Hành Trình Vô Ngã by
Vô Ngã Vô Ưu
Transcript of Thich Nhat Hanh English Dharma Talks
53 The Diamond Sutra - Part 4
Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh
on December 14, 1997 in
Plum Village, France.
Dear Sangha,
Today is the 14th of
December 1997. We are in the winter retreat of Plum Village. We are in the
Upper Hamlet. Today we conclude talking about the Diamond Sutra before we go to
another sutra. The Diamond Sutra is considered to be the basic sutra for the
practice of dhyana, dhyana means the core teaching of the Buddha. Every dhyana
school uses the Diamond Sutra. There is some sentences in the Diamond Sutra
which look a little mysterious, such as; "We try to save countless living
beings, but in fact there is no living being who is saved", and "The
dharma is not the dharma, that is why that it is the right dharma", and
"Wherever there is form, there is deception." Sometimes the language
of Zen masters looks mysterious like that. And sometimes there are sentences
like "What is the sound of the one hand clapping?" and, "What
was your true face before your grandma was born?" or, "Everything
goes to the one so where does the one go to". These koans look mysterious,
but when you look deeply you can understand all these mysterious things.
The method that we
use in order to understand the Diamond Sutra is the method of Vijnanavada,
Buddhist psychology. If we can understand the Diamond Sutra, it is because we
have looked at the Diamond Sutra under the lens of Buddhist psychology and the
lens of the Avatamsaka Sutra. The basic teaching of the Avatamsaka Sutra is
interpenetration, interconnection, interbeing. According to Buddhist psychology
there are three natures that we have to remember: The first is discrimination,
A is different from B, and different from C. But then the second of the three
natures of Buddhist psychology is interpenetration, interconnection. And then,
by seeing that, we discover the third nature, that's the true nature, and
reality as it is will be revealed totally. Buddhist psychology helps us to see
that in each of us there are many kinds of seeds, many varieties of seeds:
there are positive seeds, there are neutral seeds, and there are negative
seeds. And when the negative seeds are watered every day, you become a very
negative person. If the positive elements are watered in you, you become a very
joyful, helpful, wonderful person. So when you see a person, you see all the
elements that make that person. There are many elements of their ancestors, and
many elements of their environment.
You can use the
Buddhist psychology in order to discover the Diamond Sutra. The second way to
discover the Diamond Sutra is the Avatamsaka Sutra. The Avatamsaka Sutra is the
sutra that helps us to see that one element is made of all other elements, and
that the all is made of the one. When you look at A, you see B, C, D, E, F, G,
H…. When you see B, C, D, E, F, G, H in A, you see everything in A, you see A
is not A, that is why A is really A. So we look at the Diamond Sutra through
the lens of Buddhist psychology and the lens of the Avatamsaka Sutra. The
characteristic of the Avatamsaka Sutra is interpenetration, interbeing,
interdependence.
Every week, we‘ll read
the Diamond Sutra, but if you cannot catch the essence, the basic teaching, it
is a loss. You have to really catch the basic teaching so that the wisdom, the
insight, will grow every day in you. First of all, the Buddha has taught us
that the bodhisattva is a person who has bodhicitta, who has the spirit of
love. You have to learn to look at the world with non-discriminating eyes,
non-discriminating view. First point: You look deeply at the world with
non-discriminating eyes. (Thay in English:) An authentic bodhisattva should be
able to look at and to view things with his or her non-discriminative mind.
The first point is
non-discriminative mind. If you remember the teaching I often explain to you,
look at your right hand, your right hand has a non-discriminating mind. The
right hand never discriminates against the left hand, never discriminates the
legs, the feet or any part of our body. So remember the image of the right hand
next time you look at the sunshine, the squirrel, the snake, your lovely brother
in the dharma, sister in dharma, your difficult brother or sister in the
dharma. You look with the eyes of no discrimination, you are her, you are him,
and she is you, he is you. You deal with everyone and everything with this
non-discriminative mind.
The second point: If
you want to learn the non-discriminative view, you must not be bound to any
sign, any mark, any form. That is a kind of aide-memoire for you. What is a
sign? It is the object of your perception. You perceive something and you have
that sign in your mind, you are bound to that sign. Wherever there is a sign, a
mark, an appearance, there is deception. So when we look at Sister Thuan Nghiem
you see that she has an appearance at first, you see a self. But if you look
deeply into the appearance of sister Thuan Nghiem, you see elements of her
which are not her, so we are not caught. (Thay in English:) The second point is
that in order to get the wisdom of non-discrimination you have to train
yourself so that you are not caught by the appearance, by the object of your
perception.
Third: If you don‘t
want to be caught by sign, by form, you have to look deeply into the sign. It
doesn‘t mean that you abandon the sign. You use the sign, but you look deeply,
in order not to be caught by the sign.
(Thay in English:)
The second point is that in order to get the wisdom of non-discrimination, you
have to train yourself so you are not caught by the object of your perception.
The third point is that in order not to get caught in the object of your perception,
you have to look deeply in to that object of perception, into the nature of
that object.
It means that you
cannot throw away the sign, the object of your perception. If you don‘t want to
be caught by the sign, by the object of your perception, you have to look
deeply. So you should not abandon the sign - but you have to look deeply. There
are some forms, some traditional forms, and may we think we practice the
Diamond Sutra, we don‘t need all these forms… that is not the way. You have to
look deeply into the nature of these traditional rituals and forms. In the
beginning it seems silly, it seems not worth it, but you look deeper and you
see something, but you are not caught, not attached.
So you look deeply
into A, and you see that A is made of B, C, D, E, F, G, H….etc. You will not
throw away A. The Buddha said to be caught by sign is bad, but it‘s worse if
you are caught by non-sign. Therefore, if you want to look deeply, you have to
see the characteristics of interdependence, interbeing, interpenetration of
each thing. The characteristic of interpenetration, interbeing, is the true
nature of things, it is not invented by the Buddha, it‘s discovered by him and
you can discover it by yourself.
(Thay in English:)
"The fourth point is that when you know how to look deeply, you begin to
see the nature of paratantra, the nature of interconnection of the object of
your perception."
In order to see
nature, like a flower is made of non-flower elements, you see the
characteristics of paratantra, paratantra is the Sanskrit word for
interdependence. When you look at the flower, you see all the elements which
are not the flower, like the sun, the cloud, the farmer, time, space, the love
of the farmer, etc. And then you see that in order to look deeper, you have to
see the interconnection, the interdependence, the interpenetration of the
nature of things as they are. The more you see the true nature of paratantra,
which means interpenetration, the more your ignorance, the more your
discrimination will disappear. Your discrimination between the right hand and
the left hand, the right arm and the left arm, the right arm and the legs will
disappear. (Thay in English:) "When you begin to discover the nature of
interconnection, of interbeing, of the object of your perception, its nature of
discrimination begins to withdraw, to fade away, and it‘s nature of perfection
will start to appear. So the true nature of the ‘reality as it is’ will slowly
appear."
Fifth: When the
reality as it is, the character of perfection, appears, you have deep insight
of the true nature of things as they are. The word 'kien tanh' is a very
important word in Zen, in the teaching of the Buddha. The Japanese call it
'kensho'. The word 'kien tanh' goes together with two other words 'minh tam',
clear mind. Kien tanh means simply to see deeply the nature of the object of
your perception. You see deeply the true nature of the object of your
perception. The object of your perception could be a flower, could be pebble,
or a sister in the dharma, a brother in the dharma… or your enemies. So the
objects of your perception have signs and so you are tricked, you are deceived
by them. But when you look deeper, then you discover the true nature of that
person. And you see the characteristic of non-discrimination, the
characteristic of paratantra, interconnection, interdependence, interbeing, the
nature of no-birth no-death. You see the characteristic of perfection, reality
as it is, and suchness. Suchness means things as they are, it is true reality
in itself. Very few people understand the word kien tanh, the word tanh means
the true nature of phenomena, the true nature of what is there.
You see that when
your mind is full of illusion, then the object of your mind is also illusion.
If your mind is caught by a wrong perception, then your way to see the world is
very wrong, you see only the signs and you are caught by the signs. Every day
we live in a very superficial way and so we only see things in a very illusory
perception. You see each person as a very illusory reality of that person. You
see every event as an illusory reality of that event. And because we live in a
superficial way, the Buddha proposed that we live our lives deeper, look deeper
and we touch the deeper image of that person, of that thing. Then thanks to a
number of instruments I have mentioned already, you use paratantra, the
characteristic of interdependence, and you can go through the curtain of
illusory discrimination and reach the reality as it is, the characteristic of
perfection of reality as it is, without being distorted. The more you look
deeply, thanks to paratantra, thanks to the character of interpenetration,
interdependence, the more you go deep into the character of interpenetration,
interbeing. Then you arrive to the true perfection of the nature of the object
of your mind, you arrive to the reality as it is, not the distorted reality
that we are used to seeing. The Buddha said that 99% of our perceptions are
wrong, illusory. So when your mind is superficial, you see things in a very
illusory way. But more you look deeper, using the instrument of interbeing,
interpenetration, then you arrive to the true nature, the true suchness of the
reality as it is. So it‘s true landscape, true reality and true mind, and your
mind will become true mind. So your true mind will touch the true reality. Now
you have a deluded mind, a mind obsessed by a lot of deluded perceptions, and
the signs present to you are very deluded. But with the same signs, you observe
it deeply with the nature of paratantra, the nature of interconnection, and
you’ll get through the discriminative perception and see the suchness, the
reality as it is. You attain kensho, ‘kien tanh’, and your mind is true mind.
Some teachers,
especially in Vietnam, think that we have to die in order to reach the true
nature of reality. That is completely wrong according to what the Buddha said.
It‘s the same landscape, the same reality. You don‘t have to die. If your mind
is more and more deep, your mind is more and more true, more and more you go
into the depth of yourself, then the reality will reveal as it is, in its own
depth. So true mind touches true reality, while the deluded mind will only be
in touch with deluded images, deluded objects of your mind. So don‘t be too
sure. You look at a person and you see many thousand years of their ancestors,
you see many years, many decades, of their environment. When you see like that
you are not shocked, you know that things are just like that, so then you
cannot be angry. This is, because that is, this is not, because that is not,
and when you see like that, you cannot be angry with anyone. The more you
discover, the more you see the true reality, so when you can discover the use
of the instrument of interpenetration and interdependence, then you can see the
reality. You can see 10% of reality, 20% of reality, 60 % of reality, 80% of
reality… It depends on your practice.
In many Zen centers
people speak of 'kensho – kien tanh' in a very mysterious way, as though it is
something you can never reach, but it's very simple. When we look at a person,
we are attracted by that person, or we are repulsed by that person, we have no
sympathy for that person, but don‘t be caught. The more you use the instrument
of paratantra, the more you see the true nature of that person, and then you
can see everything and can accept her or him. So your mind is a deluded mind,
don‘t be so sure that your mind is true mind yet. Your deluded mind looks at
the deluded reality, then you use the paratantra, the tool of interdependence,
interconnection. The more you look, the more you see clearly, and true reality
reveals itself to you 10%, 20%. (Thay in English:) "When our mind has
become the true mind, enlightened mind, the nature of the object of our
perception will reveal itself as suchness."
[Bell]
In one Buddhist chant
there is a sentence; "I would like to have a true mind, a lucid mind, in
order to touch the reality as it is and to stop the circle of samsara."
That is the meaning of the chanting you often read in Vietnamese. So to break
through the veil of signs, as a practitioner, you should not say that to see
the reality as suchness is the work of 20 years of practice, no. You have to
see the reality as suchness as you eat, as you drink, it is your daily
practice. ‘Minh tam kien tanh’ here is obtained by our practice of looking
deeply. It means to look deeply with paratantra and to see the nature of
interconnection. You have to see the piece of bread as the reality as it is,
your brother in the dharma as the reality as it is, your sister your, partner,
your children, your colleagues at work as the reality as it is. That is not the
result of ten years or twenty years of practice in a practice center. You can
do it at home, at your work.
The sixth is that
when you reach the reality as it is, you reach the point that we call no
craving, no anger, no fear. If we have a lot of craving we do not have deep
insight. If we have a lot of anger we do not have true mind. If we have a lot
of fear, we do not have that true mind, true insight. Craving means craving for
something, we usually run after the object of our craving, but that craving may
be a sign. We crave for that because we do not see the true nature of the
object of our craving. Let‘s say money, let‘s say sex, let‘s say fame, let‘s
say good food, wealth, if we run after these cravings, it is because we do not
see the reality of the object of our mind as it is. So you have to look deeply
into money, you look deeply into sex, you look deeply into fame. You do not
throw them away, you look deeper and you see how things like that have brought
you a lot of suffering, a lot of difficulties. The Buddha used to say that
craving is like holding a torch against the wind, the fire will burn you.
Craving is like bones without flesh. The dog chews the bone without flesh and
never feels satisfied. Like somebody who is thirsty and drinks only salty
water, the more he drinks, the more he is thirsty. We keep running after money
and we think that just that amount of money will make us happy. When you have
that amount of money it‘s always not enough, because people always want to have
more. And then you run after more and more and more and more money. There are
people who have a lot of money, but they are not happy at all. In the
supermarket you can buy bones without flesh for dogs, the Buddha said that the
object of your craving is like these bones without flesh. The dog bites it all
the time, and never feels satisfied. The more you have, the more you want, and
the more you are thirsty, craving is death. The Buddha also illustrated it like
this: there is one little bird which catches some food, and the big birds want
to eat the little birds. So the little birds have to release the food, so that
the big birds will eat the food and not kill the little bird. If the little
bird is craving for the food, it will die immediately.
The Buddha
illustrated this by ten cases of craving that lead us to sufferings,
difficulties, and accidents. In Plum Village I use other illustrations. I say
that when people went fishing in the past they used a real little fish or real
insects in order to hook the fish. But nowadays they use plastic bait, they put
it on the hook and the fish think that it is real food for them and they are
hooked. So the sign is delusion and you have to look deeper to see that it is
not worth to run after it. You can go deep into the nature of no craving for
that sign, and then you see that money is not something that we need to crave
for. We need some, for basic use, but not so much, and if we have enough, why
do we have to run and run, and cause a lot of misery to each other. 'Kien' is
to see deeply, tanh' is the true nature of things. So when you practice kien
tanh, you see deeply the true nature of the object of your craving and you will
be healed, you arrive at non-craving, 'alobha'. Then you do not run after the
object of your craving and you feel so free, so happy. Kensho also gives us
no-anger.
Try to look deeply
into the person who you think is the object of you anger. The one who causes a
lot of difficulties to you and your beloved ones, who causes a lot of injustice
to you. If you look deeply into the object of that anger, you see with the look
of paratantra that that person is made of so many elements. You see all his
past, his present, his childhood, he is not very lucky, he does not have a
teacher around, a good friend around. He is unhappy, he suffers, and so he
causes a lot of suffering around him. So when you understand like that, instead
of feeling hatred, you accept him, you have compassion for him. If you cannot
have enough compassion, if you cannot accept that person it is because you
don‘t know all the conditions that have made him, or her. So when you see a
delinquent, a person who is alcoholic, a drug user, and sometimes they have to
steal some of our money. You are very angry and you want to punish them and put
them in jail. But when you understand deeply, you see that if you found
yourself in his situation with all your unwholesome seeds watered by friends,
you see that you’d behave exactly like him. When you see all these things, you
can only feel compassion, you do not want to punish him anymore, you only want
to do your best to help him to get out of that situation. Then you are a person
who has no anger, you’ll be a free and happy person. And if you have no anger,
it is because you have deep insight of the reality as it is, his reality as it
is, her reality as it is.
Kien tanh leads us to
the state of no fear, ‘abhaya’. Abhaya is fear, we always have a lot of fear,
fear to be left alone, fear to die, fear to be lonely, to have no money, to be
homeless. We have that fear because we do not look deeply into the object of
our perception, for example the fear of death, we all fear death. Imagine that
one day we will be a corpse that cannot move, cannot speak, cannot do anything,
and everyone will get around us and weep. Everybody is afraid of that, but
there are people who see deeply into the true nature of death, and they have no
more fear of death. Because they can see the true nature of death, they have no
fear. I don‘t know if you have visited the lotus pond in New Hamlet last year,
the lotus pond in New Hamlet teaches you a lot. Those of you who have been in
New Hamlet last summer have seen that there were a lot of lotuses in the pond,
beautiful lotuses. There are people who say that the first time they see a
lotus they don‘t feel that it is a true flower, because it‘s so beautiful.
During summer there are hundreds of people that sit around the lotus pond and
admire the lotuses. But now, in winter, if you visit the lotus pond you cannot
believe it. It‘s so ugly, so called ugly, you don‘t see lotus flowers at all,
only rotten leaves, rotten stem, rotten receptacle… nothing.
There is a Vietnamese
poet, Tan Da, who said that because of the rotten leaves of the lotus we are
crying for the death of the flower. In the past the flower was so beautiful,
and now the flower is dying and we are crying, that poet is caught by birth and
death, by a sign. That’s the wrong perception, the wrong image of the lotus
pond. Last week I saw the lotus pond and I did not feel any tears in my eyes, I
did not feel sad at all. I did not cry, because I saw that the rotten leaves
are preparing diligently for the wonderful spring. This is because I‘ve overcome
the sign, I can look deeply into the rotten leaves of lotus and I see that it
is preparing. You look on the surface of the lotus pond, imagine a lotus leaf,
fresh, green in summer. These fresh, green leaves are very beautiful. When you
put a few drops of water on it, the drops of water will become like diamonds.
But now these green leaves are rotten and the lotus leaves are dead. But if you
see the fresh lotus leaf is so fresh and so green, that is because there is the
rotten leaf before. So, the rotten leaf is preparing diligently for new fresh
green leaves that will appear in a few months. It‘s preparing not only green
leaves, fresh leaves, but can also give a very good root. The lotus root is
very delicious to eat, the sisters used to cook them for me. So these rotten
leaves are working hard, diligently, joyfully to prepare for fresh leaves to be
born, for delicious food, and for beautiful lotuses, very soon, in summer. And
so these rotten leaves are working and enjoying transforming in order to make
the root wonderful, the leaves wonderful, the flower wonderful. And you only
see the rotten leaves and you cry, you are craving. So the rotten leaf is
investing a lot for the lotus root, for the fresh green leaves, for the
wonderful flower. When you come and you ask the rotten lotus leaf: "Where
are you now, I am crying." The lotus leaf may smile at you and say:
"No, I‘m not dying, I‘m preparing to be more wonderful in my
continuation."
When you walk here in
walking meditation, you see a lot of rotten leaves on your path and you say:
"Oh, how sad, how sad that these leaves are dying." You don‘t see
that the whole spring, the whole summer these leaves continue to circulate in
the tree, circulate in the branches, circulate everywhere. The leaves have absorbed
sunshine, absorbed gas, and absorbed root sap in order to prepare themselves
and expand everywhere. When the rotten leaf left the tree it‘s just a little
part of herself, the greater part of herself is everywhere in the branches, in
the trunk, in very silent preparation. During six or seven months that leaf has
worked very hard and expanded herself everywhere, she is in the branches, the
many layers of the trunk that are growing, and the many layers of the branches
that are growing. So that leaf is this bigger branch than last year, this leaf
is this bigger trunk than last year. You can see that this leaf is there in
many forms. So you look at the tree, you see the leaf, you look at the sign of
the tree, you see the leaf, you look at the sign of the leaf, you see the tree.
One day you will see
me as a corpse, very rigid, hard, in the bed and you’ll cry a lot, then you are
caught by a sign. You have to see me everywhere in you, in many lay people, in
many monks and nuns, in many of my readers, everywhere people can be in touch
with me. I am there in their heart, I am there in their mind, I am there in
their behavior. And you can see me everywhere. Don’t cry because of that corpse
that has become immobile. That corpse will be rotten. You will see that I am in
the behavior of some of my readers, who, after reading my books feel motivated
to do a lot of beautiful work. You will see me in yourself, in how much
transformation you have in your own being. When you have met me, you see me in
many friends of yours, in many brothers and sisters, everywhere. So, don’t be
tricked by my sign. The sign that you thought to be me. The Buddha said that
every time you see a sign, that is a delusion.
The rotten lotus leaf
needs only the heat of May and you will see beautiful leaves, beautiful
lotuses. So when you see my corpse, rotten, you cry… No, this is a very deluded
way to behave. You will see that when the conditions are sufficient, I will
manifest in yourself, I will manifest in the people around you, in those who
have been in touch with me. If you are afraid that I die, why don’t you make
myself grow in you. If you are afraid that I die, why don’t you try to make me
big in you, born in you, grown in you, grown up in you? Then you will behave
like me, better than me. So you are not caught by the sign, and you see the
nature of no birth, no death of the reality and you are not afraid of anything,
no fear. Next Thursday you will look at the rotten lotus leaves in the lotus
pond and you will ask the rotten lotus leaves: "Hello, where are you,
where are you now? Where do you come from and where do you go?" And you
will see the joyful preparation and journey of the rotten leaf, and then you
will transcend every fear.
In this world there
are a lot of people dying and there are those who work for dying people in
order to help the person who is dying, to die peacefully, joyfully. These
people have to learn this way of looking deeply. When you look at things deeply
like that, then you have no fear in you. And when you have no fear in you, then
you can sit stabily, without fear in yourself. Because you must be fearless of
death in order to help people not to be fearful of death. If you are so afraid
of dying, how can you help dying people? So you have to learn that this body is
not you. You are not caught by this body, this body is one little part of
yourself. When you feel like that, you live like that, you are not afraid of
dying at all. Then you can take the hand of somebody who is dying, and you tell
her or him that this body cannot touch you. You are much larger than this body.
You take the hand of the dying person and you say: "You are much larger
than this body. You are life without boundaries. You are your daughter, your
son, your grandson, the descendants of your descendants. You are your students,
you are your readers, you are your friends, those who are in touch with you,
inspired by you, who love you, so you are not caught by this body. You are much
more than this body." If you speak like this to that dying person, that
dying person can die peacefully, without fear, because you yourself are without
fear.
[Bell]
Seventh: Three
qualities: no craving, no anger, no fear. This "no anger, no fear, no
craving" will help the bodhisattva to practice generosity, to practice the
mindfulness trainings, the precepts, to practice concentration, in a very
natural way. These three qualities will help the bodhisattva to practice the
precepts, to practice sharing, to practice inclusiveness, to practice
diligence, to practice concentration in a very natural way, without any effort,
without discrimination. When he is breathing, when he is eating, when he is
drinking, he does so without any effort. When we have these three characters,
these three qualities "no craving, no anger, no fear", then we know
that we have a non-discriminating mind. Then we can realize the sharing, the
practice of the precepts, the practice of inclusiveness, the practice of
diligence, the practice of concentration in a very natural way, without any
effort, without any discrimination, exactly like we are breathing every day.
So, doing like that, you are a bodhisattva, because if a bodhisattva is very
aware that he is a bodhisattva, he is not a real bodhisattva. So you do it
naturally, like you breathe, like you smile, like you walk.
In the practice of
many Zen centers, they have the tendency to think that 'kien tanh' is the true
ability to understand ourselves. That is correct too, but only partially. We
should not be caught by the word saying that kien tanh is to see the true nature
of the object of your mind. The object of your mind could be the moon, the
flower, the trees, but the object of your mind could be your own being. So you
understand the true nature of the lotus leaf, you can see the true nature of
your own being. Because you see you, you see your ancestors, you see your
parents, you see your sister, you see yourself as your sister, you see yourself
as your parents, you see yourself as your sister, your brother, you see
yourself as your colleague, you see yourself as all human beings, you see
yourself as all living beings, you see yourself in the plants, trees and
everything. So in many Buddhist Zen centers they think that kien tanh means
only to see your true mind. That is correct, but it is not sufficient. You
understand your body which means you understand your mind. You understand your
body and your mind. You see the object of your mind too. You look deep into
your body, you see that your body makes your mind and your mind makes your
body. So there is no separation between body and mind. Body is mind and mind is
body.
Many of today’s
scientists also want to learn how to transcend the sign. They also start to see
that the non-discriminating mind can help people to go far. Many physicists
have seen that elementary particles are like a kind of energy. Sometimes the
energy can be illustrated as an electron, the small particles of an electron
sometimes look like a particle. Electrons sometimes appear as particles,
sometimes appear as waves. Sometimes the electron does not appear as particle,
but it appears as wave, it’s strange. The same electron sometimes appears as
wave, sometimes appears as particle. In one experience it appears as wave, in
another experience it appears as particle. So they cannot accept the argument
that if it is a particle it must be only a particle, and not a wave. And the
truth is like that. So sometimes they act as particles, sometimes they act as
waves. So finally they have to accept that both are one. So particle is not a
true sign of an electron and wave is not a true sign of an electron, so they
call it a wavicle, that’s a new name.
In Buddhism we have
that too, 2600 years ago the Buddha also said: body and mind, he used the word
namarupa. They do not distinguish body as different from mind. Nama is our mind
and rupa is our form, our body. So the Buddha called our body and mind
namarupa. Sometimes you appear as nama, sometimes you appear as rupa. We are
both, so the Buddha said namarupa. The psychologists today call it psyche-soma.
So, don’t be caught by the sign, the Diamond Sutra makes this very clear. If
the scientists continue to argue, some of them saying that the electron is just
particle and others that it’s only wave, it is because it is wave and particle.
So we see that more and more science approaches the teachings of the Buddha. We
have to transcend sign in order to touch the deep reality as it is. So a good
scientist, in order to touch deeply the true reality, has to release his
knowledge about the objects of his mind and release the principle of identity.
To always try to give an identity to everything is not correct when you see
things deeply, there is no separated identity. This identity is made by
millions of other identities, in order for this identity to be real identity.
So a good scientist now says that we have to erase the distinction between the
observer and the observed. It’s better to be a participant than to be an
observer, that is the erasing of the distinction between the observer and the
observed object. So instead of being an observer, we try to be a participant,
and that is very close to the way we practice Buddhism. So please come to Plum
Village as a participant, not as an observer.
In this winter
retreat we try to practice Noble Silence from the evening after sitting meditation
until after lunch. During this retreat, if you practice silence during half of
the day, you will discover that a number of the sentences you speak may not be
necessary. In that practice, when you feel that you want to speak, you don’t
speak but you take a booklet and you write it down. Then another moment later
when you want to speak, you don’t speak but you write it down, then the day
after, you look at it and then you feel that it is so funny. It’s not
necessary, these sentences are not necessary at all. In us there is a kind of
habit energy that pushes us to act or to speak in a way that we don’t want to.
We know that if we speak like that, it will destroy a lot. We know, we are
quite intelligent to know that if we do like that, if we act like that, it
destroys, but we still destroy, we still speak, we still act. We also know that
if we do like that we will lose our friendship, we cause a lot of suffering to
ourselves but we still do it. That is what we call habit energy. There’s a kind
of negative habit energy that pushes us to do like that.
So when you practice
silence for half of the day, it is in order to observe this negative habit
energy. You can write down in your booklet: "Today at half past nine I
have been pushed by things, but I stopped." and "This morning that
habit energy stood up and pushed me to act like that, but I have stopped."
So if you practice silence for half of the day like that, you will discover a
lot. If you don’t practice silence until early morning after breakfast, try to
practice this properly. Everyone should have a notebook in order to write down
all the urges born in your mind, these urges are your habit energy. Sometimes
they may be good, but most of the time they're unnecessary. So write them down
and recognize them only. You recognize them, that does not mean that you
transform them right away. But the fact that you recognize them is quite enough
to transform them slowly. Silence is in order to help us to observe, but not
for my benefit, it’s for your benefit, to observe your negative energy. There
are those who practice half of the day of silence and feel so happy, they want
to prolong it longer.
Your whole being will
express in other ways. Sometimes we feel that if we pronounce that sentence, it
will show caring, but in fact without pronouncing that sentence, your look,
your way of approaching, your way of helping silently shows a lot of caring,
much more than some diplomatic words. The practice is helping you to observe
yourself, to observe a number of habits that you can identify as "good,
neutral, or not good", in order to transform ourselves. We have heard a
lot about bodhisattvas and we always have the impression that a bodhisattva is
someone who is very beautiful, very wonderful, very holy, and that you will
never be a holy person like the bodhisattvas. In fact bodhisattvas are just
people like you, who are trying to practice these points in order to live their
life deeply, not in a superficial way. When you hear something, when you look
at something, you try to look deeply, see deeply in order to go through the
deluded sign, in order to reach the true nature of that person. If you are
still angry with that person, if you are still fearful of this person, it’s
because you see their deluded form. When you see their true nature, then you
can reach them, you can accept them and live happily with them. You can be a
bodhisattva even if you are only 14 years old you don’t need to wait until you
become a monk or a nun and receive the big ordination in order to be a bodhisattva.
A bodhisattva could be 14 years old.
You are a person who
has a lot of happiness, a lot of freedom; free from your anger, free from your
craving, free from your fear. And you understand via the paratantra, you can
understand the most difficult people, you show a lot of care, of love, yet you
are silent in order to observe your negative energy, observe, transform… then
you can be a bodhisattva at the age of 14, 15, 18, 20, 50, 60. Then this
community will be a pure land, because everybody will adorn the community. We
adorn the community without knowing that we are adorning the community. Like in
the Diamond Sutra: the bodhisattvas are those who adorn the Buddha Land,
without knowing that they are adorning the Buddha Land. So you will become a
bodhisattva, you adorn this Land without knowing that you are adorning this
Land. You adorn it beautifully by the way you breathe, you eat, you walk, and
you transform. When you go home, if you can touch the members of your family,
they will become like you, and your family will become a Buddha Land without
knowing that it is a Buddha Land. There are some satellites that can go very
fast through the air. You also can do like this, if you are a bodhisattva. I
know there are a number of you whose presence causes a lot of joy and peace for
the community, they are bodhisattvas. There are also those who are present in
this community who do not offer a lot, but still offer some, they are also
bodhisattvas. So we have great bodhisattvas and bodhisattvas who are less great,
but you all are bodhisattvas if you care to practice properly, diligently and
then the speed of your practice will go very fast, like the speed of light.
Akalika is the
practice that does not need time. As soon as you decide to begin practicing,
you obtain freedom right away, you obtain peace right away, you obtain no
craving, no anger right away. The practice of silence is in order to observe
your negative energy and to transform it. In summary, a bodhisattva is not a
legendary personality, bodhisattvas are you, you all. Even if you are very
young. You don’t need to know all of the teachings of the Buddha, you only need
to listen for one hour to the teaching of Thay and if you practice right away
you will become a bodhisattva right away, you don’t need time to become a
bodhisattva. You understand, then you love, and you will not reproach anybody,
you are a living bodhisattva in this life.
[Three
sounds of the bell]
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