Hành Trình Vô Ngã by
Vô Ngã Vô Ưu
Transcript of Thich Nhat Hanh English Dharma Talks
48 The Path of Awakening
Published in the Mindfulness Bell #21, Spring 1998
Often we have the
feeling that there is nothing good, beautiful, or true inside us. We feel
incomplete, so we wear cosmetics and other adornments, or even undergo cosmetic
surgery in order to compensate. When we do these things, we feel we are somehow
being deceptive, but we cannot stop. At the same time, we realize that others
are also deceiving us. All of us are victims, trying to make ourselves feel
less unworthy. We feel we are half a person, and we wander all over the globe
looking for our other half. If we would look more carefully, we would see that
this feeling arises from a wrong perception.
We all want something
that is good, beautiful, and true, something we can believe in, and yet we look
for these qualities in others and not in ourselves. Then, when we think we have
found goodness, beauty, and truth in someone, love arises in us, and we become
involved in a relationship. It is only after some time that we realize that we
have misperceived — that what we thought was good, beautiful, and true was
really just superficial — and we feel wronged and go and look for another
relationship, another object on which to project the ideals of goodness,
beauty, and truth.
For our spirit, we do
the same. We look for a perfect teacher, and sit at the feet of this teacher
and that teacher as part of our search. We are a “spiritual seeker,” and, as
such, we are happy that people see us as good, beautiful, and true. We have the
appearance of virtue and of loving others, but these are only more cosmetics.
Then we find a teacher we like, and we feel that we have found our missing
half. But, like so many teachers, our new teacher turns out not to be in touch
with his own truth, beauty, and goodness, and when we discover this, we abandon
him and go forth looking for another teacher. We can continue these patterns
the whole of our life, always looking for someone to love and someone to guide
us.
Then one day, we meet
a very special teacher who tells us, “Don’t look outside yourself, Within you
are all of the qualities you have been looking for!” She is our root teacher,
and she tells us, “All living beings have the pure, clear, complete nature
within themselves. You only have to return to yourself to be in touch with the
good, the beautiful, and the true that are already within you.” The search that
has been going on for many lifetimes finally comes to an end.
Sitting at the foot
of the bodhi tree, the Buddha discovered that the good, the beautiful, and the
true are to be found in everyone, and he said, “How amazing that all living
beings have the basic nature of awakening, yet they don’t know it. So they
drift on the ocean of great suffering lifetime after lifetime.” The Buddha
wants us to see this. He does not want us to be a slave or to lean on him. So
he says very clearly, “You are what you have been looking for.” Someone who
speaks this way is worthy of being our teacher. He can show us how to take
refuge in the teacher in ourselves, and not look outside. When we touch these
qualities in ourselves, we have deep faith and confidence in the practice.
The Buddha’s love is
so great that we want to be around it all the time. But French author Antoine
de Saint Exupery warned us that to love each other does not mean that we just
sit and look at each other, but that we both look in the same direction. When
we take the hand of the Buddha, we discover that we not only love each other,
but we love all species. True love is always collective. We and the Buddha are
“associate lovers,” protecting ourselves and each other, being faithful to
ourselves and each other, and always bringing transformation to ourselves and
to many others.
Sometimes when we
fall in love, we forget to look in the same direction; we just sit there and
look at each other. In the time of the Buddha, a monk named Vaikali was very
attached to the Buddha. Whenever he was near the Buddha, he felt peaceful and
happy, and that was all he wanted. He didn’t listen deeply to the Buddha’s
Dharma talks. He only wanted to be near the Buddha. Because of that, he was
only able to touch the shadow of the Buddha, and not the Buddha’s deepest
aspects, great wisdom and great love.
The Buddha observed
that Vaikali was not getting stronger in the practice, so he forbade Vaikali
from coming near him. When the Buddha walked to the Jeta Monastery, he did not
allow Vaikali to join him. And he did not allow Vaikali to be his attendant.
Vaikali felt that the Buddha had cast him off, that the Buddha didn’t love him
anymore, and he wanted to commit suicide. The Buddha understood what was
happening and he went to him and said, “Dear Vaikali, your love is sincere, but
it is not the deep love of a monk. It is a superficial attachment. In yourself,
deep down, there are good, beautiful. and true qualities. You should be looking
for these in yourself and not running after a mere image of them in the Buddha.
These qualities are the ground of your being, your basis. I always practice
this way myself, and I always teach this to others.” After that, Vaikali
practiced properly.
A good teacher is
someone who shows us that there is also a teacher in us and a student in him.
We have to learn to take refuge in the teacher in us and not just be attached
to the external teacher. If our teacher is a true teacher, she will always
encourage us to go back to ourselves and be in touch with the true teacher
within us. When we learn how to practice this way, we will never be
disappointed. We will always be able to see the good, the beautiful, and the
true in ourselves and others, and we won’t be deceived by adornments. When we
see people deceive each other, we’ll only feel compassion and do our best to
help them wake up.
Real beauty is always
good and truthful. True goodness contains true beauty and real truth. Truth is
always good and beautiful. Truth, beauty, and goodness inter-are. If what we
thought was beautiful does not contain goodness and truth in it, it is not real
beauty. When we love someone, we have to avoid losing contact with our own
goodness, beauty, and truth, and with theirs as well, and then we won’t be
deceived by appearances. This is the Great Awakening. When we are awakened, we
understand what the Buddha meant when he said, “How amazing that all living
beings have the basic nature of awakening, yet they don’t know it. So they
drift on the ocean of great suffering lifetime after lifetime.”
Love is a great
opportunity. If it happens that you can touch the truth, beauty, and goodness
in someone you love, you will be able to go back and touch the same within
yourself. A true lover always helps his or her beloved do this. The same is
true in the teacher-student relationship.
In the time of the
Buddha, a young lady named Matanga fell in love with the monk Ananda and wanted
him to disrobe and marry her. She was very sick and said that she would die if
she did not have Ananda as her husband. The Buddha asked her what she loved in
Ananda, and she said that she loved everything about him: his eyes, his nose,
his mouth, his manner of walking, sitting, standing, and so on. The Buddha said,
“You have not seen the most beautiful aspects of Ananda such as his compassion,
his wisdom, his freedom, and his ideal to relieve the suffering of living
beings. If you see these good and beautiful traits, you will not want to keep
Ananda all for yourself. Ananda is like the sunshine. You cannot lock the
beautiful sunshine in a box. Ananda will not be beautiful if you deprive him of
his freedom and compassion. The only way to love Ananda is to be like him, to
do the things he does.”
Mantanga was healed
and she asked the Buddha to ordain her as a nun. She was able to touch the
ideal of freedom and compassion within herself. True love always goes together
with the capacity to look deeply and to touch deeply. When your beloved focuses
his attention and energy on something that he considers to be truly beautiful
and good, don’t try to stop him. Instead of saying, “My beloved, you are not
paying enough attention to me. You are neglecting me. You have abandoned me.
You do not love me,” you can say, “How wonderful what you are experiencing
there, my beloved! May I join you? Shall we be associate lovers?” Joining in
the search for goodness is the essence of love. It is the only way to nurture
and consolidate love.
Teachers and students
need to be “associate lovers,” helping each other and all living beings touch
the goodness, beauty, and truth in themselves. This is the Path of Awakening.
This talk was given
at Plum Village on November 20, 1997. It was translated from the Vietnamese by
Sister Annabel Laity and edited for publication by Arnie Kotler.
49 The Practice in Our Daily Life
0 Comments