Hành Trình Vô Ngã by
Vô Ngã Vô Ưu
Transcript of Thich Nhat Hanh English Dharma Talks
41 Watering Our Good Seeds
Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh
on July 23, 1997 in Plum Village, France.
I have a topic for
Dharma discussion for the young people today. You have organized in groups,
speaking the same language, and we expect you to bring your insights to the
sangha tomorrow. Twenty-four hours is not a lot. I don’t like to set a
deadline, if you are not ready tomorrow, then after tomorrow is all right. This
is the Dharma discussion topic. Please remember.
Once upon a time
there was a monk who was not happy. Maybe his name was Freres Jacques. You know
the song, Freres Jacques? He was a lazy monk. He did not want to ring the bell
in the morning. So, once upon a time there was a monk who was not so happy, and
he blamed other monks for his unhappiness. He had a roommate, and his roommate
was not happy either, because that monk always complained. He complained about
this, complained about that. So sometime later the other monk asked to be moved
to another room, to have another roommate.
Of course, like I do,
you desire to help that monk to be happy so he would stop complaining. What can
I do to help him? We have to find out. We are caught in a kind of dilemma,
because I know if a person does not make people around him happy, he cannot be
happy himself. And this applies not only to monks. If you are unable to make
the people around you happy, how can you be happy? In the teaching of the
Buddha I have learned one very basic thing: happiness is not an individual
matter. Maybe some of you still believe that happiness can be sought by
individuals, that we should just go and look for our own kind of happiness.
Happiness we believe
can be an individual matter, but according to the teaching of the Buddha, our
teacher, happiness is not an individual matter. If the other person is not
happy, there is no way that you can be happy. Look. Consider a couple. The
couple might be husband and wife. If the husband is unhappy, do you think that
the wife can be happy? No, I don't think so. If the wife is unhappy, do you
think that the husband can be really happy? No. So there is no point of looking
for individual happiness. If you want you to be happy, you have to make the
other person happy. Take the example of another couple, a father and a son. Do
you think that if the father is unhappy, the son can be happy? No. If the son
suffers so much, do you think that the father can be happy himself? No. That is
why it is very realistic to see and to accept the fact that happiness cannot be
an individual matter.
We have to practice
looking deeply to really understand the teaching of the Buddha. A mother who is
unhappy cannot make her daughter happy. If her daughter suffers so much, the
mother will not be able to be happy herself. So it's clear that happiness is
not a personal matter. Therefore, when we look at that poor monk we see that
because he is not able to make the people around him happy, namely the other
brothers, he cannot be happy. He seems to be trying to look for his individual
happiness. But that is wrong. It is not in line with the teaching of the
Buddha. So you might come to the conclusion that in order for that monk to be
happy, he has to try to make the people around him happy, right? It seems
logical. It seems clear that to be happy himself, he has to be able to make his
roommate happy and other monks in the same monastery happy.
But there still is
another problem. That is why I need you to practice looking deeply with me. How
can an unhappy person make the people around him or her happy? Is there a way?
He knows that if he cannot be happy, he cannot make people around him happy. He
is motivated by the desire to make people around him happy, but because he has
no happiness in himself, how could he share his happiness and make other people
happy? Do you think that you have got the topic of the dharma discussion? That
is a kind of dilemma. I need a young person to tell me whether I have presented
the topic clearly enough.
I want you to spend
one or two days sitting together, practicing breathing in, breathing out,
deeply, doing walking meditation, in order to be calm, to be concentrated, and
when you come together, you offer your insight as to how to help that monk. And
the dilemma is that if that monk wants to be happy, he has to make people
around him happy. The question remains that if he is unhappy, how can he make
other people around him happy? And you grown up people, if you want to practice
looking deeply to find out, you are welcome to do so.
Once upon a time
there was an unhappy monk. That is the topic. But you can change the word
“monk,” because it is not only a matter of monks and nuns. If you like, you can
change it to an unhappy boy or girl, son or daughter, husband or wife.
Chicolina, do you think it's clear enough? Good.
The last thing I
would like to tell you today is that during the past week many children have
practiced, have learned the practice of pebble meditation and the practice of
inviting the bell of mindfulness to sound. I count on you, those who have been
here one week, to help your friends who just arrived yesterday to learn about
these two practices. At the end of this week they will be able to do as well as
you do. Do you think that you can do it for us? Inviting the bell, and
practicing the pebble meditation? Good. I think that is enough as an assignment
today. Have a happy day. When you hear the bell, stand up and bow to the sangha
before you leave to begin your practice.
[Bell]
Turn around to the sangha. Bow. Go slowly, beautifully, like
flowers.
[Bell]
Dear friends, today
is the twenty-third of July 1997 and we are in the Upper Hamlet. Listening to a
Dharma talk is also a form of practice. We used to be in school, listening to
lectures and so on, and during that time we got in the habit of using only our
intellect, because what we needed in school was our intellect. But in a
practice center a Dharma talk is not just a lecture. A Dharma talk is an opportunity
to open ourselves up and to allow the deepest levels of our consciousness to be
exposed to the Dharma. Instead of using the intellect, we put the intellect to
rest, because our intellect has the tendency to compare, to judge, to evaluate,
to arrange things and ideas and classify them into boxes.
The Dharma is not a
lecture. The Dharma in the Buddhist tradition is a kind of rain. Our
consciousness should behave like the soil, the earth. We have to allow the
Dharma talk to penetrate. According to the Buddha we have seeds of
understanding, of awakening, of compassion, within ourselves. We don't need
these seeds to be transmitted from the teacher. We already have all of them in
the depth of our consciousness. We call it store consciousness, sometimes earth
consciousness. Because these seeds are buried deep in the mind, in the soil of
our consciousness, it is very hard for them to grow and manifest. Above there
are many layers of suffering, confusion, prejudices and so on, and our
intellect can never go deep enough. Our intellect very often contradicts our
deepest nature and therefore to allow the intellect to rest and to open our
earth store in order for the rain of the Dharma to penetrate is very important.
[Thay recites a poem in Vietnamese and then translates]
The spring rain
is falling gently
and the earth
and the soil of my consciousness
is penetrated by
the rain.
And the seed
deep within me
now has a chance
to be penetrated by the rain and to smile, sprouting.
We have to listen to
the Dharma with that kind of spirit, to allow the soil of our consciousness to
be penetrated by the Dharma rain, not using ideas, concepts, that we already
have to compare and to classify. That is very important. If we are already used
to that kind of listening, using only the intellect to judge, to compare, to
classify, we have to learn a new way, because listening to a Dharma talk is not
the same thing as learning the philosophy of Buddhism. They are two things, quite
different. A lady who left us yesterday said that during one hour and a half, Thay
said very much the same thing. He could have done it in fifteen minutes. She
was very hungry for ideas, but she did not realize that a Dharma talk is a time
for practice. The teacher is supposed to offer the Dharma rain in such a way
that the good seeds in the people can be penetrated and can sprout and become
flowers, the flower of understanding, the flower of compassion and so on.
Using our intellect
is like using a nylon sheet to order to receive the rain, or nylon buckets to
receive the rain. When you use a nylon sheet, you prevent the rain from
penetrating into the soil. That is why there is a way to listen to Dharma
talks. That way is not to use your intellect. You let your whole person be
penetrated by the Dharma, and your person includes the body. We know that our
consciousness has so many layers and the deepest layers are very difficult to
reach and therefore we have to bring our selves to a state of oneness. The body
is there and the mind is there, the consciousness is there, and we just allow
the rain of the Dharma to fall.
In the time of the
Buddha it is reported in many sutras, many people would get enlightened during
the Dharma talk and their eyes would get very bright and they were released
from the bondage they had carried with them for a long time. When the Buddha
saw that person, he always said, “That person got liberated. That person has
understood. That person has been transformed.” So transformation and hearing
can be possible also during a Dharma talk. Don't believe that in a dharma talk
you get the theory and then you go back to your tent and practice. No.
Listening to a dharma talk is also a form of practice. That is why we have to
sit in such a way that we are really present, body and consciousness at the
same time. We have to dwell in the present moment. We have to allow ourselves
to be available to the Dharma and the Dharma will be available to us.
Even if you feel
sleepy and sit there dozing in the Dharma hall, it's much better than using
your intellect. Yes, this is true, because even if you are sleeping, the Dharma
talk has a way of penetrating you, but if you use your intellect, it is very
difficult. Maybe you have had experience with someone in a coma. If you talk to
her, she has a way of listening. She is present in a way that she can be
receptive when you talk to her. When you allow your intellect to rest, many
beautiful things can penetrate into you and you get a transformation.
There are people who
after listening to a Dharma talk have felt liberated, light, joyful, and they
didn't have to do much. They didn't have to listen hard or make any effort.
They just opened themselves up to the Dharma to entered. That is why we should
consider the one hour and a half listening to the Dharma talk as a time of
practice. It may be very important.
The other day I was
talking about holiness and I said that the nature of holiness can be
understood, can be recognized. We call someone “His Holiness” or “Her Holiness.”
But what makes us call him or her by that title “Holiness”? There is, or there
may be, the substance of holiness in that person. In the Buddhist tradition the
substance of holiness is mindfulness.
When I wrote Living
Buddha, Living Christ, I said that mindfulness is the energy of the Buddha that
is in you and its nature is the same nature as the Holy Spirit, because where
there is mindfulness, there is life. Where there is attention, there is life.
When you drink a glass of orange juice in mindfulness, you are real and the
juice is real, and because you and the juice are real, life is real. If you
drink your orange juice in forgetfulness, you are caught by your anger, your
jealousy; you are caught by the past, by the fear of the future, you are not
really there for your orange juice and your orange juice is not really there
for you. So you and orange juice, both of you are not real, and therefore, life
is not real at that moment.
So to drink mindfully
means to be alive again, to live deeply that moment of orange juice drinking.
Since the energy of mindfulness is in you, the energy of holiness is in you.
Where there is mindfulness there is life, your presence and the presence of
life in you. Then if you continue to contemplate mindfulness, you will see that
you will become more concentrated. Yes, you drink mindfully your orange juice,
you are concentrated, even if your juice is not concentrated. Every step you
make when you practice walking meditation makes you concentrated. You touch
life deeply every step you make. So mindfulness is there and concentration is
there, also.
Mindfulness carries
within itself the energy of concentration. If you are concentrated, you are
strong. When you look deeply, you touch deeply, and because you are able to
look deeply and touch deeply, you get insight. You understand the nature of
what is there: the object of your touching, the object of your looking.
Therefore, the energy of concentration carries itself. The energy of insight is
a liberating factor. If we suffer because we don't understand, because we are
overwhelmed by illusion, ignorance, once we get insight we no longer suffer. We
are no longer angry and suspicious. Therefore, our insight is the liberating
factor, and without concentration and mindfulness, insight would not be
possible. That is why I said that the energy of mindfulness is the vehicle
transporting concentration and concentration carries itself.
Prajna is insight.
Concentration is samadhi, and mindfulness is smrti. Smrti, samadi, and prajna
are the three steps of training in the Buddhist path. Our practice is
recognizing the seed of mindfulness in us. In holy people, there is a seed of
mindfulness, but in all of us there is also a seed of mindfulness. If you
practice recognizing that seed deep in our consciousness and help it to grow
and to manifest often, the energy of mindfulness increases all the time and it
is the substance of holiness in us. So, first of all, the practice is to
recognize that we do have that seed deep in our consciousness and this is easy
because every one of us is able to drink our juice mindfully. Every one of us
is able to look at a flower mindfully. Every one of us is capable of breathing
in mindfully. So the seed of mindfulness is really there, deep inside of us. We
don't live our daily life mindfully because we have not allowed that seed of
mindfulness in us to be touched every day by ourselves and by the people around
us. We have not been able to make it grow and become important in our lives.
The practice of
mindfulness is first of all to recognize that seed and to do everything for
that seed to be touched every day and to become a source of energy that will
make us more alive in our daily life. When we know how to live mindfully, we
live concentrated. And if we live concentrated, we begin to understand deeply.
When we understand deeply, we suffer much less. If these three kinds of
energies are within us, we are a holy person. We have no complex about that,
because we know exactly what holiness means.
Holiness is something
we can recognize. It is not abstract. If we look at a person and we know that
she is mindful, she is alive, she is concentrated in each moment of her daily
life, she is able to understand, to be compassionate, to forgive, then we know
that holiness is in her. You can call her “Your Holiness.” No complex. Holiness
is not a title conferred to someone just by society, but by the fact that we
are able to generate the energy of mindfulness, concentration and wisdom.
[Bell]
The bell of
mindfulness was created to help us touch the seed of mindfulness and make it
manifest. Every time we hear the sound of the bell, we go back to our breath
and we breathe mindfully. Mindfulness of breathing nurtures the energy of
mindfulness in us. It's easy to practice if you are surrounded by a sangha,
brothers and sisters who do the same. In Plum Village, every time you hear the
bell, you see all the brothers and sisters going back to their breathing and
enjoying their in-breath and their out-breath. You will do the same in a very
natural way. In a few weeks, you will get the habit, the good habit of going
back to your mindful breathing.
The same is true with
your mindful walking. In Plum Village everyone walks mindfully. Each step is an
opportunity for us to touch the seed of mindfulness in us. We enjoy every step
we make. Before the practice, we only know how to run. We run because we think
that happiness is not possible now and here. We have to run to the other end
where happiness may be available. We have a long, long habit of running. We run
even in our dreams. Our ancestors have run, and they have transmitted their
habit of running to us and we shall transmit the habit of running to our
children.
When we come to Plum
Village, we learn that happiness is available in the here and the now. Why to
you have to run? To breathe in and out feeling that you are alive, and to make
a step feeling that walking on this beautiful planet is already a miracle, is
enough for you to be happy right now. You don't need another condition to be happy.
So learning to be happy here and now with the conditions of happiness that are
already available, this is what we learn in Plum Village. That is why everyone
tries to block the old habit of running. Blocking in a very nice way, not by
fighting, but by initiating a new habit, the habit of walking like a free
person, like a happy person. In the beginning you might pretend to be a free
person, a happy person, because the habit is so strong, but after a few days
being in the sangha, you know that you can do it, you can enjoy every step you
make. You say, “It's so simple! Why didn’t I know about it? Just breathe in,
make a step, smile and you can be happy.” Some people still wonder, “How could
it be so simple?” Something this simple might not be true, because we are used
to complicated things. There is a person who was reading one of my books in a
bus, and after reading it — it's a very short book — she closed it and began to
practice right on the bus. She felt wonderful, because she didn't believe that
truth is something very complicated.
Every two years we
have a 21-day retreat here in Plum Village and everyone has to attend the whole
retreat. We don't go in and out like in the summer opening here. On the first
day, everyone is offered a sticker that they can put on their shoes. The
sticker says, “I walk for you.” If you can make a peaceful step and get
nourishment from that step, get peace and joy from making that step, not only
do you make yourself healed, transformed, joyful, but you make other people happy,
also. When you are happy you have something to share. When you are happy, you
can make people around you happy. Our parents may not have had the chance to
enjoy mindful breathing, mindful walking, and they hurried for all their life.
They didn't know how to enjoy their in-breath, out-breath, relaxation, and
dwelling happily in the present moment. Now, we have a chance to learn it so
that every breath I take in, I feel freedom, I feel relaxation, I feel peace.
I breathe in not only
for me but I breathe in for all my ancestors. Practicing looking deeply, I know
that all my ancestors are still alive in me, present in me. I am the
continuation of my ancestors. Therefore I breathe in and I invite my mother, my
father, my grandfather to breathe in with me. It's wonderful. I practice for
them. I also practice for my children, because anything I do to me, I do to my
ancestors, I do to my children. That awareness keeps me alive, keeps me on the
right path. I wouldn't like to do anything that is harmful to my ancestors, to
my children, to my grandchildren. That is love.
I have many children
and grandchildren — many disciples, monastics and lay. I know if I am not
mindful, they will suffer so much. So every step I make is for them. Every
breath I take is for them. I should nourish myself with peace, with joy, for
the sake of my ancestors, for the sake of my children and their children. Every
step I make, every breath I take, is the practice of love. That is why we
distribute the sticker, “I walk for you.” So it is your duty to make a step in
a relaxing way to feel that you are alive. It is a privilege to be alive, to be
still walking on this beautiful planet, to touch peace and love within
ourselves. One step is very much, because if you able to make one step, you will
be to be able to make two, and so on. I walk for you. I walk for my parents, my
ancestors. Many people have brought their stickers home and continued their
practice.
I have said that the
practice should help us to recognize the seed of mindfulness in us and help it
to manifest in our breathing, in our walking, in our eating, in our
conversation and so on. In the Buddhist tradition, mindfulness is the substance
of a Buddha. The Buddha is not something vague, a god, or just one person. The
Buddha is the energy of mindfulness that is inherent in every one of us and we
can make the Buddha in us grow apparent, strong. That light can shine on our
life and help us to go in the direction of love, the direction of
understanding.
The training here
helps increase the capacity to be mindful. Yes, you are capable of being
mindful, but we want you to increase that capacity. Every time you drink water
and juice and tea, we want you to drink in mindfulness, not just from time to
time. Every time you walk, we want you to walk mindfully, not just from time to
time. The sangha is here to remind you, to support you. During the time that
you are here with your sangha, please use the opportunity to really practice.
Whether you go from your tent to the bathroom or to the kitchen or to the
meditation hall, adopt only one style of walking, walking meditation. Take more
time and enjoy the walking.
In Plum Village, the
monks and the nuns, all of them sign a treaty with their stairs. In your home
there may be stairs, because you go up to sleep there and then in the morning
you go down. There are days when you have to go up and down your stairs several
times. When you sign a treaty with the stairs, you want to go up and go down
only with peaceful, mindful steps. I have a hermitage very close to here and
there are stairs. In 18 years I always go up and go down mindfully, enjoying
every step. Never I have betrayed my treaty, violated my treaty. It has helped
me. Now I can climb the Gridhrakuta Mountain, I can climb the Wu Tai Shan Mountain.
I can climb any mountain, and everywhere I walk, including railway stations and
airports, I walk in the same style: walking meditation, enjoying every step. I
have quit running.
After signing that
treaty, you have to respect it. Halfway up the stairs if you realize that you
have not been walking mindfully, stop and go down again. Begin anew, breathing
in, a step, and breathing out, another step, enjoying. It is very important. If
you don't have stairs, then you can sign a treaty with a distance: for instance,
the path that leads from your house to the bus station. You make a vow: from
your house to that place you always walk mindfully. And if halfway you know
that you have made unmindful steps, you go back. You walk again. Don't make it
too long, to begin with. You will see the wonderful effect of such a practice
on your life. Some years later you will find that you are walking the same way
everywhere. You do that not only for yourself; no, you do it for all of us, for
your children, for your ancestors, also.
There are many, many
pleasant ways of doing it. There are several gathas like the one we sang here
this morning. There are many wonderful gathas in Plum Village. Please learn
them from your dharma teachers, from your brothers and sisters in the dharma.
And practice with several gathas instead of just one. Like when you breathe in,
you make two steps, “flower, flower”; and when you breathe out, you make
another two steps, “fresh, fresh.” Or if you want to go faster, you make three
steps: “flower, flower, flower; fresh, fresh, fresh.” But don't do it
mechanically. Don't say the word — practice it. When you say, “flower, flower,
flower,” you have to be a flower. When you say “fresh, fresh, fresh,” you have
to make freshness into a reality. Otherwise, what are you doing?
After a few minutes,
you may change to “mountain, solid.” Breathing in, you say, “mountain,
mountain,” and you transform yourself into a mountain. You are walking with
dignity. Each step is stability. You are not running. There are animals who
walk like that, very majestically. The Buddha, also, he walked like that. The
monks and the nuns during the time of the Buddha used to hold a begging bowl
and they walked like that. They radiate peace. People who saw them, many of
them knelt down on the sidewalk, because people need this kind of stability and
peace. So when you walk like this, you generate the energy of peace and
stability within you and you inspire all of us. If it happens that I lose my
awareness and I get into a hurry and I see you walking like that, your sight
will be a bell of mindfulness bringing me back to myself and there I am walking
beautifully again. That is why every one of us should make a contribution to
the sangha by his way or her way of walking and listening to the bell. Together
we generate a powerful source of mindfulness that will penetrate into every one
of us.
When I first came to
America, I heard people say that a retreat should have no more than 30 people,
otherwise it would not be serious. I didn't believe that too much, because I
knew that if everyone in the retreat is mindful and if you combine the
mindfulness of a large number of people, it will be very powerful. Everyone who
happens to be there will be penetrated by the tremendous amount of energy
emanating from the crowd. There were times when we practiced walking meditation
with two thousand two hundred people in America. The people who came for the
Day of Mindfulness had been in retreats and their practice was quite solid.
There was no noise at all; there was no disorder at all. Everyone was walking
mindfully, and it was very powerful. The energy penetrated each of us.
So if all of us, 300
or 400, know how to enjoy walking, generating stability and joy, then the
collective energy will be powerful and every one of us will inherit, will
profit from, that kind of energy. Each of you is needed. We need your
contributions to the collective energy of the sangha and walking mindfully,
breathing mindfully, drinking mindfully, doing things mindfully is the way to do
it. That practice helps increase the capacity to be mindful in us and in the
people around us. Also, the practice in Plum Village helps to increase the
capacity to keep mindfulness alive. Yes, all of us are capable of being
mindful, but our mindfulness vanishes very quickly. We need the sangha to keep
our mindfulness alive for a longer time.
When you are mindful,
concentrated, you are a Buddha. But many of us are part-time Buddhas only. We
have to learn how to be a full-time Buddha, and that is our path. The old
energy always pushes us in the opposite direction — forgetfulness. In order to
counter that old energy, you have to create a new habit energy, the habit
energy of being mindful. A very nice way, there is no war. There is only a
transformation. Meditation is not a fight, even against the old habits, the
negative things. To meditate means to embrace the negative. But you need to
have something in order to embrace: what is embracing what? It is the new
habit, it is the new energy generated in you, that would be the agent which
embraces the old habit.
In the first dharma
talk given here, I said that the old habit energy is very strong. Many times we
did not want to do it, many times we did not want to say it. We knew that if we
said it, if we did it, it would cause damage. But finally we did it, we said
it. We regret it very much later on. We are determined that next time we will
not do it, we will not say it, but when the circumstances arise we do it again,
we say it again. It has caused a lot of damage within us. We are frustrated
because we have the feeling that it is stronger than us, in fact it is
stronger. Because our mindfulness is too weak. That is why we come together and
practice touching the seed of mindfulness, helping it grow, learning how to
increase our capacity of being mindful, our capacity of keeping our mindfulness
alive. When we have that energy, we have something with which to embrace those
old bad habits, the negative things. And embracing them long enough, we will
diminish the power of the negative. It is like the heat in the home. When we
want to refresh the atmosphere in the home we turn the air conditioning on. The
cool air isn't going to fight the hot air. The cool air comes and embraces the
hot air, and it makes the hot air cooler. But the important thing is that the
cool air must be continually generated. You cannot turn it on and then turn it
off. So you have to learn how to keep mindfulness alive for a longer period of
time so your mindfulness can have enough time to embrace your forgetfulness,
your negative habit energy, with tenderness, and not with an intention to
fight.
Every time your habit
energy shows itself, begins to manifest, thanks to our mindful breathing,
mindful walking, you recognize it, and you smile at it. You say, “I know that
you are there, I am taking good care of you,” and you embrace it. That's our
practice: no fighting. You should know that we are not responsible for the
habit energy all by ourselves. Many of these habits have been transmitted. Some
of them have been transmitted by our mother or by our father, and when we see
that energy coming up we can say, “Hello Mother, I know you are there. I will
take good care of you.” Then you are in good hands again. Mindfulness is the
Buddha. The Buddha is taking care of you. Don't worry. You know how to invite
the Buddha, and to keep him, keep her, with you. The techniques of walking, of
breathing, of doing things mindfully, is what we learn while being in Plum
Village.
We have to know a
little bit about ourselves in order for the practice to be easy and natural,
and according to the teaching of the Buddha we are made of five elements. There
is a teacher of mathematics who trained here who went back to Toronto. When he
resumed his classes, he wiped the board with mindfulness, slowly and
peacefully. His students were very surprised. They asked him, “Are you OK,
Daddy?” because he was very much in a hurry before. He turned around and said,
“No, I'm OK, I'm trying to do it mindfully.” I was wiping the board in
mindfulness and his image appeared again to me.
Suppose we draw a
circle here representing something like an orange, and suppose that the orange
has five sections. So this is the first section, the second one, the third one,
the fourth and the fifth. The first section of the orange represents our body,
our form, rupa. Meditation has to do with our body. There are many sutras, many
scriptures, about how to meditate on our body. The second section of the orange
represents our feelings. To meditate is also to observe our feelings, to take
care of our feelings, and we have to learn how. In Plum Village, we don't learn
Buddhism, we learn only how to practice well.
Then we have our
perceptions. To meditate is to become mindful of the perceptions, to look
deeply into the perceptions, in order to see their nature. Mindfulness is
intervening to shine light upon our perceptions. Many times our perceptions are
wrong and mindfulness helps us to see that they are wrong. When we know that a
perception is wrong, we are liberated. It is like when in twilight you see a
snake, you get scared, you run, you scream, and when a friend brings a torch,
you recognize that it's not a snake. It is only a piece of rope. That is a
wrong perception. Wrong perceptions always create anger, fear, distress, and so
on. That is why meditating on perceptions helps to dissipate a lot of
suffering.
Mental formation is
the fourth section of the orange. “Formation”is a technical term: it means
things that are made by different elements, like this flower is a formation. If
we look deeply into the flower, we see many components, like the rain, the
sunshine, the clouds, the soil, the minerals, the farmer, the gardener, and so
on. When something is made from different kinds of elements, that something manifests
itself as the object of our perception, and it is called a formation. All
formations are impermanent. Here we have business with mental formations. Fear
is a mental formation. Craving is a mental formation. Compassion is also a
mental formation. Love is a mental formation. There are many wholesome mental
formations; there are unwholesome mental formations. In my tradition we
distinguish fifty-one categories of mental formations. As a novice I had to
learn them by heart: wholesome mental formations, unwholesome mental
formations, and so on.
I have to tell you
that feeling is also a mental formation, and perception is also a mental
formation, but they are too important. That is why you have to single them out
as a category. This kind of analysis is not for the sake of analysis. This
analysis is for the sake of practice. You have to remember that if in the
teaching of the Buddha there is an analysis, the analysis is to help you to see
and to practice well. It does not mean that this is the only way to present
reality. No. Buddhism is not there to give you the only way, the only
description of reality. The teachers are there to help you to understand
yourself and to practice well.
So feeling is one of
the fifty-one mental formations, perception is another one, therefore this
category has only forty-nine mental formations. These mental formations don't
manifest all at the same time. If they do, I think we cannot be alive. Imagine
the television set and every channel manifests at the same time: not possible.
So just one or two, sometimes three, but I think three is the maximum. This
section of the orange represents something like the screen of our television,
or the screen of the computer. Let us use the image of the computer. So each
program appears on the screen of the computer, and you can bring some other
things up to intervene. You can make a window, you can paste something in, for
instance. If I lived in the time of the Buddha I could not give a dharma talk
like this because they would not know what a computer is! So when they don't
manifest, where are they? They must be somewhere, hidden somewhere, in order to
manifest one by one like that. That is why we need the fifth section of the
orange. It's called “consciousness.”
Consciousness here
means the lower part of our consciousness. In the Sarvastivada school it is
called the base consciousness, the consciousness of the base. In Mahayana
Buddhism we call it “store consciousness”because it has the capacity to store
all the mental formations so that each of them will be able to manifest later
as a mental formation.
I spoke to you at the
beginning of the Dharma talk about this section of the orange: consciousness as
the soil of the mind, containing all kinds of seeds. Each mental formation
stays there in the form of a seed. A seed means something that has not
manifested yet. That is the technical term “bija,” seeds. So your anger is
there in the form of a seed. Now you are not angry at anyone, you are fine, but
that does not mean that anger is not in you. It is in you, but in the form of a
seed only. You may think that anger is not in you, but that is not correct. If
someone comes and says something, and touches that seed of anger, you will see
that seed manifests itself and you will soon be overwhelmed by the energy of
anger.
So bija is the seed,
and we have all kinds of seeds in us, positive and negative. We have the seed
of perfect enlightenment in us, that is the Buddha-to-be in us. We have the
seed of Mara in us. We have the seed of holiness in us, and we have the seed of
unholiness in us. So sometimes we may be called “His Holiness,” sometimes “His
Unholiness.” The mind is a screen upon which every mental formation can be
revealed. A good practitioner knows how to keep the negative seeds here [in the
storehouse consciousness], and tries by his or her practice to help the
positive seeds to manifest. If the positive seeds continue to manifest here,
the negative seeds become smaller, smaller, less important. When they are tiny,
not important, it is difficult for them to manifest. I don't get angry very
often. Even when I get angry, you might not see it. You may say, “I have never
seen Thay angry,” and you believe anger is not in me. That is not true. The
seed of anger is always in me, but since I practice I don't give it a lot of
chance.
You also have to see
things in terms of interbeing. When you practice do not entertain the hope that
you will wipe out all the negative things in you. Please don't! It's like a
gardener. She only wants to have flowers and no garbage in her garden. But it
is a necessity for a flower to become garbage. You cannot keep a flower alive
forever and ever. There will be a time when a flower has become a piece of
garbage. The love in us can be like that, is like that too. But a good organic
gardener is not afraid of garbage, because she knows perfectly how to transform
the garbage back into flowers. Both flowers and garbage are made of organic
matter. Mental formations are also organic. This is very interesting: all our
mental formations are of an organic nature. That is why we can transform. Love
can be transformed into hate. But if you have hate, don't be afraid. Learn,
learn how to transform your hate back into flowers. Many couples after two,
three years living together, see that their love has transformed into hate. In
the beginning, “How can I survive without her?”But now, “How can I survive with
her?”
So love has
transformed into hate. But if we know the law of transformation, we know also
that it is possible for us to transform garbage back into flowers. The hate,
anger, if we know how, we can transform them. So may I urge you not to be
afraid of your sorrow, your pain, your afflictions. Don't be eager to throw
them away, because it is exactly with these materials that you can fabricate
the flower of understanding and love in you. That is the principle of
nonduality that is so important in the Buddhist tradition. An organic gardener
is not afraid of the heap of garbage. She is confident. She does not want to
throw the garbage away because she knows that she is capable of transforming
the garbage back into flowers, into lettuce, cucumbers. So smile to them, say
“I know you are there, I am going to take good care of you and make you into
flowers.”Don't throw anything away.
So day is because
night is. Enlightenment and affliction, they inter-are. It is like the lotus.
Although they are fragrant, beautiful, refreshing, all of them grow from the
mud. But they don't smell like mud. That is why the Buddhists like very much to
use the symbol of the lotus. You live in the world of afflictions, of
suffering, and yet you are able to make use of them, to transform them. You
live in the world, but you are not overwhelmed or affected by the world.
Instead you can help the world to transform.
If you live in a
couple, if you live in a family, if you live with another person or several
persons, you may ask them to be careful. You may ask them to be aware of the
seeds you have in your store consciousness. “Darling, I know that I have these
negative seeds in me. And every time these seeds manifest, I make myself suffer
and I make you suffer, also. So, please, if you love me, if you care for me, be
careful not to water these seeds in me.”Among lovers, there should be such an
agreement. That is the practice. “Darling, if you really love me, water the
positive seeds in me, because I do have the seeds of understanding, of
compassion, of forgiveness, of joy in me. Even if they are still small, if you
know how to touch them in me every day, I become a much happier person and when
I am happy, you don't have to suffer as much.”
If you really
understand what your store consciousness is, you understand yourself. If you
understand the person you love with her weaknesses and her strengths, you would
know what we call the practice of selective watering of seeds. Refrain from
watering the negative seeds in him. Try your best to identify and to water the
positive seeds in him every day, and you will see the situation will improve in
just one week. The degree of happiness will increase very quickly, especially
when you are supported by brothers and sisters within the practice to show you
the way.
Consciousness
sometimes is called sarva bijaka. “Bija” means seeds and “sarva” means all, all
seeds. This is the totality of the seeds that are in you, the consciousness of
the totality of the seeds.
When you live
mindfully, you will be able to identify each variety of seeds that is about to
manifest. When there is a stimuli and a seed is about to manifest, you know
already and you immediately begin the practice of mindful breathing and
walking. Stop everything else. This is very important. If you don't, the seed
will manifest. When the seed manifests it is still possible for you to
practice, but it is better that you practice when it is about to manifest. If
you can do that it means that you have been practicing mindful walking, mindful
breathing for several weeks. When a seed is about to be agitated, to be
watered, you know and you put yourself in a state of being alert and you
practice. You practice for you, yes, but you practice for him, for her. She
will be grateful for you because you know how to take care of yourself, because
taking care of yourself is to take care of him or her.
"I walk for you,
I breathe for you.”Selective watering of seeds is your practice and it does not
take a long time. You can transform your situation very quickly.
42 Overcoming the Fear of Death
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