. After about ten minutes of practicing like that, Anathapindika
felt much better already.
Next time when you
sit close to a dying person, you might like to practice this same way. You are
there, present one hundred percent, with stability, solidity, and peace. This
is very important. You are the support of that dying person, and he or she
needs very much your stability, your peace. To accompany a dying person, you
need to be your best — don’t wait until that moment to practice. You practice
in your daily life to cultivate your peace, your solidity. Then you look into
the person and you recognize the seeds of happiness that are buried deep in him
or her, and you just water these seeds. Everyone has seeds of happiness. We
should know in advance. And at that moment you talk to him or to her, you use
guided meditation, in order to help him or her touch the seeds of happiness
within him or her.
Several years ago I
was on my way to lead a retreat in the northern part of New York state, and I
learned that our friend Alfred Hassler was dying in a Catholic hospital nearby.
So we managed to stop and spend some time with him. Alfred was very active
during the Vietnam war. He was director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in
New York, and he supported us wholeheartedly in bringing the message of peace
from the Vietnamese people, and he worked very hard to get a cease-fire and a
negotiation between the warring parties. He was dying there, and I and Sister Chan
Khong and about six or seven of us were in a limousine, and we arranged so that
we could stop. Only Sister Chan Khong and I were allowed to go in; the rest
were waiting in the car. When we arrived, Alfred was in a coma and Laura, his
daughter, was trying to call him back, “Alfred, Alfred, Thay is here, Sister Chan
Khong is here!” But he didn’t come back.
I asked Sister Chan
Khong to sing him a song — the song was written by me and the words are taken
directly from the Samyutta Nikaya: “These eyes are not me, I am not caught in
these eyes. I am life without boundaries, I have never been born, I will never
die. Look at me, smile to me, take my hand. We say goodbye now, but we’ll see
each other right after now. And we’ll meet each other on every walk of life.”
Sister Chan Khong
began to sing softly that song. You might think that if Alfred was in a coma,
he could not hear. But you must not be too sure, because after singing two or
three times softly like that, Alfred came back to himself — he woke up. So you
can talk to a person who is in a coma. Don’t be discouraged, talk to him or to
her as if he is awake. There is a way of communicating.
We were very happy
that he recovered his consciousness and Laura said, “Alfred, you know that Thay
is here with you, Sister Chan Khong is here with you.” Alfred was not able to
speak. He was fed with glucose and things like that. He could not say any word,
but his eyes proved that he was aware that we were there. I massaged his feet
and I asked whether he was aware of the touch of my massage. When Laura asked,
his eyes responded that he was aware that I was massaging his feet. When you
are dying, you may have a very vague feeling of your body; you don’t know
whether exactly your body is there. So if someone rubs or massages your arms or
feet, that will help, that will reestablish a kind of contact and awareness
that the body is still there.
Sister Chan Khong
began to practice exactly like Shariputra; she began to water the seeds of
happiness in Alfred. Although Alfred had not spent his time serving the Buddha,
the Sangha, he had spent a lot of his time working for peace. So Sister Chan
Khong was watering the seeds of peace work in him. “Alfred do you remember the
time you were in Saigon and were waiting to see the superior monk Tri Quang?
Because of the American bombing, Tri Quang was not willing to see any
Westerners. And you had a letter from Thay and you wanted to deliver it to Tri
Quang? You were not allowed to get in, so you sat down, outside his door, and
you slipped under his door a message that you were going to observe a fast
until the door was opened, and you did not have to wait long because just ten
minutes after that, Tri Quang opened his door and invited you in? Do you remember
that, Alfred?” And she tried to refresh the memories of these happy events.
“Alfred, do you
remember that event in Rome where three hundred Catholic monks were
demonstrating for peace in Vietnam? Each of them wore the name of a Buddhist
monk in prison in Vietnam — because these Buddhist monks refused to be drafted
into the army and obey the law of the army. Over here we tried our best to make
their suffering known. So in Rome, three hundred Catholic priests wearing the
names of three hundred Buddhist monks in jail in Vietnam made a parade, do you
remember that?” All these kinds of memories came back to him.
Sister Chan Khong
continued to practice, exactly like Shariputra. At one point, Alfred opened his
mouth and spoke. He said, “Wonderful, wonderful,” two times, and that is all.
One or two minutes later he sunk again into his coma and never came back again.
Six people were waiting in the limousine and that night we had to give an
orientation talk to four or five hundred retreatants, so I recommended to Laura
and to Dorothy, his wife, that if he came back, they should continue the same
kind of practice: massaging and watering the seeds of happiness in him. And we
left.
[Bell]
In the early morning
of the next day we got a telephone call that Alfred died very peacefully, just
one hour or an hour and a half after we had left. It looks like he was waiting
for us, and after that kind of meeting he was completely satisfied and he died
in peace.
When Sister Chan
Khong’s big sister was dying in California, she was suffering a lot in her
body. In the hospital she was in a coma, but she suffered very much in her
body; and she cried and she shouted, and all her children did not know what to
do, because they had not learned anything from the Dharma yet. When Sister Chan
Khong came in and saw that, she began to chant. But her chanting was a little
bit too weak compared with the moaning and crying of the person who was dying.
So Sister Chan Khong used a cassette recorder and a tape of the kind of
chanting that you heard this morning, “Namo Avalokiteshvaraya, bodhisattva
Avalokiteshvara.” She used an earphone and she turned the volume quite high. In
just a few minutes, all the agitation, all the suffering, all the crying stopped,
and from that moment until she died, she remained very quiet.
It was like a
miracle, and all of her children did not understand why, but we understand.
Because she also had the seed of the Buddha-dharma in her, she had heard the
chanting, she had had contact with the practice — the chanting, the atmosphere
of the practice. But because of having lived too many years in an environment
where the atmosphere of calm, of peace, was not available, many layers of
suffering had covered it up, and now the chanting helped her although she was
in a coma. The sound broke through and helped her touch what was deep in her.
Because of that miracle of linking with the seed of peace and calm within her,
she was able to quiet all her agitation and crying and she stayed very calm
until she died.
So every one of us
has that kind of seed in us — seeds of happiness, seeds of peace and calm. If
we know how to touch them, we can help a dying person to die peacefully. We
have to be our best during that time — we have to be calm, solid, peaceful, and
present in order to help a person dying. The Buddhist practice of touching the
Ultimate should be practiced in our daily life — we should not wait until we
are about to die in order to practice. Because if we know how to practice
touching deeply the phenomenal world in our daily life, we are able to touch
the world of the Absolute, the ultimate dimension of reality in our daily life.
When you drink your cup of tea, when you look at the full moon, when you hold
the hand of a baby, or walk with a child, if you do it very deeply, mindfully,
with concentration, you are able to touch the ultimate dimension of reality,
and this is the cream of the Buddhist teaching — touching the Ultimate.
The other day we
talked about the wave, living the life of a wave, but at the same time she can
also live the life of water within her. She does not have to die in order to
become water, because the wave is water already in the present moment. Each of
us has our ultimate dimension — you may call it “the kingdom of God,” or
nirvana, or anything. But that is our ultimate dimension — the ultimate
dimension of our reality. If in our daily life we live superficially, we cannot
touch it. But if we learn how to live our daily life deeply, we’ll be able to
touch nirvana — the world of no birth and no death — right in the here and the
now. That is the secret of the practice that can help us transcend the fear of
birth and death.
After having guided
Anathapindika to practice watering the seeds of happiness in him, the Venerable
Shariputra continued with the practice of looking deeply: “Dear friend
Anathapindika, now it is the time to practice the meditation on the six sense
bases. Breathe in and practice with me, breathe out and practice with me. These
eyes are not me, I am not caught in these eyes. This body is not me, I am not
caught in this body. I am life without boundaries. The decaying of this body
does not mean the end of me. I am not limited to this body.”
So they continued to
practice, in order to abandon the idea that we are this body, we are these
eyes, we are this nose, we are this tongue, we are this mind. They meditated
also on the objects of the six senses: “Forms are not me, sounds are not me,
smells are not me, tastes are not me, contacts with the body are not me; I am
not caught in these contacts with the body. These thoughts are not me, these
notions are not me, I am not caught in these thoughts and in these notions.”
And they meditated on the six consciousnesses: sight, hearing, consciousness
based on nose, consciousness based on tongue, consciousness based on body,
consciousness based on mind: “I am not caught in consciousness based on the
body. I am not caught in consciousness based on the mind.”
Then they meditated
on the six elements: “The element of earth in me is not me, I am not caught in
the earth element. The element of water in me is not me, I am not caught in the
element of water.” Then they went on with the elements of air, space, fire, and
consciousness.
Finally they came to
the meditation of being and non-being, coming and going. “Dear friend
Anathapindika, everything that is arises because of causes and conditions.
Everything that is has the nature not to be born and not to die, not to arrive
and not to depart.”
When we look at this
sheet of paper, you might think that there is a moment when the sheet of paper
began to be and there will be a moment when this sheet of paper will stop
being.
We think that before
we were born we did not exist, and we think that after we die we might become
nothing. Because in our mind we have the idea that to be born means “from
nothing we suddenly become something.” From no one you suddenly become someone
— that is our notion of birth. But how is it possible that from nothing
something could become something, from no one they could become someone? That
is very absurd.
Look at this sheet of
paper — we may think that the moment of its birth is when the paste was made
into this sheet of paper. But this sheet of paper was not born out of nothing!
If we look deeply into this piece of paper, we see already that it had been
there before its “birth” in the form of a tree, in the form of water, in the
form of sunshine, because with the practice of looking deeply we can see the
forest, the earth, the sunshine, the rain — everything in there. So the
so-called “birthday” of the sheet of paper is only a “continuation day.” The
sheet of paper had been there for a long time in various forms. The “birth” of
the sheet of paper is only a continuation. We should not be fooled by the appearance.
We know that the sheet of paper has never been born, really. It has been there,
because the sheet of paper has not come from nothing. From nothing, you
suddenly become something? From no one, you suddenly become someone? That is
very absurd. Nothing can be like that.
So the day of our
birth is only a continuation day and practicing meditation is to look deeply
into ourselves to see our true nature. That means, our true nature is the
nature of no birth and no death. No birth is our true nature. We used to think
that to be born means from nothing we become something. That idea, that notion
is wrong, because you cannot demonstrate that fact. Not only this sheet of
paper, but that flower, this book, this thermos, they were something else
before they were “born.” So nothing is born from nothing. The French scientist
Lavoisier said, “Rien ne se crée,”nothing is produced. There is no birth. The
scientist is not a teacher of Buddhism, but he made a sentence exactly with the
same kind of words that are found in the Heart Sutra. “Rien ne se crée, rien ne
se perd,” nothing is produced, nothing dies.
Let us try to burn
this sheet of paper to see whether we can reduce it into nothing. Maybe you
have a match or something? Be mindful and observe. . . . We know that it is
impossible to reduce anything into nothing. You have noticed the smoke that
came up. Where is it now? Part of the sheet of paper has become smoke, it has
joined a cloud. We may see it again tomorrow in the form of a raindrop. That’s
the true nature of the sheet of paper. It is very hard for us to catch the
coming and the going of a sheet of paper. We recognize that part of the paper
is still there, somewhere in the sky in the form of a little cloud. So we can
say, “So long, goodbye, see you again tomorrow.”
It’s hot when I burn
it — I got a lot of heat on my fingers. The heat that was produced by the
burning has penetrated into my body and into yours also. It has come into the
cosmos, and if you have a very sophisticated instrument, you can measure the
effect of that heat on everything, even several kilometers from here. So that
is another direction where the sheet of paper has gone. It is still there, in
us and around us. We don’t need a long time to see it again. It may be already
in our blood. And this ash, the young monk may return it to the soil and maybe
next year when you try a piece of lettuce, it is the continuation of this ash.
So it is clear that
you cannot reduce anything to nothing, and yet we continue to think that to die
means from something you become nothing, from someone you just become no one.
Is it possible? So the statement, “Rien ne se crée, rien ne se perd,” nothing
is really born, nothing can die, goes perfectly with the teaching of the Buddha
on the nature of no birth, and no death. Our fear is born from notions — the
notions of being and non-being, the notions of birth and death. Before we were
born we are taught that that was “non-being,” after we are born we believe that
that is “being,” and after we die we think that that will be “non-being” again.
So not only do the notions of birth and death imprison us in our fear but the
notions of being and non-being have to be transcended. That is the cream of the
Buddhist teaching — to silence all the notions and ideas, including notions of
birth and death, being and non-being.
What is Nirvana?
Nirvana is the blowing out of all notions, the notions that serve as the
foundation of fear and suffering. The other day we were dealing with the notion
of happiness. Even the notion of happiness can make us miserable, can create a
lot of misery for us. That is one of the notions that should be transcended.
There are basic notions that are the foundation of our fear and suffering: the
notions of being and non-being, birth and death, coming and going. From where
have you come and where shall we go? The idea of coming and going is also a
notion that we have to transcend.
[Bell]
This is the guided
meditation given to Anathapindika by Shariputra: Everything that is has the
nature not to be born and not to die. No birth and no death. Not to arrive and
not to depart. No coming, no going. When the body arises, it arises; it does
not come from anywhere. When the body ceases, it ceases; it does not go
anywhere. The body is not nonexistent before it arises. The body is not
existent after it arises. When conditions are sufficient there is a
manifestation, and if you perceive that manifestation, you qualify it as being.
If conditions are no longer sufficient, you cannot perceive it, and you qualify
it as non-being. You are caught in these two notions.
It’s like if you come
to Plum Village in April and you look, you see no sunflowers. Looking around
you say that there are no sunflowers around here. That is not true. The
sunflower seeds have been sown. Everything is ready by that time. Only the
farmers and their friends, when they look at the hills around Plum Village,
already can see sunflowers. But you are not used to it — you have to wait until
the month of July in order to recognize, to perceive sunflowers. So if out of
your perception, you qualify it as “being” or “non-being” — well, you miss the
reality. Not being perceived by you doesn’t make it non-being, nonexistent.
Just because you can perceive it, doesn’t mean that you can qualify it as
existing and being. It is a matter of causes and conditions. If conditions are
sufficient, then it is apparent, and you can perceive it; and because of that,
you say that it “is.”
That is why, in deep
meditation, we have to transcend all these ideas, all these notions, and we can
see what other people cannot see. Looking into the flower you can see the
garbage, you can see the cloud, you can see the soil, you can see the sunshine.
Without much effort, you can see that a flower “inter-is” with everything else,
including the sunshine and the cloud. We know that if we take away the sunshine
or the cloud, the flower will be impossible. The flower is there because
conditions are sufficient for it to be; we perceive it and we say, “Flower
exists.” And when these conditions have not come together, and you don’t
perceive it, and then you say, “It’s not there.” So we are caught by our
notions of being and non-being. The ultimate dimension of our reality cannot be
expressed in terms of being and non-being, birth and death, coming and going.
It is like the water
that is the substance of the waves. Talking about the wave, you can speak of
the “birth” of a wave, the “death” of a wave. The wave can be “high” or “low,”
“this” or “other,” “more” or “less” beautiful: but all these notions and terms
cannot be applied to water, because the water is the other dimension of the
waves. So the ultimate dimension of our reality is in us, and if we can touch
it, we’ll transcend the fear of being and non-being, birth and death, coming
and going. For Buddhist meditators, “to be or not to be,” that is not the
question! Because they are capable of touching the reality of no birth and no
death; no being, no non-being. You have to transcend both concepts — being and
non-being — because these concepts constitute the foundation of your fear.
It would be a pity if
we practiced only to get the relative kind of relief. The greatest relief is
possible only when you touch nirvana. Nirvana means the ultimate dimension of
our being, in which there is no birth, no death, no being, no non-being. All
these notions are entirely removed. That is why nirvana means “extinction” — the
extinction of all notions and concepts, and also the extinction of all
suffering that is born from these concepts, like fear, like worries. When we
begin to touch the phenomenal world, we see there is birth, there is death,
there is impermanence, there is no-self. But as we begin to touch profoundly
the world of phenomena, we find out that the base of everything is nirvana. Not
only are things impermanent, but they are permanent as well. You transcend the
idea of permanence, and you also transcend the idea of impermanence.
Impermanence is given as an antidote so that you can release your notion of
permanence. And since you are caught by the idea of self, no-self is a device
to help you to get release from the notion of self. Touching the Absolute, not
only can you release the notion of self, but you can also release the notion of
non-self. If you have a notion of nirvana, please do your best to release it as
soon as possible — because nirvana is the release of all notions, including the
notion of nirvana!
Anathapindika was a
very able practitioner. When he practiced to this point, he was so moved that
he got insight right away. He was able to touch the dimension of no-birth and
no-death. He was released from the idea that he is this body. He released the
notions of birth and death, the notions of being and non-being, and suddenly he
got the non-fear. The Venerable Ananda saw him crying because of happiness,
because of that kind of release. But Ananda did not understand what was really
happening with the lay person Anathapindika, so he said, “Why, dear friend, why
are you crying? Do you regret something, or did you fail in your practice of
the meditation?” He was very concerned. But Anathapindika said, “Lord Ananda, I
don’t regret anything. I practiced very successfully.” Then Ananda asked, “Why
are you crying, then?” Anathapindika said, “Venerable Ananda, I cry because I
am so moved. I have served the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha for more than
thirty years, and yet I have not received any teaching that is deep like today.
I am so happy to have received and practiced this teaching.” And Ananda said,
“Dear friend, this kind of teaching we monks and nuns will receive every day.”
You know that Ananda
was much younger than Shariputra. Thereupon Anathapindika said, “Venerable
Ananda, please go home and tell the Lord that there are lay people who are so
busy that they cannot receive this kind of deep teaching, but there are those
of us, although lay people, who do have the time, the intelligence, and the
capacity of receiving this kind of teaching and practice.” And those were the
last words uttered by the lay person Anathapindika. The Venerable Ananda
promised to go back to the Jeta grove and report that to the Buddha, and it is
reported in the sutra that not long after the departure of the two monks, the
layman Anathapindika died peacefully and happy.
This is a sutra, a
discourse called “The Teachings to be Given to the Sick.” You can find it in
the Plum Village Chanting Book, in English. We are working on a new version of
the Plum Village Chanting Book, but in the present edition you already have
this text. This text is available in Pali, in Chinese, and we have several
other texts which offer the same kind of teaching. So I would recommend that we
study this text and we do a Dharma discussion in order to deepen our
understanding of the teaching, and how to put into practice this teaching of
the Buddha in the best way possible.
If you are a
psychotherapist, if you are a social worker, if you are the one who has to help
a dying person, it’s very crucial that you study this kind of teaching and put
it into your practice in your daily life. And if you are simply a meditator who
would like to deepen your practice, then the study and practice of this sutra
will help you to get more stability, get more peace, and especially the ground
of non-fear, so that when the moment comes, you can confront it in a very calm
and easy way — because all of us are supposed to die some day. Even if
theoretically in the teaching there is no birth and no death, if we are able to
live our daily life in such a way that we could touch the ultimate dimension,
then that moment will not be a problem for us at all.
In my daily life I
always practice looking at things around me, at people around me, at myself;
and I can already see my continuation in this flower, or that bush, or that
young monk, or that young nun or that young lay person. I see that we belong to
the same reality, we are doing our best as a Sangha, we bring the seeds of the
Dharma a little bit everywhere, we make people around us happy: so I don’t see
the reason why I have to die, because I can see myself in you, in other people,
in many generations. That is why I have promised the children that I will be
climbing the hill of the twenty-first century with them.
From the top of the
hill in the year 2050, I’ll be looking down and enjoying what is there together
with the young people now. The young monk Phap Canh is now twenty-one, and on
the top of the hill he will be seventy-five! And of course I will be with him,
hand in hand, and we will look down together to see the landscape of the
twenty-first century. So as a Sangha, we shall climb the hill of the
twenty-first century together. We’ll do our best so that the climbing will be
enjoyable and peaceful, and we’ll have all the children with us because we know
that we never die. We will be there for them forever.
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