most respected Thai dear Sangha wherever
you are this wonderful to be connected
with each other in many different places
and now we want to come back to our
breathing and really feel our connection
with everyone else who is there to the
edge of the Dharma talk and first of all
in order to bring us together we are
going to sing a song for you from the
New Hamlet in Plum Village
[Music]
most respected Thay, dear Sangha
everywhere, today is the 26th of April in
the year 2020 and we are in the New
Hamlet of Plum village sending out a
Dharma talk online, we are very lucky that
we have ways of communicating when we
cannot be physically together, we have
the telephone, we have the internet so
that we can we can be together in a
sense, we can see each other, we can hear
each other, but before these things were
invented people also had the need to be
together with those who were far away
and they were also able to do that, we
have a way in which we can send our love
there is a way in which we are connected
and recently with the discovery of how
how the nature of the particle the
sub-atomic particle
the scientists have discovered something
called "non-local" it means in a sense we
can be where we are not. In Plum Village
on the day of mindfulness we often
practice sending energy sending our love
to people who are not there in Plum
Village people who may be in the
hospital, people who maybe have died
already, we say their name we concentrate
on our breathing we concentrate on the
Bodhisattva of compassion who is in us
and in our Sangha, and we use that energy
in order to send it to the one whose
name we have mentioned and we know that
this is effective because I have heard
people say at the very time when we said
the name of the person and concentrated
on the Bodhisattvas maybe someone who
was dying and not at peace became
peaceful while someone who was not dying
but not at peace also became peaceful at
that very moment, although there were
hundreds of kilometers away, so we know
both from science and from our own
experience it is possible to send love
is possible to send peace
and it's possible to send your smile to
those who need it, you just need to say
the name of the person and smile, and say
dear whatever the name is I'm smiling
for you this is the smile of compassion
a smile of relaxation of peace but of
course the important thing is that the
one who is sending the love
this smile
has to feel peace, has to be peace, and
that is what is essential and all of us
who have met the practice we know how to
do that say that even you were in the
same room as the person who is sick or
dying it would be so important that you
could feel peace, if you were afraid if
you were crying at that time it would
not help the person who needs your help
and now though you cannot be in the same
room still your peace can reach the
person you wanted to reach you only need
to say their name
you only need to feel the deep peace
within you and to feel also that you are
a Bodhisattva that means you are someone
who has the mind of love, the mind
awakening, and that Bodhisattva is in you
is not someone outside of you, maybe in
the beginning the Bodhisattva you
visualize outside of you, you visualize
that great being who is full of
compassion and understanding as being
outside of you, but as you go deeper into
your concentration you will see the
Bodhisattva is inside of you and another
wonderful thing that you may see is that
the Bodhisattva is inside of the person
you are sending your energy to, the
Bodhisattva is also non-local. Many of us
now we find ourselves in confinement I
don't know whether you feel that you are
in a prison, you may do, when we first
published in English the manual for
novices with the code of discipline for
novices somehow it got that book got
inside the walls of a prison
and a prisoner who had a very long
sentence to serve read the book from
cover to cover and said to himself I can
become a novice in prison the prison can
become my monastery
he shaved his head (you don't need to
shave your head) he recited the novice
precept for himself and he decided that
he's become a novice and every day from
the moment he woke up he could use the
poems that the novice uses in order to
be able to feel that he is really in a
monastery, his prison has become his
monastery, so this is something that we
can, we can do we can make our
environment a monastery, we can make our
environment the house of the Buddha, the
house of Jesus Christ, where we can enjoy
our breathing
enjoy our mindful walking at every
moment of the day... do you know the little
poem waking up I smile I have 24
brand-new hours I vow to live them fully
looking at life with the eyes of love
someone is translating into Vietnamese
and there's no word I in Vietnamese
waking up smile, no I, 24 brand-new hours
even if you don't feel like smiling it
doesn't have to be I that smiles there
just has to be a smile and the smile is
wonderful the smile is the kind of mouth
yoga, that can transform our state of
mind when we smile we send a message to
the nerves in our brain and the message
is something like it's alright
everything is going to be okay
so we need that smile very much at this
time, so that we can take care of the
present moment don't think there's an
I who is smiling, when you smile your
ancestors your mother and your father
are smiling with you your children are
smiling with you you inter-are that is
the most wonderful teaching that we have
it is the teaching that we need most in
our time interbeing, I am NOT a separate
self, but in order to be able to touch
deeply the true nature of interbeing we
have to be very much there in the
present moment, not carried away by what
is happening around us
some people say that in this time when
they are in good health
when their loved ones are also in good
health when they have financial
resources they have everything they need
they feel all the same
they do not have the right to be happy
when so many others are suffering
but please remember that the world needs
your happiness not the happiness of
indulging your sense pleasures but the
happiness that comes from being at peace
from being able to accept, from being
able to breathe and to walk, this
happiness is very important for the
world at this time and out of this
happiness you can bring happiness to
others you can console those who
are mourning, who are afraid, so allow
yourself to enjoy the true happiness as
a gift to the world. So what we want to
be, what we need to do to reestablish
peace is to be able to come back to
ourselves. We just sang for you being an
island unto myself this means I have the
capacity to come back to my body as it
is in the present moment and your body
may be in good shape your body may not
be in good shape
but all the same it's doing its best and
you can come back to it and when you
come back to your body
you can help your body your body will
feel happy when your mind comes back to
it and that is why we say breathing in
I'm aware of my whole body it's to be
able to come back and for your mind rest
peacefully in every cell of your body
and in the Sutras they use the example of
a turtle, a turtle has its four legs its
head and its tail, and when the turtle
needs to it will withdraw its legs its
head and its tail under its shell, and
there it is perfectly safe in its shell
and many times in the Sutra we are
reminded that we should pull in our six
senses our eyes ears nose etc. bring them
back on mind bring them back to the
island of our self it's like on a windy
day if you leave all the doors open
everything in the room will be blown
around it will be cold in the room so we
need to close the doors we need to close
the windows and although it's wonderful
to have the Internet as a means of
connection as a way of being with our
Sangha it can also pull us out of ourself
if we don't use it in the right way
so we should be very careful how we use
the Internet and we should always know
how not to get lost in it, carried away
by it, to come back into our shell and
take care of our body and our mind as
they are in the present moment. Now we
enjoy the bell to do just that
[Music]
You know that we are made up of what are
called five skandhas: our body, our
feelings, perceptions, mental formations
and consciousness. What this means is
that sometimes you identify yourself
with your body you feel I am my body
sometimes you identify yourself with
your feeling with your thinking with
your emotions and with your consciousness
all these things you can call myself
because we have the practice of
mindfulness we are able to take good
care of these five rivers that are
always flowing in us and changing at
every moment so the first step is to
come back to yourself and the second
step is to take care of
yourself and don't feel that that
is selfish because taking care of
yourself you are taking care of your
ancestors who gave you who transmited
to you
your body and your mind
you are taking care of your descendants
to whom you have transmitted your body
and your mind, and something else: you are
taking care of Mother Earth because you
are a child of the Earth and when you
take care of yourself
it's no different from taking care of
the earth. If you are environmentalist
and you don't take care of your body you
are not really taking care of the Earth
if you do not call yourself an
environmentalist but you take good care
of your body
you are taking care of the Earth and you will
love the Earth every time you walk on
the Earth
recently they've done, scientists have
done much research on what kind of diet
is best for the human being and they
have discovered that the best diet for a
human being is also the diet which will
help preserve Mother Earth for the
longest time that is a diet without
animal products so we can see even from
a scientific point of view that taking
care of ourselves is taking care of the
Earth
so we come back to our five skandhas and
we see that our body needs our love and our
care some people say that when they
become sick they lose confidence in
their body "I don't trust my body anymore"
because it has become sick but in fact I
have more trust in my body when I become
sick because I have to go back to my
body I have to watch it very carefully I
have to be aware of it
at every moment and I see how it's doing
its best
I see how it's changing at every moment
and it's trying to deal with the
situation it has, so in fact my
confidence
increases, so we come back and we take
take care we are aware and they have
discovered that relaxation is a
wonderful way of healing you don't
really have to do very much except allow
your body to relax allow your body to to
get back its strength to rest
sometimes when we get sick it's because our
body is wanting us to do just that to
relax and to rest so it want to give us
it wants to give us that message it's
also an opportunity for us to be able to
look deeply at how we've been living our
life and to make changes and now we have
to go through this pandemic it's an
opportunity for all of us to look deeply
and to see how we've been living because
surely what we are going through now has
something to do with how we have lived
as a human species and when it is over
how are we going to be are we going to
are we going to live differently
otherwise we cannot avoid having more
pandemics so in a way this is a an
opportunity for us to wake up as a human
species and to begin to do things
differently and the first thing that we
will learn is to come back to ourselves
to rest to do less to have more time for
our family now we are forced to do less
we are forced to be with our family to
be with the earth
take care of the earth these are all
things we can do better so we come back
first of all to our body and we take
care and by coming back to our body
understanding our body we understand how
it's not a separate self entity it inter
is first of all your body into is with
the body of your mother and your father
and then of your grandparents and after
that your body into is with the forests
the air that you breathe the food that
you eat the water that you drink
and after we have come back to our body
and recognize its interbeing nature and
we take better care of our body we
recognize our feelings we really want to
have pleasant feelings we don't want to
have unpleasant feelings but for as long
as there are pleasant feelings there
will also be unpleasant feelings so we
cannot hope one day there will be no
more unpleasant feeling once somebody
said to me or you'd say if you don't
have unpleasant feelings you can't have
Pleasant feelings then I don't mind not
having Pleasant feelings as long as I
don't have to have unpleasant feelings
but who is going to be God and organize
the species that doesn't have feelings
anymore that is not possible so we we
know that unpleasant feelings are part
of life and they need our care and our
attention they don't need us to push
them out of the door say you are in
confinement you are sitting in your flat
and in the flat there's a lot of
unpleasant feelings what are you going
to do open the window and shoo them out
they won't they won't go away
first of all unpleasant feelings need to
be heard then
to be recognized they need to be
acknowledged so you say my dear little
frustration I know you're there I accept
you
oh my dear lack of energy someone said
to me in the beginning of the
confinement she had so much energy she
wanted to do so many things to help like
organizing online Sangha practicing
diligently every day listening to Dharma
talks but after a while there's no more
energy left no more desire to no more
desire to listen to Dharma dogs so that
is something only normal because
everything is impermanent everything is
in a wonderful state of change at every
moment and sometimes we grasp hold of a
moment and we want it to be like that
forever but that is not the nature of
how things are going to change so the
first thing is to recognize that I don't
have energy I'm tired
what is the point of fighting against it
it'll only make me more tired
so I accept like that but just as the
moment when the wave is at its highest
it can feel happy but also when it's at
its worst it can also feel at peace
because it knows that this is
impermanent and it knows that whether it
is high or whether it is low it is water
all the same so when we are able to
accept our tiredness our lack of energy
we just live with it
follow our breathing and quite naturally
it will change the energy will come back
the peace will come back and then you
can continue to do the work you want to
do to help others
this has something to do with the
practice of contentment the practice of
knowing that I have inner maybe in your
flat you have a plant which has green
leaves
you cannot go outside and you cannot be
in touch with nature outside but you can
be in touch with the plant you might be
able to touch it gently with your
fingers you can look at it you can
contemplate it you can see that the
plant is coming from the whole universe
it coming from the rain is coming from
the earth and when you look at that leaf
you can also see that you are a kind of
leaf you also come from the sunshine and
you come from the rain so you and the
leaf you have a great deal in common and
if you look even more deeply you will
see that you in turn are because the
plant is also breathing and helping to
give more oxygen for you to breathe in
and you breathe out the carbon dioxide
for the plant so feeling our oneness
with the with the universe feeling our
oneness with nature it's something that
the human being can do because the human
being is just part of nature
it's not something different so touching
a leaf you also touch the non beginning
and the non ending you see that the leaf
does not really have a beginning the
plant comes from a seed and the seed
comes from the plant that that was there
before it and in the same way you have
no beginning and you have no end before
we said that when you cannot see someone
you cannot hear someone you think that
they do not exist when someone you love
dies you cannot see them you cannot hear
them in Vietnamese when someone dies
they say hiding behind the mountain but
hiding behind the mountain doesn't mean
to say that that person is not it's not
there it just means to say oh we can't
see you anymore we can't hear you
anymore and we can experience that for
ourself how to be in touch with someone
who has who has died because that person
is always there in our consciousness is
available to us
and it may take a long time to really be
in touch with your loved one who has
died it may take years three years or
four years so we do not need to be in a
hurry in order to end our grief we
should recognize that grief is something
natural but all the time when we feel
grief we are practicing to be able to go
beyond the idea of being and bonding to
go beyond the idea of the and and so to
be able to see that even when we thought
that person existed and was alive they
weren't really alive in the way that we
thought they were they were manifesting
to our consciousness manifesting to our
visual cortex to Audio cortex but they
were not real in the way that we thought
they were real and now when they have
died they are not going out of being
into internal nandi so that is our our
practice of looking deeply our practice
of inter interview when you touch the
leaf you look at the leaf deeply
you recognize that if your consciousness
was not if there was not consciousness
your eye consciousness your mind
consciousness then the leaf would not be
manifesting and at the same time you
recognize that the leaf has
consciousness that the consciousness is
in the leaf and not just in you and this
is also something that science is able
to demonstrate because someone who is
observing who thinks they are observing
a particle outside of them actually
changes the nature of the particle as
soon as you begin to observe a particle
the particle changes so the
consciousness is not just in you is also
in the particle this is also an aspect
of interbeing for us all to be able to
look deeply into and to be able to
overcome our our fear that we have
because we see that we are a separate
self in in the suture there is the
example of clapping clapping with your
hands and obviously you cannot clap with
one hand
you need to have two hands so there is
not a one hand that can tempt left there
is not an I who can clap we could say
that the two hands clap but when we look
deeply into our hands what do we see we
see another system we see the bones you
see the skin the flesh and if we go even
deeper and we look into the cells of all
these things we will see that there are
mitochondria in each of this cell and
those mitochondria they do not share our
DNA our genes they are not really our
self they come from bacteria a long time
ago so we will find out that there is no
separate cell that is that is clapping
similarly the Buddha said do you want to
overcome your fear of sickness old age
and death do you want to see the end of
sickness old age and death then ask the
question who is it who grows sick who is
it who grows old who is it who dies and
normally we say I grow sick I grow old I
die oh you and with that thought I grow
old I die we become afraid but if we
look deeply we will see there is no one
who grows old there is no one who dies
there is growing old there is sickness
there is death but there is no one who
grows old who is he yeah and that is
what I like to practice when I am NOT
well I asked myself who is it who is
sick and I see there is no one who is
see there is sickness but there is no
one who is sick times often told us when
I was a novice in the do heal temple
practicing under his teacher the master
whose first name is Tong Lu second name
is green
one day they were in the garden hoeing
the earth to plant the taters and ties
Master was already advanced in age but
he still insisted on helping in the
garden and he he was tired and he put
the hole aside and said that soon I will
not be tired anymore and then after a
moment of reflection he looked at Ty and
he said but who is it who will not be
tired anymore we have the idea I am here
now I'm tired and I'm not going to live
much longer and when I'm not alive I
will not be tired and all these ideas
they come from the idea of a separate
self but when you look at deeply at that
separate self you can't find it and it's
changing at every moment from one second
to the next
it's not the same so even though I was
only a novice he received the
transmission of that teaching it went
very deep in the life
[Music]
I have seen people die and I have seen
that the moment of death can be a moment
of deep peace and sometimes before that
moment comes there is quite a struggle
it's difficult sometimes for the body to
give up but maybe it's even more
difficult for for for the mind from
Manas to give up but with the practice
of breathing the practice of recognizing
there is death but there is no one who
who dies is possible - to let go and
even if someone has not practiced those
who are with the dying person can
practice for them so that is another
wonderful aspect of into being that the
way our state of mind is is able to
influence those who we are with that is
why we need the Sangha and you really
need your online Sangha
this time you do not have to be with
somebody in the same room in order to be
able to connect with that person I think
that now we can we can sit still we can
enjoy our breathing and if we light we
can close our eyes we can feel how we
are connected with our large Sangha we
can feel how we are connected to the
monks and nuns in plum village as we
breathe in and out we can feel the
energy of those who are practicing with
us at this moment and we can use that
energy in order to be able to send it to
our loved ones who need it we can say to
our loved ones who need our energy I'm
sending the Sangha energy to you I'm
sending the energy of plum village to
you
and when we hear the sound of the Bell
all together we will be feeling our
interconnectedness and sending our love
our peace and our smile to support you
in sending your image
energy moving across the continent to
those who need it
dear Sangha one of the attributes of the
human mind is called grasping tomahto we
have two arms two two hands to grasp
things but there are certain things that
we cannot grasp cannot grasp the the
spring breeze and with our mind it's not
only with our hands that we try and
grasp things we also try and grasp them
with our with our mind and a grasping
like that it causes us to suffer
especially when we find that we cannot
grasp what we wanted to grasp you know
that plum village is in a wine growing
area so we have many vineyards around
and most of them they are not organic
vineyards where I am staying we have
been yard on two sides and other fields
on other side and at this time of year
the farmers come on their big large
tractors and spray a lot of toxins
insecticide fungicide
outside herbicide and the air is not
good after they've in spray and I find
that I grasp to this situation I grasped
to it as something that has to end as
soon as possible
but obviously that is not going to
happen if I look deeply I will see that
it's going to take time for the human
species not wanting to drink wine
anymore
and for the farmers not wanting to make
their money in that way
so this is what I know is that I can
take care of Mother Earth with every
step and with every breath and I can
accept the human species as not being
perfect in accepting that the human
species is not perfect I also accept
that I am not perfect but I'm very lucky
that I have the mindfulness trainings
you have the five mindfulness trainings
so you can be the kind of human being
that can take care of the earth
I learned the verse when I was just
beginning to be interested in Buddhism
nothing whatsoever to remove from this
not a single thing there on to add
nothing to take away no increase no
degree not a single thing to add
properly beholding properly looking at
the true nature when truly seen complete
liberation
[Music]
from this no single thing there are
property holding true nature
when truly seen completely nothing to
remove from this no single thing they're
holding true nature
when truly seemed completely variation
[Music]
and this is what we mean when we talk
about the ultimate dimension in the
historical dimension the human species
goes up and goes down begins and ends
and that is something we have to accept
that is the impermanence but in the
ultimate dimension nothing is lost but
nothing is added every compassionate
thought every smile and does not stay
with you
becomes part of a wonderful energy which
cannot be lost every day with our
practice of mindfulness our practice of
mindful walking of mindful breathing we
are able to touch the ultimate dimension
and touching the ultimate dimension we
can be ourselves we can be the best kind
of human being
in order to touch the ultimate dimension
we practice to be aware of interbeing
we practice mindfulness
once you are no longer in confinement
you will really have an opportunity to
enjoy Mother Earth as you never enjoyed
her before but maybe while you are still
in confinement you don't need to go up
onto the high mountain you can enjoy
Mother Earth right away because she is
there in the food you eat in the sky and
the clouds outside of your window she is
there under your feet whether the floor
is made of wood or made of Earth it's
still mad at her every step that we make
can be a peaceful step when you go from
your kitchen to the your bedroom from
your bedroom to the bathroom every step
can bring peace to yourself bring peace
to your loved ones and bring peace to
the world
[Music]
not a he even a walking on the walking
on the earth and that doesn't media only
there
it also means walking from your bedroom
to the bathroom walking on the earth is
to realize a miracle every
awaitin every awaitin step manifests the
madonna tire the ultimate dimension we
have another song which before we end I
will sing to you suddenly
I'm aware of every step I take through I
follow the little
piglets Oh child suddenly I'm aware of
every step I take and this is our don't
drama I'm aware I yeah I'm very careful
and very heedful of every step and it
happened suddenly suddenly I'm
completely there in the present moment
because I have done my best to follow my
breathing to follow my steps I now find
myself in the present moment well
there's nothing to add on nothing to
take away and liberation from sorrow and
suffering
[Music]
you