[Three sounds of the big bell ... ]
Now, we will breath with the sound of the ticking clock.
Breathing in for 2 or 3 seconds.
Breathing out for 4 or 5 seconds.
Usually, the in-breath is shorter than the out-breath.
So when we breath in for 3 seconds,
we can breath out for 4, 5, 6 or 7 seconds.
Now Thay's in-breath is 4 seconds and out-breath is 7 seconds.
We can choose the length according to our lung's capacity.
Breathing in for however many seconds as is comfortable,
and breathing out for however many seconds as is most comfortable.
We can follow this rhythm for a few minutes,
then we can change it, depending on the capacity of our lungs.
And when you count like that, the thinking naturally stops
and you pay attention to your breathing.
Before going to bed you can place the clock nearby
and you breathe with the ticking of the clock..
When you breathe with the clock, you stop the thinking.
For example, breathing in 1, 2, 3, breathing out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
You can change the numbers with words, like:
Buddha, dharma, sangha.
Taking refuge in Buddha, dharma, sangha.
Buddha, dharma, sangha. Taking refuge in Buddha, dharma, sangha.
Instead of 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
When you do walking meditation
you can count your steps.
Breathing in you can make 3 steps,
and breathing out you can make 5 or 6 steps.
And sometimes when you feel really well,
you can make up to 7 or 8 steps on an in-breath,
and 12 steps on an out-breath.
So it depends.
Like when you walk uphill,
the number of steps will naturally be less.
When you go uphill, normally you make 2 steps on an in-breath
and three steps on an out-breath.
And if it is really steep then it's one step for the in-breath
and one step for the out-breath.
Counting your steps like that, you also stop the thinking.
Stopping the thinking,
you pay more attention to your steps and your breath.
When you do sitting meditation
you begin by becoming aware of your breath.
The first thing is to become aware of the breath.
And breathing in, you can say,
"Dear Buddha, I invite you to breath with my lungs."
And when the Buddha starts to breath,
you see that the Buddha's back will be upright,
because the Buddha always sits very upright.
"Dear Buddha, I invite you to sit with my back.
I'm not sitting with my grandmother's back. I'm sitting with the Buddha's back."
So your spine becomes very straight and very relaxed.
The Buddha is breathing with your lungs,
and you see the Buddha using your lungs to breath for you.
It's wonderful.
While breathing like that, you experience dharma joy.
There's happiness while breathing.
There's relaxation.
When you experience the joy of practicing,
you know that you are breathing correctly.
And when you don't feel the joy of practicing, you know that you are breathing incorrectly.
You may be trying too hard.
You're only breathing. It's not hard labor.
Enjoy breathing.
The first part of sitting meditation
is calming the breath and the body.
To adjust the body so that it is upright and relaxed,
the head aligned with the spine.
The head aligned with the spine,
not like this,
but like this. In line with the spine.
And it's very soft, very relaxed.
With the breath,
the mind will permeate the body,
and the body will permeate the mind.
The embodied mind.
The mindful body.
When body and mind are at one and relaxed,
you feel well,
at ease.
Each time you do sitting meditation
you need to do this first.
You relax your body, you feel at ease,
and you enjoy those first few minutes of sitting.
And when you breath out,
you feel your body relax.
When you breath in it's the same.
Even though it's the in-breath, your two shoulders remain relaxed.
Only the lungs are pumping air;
you don't need to make any effort.
The lungs do the pumping,
expanding and contracting.
Meanwhile, all the muscles in your body are relaxed.
So breathing out,
you feel your two shoulders, your whole body relaxed.
When breathing in, you can also relax.
Breathing in, simply allow your lungs to breathe,
and the rest of your body can relax.
The brain stem is in charge
of the respiratory
and heart rates.
So allow it to do the work. You don't need to do anything.
You just pay attention to the rhythm of the breathing.
If you wish,
you can make the length of the breath longer
so that there's more dharma joy,
so that the joy of the practice is prolonged.
When we feel that our body is relaxing,
relaxed,
we know that the body's capacity for healing
will increase.
Our heart rate will slow down,
and our immune system
will be boosted.
And so, the body begins to heal.
The body begins to heal itself.
The same is true when we do walking meditation.
Each step is very relaxed.
You walk as if you are taking a stroll.
There's no rushing.
With each step like that,
healing is taking place in the body
and in the mind as well.
Healing for the body and the mind.
So every breath is healing.
Every step is healing.
As practitioners
we have to make good use
of our breath and our steps to heal.
And sitting meditation is healing.
Sitting, walking, breathing, we can heal.
So walking from the residence to the meditation hall,
that's an opportunity.
From the residence, or from our quarters,
to the meditation hall or to the kitchen,
that's an opportunity to heal.
Every step can be as relaxing and peaceful.
Every breath can be as relaxing and peaceful.
Waking up in the morning
and stepping outside—
it's only 5 o'clock—
you can still see the moon and stars.
It's very beautiful.
And you take each step relaxingly like that,
you breathe in the fresh air—
that
is already the Kingdom of God, the Pureland of the Buddha.
And you have to spend time
enjoying moments like that fully.
City people don't wake up so early.
They also don't get to enjoy
the fragrance of the earth at night.
They cannot see the moon and stars as clearly.
So they're missing out.
And so,
while walking to the bathroom,
while brushing your teeth
or while splashing cold water on your face,
these moments can all be
moments of relaxation and healing.
We all have some illness or other,
whether it's temporary or chronic.
And we can make use of the sitting, the walking, the breathing
to help the body heal.
Healing can take place in every moment.
When you breathe out and you are completely relaxed,
the out-breath may last 5 or 7 seconds.
Those 5 or 7 seconds of breathing and relaxation is healing.
Breathing in, you can also relax.
Breathing out, you relax again,
and so your body has a chance to heal.
The same is true for the body as well as the mind.
When there is pain, anxiety or irritation,
the breath,
the mindful breath
can embrace that mental formation
and help to calm it down.
We often speak about relaxing the body,
but the sutras also speak about relaxing the feeling,
relaxing the emotion.
Relaxing the feeling, the emotion.
An emotion, a feeling, is an energy.
It may be pleasant or unpleasant.
And when it's a strong emotion,
we are not peaceful.
Even if it is a joyful emotion,
it's not peaceful.
For some people, when they hear that they've won the lottery
they faint.
That's because they are so happy.
So emotions, they don't offer us peace.
So with the breathing, you can embrace the emotion,
embrace the feeling.
and you can calm the feeling,
relax the feeling.
That practice is called calming the mental formation.
Relaxing the mental formation.
Relaxing the feeling.
Relaxing the emotion.
In the Anapanasati sutra,
there's an exercise for calming the body,
meaning to relax the body.
And there's an exercise for calming the mental formation,
meaning to calm the emotions, the feelings.
An tịnh tâm hành. 安 静 心 行 Calming the mental formation.
When we are angry or sad,
we have to know how to breathe.
After having relaxed the body, we relax the mind.
And if
the unpleasant, painful feeling persists,
we can look deeply into the other person,
the person whom we believe has made us suffer,
made us sad.
We can see their difficulties,
their pain.
We can see the pain and sorrow they have in their hearts,
the unhealthy habits or patterns of behavior
that they are not able to control,
to master,
and they are making themselves suffer
and making those around them suffer.
They are a victim of their own suffering.
When we can see
that they are suffering,
we
can give rise
to compassion
Because we have good seeds within us.
When we see someone suffer,
we have compassion for them.
When we have no compassion,
it's because we haven't been able to see their suffering.
Once we recognize their suffering, compassion arises naturally.
So the habits of mind,
the neural pathways in our brain changes.
Often, our thinking
goes in the direction of anger,
resentment and the desire to punish the other person,
especially when we suffer.
We hear something, we see something that has triggered us.
And our neural pathways—the pathways in our brain—
lead us to anger.
But when we look deeply and can see the suffering in the other person,
naturally, our mind goes in another direction,
and it can take us to a place of love.
We have two ways of thinking,
one way leads to anger,
and the other leads to love.
We come to anger because
we haven't seen the suffering of the other person.
Once we can see their suffering,
we change course,
and we choose another path.
A path leading to love.
Then we feel better,
and we can relax the mental formation very quickly.
This year, we will write these phrases to celebrate the Lunar New Year:
Listen deeply to understand clearly, Look deeply to truly love.
"Look deeply to truly love" means to see that
the other person is suffering.
The other person is suffering.
Looking deeply, we recognize
that we have received some kindness from them.
Looking deeply to acknowledge the kind actions of the past.
Looking deeply to recognize the difficulties that they are facing.
Seeing these two things, suddenly we're not angry anymore.
That's looking deeply to truly love.
Regarder bien pour mieux aimer.
Nhìn lại để thương. Looking deeply to truly love.
They have made us suffer.
And we're not able to be at peace.
But thanks to looking deeply,
we can easily calm the mind and be at peace again.
The irritation, the anger transforms very quickly.
So calming, relaxing the mental formations is possible.
It's up to us, up to how we see things.
In Buddhism, we speak about the criteria
of pain and pleasure.
"Khổ" can be translated as "pain,"
and "lạc" can be translated as "pleasure."
In general, everyone has the tendency
to avoid pain and to seek pleasure.
That is a function of the seventh consciousness, manas:
To avoid pain and to seek pleasure.
Pleasure seeking.
Avoiding suffering.
It's a natural tendency,
and it's the function of manas, the seventh consciousness.
The criteria of pain and pleasure is the criteria
of a number of ethicists.
There's a school of ethics called
utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism.
The basic tenet of this school
is that any act, any speech,
any thought
that reduces harm and maximizes happiness and well-being
is considered right action, moral.
Whereas anything that leads to pain
or ill-being is considered amoral.
That is their criteria for right and wrong.
So the basic premise of this school
is similar to the that of the Four Noble Truths.
in that we have to envision
a world where happiness is possible.
For example, a world where there's enough food, housing,
democracy, peace,
well-being.
It's similar to the third of the 4 Noble Truths.
And once we have identified what it is that we want, meaning
the overall well-being of society,
that's utilitarianism: actions that promote happiness.
"Công lợi, công ích" both mean utilitarianism.
So both can be translated as utilitarianism.
So we know what we should do and what we should say.
This is action.
And that action promotes happiness.
In Buddhism, action is the Noble Eightfold Path.
The Noble Eightfold Path leads
to the end of ill-being.
The end of ill-being.
These are the similarities between Buddhism and utilitarianism.
The definition of
right action
(right action or right speech),
and whether that action is right or wrong,
right or wrong,
good or evil,
to know whether our action is right or wrong, good or bad,
we must see whether that action leads to well-being,
or whether it leads to ill-being.
If it promotes happiness, it is right action;
if it promotes ill-being, it is wrong, it is bad.
That is the criteria of utilitarianism.
So if we lie,
and if lying promotes well-being, then we can lie.
In this case lying is considered good.
But if we speak the truth and it causes harm to others,
that is not correct, that is wrong.
Say there is a killer looking for their target,
and they ask you, do you know where that person is hiding?
You know.
But you know that if you tell the truth,
they will find and kill that person.
So telling the truth is not correct,
is not good.
So you have to lie and say that you don't know.
So whether lying is a good thing or not
depends on the situation.
If lying
promotes well-being and safety for others,
it is good.
On the other hand, if speaking the truth
will cause the other person to die,
to be in pain,
that is still wrong.
So that is the premise of the school of utilitarianism.
In other words, the important thing is the outcome.
So, the end justifies the means.
The end justifies the means.
That is the essence of utilitarianism.
August 6,
1945.
August 6, 1945 is the day
the US dropped the first atomic bomb
on the city of Hiroshima.
And
within a matter of minutes 140,000 people in that city died.
Just one bomb and 140,000 people died.
And
that bomb has raised a number of questions
since 1945.
Was it right or wrong to have dropped the atomic bomb?
Some people say it was the right thing to do
because even though 140,000 people died,
they were able to end the war.
If the war had lasted there would be many more casualties.
And there are others who say,
they could've used means other than dropping the bomb.
Before that president Roosevelt, the president before Truman,
had stated very clearly that
in military operations
they must avoid causing civilian damage.
In military operations, the army only has the right
to attack the enemy's military units,
and they must avoid as much as possible
causing civilian damage.
President Roosevelt had given such an order,
very clearly and in detail.
But upon President Roosevelt's death,
Truman assumed the presidency.
He also said the same thing.
He said that he didn't agree with military operations
that cause civilian harm.
Military operations should only target armed forces
and should be careful not to harm civilians.
So Truman also said the same thing.
When Truman assumed the presidency
he didn't know that they already had the atomic bomb.
At the time,
the US had already made the atomic bomb.
The military leaders and advisors came to tell him that
it was necessary to drop the atomic bomb
for Japan to realize that they must surrender
and not continue the war.
The military advisors told Truman that
although a number of people will die,
maybe 100,000 people will die,
but if they dropped the bomb,
the other side would be forced to surrender,
and this would put a swift end to the war.
Otherwise the war would drag on
and a lot more people would die.
Whatever they said was so convincing that president Truman accepted.
Truman knew that if they dropped the bomb
at least 100,000 civilians will be killed.
We don't know how long the discussions took place
but Truman changed his mind
and allowed the first bomb to be dropped on Hiroshima.
Before that, the Allied forces had landed in Normandy, France.
The fighting was so fierce and many people died.
There were a lot of casualties on both sides.
In the Pacific Ocean, the Allied forces
were beginning to gain the upper-hand.
They were winning.
But nobody knew how long the war would drag on.
So the US military leaders advised Truman
to drop the atomic bomb
so Japan would be terrorized into surrendering quickly.
And they were so persuasive that Truman accepted.
It's reported that Truman said,
"After having made the decision, I slept like a baby."
I slept like a baby.
That's just incredible.
You know beforehand that 100,000 people will die, or more,
and yet you can sleep like a baby.
That's just incredible.
Three days later.
Two days later Japan still hadn't surrendered.
140,000 people died immediately after.
And you know, the effects of nuclear radiation continued to kill
tens of thousands of people in the following years.
I visited the museum of Hiroshima.
It was horrifying.
There were a lot of horrifying evidence.
There were many piles of dishes from restaurants,
or drawers full of metal utensils, knives and spoons.
When the bomb dropped
it generated an incredible amount of heat,
so hot that all the tea cups melted into a clump,
and all the spoons, forks and knives
also melted into a clump.
And it was so hot that people jumped into ponds and rivers,
but the water was also boiling hot.
And so within a matter of minutes 140,000 people died
on the island of Hiroshima.
On the 9th of August,
three days later,
four days later,
the US dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
This was a smaller city.
And the second bomb immediately killed 70,000 civilians.
So
this was a very controversial.
Should the US have dropped the bomb or not?
One could argue that because the two bombs were dropped,
the other side was forced into surrendering
and the war came to a swift end.
Still, there are others that say they could've found other solutions,
because you can't be sure that the other would surrender.
It's possible that they may not surrender.
Like after the first bomb was dropped, Japan had not surrendered.
It was only after the second bomb that they surrendered.
You don't know beforehand
what would happen.
But you bear great responsibility.
And was dropping the bomb right or wrong?
Good or evil?
Because you don't know in advance.
Ethics,
the branch of ethics that looks into criteria, or guidelines,
to know whether or not an action is morally right or wrong
is called "normative ethics."
"Tiêu" means a hook, a marker,
le point de repère.
Tiêu chuẩn. Criteria.
"Chuẩn" is a measuring stick. So it is a hook, a marker, a measure,
to know whether an action
is morally right or wrong, good or bad.
That's normative ethics.
The Noble Eightfold Path, the right eightfold path.
But what is considered right?
What is considered to be right thinking?
What is considered to be right view?
We have to ask, what does "right" mean?
What would make our thinking "right thinking?"
Everyone wants to have right thinking.
But what is right thinking?
What view is a right view?
Who doesn't want to have right view,
but which view is the Right View?
So we need a criterium.
So in Buddhist ethics,
Right View is the view
of interbeing.
non-duality,
impermanence,
non-self.
The view that transcends all views.
Meaning it is non-dualistic,
and transcends all views.
This is a very distinctive Buddhist understanding:
Right view
is the absence of all views,
the removal of all views.
That is the highest definition of Right view.
All other definitions are relative.
When you can see interdependent co-arising,
that is Right view.
When you can see interbeing, that is Right view.
When you have a non-discriminative, non-dualistic view,
that is right view.
So Buddhism
is also a school of normative ethics.
There are criteria,
there are measures
that allow us to know if something is right or not right.
And when our thinking is full of compassion,
full of understanding,
that is right thinking.
Thinking that is full of love and understanding
is considered right thinking.
Whereas thinking that is full of anger, ignorance, craving,
is not considered right thinking.
So these are the definitions, the measures,
these are the kinds of criteria
to determine whether something is right or wrong.
So according to utilitarianism,
happiness is to have peace and to end the war,
and the act of dropping the bomb
leads to peace and the end of war.
So this is how some people have interpreted this.
This is how they have applied this criteria.
At the time, in the UK, there was a young woman,
a student named Anscombe.
Later, she went on to become a notable philosopher
specializing in ethics.
But at the time she was just twenty years old.
She was Catholic
and she believed in no killing,
because God said, "Thou shalt not kill."
No matter what, you cannot kill.
You cannot kill even one person let alone 140,000 people.
Under no circumstances can killing be done,
because that is God's command.
Thou shalt not kill.
That's God's command.
Even for the sake of peace or for anything else,
you cannot kill.
Just like the philosopher Kant from Germany,
he said that moral rules
should be absolute.
If lying is immoral,
then even if you lie to save people it's still immoral.
He also called it the "categorical imperative."
"Mệnh lệnh tuyệt đối" "Mệnh lệnh tất yếu" [Categorical imperative]
Categorical imperative.
To be truthful is a categorical imperative.
If you tell the truth
then you want everyone else to tell the truth as well.
That is morally correct.
Whereas if you lie, even to save lives or whatever,
it is still immoral.
So the categorical imperative is like
God's commandments.
But Kant doesn't speak about God.
Kant appealed to man's capacity to reason.
He spoke about humans as rational beings.
As for Anscombe, she appealed to theological considerations,
"This is God's commandment."
The commandment of God.
Utilitarian ethics is much more flexible.
They say it's okay to lie, it's okay to kill,
so long as it reduces suffering and brings about happiness.
Eleven years later,
Truman visited the UK
and was awarded an honorary degree from Oxford University.
An honorary doctorate.
Anscombe was a professor at the university,
teaching ethics.
She was very faithful to the teachings of Christianity.
She said, "some things may not be done,
no matter what."
"There are some things that may not be done,
no matter what."
"There are some things that cannot be done,
no matter what."
Some things may not be done, no matter what.
For example, if you had to boil a baby to save the world,
if you had to put a baby in boiling water to save the world,
you cannot do it.
Some people say Anscombe—and Kant—are too rigid.
They are not flexible at all.
So while Oxford held a ceremony
to confer the honorary degree to Truman,
Anscombe held a protest outside,
kneeling in prayer
to oppose Oxford awarding Truman an honorary degree.
I have looked deeply into this matter many times,
about the atomic bomb,
and I see that dropping the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
was not only a matter of ending the war.
I see that the US also wanted to test out that bomb.
Even though they did test it earlier, it wasn't tested on a city.
And maybe when that bomb exploded
everyone would see that the US as number one.
No other nation had that weapon.
Also the prestige and power of the US would increase.
And so, dropping the bomb was not only a matter of forcing Japan to surrender
but to prove that the US was a superpower.
A superpower.
And suddenly, America's position became unrivaled in the world.
So from a military standpoint it's one thing.
But from a political standpoint it's another.
So we have to look deeply to see the kind of thinking
that lead to the decision to drop the bomb.
It wasn't just to restore peace, to end the war.
There were other motives involved as well.
These are big ethical problems
that we need to look deeply into.
In Buddhism, we speak of criteria.
Remember, we said that criteria means a hook, a marker, a measure,
and the first criteria is pain and pleasure.
What leads to pain, you don't do it.
What leads to happiness, you can do it.
This is the first criteria.
However, this criteria is not absolute.
This criteria is not absolute,
and you cannot use this criteria alone.
For instance, if you drink wine, it's very pleasurable.
Eating ice-cream, one after the other,
it's very pleasurable.
And drowning ourselves in the five sensual desires,
it's very pleasurable.
But later on you have problems.
Later on you suffer.
So some suffering is essential
for us grow as human beings.
And so pain is not necessarily a bad thing,
is not necessarily wrong.
In the past, there was a sixteen year old student
who did so well on the exams
that his essay
should have received the highest marks,
the first laureate.
But the mandarins said,
"He's too young,
if we let him come first place
he may be too proud.
And to train people
we have to cultivate their virtues, not just their talents,
so let's fail him this time,
and then next time we can let him come in first place.
This way he can lose some of his arrogance.
That was the thinking of the ministers of the court.
In theory, this would be extremely unfair,
because he was the best and deserved to be first place,
yet they failed him
only to give him the grand prize the following year.
What if he died before that?
So what is the right thing to do?
In Vietnam it happened that there was a sixteen year old
who was supposed to be first laureate but got failed instead.
That's one moral view.
Because of course, a country needs talented people,
but it also needs ethical people.
And if the person is both talented and ethical,
they can serve the country well.
There are many ways of thinking like that.
Morally as well as
culturally,
in terms of perception,
there are many differences between the East and the West.
For example, in the old days in China and Vietnam,
if someone committed a serious crime,
like treason,
not only was that person sentenced to death,
but their entire family across three generations
were also sentenced to death.
Even if everyone else was innocent,
all three generations were sentenced to death.
"Tru di tam tộc" means to kill everyone across all three generations.
They believe that
it's because the family didn't guide each other well,
so they are all co-responsible.
In light of individualism,
this is unfair.
One person commits a crime and the entire family
has to suffer the consequences.
In fact, it makes some sense.
In a family, if one person is sick,
or has an accident,
or has committed a crime and was put in jail,
even if the others aren't in jail they still suffer.
They say the parents didn't teach the children,
so they punish the parents too.
They say the siblings didn't teach each other,
so they punish the siblings too.
That's why in the old days in Asia
they have that penalty called "tru di tam tộc"
where if one person commits a crime,
the whole entire family,
not only the current generation,
but the previous and future generations are all killed.
These are the ethical criteria that are different in each society.
Once there was a tribe [the Callatians] that had a particular custom.
When the grandfather dies,
they had to immediately
cut and eat the flesh of the grandfather.
They believed in doing so the grandfather will live on in them,
and so it's an act of filial piety.
So when the maternal or paternal grandparent dies
they are allowed to eat the flesh of the grandparent.
And if they didn't eat the flesh of the dead grandparent,
it's considered unethical,
so they had to.
To outsiders, it's barbaric.
And if you say that in your country
you burn your grandfather when he dies,
these tribal people will get very angry.
They will say that that's unethical. Immoral.
You have to eat the flesh of your grandparent to be correct.
If you burn your grandparent
you are not a good son or daughter.
So what is right or wrong, good or evil
also depends on local customs and beliefs.
In 2000,
a family from the island of Gozo
in the Mediteranean
went to Manchester, UK to give birth.
at St Mary's hospital.
The mother
was pregnant with twins.
They were both girls.
One named Jodie, and one named Mary.
But they were conjoined twins.
They were two, but with one working set of lungs and one heart.
They were joined at the abdomen with a fused spine.
The working lungs and heart were both on Jodie's side.
so Jodie's breath and heart beat
provided circulation to sustain Mary.
So
when the twins were born
the doctors knew that
within a matter of weeks both girls would die.
But the doctors believed that
if they operated they could at least save one.
If they operated, they could only save one child
and the other child would die.
Without the operation, both would die.
If they waited both would die.
But the parents were devout Catholics
and they were determined not to do the operation.
They accepted for both to die rather than
having an operation for one to die and the other to survive.
That was how the parents saw it.
But the doctors felt that it didn't make sense.
If you could save one child why wouldn't you?
Why would you allow both children to die?
So the doctors brought the case to court
to ask for the right to operate to save one child.
And the court approved.
A week later
A few days later they operated
and they were able to save Jodie.
And of course Mary died,
because once they were separated,
Mary had no lungs, no heart.
Mary didn't have her own lungs or heart, so she died.
The doctors followed a different ethical criteria.
They say, even though Mary died,
at least they were able to save Jodie.
As for the parents, they believed that whatever God
had in His plans for them they would accept.
If both children die,
that's also God's will,
so they have to let it be.
They felt they had no right to kill one child in order to save the other.
So there are two different ethical perspectives.
One belonging to the doctors of St Mary's hospital,
and one belonging to the young couple who
placed everything in the hands of God.
There's a similar story of baby Theresa.
Baby Theresa was born in Florida in 1998.
And when
the doctors performed scans,
they saw that Theresa didn't have a brain.
There was no brain.
A child born like that would die,
if not in the womb then shortly after birth.
And if the child didn't die at birth,
it would die within a few days.
This condition is called anencephaly,
a disorder in which the brain is absent.
But there is a brainstem.
Because of the presence of the brainstem,
the child can breathe and have a heart beat.
But for certain
the child would die after a few days.
Some babies with this condition die before or at birth.
And if not, they die within a few days.
So the parents decided to
donate her organs to other children for organ transplantation,
—like her kidneys, her eyes, her heart—
knowing that she will die and that other children
are in desperate need of those organs.
Thousands of children were in need of those organs,
and if they knew that baby Theresa would die in five days,
while her heart, lungs and kidneys, were still in good condition,
why not donate those organs to save other children?
That was what the parents wanted.
And also what the doctors wanted.
But the law in Florida prohibited this.
The law states that organs can only be taken from deceased individuals.
But while someone is still alive
you cannot kill them to remove organs for transplantation.
That's the law in Florida.
Of course the doctors and the couple lost the case.
So when baby Theresa died,
her organs were damaged and couldn't be used anymore,
so they couldn't save any other children.
So that was the law in Florida.
So these ethical dilemmas,
depending on our way of thinking,
on our judgement, on the criteria we use
determine what is morally right or wrong.
What is good or bad.
So in Buddhism, the first criteria is pain and pleasure.
We know that suffering and happiness inter-are.
Some pains help us grow as human beings,
help us become more resilient.
That's why the criteria of pain and pleasure
is not enough for us to determine
what is right or wrong, good or bad.
Following the criteria of pain and pleasure,
there's the criteria of beneficial and un-beneficial.
"Khổ / lạc " is pain and pleasure.
Based on the criteria of pain and pleasure,
whatever leads to pain is not allowed, is incorrect, is wrong,
and whatever leads to pleasure is correct, is good.
The second criteria is beneficial and un-beneficial.
"Lợi" means beneficial.
"Hại" means un-beneficial.
In Buddhism, this is what is meant when we say beneficial and un-beneficial:
Anything that brings about siblinghood, liberation, awakening,
freedom
is considered beneficial.
And anything that brings about
craving, pain and sorrow, despair,
is considered un-beneficial.
It obstructs our path of liberation.
Beneficial and un-beneficial.
And there are some things you need to suffer through
but it's good for you.
And there are things,
some pains
that we go through and we benefit from the experience.
And then there are pleasures that can end up harming us.
That's why the second criteria,
beneficial and un-beneficial informs
the first criteria of pain and pleasure.
On September 1st in the capitol of New Delhi,
I offered a talk in commemoration of Mahatma Gandhi.
I mentioned a beautiful quote from Gandhi.
We should take this opportunity
to hear what Gandhi had to say about this.
"Our ancestors
set a limit to our indulgences."
"Our ancestors set a limit to our indulgences."
Like drinking until we're drunk, or over-eating.
These are indulgences.
The opposite is moderation, knowing enough.
"Our ancestors set a limit to our indulgences."
"They saw that happiness was largely a mental condition."
"A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich,"
"or unhappy because he is poor."
"A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich,"
"or unhappy because he is poor."
Being rich or poor doesn't determine our happiness,
but our mental attitude.
"A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich,"
"or unhappy because he is poor."
"Observing all this, our ancestors"
"dissuaded us from luxuries and pleasures."
"Observing all this, our ancestors"
"dissuaded us from luxuries and pleasures."
So this quote means that what you consider as pleasure
may be harmful to you, now and in the future.
You have consumer power.
You have money, you have more power to consume,
but that is not necessarily true happiness.
It's not true happiness.
Rather, it can lead to suffering.
So making a lot of money
to consume, to indulge in sensual pleasures,
causes more harm than good.
Meanwhile, when we practice moderation
—eating less, living with more modest conditions—
we feel light and at peace, joyful, happy.
It helps us to be more free,
and we can realize our aspiration.
So it's more beneficial.
Gandhi also said this wonderful line:
"The mind is a restless bird."
"The mind is a restless bird,"
"the more it gets the more it wants"
"and still remains unsatisfied."
"the more it gets the more it wants"
"and still remains unsatisfied."
"The mind is a restless bird."
"The more it gets the more it wants"
"The more it gets the more it wants."
"The more it gets the more it wants"
and still remains unsatisfied."
Craving has no limits.
You're successful and you're not satisfied, you want to be more successful.
You're more successful but you're still not satisfied, you want to be even more successful.
You can never stop.
That's why our ancestors advised us to set limits.
So what is beneficial
"lợi" here doesn't mean to take advantage of, it means
being conducive to true peace,
to true happiness, to liberation.
Conducive to liberation.
Conducive to peace.
Conducive to true happiness.
That's what beneficial means.
So this criteria of pain and pleasure
is not enough to establish moral grounds.
In addition, we need the criteria of beneficial and un-beneficial.
Will doing that thing be good for us in the future?
Will it be conducive to peace, to liberation, to siblinghood?
If not, it is incorrect,
it is wrong.
After the criteria of beneficial and un-beneficial,
there's the criteria of delusion and awakening.
"Mê" means
delusion,
and "ngộ" means awakening.
When we are delusional
the decisions that we make
are not very clear.
Only when we're no longer delusional that we can see clearly.
But now we're still delusional,
so it's hard for us to listen to other's advice.
even if it's the truth.
That's why you have to ask,
am I being delusional or not?
What is delusion?
When you are not mindful, you are deluded.
When you are not concentrated, you are deluded.
When you are are unmindful,
when you don't have insight you are deluded.
With mindfulness, concentration and insight, you are awakened.
And so decisions
that you make when you are deluded
may be incorrect, wrong, and may lead to suffering.
Decisions that you make when you are clear-minded,
they are correct.
So if you sign a contract when you are drunk,
that's dangerous.
You can destroy your family or go bankrupt.
So, if you want to draft a will for your children
you have to be really alert,
and the lawyer must attest that you
are of sound mind, that your thinking is clear
and that you are signing the will in front of them.
But if they get you drunk and told you to sign something,
it would not have value.
So an action that is right, that is good, that is true
must be seen in the light of delusion and awakening.
In Buddhism, this is a way to sound the alarm.
"Tính và già" Curative and preventive.
This has to do with precepts.
Some precepts are curative.
If you break that precept
you suffer right away.
you've committed an offence right away,
you've done wrong right away.
For instance, if you kill somebody
you and the other suffer right away,
so no killing is a curative [proscriptive] precept.
"Già" means
preventive.
The aim is to prevent.
Nobody will die if you break this precept,
but it prevents you from
violating other precepts that cause suffering.
This is
curative [proscriptive].
This is preventive.
For example, when we go out, we must go with a second body
That is a preventive precept.
Because it may be that if you go alone nothing will happen,
but should an accident happen when you go by yourself
the sangha suffers.
That's why it's better to have a second body with you.
So the precept of going out with a second body
is a preventive precept.
Meaning if you break this precept, you don't really suffer,
but it's there as a precaution.
Having a second body is bound to be safer.
Like the French often say, "Un verre, ça va,
trois verres, bonjour les dégâts."
One glass of wine is okay.
For many of you, one glass is not a problem.
But usually after the first glass,
you want to have a second.
And the first glass won't make you drunk,
but better to not drink it. That is a preventive action.
One woman from the UK said,
"For decades I've had a glass of wine every weekend
and now you're saying I shouldn't even drink this.
You're telling me to practice the fifth mindfulness training.
For decades I've had a glass like that,
it hasn't hurt anyone."
And it's true.
She had a glass every weekend and she never got drunk.
She asked Thay if she could just practice 4 of the 5 mindfulness trainings.
She didn't want to practice the 5th MT on not drinking.
Of course you have the right to practice however many trainings you wish.
But I told her,
"For you a glass of wine on the weekend is not harmful,
because you drink in moderation.
But what about your children?"
"Khai, giá"
"Khai" means to open.
There are rules
that you want everyone to follow.
For example, in the rains retreat
no one is allowed to go out of the boundaries.
But suppose there's a sister who falls ill
and she requests permission
and the sangha allows her to leave the boundaries for treatment.
That is an open rule.
We are not rigid about it.
"Khai" means an exception.
And so, a bodhisattva
sometimes can lie in order to help people.
If you are a police officer
and you need to arrest or put someone in jail,
or to handcuff someone, you can still do it.
But
with the condition that you do it out of love,
out of compassion.
In the sutras, it says that
in a previous life of the Buddha
he had killed one person to save countless people.
This was killing only one person and not 140,000 people.
And he said he had to go to hell because he killed one person,
but he had to save so many people.
Like when you see someone with an automatic weapon,
a machine gun, who is about to shoot a lot of people,
if you are a police officer
and you want to prevent the deaths of many people, you can shoot that person.
In the foot or hand to wound him enough
so that he can't use the automatic weapon anymore.
[broken audio]
So what's right or good also needs to be based on the criteria
appropriateness and in-line with the teaching.
"Khế lý" means in-line with the teaching,
in-line with the dharma.
At the same time, it needs to be relevant
to the mentality, the situation of that society.
Appropriateness. [Khế cơ]
It has to meet the local and current needs.
So these are a number of basic criteria
that can serve as a foundation for Buddhist ethics.
And underneath all of these criteria
is a criteria that transcends all of the above criteria, called
"nhất nguyên siêu tuyệt"
"siêu tuyệt nhất nguyên"
It's...
It is beyond this world.
in Sanskrit it's "lokottara."
"Loka" means the mundane world.
So all of these criteria are from the view of the relative.
And when we go beyond the mundane into the supramundane,
into the nature of nirvana, of the dharmakaya,
these criteria can no longer apply.
In reality in itself,
reality in itself,
there's no good and evil,
no right and wrong,
no this side or that side, no above or below.
No order.
That is lokottara. nirvana. dharmakaya.
You cannot say that the dharmakaya is pure or impure.
You cannot say that nirvana is pure or impure.
You cannot say that it is right or wrong.
All ideas of right and wrong
of good and evil,
right and wrong, good and evil all belong to the relative.
In the supramundane, there's no more ideas
of right and wrong, good and evil.
So
nirvana is neither
right nor wrong,
Nirvana is neither right or wrong, good or evil.
It transcends all notions.
There's no more right and wrong,
good and evil.
Transcending all notions, that is the ultimate criteria.
[Technical glitch] ... meaning, God has an opposite.
There's Satan as opposed to God.
And this God is not yet ...
This God remains in the realm of
right and wrong,
true and false.
This God remains in the realm of the false and the true,
the good and the evil.
Opposites.
But there are theologians who have been able to
touch the ultimate.
These theologians, including some mystics,
have been able to understand God in light of the ultimate.
And God is no longer described in terms of good and evil,
right and wrong.
They have attained something similar to the Buddhist concept of Nirvana,
or the dharmakaya,
or Suchness.
They've been able to transcend notions of suffering and happiness,
beneficial and un-beneficial, delusion and awakening,
curative and preventive, in-line with the dharma and appropriateness.
Your homework is to revise the first of the Five Mindfulness Trainings.
Each person should come up with their version and present it to Thay.
And today Thay would like everyone to divide into different dharma sharing groups
to discuss your ideas about
revising the first mindfulness training.
Revising the first mindfulness training in the light of everything we have learned.
The view that the other person is not me and I am not the other person.
The dualistic view.
Dualistic view.
The view
that transcends all views.
The view that is still caught,
caught in a separate self.
The view
that is grasping.
[ Chấp thủ ] means the inability to let go of the views we hold on to.
And please recall the first of the 14 Mindfulness Trainings
on non-attachment to views.
Not being caught,
not being caught in our views.
There's a friend
who suggested that we include this line in the first training:
"We are committed not to fight for, kill, or die for our own view,
or to impose them on others."
"We are committed not to fight, kill or die for our views,
or to impose them on others."
We are committed not to fight for, kill or die for our views,
or impose them on others.
This line is from the 14 Mindfulness Trainings in English.
This is very important, because so many wars and acts of terrorism happening now
are because people hold tight to views, beliefs, dogmas or ideologies
which they believe are true.
Everyone else is in the wrong.
So they're capable of killing to impose their views on others.
And the dualistic view,
being caught in our own view, that wrong view leads to discrimination
leads to fear, hatred and greed.
And these things lead to killing.
And so the first mindfulness training needs to be written in such a way that
we see clearly that it is responding to the current situation of the world.
Because violence in the world is increasing at an alarming rate.
We see war,
we see violence,
we see terrorism.
And it's happening everyday.
So when we rewrite the first training, we do it in such a way that
everyone can see clearly it is a response to our current situation.
And today if the sangha has dharma sharing
please organize it so that everyone will have a chance
to express their ideas about the first mindfulness training.
Please
arrange so that each sharing group has copies of the first mindfulness training,
in English or Vietnamese or French.
And based on the old version,
you can make suggestions to add any lines or words you deem necessary
so that this mindfulness training can be more appropriate to our time.