Hành Trình Vô Ngã by
Vô Ngã Vô Ưu
Transcript of Thich Nhat Hanh English Dharma Talks
55 Touching the Energy of the Bodhisattvas
Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh
on December 21, 1997 in
Plum Village, France.
(Translated from Vietnamese into English by Sister Annabel)
Dear sangha, today is
the 21 December, 1997, and we are in the Upper Hamlet. Last time we talked
about prostrating to Buddha Sakyamuni. The word muni means silent. The basis of
a monk is silence. So in fact muni means monk, and Sakyamuni means a monk of
the Sakya clan. "In one pointed mind I bow in respect to Maitreya Buddha.
The name Maitreya means the person who loves; we say Mr. Love. Maitreya comes
from the word maitri which in Sanskrit means loving kindness, being able to
offer a feeling of joy. Maitreya is the Buddha of the future. And in the
Vietnamese tradition the beginning of the New Year is an anniversary
symbolising the day when we welcome the presence of the future Buddha,
Maitreya.
"With one
pointed mind I bow down before Manjusri." Manjusri stands for the eyes of
understanding." With one pointed mind I bow down before
Samantabhadra." Samantabhadra stands for action. "With one pointed
mind I bow down before Sadapaributha." Sadapaributha stands for the wisdom
in which there is the recognition that in everyone there is the capacity to
become Buddha; enough seeds, enough love and understanding to become Buddha. So
we do not despise anyone. And finally we bow down to all the ancestral teachers
beginning from India to the present day in Vietnam. This contains all our
ancestral teachers from Buddha to Mahakasyapa, Sariputra, Upali, Maudgalyana;
all the Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese meditation teachers. And when we touch
the earth this time we're in touch with all those ancestral teachers. So, in
Monday morning's chanting we bow down to Sakyamuni, Maitreya, Manjusri,
Samantabhadra, Sadapaributha, and all the ancestral teachers of all ages.
In these six bows we
have to have a fruit. We should not prostrate mechanically. After we have
prostrated we should be something different than before we prostrated. We
should breathe in and out three times when we touch the earth in order to look
deeply, be in touch and receive the energy of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, because
this is a very effective method of transformation. The secret of prostrating is
that when our head, arms and legs are touching the earth we let go. We let go
of our idea of ourself, we let go of everything which we call my idea of
myself, my person, or my worth. Sometimes we think that we are alone and
lonely, but when we are touching the earth with five limbs we have to open
ourself up, open all the doors of our body and our mind, and the idea about
self has to be dissolved. And then prostrating is successful, and the energy of
the Buddhas, bodhisattvas and ancestral teachers can enter us. That does not
mean that the energy of Buddhas, bodhisattvas and ancestral teachers is
outside, that we have to open the door to let them in. In fact that energy is
present within us. But if we don't allow it, it will not manifest.
For instance the
energy of our father. The energy of our father is in us. It is in each of the
cells of our body. Our father has both physical energy and spiritual energy,
and that energy is in each cell of our body. Sometimes people have a father who
has lived to be ninety years old and that father has never had cancer. All his
cells are in us. And if we are afraid we have difficulties in our own flesh we
could call on the energy of our father to come back to us and enter each cell
of our body and do its work of healing. Our father has spiritual energy such as
joy, skills, and capacities. But because we are angry with our father that
energy of our father is closed up in our cells. When we prostrate we let go of
all that anger, we let go of our idea of self, and the energy of our father
becomes real in us and we can benefit from that energy. The energy of our
teacher is the same. Our teacher has energy. And our teacher's energy is in
each cell of our body. We may be angry with our teacher, or we feel far from
our teacher. And those feelings mean that the energy of our teacher is shut up.
But when we bow down we open up so that energy can emerge. The energy of Buddha
is the same. The energy of Buddha is in each cell of our body. And therefore we
need only to open the door of our soul and the energy of the Buddha will reveal
itself. So prostrating is a very important practice and we have to learn to
practise it correctly.
When we are
prostrating our forehead should be touching the floor, and our two hands and
our two feet should be touching the floor. We should be as close to the floor
as possible, we should not leave any space between our body and the floor. And
we have to let go of everything. We have to surrender ourself and not hold
anything back which we consider to be "mine". All my inferiority
complexes, my pride, everything I think that I am, all that I think my value is
I let go of it and I become emptiness, and then the door opens and the energy
of the Buddhas, bodhisattvas and ancestral teachers can be transmitted. If we
keep our pride, our inferiority complex , that we have achieved this, we have
achieved that, if we hold on to our anger, our hatred when we are touching the
earth, then that stiff shell is still there and the prostrating has no fruit.
So we have to let go of everything and then our body and our mind can be open.
When our forehead is touching the earth and our two hands are touching the
earth we open our hands to show that we are not hiding anything, holding
anything, we have let go of everything. And our two hands have to be straight,
opened up (and some people lift their hands up a little bit) to show I am not
holding anything, I have wholly let go of everything, all my ideas about
myself. And then you can join the stream, the spiritual stream or the life
stream of your ancestors. Because we are cut off from that stream when we are
lonely and caught in ideas of ourself.
When we prostrate we
have to be wholly there, and our body should be one with our mind, otherwise we
prostrate like a machine, mechanically. Being wholly there means mindfulness,
Right Mindfulness, which means the presence of body and mind as a unity. We
stand before the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas. Our heart is mindfulness, we are
really authentically present, and our mind is not in the past or in the future.
We are not swept away or caught in our worries or our thinking. We bring our
mind and body back to one place to be present with the Buddhas, the
bodhisattvas and the object of our respect. And Right Mindfulness gives rise to
a field of energy which is great, and that allows us to be in touch.
Buddha Sakyamuni
represents our aim, our point of arrival; that is, the absolute, the upward
direction. There are two directions, Buddha represents the upper direction, and
Mara represents the lower direction. There are moments in our life when our
body and mind are going in the direction of Mara, when we are sad, when we are
worrying, when we are going in a non-constructive way. For example we see on
the table a very tasty dish. We have enough clarity to know that if we eat that
dish we will receive unpleasant consequences. We know that very clearly. Our
wisdom knows that if we eat that tonight we know what will happen. But there is
another force which says: "Go on, eat it, what happens afterward will
happen, there's always a medicine you can take." So there is a difference
between the two. Wisdom says: "You shouldn't eat that." And then the
other one says: "Why don't you eat it, go on, have it, let's live the
present moment." And at that moment we can choose whether we go in the
upper direction or the lower direction, it's up to us. And it depends whether
we have the energy of mindfulness, whether our body and mind is together,
because that will give us the opportunity to go in the upper direction. But if
our mindfulness is weak then we don't have the force to go in the upper
direction. And sometimes we go backward and forward all day long. So
mindfulness helps us to have stable energy to go in the upper direction.
Sakyamuni Buddha represents the upper direction. When we know our body and our
mind are going in that direction we have faith and joy which nourishes us. And
when we touch the earth, one prostration, two, five, six prostrations, we know
this practice is taking us in the upper direction. And when we know that we are
going in the upper direction we feel at peace in our mind, we have stability
and we are happy. And while we are prostrating we nourish that stability, that
peace of mind and that happiness. And we are successful because of the energy
of mindfulness.
We have a bodhisattva
whose name is Manjusri. In the Prajnaparamita school the position of Manjusri
is very high, because Manjusri is Great Wisdom, and Prajnaparamita means the
wisdom which takes us across. He can be symbolised by an eye, the eye of
wisdom. Manjusri is the eye of wisdom of the Buddha. As far as history is
concerned it may be different, but as far as the ultimate dimension is
concerned we should know that the element of Manjusri is the element of wisdom
in Buddha Sakyamuni. So Buddha Sakyamuni and Manjusri are the same. And when we
touch the earth before Manjusri we are turning also toward our own capacity to
wake up and become Buddha. The object of our prostration is not the statue of
Manjusri on the altar. The object of our prostration is to be in touch with the
element of Manjusri which is in us, that is, the wisdom of the Buddha.
"With one mind I bow down before Manjusri, the bodhisattva of Great
Wisdom." And we see clearly that we are going in the energy of Great Wisdom
when we do that, and our Right Mindfulness helps us to be in touch with
bodhisattva Manjusri.
We have another
bodhisattva whose name is Avalokitesvara. Avalokitesvara symbolises another
hand of the Buddha, and that is the hand of love and compassion. We can say
that Avalokitesvara is Buddha, Avalokitesvara is the hand of love of the
Buddha, because the Buddha is complete love and understanding. Usually
Avalokitesvara is symbolised by an ear, because Avalokitesvara has the capacity
to listen to the suffering of people, to understand, and to find them and help
them. When we prostrate to Quan The Am (V.N. for Avalokitesvara) we are in
touch with the energy of love in ourself. We see we have the capacity to listen
deeply, to love and to understand. First of all to listen to ourself, to hear
ourself and love ourself. Because if we cannot understand and love ourself how
do we have the energy to love and understand others. So these sources of energy
are all energies of the Buddha, and they are all in us. Manjusri is Buddha,
Avalokitesvara is also Buddha. Therefore you can understand that in the sutra
it says that Manjusri had become a Buddha a long time ago, and Avalokitesvara
had become a Buddha a long time ago, before the Buddha became a Buddha; that is
because they are Buddha.
Another bodhisattva
is called Samantabhadra, which means universal kindness. It is the energy of
the great vow, great aspiration, and Great Action. Therefore Samantabhadra is
symbolised by a hand, the hand of action. And when we prostrate before
Samantabhadra we are in touch with the energy of the aspiration and the action
of Buddha, and Samantabhadra is the hand of the Buddha. Buddha is Great
Understanding, Great Compassion and Great Action.
Alongside them we
have another bodhisattva whose name is Ksitigarbha. Ksitigarbha is a
bodhisattva who has a great aspiration. His aspiration is to be present
wherever there is suffering, wherever there is hell; it could be our office.
Therefore Ksitigarbha represents a Great Vow, Great Aspiration. A Great Vow is
a great energy, and when we have the energy of Great Vow we are strong, we will
not fall down before any difficulty. Even if it's cold below freezing we still
go out. If there are thousands of obstacles on our path we still overcome them.
When the mountains fall we still continue. Because in us we have a great vow.
So we have Great Compassion, Great Understanding, Great Vow and Great Action,
and those four things are what make Buddha. And in us it's the same, we all
have these essences in us, Buddha is in us. And when we touch the earth,
prostrate, we are in touch with these things in ourself.
Sadapaributha means
always not despising; he dared never to despise a living being. He does not
dare to despise a profane person, because that profane person also has the
matter of awakening in them. The raw materials of awakening in that person have
not yet been watered and looked after so they haven't developed. That's why we
call that person a profane person. But when we look at a profane person we
should see these other things in them. You remember in the Vajraccedika Sutra
it says: "Because the Tathagata does not see a profane person as a profane
person, that is why they are a profane person." So when we look at someone
we look with that wisdom. We can join our palms and bow before any living
being. Sadapaributha, never disparaging, does not dare to despise anyone.
If we don't have the
energy of mindfulness we cannot be in touch with the great bodhisattvas. So
while we are in touch with them as we prostrate our mindfulness needs to be
complete, overflowing. If you don't know how to prostrate, then tonight when
you have a chance please practise and learn how to do it. When we are standing
and we join our palms and hear the words: "With one pointed mind I bow
down before Manjusri" we already begin to visualise, to see that raw
material, that hand of the Buddha, that energy of wisdom. We bring all our body
and mind to one point, and we are in touch with that energy. Our hands are like
a lotus bud, we touch our forehead: "With all our brain". We bring
our hands down to our heart and we are in touch with our heart: "With all
our heart". It means we take our brain, we take our heart, and then we put
our two hands out to the side and touch the earth. And when our two feet, our
two hands and our head are touching the earth we turn our hands upwards very
straight, to show that we don't retain anything, we haven't held back anything
of ourself. And we open the doors of our soul, of our body, all the cells in
our body, in order to receive the energy of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, which
is already in our body, so that it can circulate in our body. And as we touch
the earth we breathe in and out three times to look deeply. While we are on the
earth we need to be really there, we need to follow our breathing, we need to
allow the energy of the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas, the ancestral teachers to
manifest. And after we prostrate like that we will be a different person. After
three breaths in and out there will be a stopping of the bell, and at that
point we turn our two hands around to put them on the earth, and we stand up.
Those of you who
invite the bell should practise to do it solidly so that the three breaths are
allowed while somebody is touching the earth. We can measure the three breaths
of the sangha by our own breath, and if you want to be sure you can add another
breath, because some people have a longer breath than others. This afternoon if
you have an opportunity you can practise together, especially those of you who
don't know how to prostrate yet, you can call it touching the earth. And in
that way we do not lose our time. We do not use prostrations to pray or ask for
something, but to help us to mature, to grow up, and to make us strong; it is not
to lessen our value. And the success of our prostrating depends if we have been
able to let go of all our ideas and all the value we put on ourself. And the
final touching of the earth is touching the earth before the ancestral teachers
from India to Vietnam. We have ancestral teachers, and we suffer and we are
lonely when we are cut off from that stream of ancestral teachers. So when we
put ourself in the position of touching the earth, we open our heart and our
body in order to receive the stream of the ancestral teachers, and that
loneliness, that suffering will dissipate, and this is a very healing
prostration.
We know that the
bodhisattva Manjusri is present in the Great Prajnaparamita Sutra and the
Ratnakuta Sutra. And that Samantabhadra is in the Avatamsaka Sutra, and
Satapaributha is present in the Lotus Sutra. If we want to know more about
these bodhisattvas we should study the Prajñaparamita, the Avatamsaka and the
Lotus Sutra.
Now we will go on to
the Refuge Chant. In the Vietnamese text we have words "to go back",
"to take refuge", and also "to give rise to aspiration". We
need to take refuge in order to have safety and security, and we need to make a
vow in order to have strength; we need these two things. So, we go back to
ourself and then we have the energy to go forward. This is the atmosphere in
which we nourish ourself, where the meditation hall is "full of the scent
of sandalwood, and the lotus opens so that Buddha can appear." This
atmosphere is thanks to the person who looks after the Buddha hall and makes it
beautiful. And this virtue of looking after the Buddha hall helps us in our
visualisation. We have to visualise the conditions and the environment, we have
to be able to see by means of images and not by means of ideas. We know that the
basis of poetry is images. If you write a poem and you only use ordinary words,
it's not enough, poems are written by images. If you say: "This afternoon
I am sad" it's not enough. You have to say: "Today I am a grey
cloud" or something like that. So, when you join your palms you have to
set up the kind of surroundings where you will be able to realise your
aspiration. So we make the Buddha hall very fragrant so that it is worthy of
the presence of a Buddha or a bodhisattva. "The lotus opens and the Buddha
is revealed." In our old liturgy it says: "When the flower opens we
see the Buddha." This is the teaching of the Pure Land. On the altar there
are flowers. If there aren't lotuses we visualise lotus. But Buddha is revealed
not only when the lotus is opened. The Buddha Sakyamuni can reveal in any
flower, in a little purple flower on the path, the tiny flower close to the
earth. There are many opportunities for the Buddha to reveal. It's only our
eyes which aren't able to see the Buddha, the Buddha can reveal himself at any
moment. It's because of our ignorance, because we are caught in our worries and
our difficulties that we cannot see the Buddha in the flower. Especially when
that flower is our heart. Because our heart is a flower, and our heart can open
at any moment. "The lotus opens and the Buddha appears." This is a
very wonderful image of the Buddha. And when we join our palms and visualise,
Buddha will be there, because our mindfulness is there. And we should not
complain that we have been born too late, two thousand six hundred years after
the Buddha. We don't complain, because we know very well that when we are
really there the Buddha is also there.
"The dharma
realms become purified." That means the realms of suffering disappear and
the pure Dharma realms appear. The suffering realms disappear because the
Buddha has appeared. And when the Buddha appears the dharma realms appear. And
we distinguish between lokadhatu and dharmadhatu. Loka is the world, the
worldly world, Dhatu is the realm. So this is the field of suffering, of
separation, where blood is spilt because of separation, it's the world where we
see this lies outside of that, where older brother is not younger brother,
father is not son, trees are not humans, that is the world where we separate
one thing from another, where we discriminate. And that is why anger and
division take place and there is wounding. And then there is the dharmadhatu.
This is the world where Buddha is, and therefore older brother is younger
brother, father is son, people are trees, you can see people in grass and you
can see grass in people, you can see father in son, you can see son in father,
you can see elder brother in younger brother. Because the light of the Buddha
is there for us to see by. And when there is not the path of division, there is
not the separating barrier, when there isn't the suffering of division there is
happiness. And we join our palms to visualise, to see the Dharma hall full of
the perfume of sandalwood, to see the lotus open with the Buddha, and to see
the world of suffering becoming the dharma realms. That means we see the pure
dharma realms. The karma which has brought suffering to living beings in the
world calms down, and among those living beings we include ourself. It means
that the energy of our action has led us to suffering but now we feel lightened
from this. In Vietnamese we say: "the calmness of the dust of the
world." In the chant called "Taking Refuge with My Life" we have
a phrase which says: "The karma of the dusty world does not do harm to
us." The worldly dust with all its fetters, all its wounds. The world of
men has wounds and fetters and it is called the world of dust for that reason.
And dust has its colour, it’s called the red dust. When we become a monk or a
nun we go in the direction of beauty. So why are we still caught in the red
dust? The red dust is the fire of craving, the fire of sensual pleasure. When
we become a monk or a nun we have coolness, so why do we go back and step into
the dust of craving? We have to practise visualisation in this chant for the
surroundings to appear. Many things are there in these four lines. If we chant
them like a parrot it’s a great waste.
"The disciple
with one pointed mind turns in the direction of the Three Jewels. Buddha is the
teacher showing the way." This is meditating on the Buddha. It is called
remembrance or recollection of Buddha. It’s a practice of meditation. When
we’re chanting the sutra it’s also a practice of meditation. Some people
practise chanting like a parrot and that is not meditation. But if we practise
looking deeply as we chant that is meditation. So "with a collected mind I
turn to the Three Jewels". Here the word "collected" means to be
wholly present. If you’re not really there, you’re pretending. If you are
joining your palms with your body, and your mind is thinking about tomorrow or
the day after tomorrow, that is a pretence. It means to be wholly there,
mindfulness is there and concentration is there. Sometimes we are not collected
and we think we are collected. We think we’re not deceiving anybody. We think:
"I am true, I am really there." But maybe I’m not really there,
because I haven’t got concentration and mindfulness. "My body and my mind
are one" means I am not thinking about other things, I’m not angry with my
brothers and sisters, I’m not worrying about tomorrow, I’m not regretting
yesterday. And that is called collected mind, one pointed mind.
When we have a one
pointed mind we can turn to the Three Jewels. In Sanskrit it’s triratna. Tri
means three, ratna means a jewel. "Buddha is the teacher showing me the
way." Buddha is above all a teacher. That is important. Buddha is not a
god. Buddha is not the creator-god. Buddha is a human being like us. But
because in that person there is the essence of wisdom, of compassion, of great
action, of great vow, that person is worthy to be our teacher, and therefore we
have to call Buddha "teacher". Buddha is not a god to give us
happiness, not a god that we can offer flowers to. Buddha is the person who
shows us the way, so we don’t fall into the abyss of making mistakes. In
Chinese it’s dao Su , path teacher. The top character means "the
way", and on the bottom is the character for "hand", and
together they mean the hand that shows us the way or "guide". So when
you talk about somebody as our teacher showing us the path, he is the one who
is wholly awakened, completely enlightened. In Sanskrit awakened is bodhi. Here
we see that the basis of our teacher showing us the way is Great Wisdom, full
awakening. As far as the outer form is concerned it’s something very beautiful,
this is talking about the body of the Buddha. And as far as the mind is
concerned it is fulfilled understanding and compassion. The Vietnamese word for
fulfilled means complete and full. So we say he’s the completely fulfilled
awakened one, the Buddha, great, full, awakened. What is full? What is
complete? Compassion and the understanding are fulfilled and complete. So, we
have four lines to read about the Buddha. And when we read those four lines we
should be able to have an image, a visualisation of the Buddha, in terms of
energy and not in terms of bronze or wood. And then we can be in touch with
that energy. And that is what is called buddhanusmrti, visualisation of Buddha,
mindfulness of the Buddha.
Dharma is the right
path leading people out of the world of ignorance, taking us back to live an
awakened life. So now instead of meditating on the Buddha we are meditating on
the Dharma, recollecting the Dharma. And finally we have recollection of
Sangha.
Once we’ve been in
touch with Buddha we are in touch with Dharma as the bright path which can take
us out of the realms of ignorance where we are not awake, where we are
dreaming, where we cannot see the truth. And that path can take us back to live
a life of awakening. Before that we lived a life of forgetfulness. So the life
of awakening is above all the life of mindfulness. We are present, really there
in each moment. And at that point we can be in touch with everything which is
happening, deeply. That is called mindful living. When we have mindfulness,
quite naturally concentration and understanding follow, and our life must be an
awakened one. And that life of awakening isn’t something we hope to have
tomorrow, it is something which we have right away, now.
"The sangha is a
beautiful community which goes together on the path of joy." It’s a very
beautiful image which helps us to recognise what is the real sangha. If a
sangha is not beautiful, does not have happiness, it cannot be called a sangha.
This is perhaps the best line in this chant. "Sangha is a beautiful
community going together on the path of happiness." We’re not going on our
own. If we are all going on our own we cannot call it Sangha. Sangha is not a
small drop of water. Sangha is a river. Only a river can go to the sea. And we
have to be one with the sangha. We have to take the sangha as our body. And
then we have a sangha body. "I vow to be a river and not a small drop of
water"...you can make the next two verses of this poem, because everybody
has a poet in them. "I vow to be a river and not to be a small drop of
water..." you have to make the next two lines. "The sangha is the
beautiful community", and the beauty of this community is made of the
essence of the precepts, fine manners and harmony. And looking into the
precepts, the fine manners and the harmony people have faith. Any place that
has precepts, fine manners and harmony, that place has happiness and beauty and
that’s why we say the sangha is the beautiful community together taking the
joyful path.
When we went to the
United States and we called in at Omega Institute there were the beautiful red
and yellow leaves of autumn, and we had an opportunity to look at the branches
of the maple trees. And they looked so beautiful, because each leaf on the
branch stays in its place. In itself each leaf wasn’t perfect, they might have
been eaten by caterpillars. But they looked very beautiful when you looked at
the branch, because each leaf stayed in its place. The beauty of the branch was
thanks to each leaf being in its place. A sangha is the same. Looking into the
harmony of the sangha we see its beauty. That beauty is made by what is called
the Six Harmonies. "The sangha is the beautiful community going together
on the joyful path, practising liberation and helping peace and joy to come
into life." The business of the sangha is to practise liberation. It’s not
to build temples or to do social work, but to practise toward liberation, and
to train in liberation. That training, that practice has only one aim, that is
to undo the knots in the ropes which tie our body and our mind: our anger,
craving, ignorance are ropes, jealousy is a rope, etc. and they bind us. We
have to be liberated from these things. The aim of our practice is liberation,
and this training is to bring us freedom. Who are you practising liberation
for? For yourself. And to help others to liberate themselves. And that will
bring you peace and joy, and bring peace and joy into life. Happiness, if you
don’t have peace you don’t have happiness. We have an opportunity to meditate
on Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and each of these meditations is four lines long.
Later we will have another chant which is more complete concerning meditation
on these three things. I take refuge in the Three Jewels. And if we leave one
of these three jewels we will not be able to practise.
"I know the
Three Jewels are in my heart." I know that the Three Jewels protect me
from outside, but they are also in me. This is the teaching of taking refuge in
the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha in oneself. And the matter of Buddha, Dharma and
Sangha in ourself is what makes the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha around us.
"I vow
diligently to enable these Three Jewels to grow brighter in my heart." The
Three Jewels are three precious things. "I vow to follow my breathing, to
smile the half smile, freshly." Breathing here is conscious breathing.
Although we are cooking, washing clothes, doing the gardening, we are following
our breathing. Because if we don’t follow our breathing we lose the present
moment. "I open the half smile freshly." This smile is a sign that I
am practising mindfulness, it is a smile of mindfulness. When somebody
practises and smiles, the practitioner should know whether the smile is a
worldly smile or whether it is a smile coming from mindfulness, a smile which
recognises I am going on the path of the right Dharma. I have a lot of
happiness, a lot of good fortune because of that. And if we have a smile which
arises from that, that smile can freshen our mind and our body, and also
freshen those around us. But there is all sorts of laughter and smiling which
we should not take part in. Smiles which are discriminating, smiles which are
full of ignorance, we should not use this kind of smile. We should only use the
smile of awakening. And when we can smile like that, people will see clearly
that the sangha is a beautiful community. We are going together on the path of
beauty, the path of happiness.
"I vow to learn
to look at life with the eyes of deep looking." We have two eyes like
other people. But usually when other people look they look superficially. We
look deeply, with the eyes of deep looking. And the more we look like that, the
more we understand. And the more we understand the more we love. Therefore we
say "looking at life with the eyes of love", this is a sentence which
we see in the Lotus Sutra. The reason why we can look with the eyes of love is
because we know how to look deeply.
"I vow to try
and understand the suffering of all beings." The first Dharma talk of the
Buddha was about the Four Noble Truths. The first noble truth which the Buddha
talked about was about the presence of suffering in the world. In the fourth
precept of the Tiep Hien Order it says we should not close our eyes before
suffering. We have to be present with those who are suffering, accept the
presence of suffering, and look deeply into the basis of that suffering.
Because looking deeply into the basis of suffering is the only way to see the
way out of suffering. "I vow to try to understand the suffering of all
species, to practise love, compassion, and to put into action joy and
equanimity." Love, compassion, joy and equanimity are the true basis of
authentic love. And we will have an opportunity to learn more about these four
things later. The more we practise these the more they develop, and the more
our happiness increases and the happiness of those around us also increases.
"In the morning I will give to someone a feeling of joy, and I want in the
afternoon to help someone suffer less." This is something which is within
our grasp, something we can do. We can do it by looking after that person, by a
way of looking at them, by something we say; this is a practice. You should not
say: "I practise love, compassion, joy and understanding." You have
to really practise with those around you. Because there are those around you
who do not yet have enough happiness. And so in the morning you can do
something to make at least one person more happy, and in the afternoon at least
one person suffer less. In the English version we say: "I vow to offer joy
to one person in the morning." You use the word "one" which we
don’t use in the Vietnamese version. Then you can say every day: "Beings
are without limit, I vow to save them all", and so you don’t help just one
person in the morning and one person in the afternoon. In Vietnamese they don’t
put the word "one", although it could mean one person. It means at
least one in the morning and at least one in the evening.
"I vow to live a
simple life", that means a life of few desires. This is the principle of
our daily life. Because in consumer society we think that happiness is to have
many material things, but in fact on our path the more simply we live the more
happiness we will have. To have happiness we need to have few desires. So we
have to say to ourself: "Now I have enough, there is no need for me to go
and acquire more." "I know I’ve got enough already, I don’t have to
run out and buy any more." This is the principle for people who are going
shopping. "A life which is healthy." A simple life goes with good
health. The more you consume the more you harm your body and mind. How can
every moment of our daily life have peace and harmony in it? Harmony in our
heart, harmony between us and others, and peace. That leads to our body being
strong. We have to practise so that our body is strong too. If we have
difficulties with our intestines, we have to be careful what we eat and drink.
We have to know how to clean our intestines, that is our practice. And that
comes from mindfulness.
"I vow to
abandon anxiety, and practise forgiving and tolerance." We have worry and
anxieties in our mind which add kilos of weight to our heart. So we have to
abandon these worries. If you can’t do it on your own you should ask the help
of your teacher, your brothers and your sisters: "Help me to let go of
this burden." If we keep carrying these burdens around with us all day
long and take them to bed with us when we sleep then it is not good, so we need
to brush them off our coat in order to have liberation and we feel light within
ourself. And when we feel light and free in ourself, then our brothers and
sisters are grateful to us and gain from us.
I vow to hold deep
gratitude". That is I feel I need to help my mother and my father, whether
they’re alive or they’ve passed away. I practise so that they can be light and
free. They are in us and they are outside of us. And our daily practice is to
help us to be light and free, to help mother and father in us also to be light,
free and liberated. Whoever constantly practises stability and freedom is
always helping their family. Gratitude to my father and mother, gratitude to my
teacher, gratitude to my spiritual friends and to all beings. These are the
four gratitudes. "I vow to practise diligently so that the tree of
compassion and understanding will flower." Every day we have to be
diligent, putting all our mind into our practice of liberation and not allowing
our mind to worry about other things, things which are not important. The most
important thing is the practice of liberation. Diligently means putting all our
energy into one direction, the direction of developing liberation.
There is a tree in
us, and that tree is a flowering tree, that is our practice. And if we know how
to look after that flowering tree it will have many flowers. The flowers of
compassion and the flowers of wisdom. And one day there will be the capacity to
help all species. We may not yet be Buddha, but in the meantime we can help
people. We can help our brothers and sisters, and help the practitioners who
come to practise with us. And then we know that in the future we will be able
to do the same as Buddha. Because we have begun to do that already today.
"I ask the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha to be my witness, to support us,
give us more energy, protect us, so that we may wholly realise our great
vow." This is the energy of Samantabhadra and Ksitigarbha, the energy of
the Great Vow.
Now we go on to
Monday Evening. If you’ve already studied Samantabhadra’s Vows it will help you
a lot. I know that the New Hamlet has studied it, I don’t know about the Upper
Hamlet, how much they’ve studied. In the New Hamlet they’ve studied twelve
sections. The next Dharma talk will be in English, on the 24th, and maybe the
next two also. So after we’ve had two or three Dharma talks in English we will
come back again to studying this in Vietnamese.
56 Jesus and Buddha as Brothers
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