The 40 Tenets of Plum Village with Brother Phap Luu | Class #7

(Bell)

(Bell)

(Bell)

(Bell)

Dear respected Thay,
dear brothers and sisters,

Can you hear?

Breathing in, I know
the sound is still low.

Breathing out,
I smile to the low sound.

Breathing in,

I see the green of the evening,

the dusk settling on the trees
around the meditation hall.

Now it's muted,
now it's unmuted.

Being online you can just enjoy your
breathing, enjoy your sitting,

come back to your body.

Allow the breath to come in
and out naturally,

like the waves on the ocean.

You don't need to control the breath.

We just recognize this wondrous presence

as it moves in and out
through our nose, our mouth,

our belly rising.

And then gently falling.

It's just like we're sitting on the beach,

watching the waves play
on the surface of the water.

Again, dear respected Thay,
dear community,

today is the 5th of May
in the year 2021

and we're still going deeper and deeper
into the 40 tenets of Plum Village.

Today we're looking into
the seventh tenet.

But before I share about that,

I want to share a little bit about
what we did yesterday.

Sister Kinh Nghiem was invited to go

to speak at a ceremony called
May We Gather in Los Angeles.

And Thay Phap Dung and I
went to support her.

It was a very beautiful ceremony at
a Japanese Soto temple in Los Angeles.

Many representatives from different
Buddhists traditions were there

to commemorate 49 days of the killings
in Georgia of eight women.

Six of them of Asian descent.

A man with a lot of hatred,
anger in his heart

he went in and shot those women.

So this is a beautiful
ceremony of healing,

of bringing the Asian-American
community together

to speak about the paramitas,

like generosity, morality, precepts,

patience, energy, meditation.

And especially to speak for
not only those women,

but also others who've been killed

because of their outer form
and also culture.

To look into the violence

that is still in the collective
consciousness very deeply.

And we had a chance

to listen to monks and nuns
from many different traditions,

from Korean tradition,
from Tibetan tradition,

Sri Lanka, Thailand,

as well as Vietnamese tradition
and Japanese tradition

chanting the Heart Sutra,

chanting the Ratana Sutta,

chanting verses of protection,

of peace and transformation.

So I feel it's important

to look into, when we study
these deep teachings of Buddhism,

to also recognize

that as a collective
we have a long way to go

in how we discriminate,
how we, out of our fear of change,

fear of what we don't know,

we can resort to this kind of hatred
and violence, violent action.

In that ceremony,
they showed a short clip

of the two sons of one of the women
who was killed in Georgia.

So painful to listen to
these two grown men

who had so much love for their mother,

who taught them respect for others,
who taught them

how to not discriminate,
how to love others.

And to have her be killed in such an act,

senseless act of violence.

It's very moving.

So it was an invitation for me
to also look in my own practice,

and see ways that I still discriminate,

ways that I still,

through the culture I inherit,

through the body
that is transmitted by my parents.

And have humility and also patience.

One of the other paramitas,
very very important,

paramita or perfection,
the perfection of patience.

How to be able to not react

when someone speaks
or acts out of anger,

when someone blames.

But to have compassion
and patience for that person.

How to really allow them

to have maybe the only compassionate
person that they've met in a long time

come into their gaze,
come into their being

so their heart can open up,
and that hatred, that anger,

will no longer continue to overwhelm them.

This is a deep act of a bodhisattva.

How to cultivate that kind of patience
in our practice.

And I do feel deeply that what we're
learning in this 40 tenets classes

is helping me

to let go of the grasping of views that
lead to judgment, to anger, to prejudice.

I think it's the brilliance of the Buddha.

We often hear the story,

the teaching about teaching a man or
giving a man a fish.

Then he has something to eat
for dinner that day.

But if you teach him how to fish, then
he can have food for the rest of his life.

Although we are vegetarian,
so we don't fish.

But I think,

as practitioners,

we learn to go into the deep teachings
the Buddha offered.

It means that we're not satisfied just to
have this view or that view about things,

but we want to go deep
beyond all views and notions.

And be able to, in the present moment,

keep our mind in such a way that
it is luminously open,

and not affected by fear or judgment.

And we know that
in the historical dimension

there is judgment, there is blame,
there is violence, there is hatred.

But we have this kind of deep aspiration
to cultivate patience,

to be able to go beyond just
the hatred and the anger.

One of the priests who was there,
I think her name is Christina Moon

from a Rinzai temple in Hawaii,

she started to read the names of
the women who had been killed in Georgia.

Her voice started to falter
and she had trouble to say it.

Thay often said anyone who dies,
who experiences pain,

we also experience that pain,
we die a little bit.

I remember he shared that when
the tsunami hit the coast of India,

more than 15 years ago.

That is the heart of compassion,
to be able to have our heart open,

so that every time we read, we hear
about the suffering in the world,

we're able to die a little bit,

knowing that this body is impermanent,

and we are also subject to sickness,
to death, that we are also fragile,

that it is a miracle that we continue
to breathe, we continue to walk

to sleep every day.

And knowing that those women,
they don't get that chance.

That is dying a little bit.

And as a practitioner, we can hold that,

we can learn how to not get carried away by
feelings of despair about the situation.

So that ceremony felt
like a beautiful coming together.

I felt very fortunat
to be able to be there.

It was an act of compassion
in response to hatred.

And that is really our deep aspiration.

If we can cultivate that capacity to
respond to hatred, to violence,

with compassion and understanding, even if
someone is threatening our own life,

even if someone threatens to hurt us or
harm us in some way.

So as monastics, we have the sangha
and we're all practicing together.

But we know that it's more difficult to
practice that kind of bodhisattva path,

a little bit more difficult when
we have vulnerable ones near us,

like our children,

or our partner, our spouse,
it is a little bit more difficult,

because we have such a deep rooted,
evolved drive to protect our loved ones,

to protect our partner,
to protect our children, especially.

So we make that deep determination
to go forth to live the monastic life

knowing that with this body
we can practice that kind of non-fear.

And of course, we want to protect
all of our brothers and sisters too.

But we know that

we are on the path together, we are all
cultivating that kind of non-fear.

And that is for me a great beauty
of the monastic path.

I know if I was a father
and I had my own children,

it would be more difficult
to have that kind of aspiration,

to be able to not be so attached
to this body,

that I can let it go at any moment.

It's still difficult as a monk,

it's difficult to really have
that kind of non-fear.

In the world that we face now,
there are many wonderful things,

but there's a lot of uncertainty.

And going deeply into understanding
nirvana like we're doing in this class

can be very helpful.

I really love how Thay has brought nirvana
closer to the life of practice.

For so many centuries, so many teachers
have put nirvana way out there,

have put the unconditioned,
something that is the goal of the practice

but I cannot even begin to consider
touching such a thing,

or feeling such a bliss, such awakening.

So I feel so grateful for Thay.

I remember,

even as a novice, a few years
when I was in Upper Hamlet,

I wrote a letter to Thay and I said,
Thay, I feel like I can die now.

I feel so happy.

I feel so free. I don't need to -

I felt very joyful.

It was a real feeling of release.

I saw that until that moment I had still
a lot of attachment to my body.

That was a momentary thing.
Later on, fear came back.

A moment of -

And wanting to protect this body,
wanting to

try to be free from harm.

But keeping that aspiration alive,

the invitation of Thay
to touch the unconditioned

in every moment throughout the day
as a very concrete practice

I find it so helpful.

And, as I shared in the other classes,
when you do that practice,

you have to be very careful,

because what you think is unconditioned
is probably conditioned.

If you're able to think about it,
it's already conditioned.

That is a kind of Zen teaching.

So then that opens up a new space and
then you go deeper and deeper,

and more of this silence opens up.

And you feel very light,
very joyful, very free.

Maybe we can listen to a bell.

(Bell)

Before going on to the seventh tenet,

there was a question from the class
two weeks ago.

Thay uses the model of

a horizontal relationship
between phenomena,

and the vertical relationship between
phenomena and noumena.

Last time we learned about the separate
investigation of sign and nature.

A separate investigation of
phenomena and noumena.

[separate investigation of
sign and nature]

Nature here in the sense of the ultimate,

the unconditioned.

And sign as anything that has a quality.

Form, sound, smell, taste, touch,
or object of mind. So thought as well.

And I shared a little bit about

we have, for example, a thought

about an object.

And that is all happening
at the horizontal level.

We have a thought and then
the object of our thought.

I can think about the flower.

My eyes look at the flower
and notice its color, its form, its shape.

So that is a relationship between
the phenomenon of my eyes, looking,

and the object.

And Thay uses the image of a
horizontal relationship to describe that.

So everything that is happening
in the phenomenal world,

anything that has a quality,
anything we can perceive

is happening at a horizontal level.

So there was a question,
what does the vertical come in?

I thought it might be more helpful
to look at it as a plane.

Actually, a plane is not enough.

We can extend it
into three dimensions or more,

four dimensions including space and time.

Because it's difficult to
draw that on the boards.

So we can just think
for the moment of this,

you can look at this
as space and this as time.

Space or -
I guess we maybe we do it the other way.

It makes more sense.

Time is moving this way,

and then space.
Moving around in space.

So the relationship between two phenomena
at the same point of time

in different spaces,

and the relationship between phenomena

in the same space
at a different point of time.

For example.

And the insight of this way of looking,
this is just a way of looking,

is that at every point
in time and space

there is

the opportunity to touch the ultimate.

You touch nirvana.

Thay used to say, 'Everything has already
been nirvanized since beginningless time.

It's only we need to wake up
to recognize that.'

Whatever phenomena is happening -

For example, this body, our very body.

We can touch nirvana.

And Thay goes even farther, he says,

using the example
of the wave in the water,

'The wave already is water.
It doesn't need to touch anything.

It just needs to wake up to that
realization, that it is already water.'

In the same way,

thinking about the relationship
between phenomena on a plane,

in this case two dimensions,
three dimensions, four dimensions,

including space and time.

But we look into every phenomenon,

anything that is going on
and see in there

there is the unconditioned.
Its unconditioned nature.

In that way we become free, because
we see that what is manifesting

is the result of action.

In the Buddhist tradition we talk
about actions of body, speech, and mind.

[3 karmas
body, speech, mind]

The three kinds of karma or action.

And this is a human teaching.

It's for human beings.

Actually, the Dharma is for human beings.

The principles that are there
can be experienced by any beings,

even non-living beings.

But the Buddha, when he's teaching us
he's teaching us as human beings.

And human beings, we have a body,
we have speech, we have a mind.

And that area of activity,
our body, our speech and mind,

is within our control.

It's something we can affect.

Now everything that we think, everything
that we say, everything that we do

is also the product of our ancestors,
of our culture, of our education,

of everything that has brought us
to this present moment.

So it's also not us.

It is within our control but it is also -

Anything that we could say is in our
control is also the product of

all those things:
our cultures, our ancestors.

So when a white man
goes into a massage parlor

and starts shooting an Asian woman,

it's not only about an individual.

It's about the collective,
it's about the culture,

it's about understanding,
it's about ignorance, about hatred

that has been transmitted and
is manifesting in the present moment.

And we have ultimate responsibility

for what we do with our body,
speech and mind.

That is the teaching of the Buddha.

We've been handed all of these
conditions in our culture by our ancestors,

but what do we do with it?

That is up to us.

And that knowledge can set you free.

So by recognizing that with this body,
with these feelings, with these perceptions

there is the unconditioned nature,

then we free ourselves from
our habitual ways of doing things.

We are no longer caught in the cycle,

just running around
like a hamster in a wheel

with what has been given to us, just
trying to get a little bit of sustenance

to survive the next moment,
the next hour, the next day,

but we're able to stop.

Come back to this body,
come back to our breathing,

recognize and smile to the habits,
the seeds, the tendencies

that have been handed to us,

that we have also continued to nourish
by our distraction, by our worry,

by our anxiety, by our fear.

And we just smile to it.

I'm not going to run after you anymore.

I want to stand here as a free person.

I want to be in touch with
this unconditioned nature

which can free me from

the currents of suffering
which have continued

generation after generation.

And that manifests in my thinking,
manifests in my speech,

manifests in my bodily actions.

It's wonderful!

There's so much space and freedom.

So for a moment we touch that.
We see very clearly,

just like the wave. The wave
is water. You see it clearly.

Then, you come back into the habits,
the worries, the anxiety.

That is what I mean when I say
Thay made nirvana something so close.

Thay sometimes says

Thay is a little bit more insatiable
than the Buddha,

in the sense that he -

I remember one time Thay saying

he wanted to add
the three doors of liberation

to the 16 steps of mindful breathing.

Thay loved the three doors of liberation
so much, he felt

he wanted to add them to make
19 steps of mindful breathing,

with emptiness,
signlessness, and aimlessness.

It's good to have a little bit of that
in our practice of the Dharma,

to be wanting to learn more,
to open more doors,

to not be content
to allow the deeper teachings

to be put somewhere else
far away from us,

but to really allow it to come in
and see I can touch that,

there's something there,
there's some freedom in me.

There's some joy in me.

I know there's also pain,
there's also suffering,

there's also misunderstanding,
judgment, blame,

but there's also joy,
there's also happiness,

there's also space,
there's also the unconditioned,

there's also nirvana.

Please, allow that to be possible.

It's just allowing.

It's not a hard work.

It's just stopping and
allowing that to come in,

allowing that possibility.

And then finding
skillful ways to maintain it.

So what do we do here at the monastery?

We are just creating conditions

to maintain that kind of awareness
in every moment.

But even as monastics,
we can easily get caught

by the trappings of the good conditions.

Last week we had a monastic retreat.

That's why we could not have
the class last week,

because the monastics were nourishing
our own sangha body,

our collective sangha body.

We are so fortunate that many
local lay sanghas

who were fully vaccinated
were able to come up

and serve food,
offer food for the monastics.

It's very good food.

I really enjoyed the food,
I like the food of my brothers,

there's a lot of love
and compassion there,

but I also really like the food
that was offered by our lay community.

And I see that
if I'm not careful as a monk,

I can get attached to
that delicious food.

It can be a very comfortable life
as a monk.

And I lose my deep aspiration,

which is to make good
use of those conditions.

Now we talk a lot about privilege,

recognizing things like white privilege,

and class privilege and
the privilege of the wealthy.

If we have the privilege
to have a human body,

then we can benefit from the Dharma,
we can learn how to take care of our body,

take care of our speech,
take care of our mind.

All of us have some kind of privilege.

If we are privileged enough
to be a monastic,

to live in the monastery,

then we don't just enjoy
the good food and that's it,

but we see that all this food
is being offered to us with love and care

for us to bring about the transformation
not only of ourselves,

but of all of our ancestors,
who didn't have that opportunity,

who went and worked every day
to be able to put food on the table,

to be able to send
their children to school,

to be able to travel to the United States

to have what they believed to be
a new opportunity, a new chance.

So to live the life of a monk or a nun

there are not enough conditions
for them.

But here we are, we have
this beautiful meditation hall.

I don't know if our brother
over there is with the camera

and we can all enjoy the
new installation behind the altar

of Thay's teaching,

just, I think, from this morning
or yesterday.

This morning?

'Arrived
at home'

We can listen to a bell.

[arrived
at home]

(Bell)

So we make good use of the privilege
of having a human body

to be able to recognize that

we have already been nirvanized
since beginningless time.

Every atom, every cell in our body.

And our practice is to make
good use of these conditions

that we have in this lifetime

to be able to touch that,

to bring that in
in every moment and every second.

And what I find is that
I don't complain anymore.

Somebody is calling.

I don't get caught up
in my worries so much anymore.

That is a kind of
litmus test of the practice.

You see that it's not that you don't have
worries, that you don't have anxiety,

but it's less.
It's not so strong.

And then, with every day
a little bit less, a little bit less.

And suddenly a deep,

a deep habitual tendency is touched.

That seed comes up.

This happens to most of us
very often as practitioners.

We think we're doing quite well,
things are going well,

we feel at ease, we feel happy
in our sitting meditation practice,

happy in our walking meditation practice,
we feel joyful,

everyone in the sangha is
a wonderful brother and sister.

And then, suddenly
somebody says something,

and then that deep ancestral seed
is touched, we feel disrespected,

we feel dehumanized,
we feel condescended to,

we feel violated. And then,

the strong mental formation,
anger, the bitterness.

So the work of a mindfulness
practitioner is to hold all of that.

It doesn't mean
we haven't been a good practitioner.

Many people come on retreat and
they feel like more suffering comes up.

They say, 'What? I'm supposed
to come on the retreat

and just feel happiness and joy.'

No, no. You misunderstood.

it's because you want
the deep spoon massage.

That is why you come on a retreat.

You're not satisfied only just to
continue at the superficial level,

and think, 'This body is me,
these feelings are me,

these perceptions are me'
and all these kinds of thoughts,

but you want to go beyond that.

And you want to touch this vertical nature

that is in every cell of our body,
every action, every phenomenon.

So the seventh tenet.

'Not born' means nirvana.

]7. Not born means nirvāṇa]

And it is awakening to the truth

[and it is awakening to the truth]

of the deathless,

[of the deathless]

the no-coming

and no-going,

[the no-coming and no-going,]

the not same

and not different,

[the not same and not different,]

the not-being

and not nonbeing.

[the not-being and not nonbeing.]

We have the song,
# Arrived, arrived

# at home, I am at home.

# Dwelling in the here,
# and dwelling in the now,

# solid as a mountain,
# free as a white cloud.

# The door of no birth
# and no death is open,

# free and unshakable. #

So the new sign,
"Arrived, at home".

That is,

"at home, I am at home" means
no coming, no going.

There's nowhere to go, nothing to do.

You're no longer in a hurry.

So at the horizontal plane,

of course, there is coming and going.

At the dimension of space,

things are moving
from here...

Or I should say,

at the dimension of space,
there's something here, something there.

There's a here and a there.

And over time,
something can move in space

from here to there.

But the vertical

does not change.

In the Manifestation Only
school of Buddhism,

we are invited to look at all phenomena
as manifestations

of our actions of body, speech, and mind.

And that is not for the sake of physics,

or trying to describe reality,
but rather it's very practical.

As human beings we have a body,
we have a mind,

speech, we can speak.

So by generating thought, generating
speech, generating action of our body

we have some determination
of what kind of experience we will have

both in the present moment
and in the future.

All of these streams of -

or as we call them, seeds
in the collective consciousness

are there all combining into
this one present moment always.

And in this present moment we can decide
how we want to think,

how we want to speak,
how we want to act.

And those actions then bear fruit

in the feelings, perceptions,
mental formations, body and so forth

that we experience
going forward into the future.

So it's very practical.

This is a teaching which is based on
being able to give us freedom

to do things that bring us joy,
bring us happiness in the present moment.

It's not just for the sake of
describing reality.

Many people when
they learn about karma,

then they get caught in a kind of
absolute notion of karma.

And they say, 'Everything is karma.'

The sun,

a supernova, that is because of karma,

because somebody thought something.

That is getting caught in the
description of reality

rather than seeing the Dharma
as a teaching which is to help

human beings in the present moment.

Someone with a human body,

whose actions have real effects
in the world,

like this man who decided
to take a gun and shoot

women working
in a massage parlor in Georgia.

We, as a collective, we have provided
conditions for that to happen.

We provided the gun,

we provided the racism, the hatred,

we provided all the conditions
that were necessary.

But ultimately he also had to provide
the last condition,

which is to get in his car, drive there,
and take out the gun and start shooting.

So he has to experience
the fruit of those violent actions.

And the fruit of those actions,
the worst part of it is not being in jail.

That is a reality.

And any of us who are practitioners knows

that when we harm somebody,
when we harm ourselves,

it brings great suffering
to ourselves and to others.

And that suffering
cannot be compared with

what suffering can be imposed
upon us by the world.

Of course,

there is justice in the world.

There is going to prison,
spending your life in jail,

but to live with that pain

is so difficult, so painful.

Similarly, when someone is angry at us,
when somebody is hateful towards us,

we can learn not to engage in the hatred,
not to engage in the anger,

because then it's like,
they say it takes two to tango, right?

So every time someone blames us
or judges us and we react,

we say, 'No! It's not true!
How can you say such a thing!'

we are joining in,
we are lured into the game

of blaming and judging.

That is why, when we can see
that person with compassion

and we can see this is a
person who is suffering greatly,

if I speak out, and I also blame,
and I also judge,

I also speak out of anger,

I will only make myself suffer and
make the other person suffer even more.

What if I practice patience

and stop my actions of speech,
my actions of thinking,

and just try to look with the eyes of
the unconditioned at this person,

at the suffering, try to understand,

not just continue to feed into
the perceptions we have about that person.

It could be our loved one,
it could be our brother, our sister.

And we just continue to allow our -

It could be a collective perception,
we go into the room,

we talk about that brother,
we talk about that sister,

and in doing so
we create a prison for them.

We don't allow them the chance
to bloom like a flower,

to show their unconditioned nature,
to grow and to flourish.

And it's very beautiful what can happen
when we have that kind of non-fear.

We're able to go
into an uncomfortable place.

Nobody wants to be there
when someone is blaming them,

yelling at them, judging them.

Nobody wants to go into that situation.

But as practitioners,
if we learn when it arises,

when somebody is blaming us,

when they're judging, when they are
full of hatred and anger,

if we can just smile, be joyful.

Genuinely.

We don't allow that hatred and
anger to penetrate our mind,

but rather give rise to compassion.

That is touching the vertical.

That is a chance to allow
the habitual conditioning

to just fall away.

I don't need to react, I don't need
to judge like I have in the past.

And you may be very surprised
at how that person responds.

It might not happen the first time,
second time,

but you continue in that path.

This is something
I practice with my family,

I practice with my brothers and sisters,
not perfectly.

Sometimes I also tangle.

But I've also seen the possibility of
understanding, of compassion, of patience.

And allowing space for that person to be

free from the prison of perceptions,

whether at the collective level,
or at the individual level.

This is the kind of thing which
touching the unconditioned,

going beyond what is known
allows.

It allows that space for growth to happen,
for new possibility, for peace and joy.

So these eight notions
which Thay references here,

no-birth, no-death,
no-coming, no-going,

not same, not different,
not-being and not nonbeing,

when we look deeply into our thinking,

you may find that

every thought has one of these
or more as its foundation.

We want to go,
we want to come somewhere.

We want to be born.

At every moment
we are being born and we are dying,

At every moment, with every word, with
every thought, we are becoming someone.

And we're also leaving behind someone.

It happens so quickly.

In our very body cells are constantly
being born and constantly dying,

in every moment.

So it's more proper to see this body

as a vast community of living beings

constantly being born
and constantly dying.

Not just, 'This is one body
and this is me,'

but it's a multitude.

So in this constantly being born
and constantly dying,

is it possible to go beyond
any concept of being born and dying?

Can we see that in the very essence
of being born

there are all the conditions for death?

That we cannot conceive
of being born without dying?

Being born has no meaning without dying.

How could something be born
if something cannot die?

And how can something die
if it has not been born?

So going beyond this we touch
the non-dual nature of reality.

We talked about the cloud,
a cloud never dies.

The cloud becomes the rain,
becomes the river, goes into the ocean,

that evaporates again with the sun,
and becomes another cloud.

So we can mourn the cloud dying
when it becomes the rain,

but that would be not recognizing
its nature of no birth and no death.

Thay often quoted
the French chemist Lavoisier saying,

'Nothing can be created,
nothing can be destroyed.'

(Fr.): 'Rien ne se crée, rien ne se perd.

Tout se transforme.'

[Rien ne se crée, rien ne se perd.
Tout se transforme.]

Nothing is created, nothing is lost.
Everything is transformed.

Everything is transformation,
everything is transformed.

So even in chemistry,
there's that insight.

We learn with the theory of relativity

that energy can be transformed into matter
and matter can be transformed into energy.

But there is no loss in either case,
nothing is lost.

So even in physics, in science, there is
that notion of no birth and no death.

So when we fear death,
we're actually fearing

something which is
in the very nature of our living body.

There's no way we could be born
without there being death.

Our body goes back to the earth

and it provides sustenance
for all kinds of other living beings.

And eventually it can be transformed
into a tree, or a flower.

And that is of the nature of this body.

So touching that nature of transformation

is touching the nature of no birth
and no death. So beautiful!

Because of no birth and no death,
these orchids are possible.

Because of no birth, no death,
this body is possible, living is possible,

thinking, speaking, breathing is possible.

So what we're doing is we're going
beyond notions of birth and death.

We're recognizing that our thinking, and
our attachment to our thoughts

are founded on our ideas about
being born and dying,

about coming and going,

same and different.

This person is the same like me.
That person, they look strange,

they look different.

I don't like that,

the way that person looks,
the way that person talks.

That is the foundation of fear,
and violence and hatred.

Ideas about who is the same to me
and who is different.

Not-being and non-being.

And this notion of being and non-being
is deeply rooted under all of the notions.

When we come and go somewhere,
it's because we want to be somewhere else.

When we want to be born, it's because
we're not satisfied with who we are.

We want to become something else.

Or when we dislike somebody, we dislike
a situation, we want it to go away,

that is wishing a kind of death wish.

We want it to not be.

So underneath all of these notions
of birth and death, no coming, no going,

same and different are ultimately
ideas about being and non-being.

You want to be this
or you don't want to be that.

This basic wanting, desiring,
grasping, and aversion.

Being and non-being.

So if we train our mind with
the wisdom of the seventh tenet to see

it's not enough just to keep
talking about nirvana.

Nirvana is just a word
like any other word.

We need to be able to train our mind
to touch the unconditioned

in the present moment.

So this teaching on these eight points,
the unborn, and the undying,

no-coming, no-going,
not same and not different,

not-being and nonbeing,

it's a kind of dialectic.

Using words and concepts to be able
to move beyond and transcend

all concepts, all notions.
That is the teaching of the Dharma.

Because it's there to free our minds.

It's there to help us to see our
attachments, what we continue to grasp at.

So when a Zen master
gets in our face and he says, 'Hey!'

that's because he sees that even though
we may think we're not grasping,

there's still something
we're holding on to.

There's still some notion about ourselves,
about the world.

Even to be proud to be a Buddhist,
I'm Buddhist, I'm non-violent,

I'm peaceful, I'm calm,
that is also an attachment.

That can keep us bound
to the world of coming and going,

being and non-being and so forth.

So even those things that
we hold most dear in our heart,

just like the raft, we have to leave it at
the shore. We don't continue to carry it.

Because we know that we are a practitioner,
when we come to the next river,

we rely on our own insight to be able
to know how to cross the river.

We don't need to carry the raft with us.

Thay uses the metaphor of -

Maybe we can finish with the story
of the man who lost his cows.

He is running after them,

and he discovers the Buddha and his monks

sitting very calmly
in the middle of the forest.

He's so worried, so anxious,
he's so distraught,

because his cows mean everything to him,
all of his wealth.

They didn't have a bank.

Many people didn't have money.
Their wealth was in cows,

sheep, goats, and their family,
the children and land.

And this farmer had lost his cows.

And he was so distraught, 'What will I do?
How will I live without my cows?'

And the Buddha said, 'I'm so sorry,
we didn't see your cows.

You have to go search elsewhere.'

And after the man left,
he turned to the monks and said,

'You are the luckiest people alive.
You don't have any cows to lose.'

And that is our practice
as monastics and as practitioners,

to recognize what cows
we still have in our life,

what cows are we still running after

that are keeping us from seeing the wonder
of dwelling happily in the present moment,

and really arriving at home.

Thank you for supporting the class.

For those of you online,
we'll continue every week,

we'll try to find a way to let you know
if we don't have the class for some reason

in the coming weeks.

But I think the next few weeks
we should be able to have the class.

Thank you.

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So beautiful!