[The Plum Village Online Monastery]
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Good morning dear friends, today is the fifth of September 2015,
and we are on the last day of our retreat in Blue Cliff Monastery,
in a beautiful hall, all together.
With the children we already saw the nature of interbeing of all that is.
We looked into the cookie,
and we saw all the non-cookie elements that are the cookie.
The cookie is made up of non-cookie elements,
and this is true for all that is.
During this retreat we have been looking at the 16 exercises of breathing.
We already looked into 12, and today we're going to look into the last four.
I'll write them on the board.
I hope somebody took a picture, for the records.
(Laughing)
This is us, eating the cookie. In case you didn't know.
(Laughing)
The cookie manifested itself as joy, right here on the board.
Contemplating impermanence.
Contemplating throwing away.
Contemplating non-desire.
Contemplating cessation.
I'd like to start with 'Throwing away'.
This contemplation has also been called: 'Contemplating letting go',
and I like 'throwing away', which we use also,
because throwing away, for me clearly indicates an insight.
The things you throw away are the things you don't need,
they are of no use to us, that is what we throw away.
Once we have the insight, 'I really don't need this, this is of no use to me',
it's easy to just throw it away.
And we have been talking about multitasking at this retreat.
I find myself sometimes multitasking during my walking;
my body is walking but my mind is doing something else: I am multitasking.
Then I stop; we have a practice of stopping the NST radio station:
the Non Stop Thinking channel.
So when I'm walking and I find myself thinking,
I look for a moment into the thought to see whether it is useful at all,
and I can tell you, most of my thoughts are utterly useless.
(Laughing)
And once I see this: throw it away.
It's fun, you may like to try it, if you find yourself multitasking in that way.
Just throw it away.
It makes us light and it allows us to be present for what is,
to touch the wonders of life, and see more of this earth.
We all have drawers, cabinets, we have a fridge,
and in there we keep things.
From time to time we clean up.
We open the fridge and we look at everything that's in the fridge:
'This is outdated, sorry, kept it too long'.
We open our file cabinet, we go through all the drawers,
we go through all the documents, some dating from 1964,
'Is this still applicable?'
OK, shall I archive it for history's sake or shall I throw it away?
We go and we create space for other things to be possible.
We also have a mental filing cabinet,
a mental archive, where we keep a lot of things.
In this cabinet there is this one drawer that is called 'perceptions'.
Another one is called 'Notions'.
Another one, 'views'.
And they are filled with perceptions, with views, with notions.
It's good from time to time to stop to look into them,
and to see: are they really useful?
Are they out of date? Have they ever been useful?
Have they served myself? Others? The world?
Have they caused suffering?
And throw them away.
So we're free to look at what is there, right on front of us,
and to see what is needed to respond appropriately to the situation,
be it ourselves, others, or the world.
So throwing away is a wonderful practice.
We look at something, we ask ourselves, 'Am I sure that I still need this?'
If not, we throw it away.
And for the just-in-case people among us:
you can always check it again, and then you throw it away.
(Laughing)
So throwing away is a daily practice,
and it will contribute greatly to our well being,
and the well being of others, and everything that is.
When we speak of throwing away in this context here,
we speak of throwing away our views and our notions that we hold onto,
that have not served us, that have not served anybody,
in fact they have caused a lot of suffering to ourselves and others.
Together, we would like to look a little bit into that.
To do that we're going to look into the Three Doors of Liberation,
together with the Three Dharma Seals.
For people taking notes, something to put in you archive,
(Laughing)
I'll write it on the board.
I'll try to write big enough for you to read:
- Emptiness;
- Signlessness;
- and Aimlessness.
We combine them with the Three Dharma Seals:
- Emptiness is non-self;
- Signlessness is Impermanence;
- and Aimlessness is Nirvana.
Any teaching that reflects the Three Dharma Seals
is an authentic teaching of the Buddha.
That is how we can see this.
So these Three Doors of Liberation
(Caughing)
-- I'm sorry, I can't turn away from the microphone --
these Three Doors of Liberation
are what we turn to in our daily life for support and also for healing.
We have already looked at the non-self nature of the cookie,
and we know that the cookie is empty of a separate individual self,
all the elements that it is made up of, we would classify as non-cookie.
We call this interbeing:
everything needs everything else in order to manifest.
A few days ago, you practiced the Five Touchings of the Earth?
Looking deeply into yourself?
When we practice the Five Touchings of the Earth
and we look deeply into ourselves, we see our parents, our ancestors,
spiritual and blood ancestors, we see our land ancestors,
and we also see the earth.
We see all our non-self ancestors, all non-self elements.
When we really, really touch our interbeing nature,
when we really touch this insight, when we have this insight of non-self,
we will take good care of ourselves by taking care of our non-self elements,
and we will take good care of the non-self elements
by taking good care of ourselves.
We know that the earth is hurting right now.
When we look into ourselves, we will see that we are the earth:
the cookie, where did it come from?
We eat the cookie, we become the cookie, we eat the carrot, we become the carrot,
we breathe the air, we are the air.
The earth ís our body, we don't have a body outside of the earth.
This insight, we need to take some time to look into this.
The earth is out body.
We take care of our body in many ways, we go to the hairdresser
-- well, we don't
(Laughing)
but most people do --
well in sòme way we take care of our hair, we wash our bodies, we clean it, feed it,
when it hurts, we do something to relieve the pain,
we go and see a doctor, we keep ourselves healthy --
Can we do the same thing with the earth?
It is our body.
This insight will make it very easy,
to live a in way that reflects that the earth is our body.
How often do we use our car?
Or an airplane?
What do we eat?
Is what we eat healthy for our earth?
Does it make our earth healthy?
What we eat, does it contribute to the health of the earth?
Since the earth is our body.
In Plum Village, the last few years we have been vegan.
Also in that light: the earth is our body.
So, you may like to look into the earthbody.
We all need to look into the body of the earth being our body.
We have no body outside of the earthbody.
When we have a difficulty, we can take refuge in all our non-self elements,
like our ancestors, our blood ancestors, our spiritual ancestors,
they are in us.
When we look at our hand -- let's look at our hand --
our hand has been transmitted to us by our parents.
They have transmitted their whole being to us.
So, looking at our hand, we know it's made of the cells of the body of our parents:
it is our parents' hand.
Our parents' hand is the hand of our ancestors, of our grandparents,
our great-grandparents, of all our ancestors;
all our blood ancestors are present in our hand.
Somewhere along that line of ancestors, there are those who are compassionate,
who are loving, who are caring, they are in our hands.
When we look into our hand, we also see our spiritual teachers.
Our spiritual teachers who are transmitting to us
their understanding, their love and their compassion.
It's in our hand.
It's in our mind, it's in our hand.
It's right here.
So, let us just look at our hand a little bit,
and become aware of the ancestors present in us.
We are the continuation of our ancestors, blood as well as spiritual ancestors.
Now, if there is a moment where there's a storm raging in our mind,
when we are sad or angry or in despair, we can call on our ancestors in our hand,
their care, their understanding, their compassion.
So, we can close our eyes and call on our ancestors in our hand,
and allow our ancestors to put their hand on our head,
gently, lovingly and caring.
We can feel the energy of understanding and compassion flow into our bodies,
we can hear their breathing, steady and calm.
This is also Thay's hand on our head.
After a few moments, we will calm, the storm has calmed.
We could hear them say,
'Breathe, my dear, it will be okay, it will be okay.'
As the storm has calmed, we can see more clearly what is happening,
and we know what to do and what not to do.
Let us enjoy the sound of the bell,
and just enjoy that energy we just received from our blood and spiritual ancestors.
(Bell rings)
We are much larger than we think we are.
We are our ancestors, we can call on them any time we need support.
Everything is impermanent, nothing remains the same for two consecutive moments.
Impermanence, we can bring to mind when we are in a difficulty,
like when there is a storm raging in our mind:
that storm is impermanent, as we just saw.
I like to say, 'this too will pass.'
'This too will pass.' It's impermanent.
On the other hand, when we're looking at impermanence,
we become aware of the preciousness of all that is:
the preciousness of life, the preciousness of our beloved ones,
the preciousness of the flower, of everything,
and we will enjoy it and treasure it.
We do not know,
how long we will be able to enjoy them.
We treasure, and while we treasure their presence we are nourished.
We are nourished by it,
and we will do everything we can today to make them happy,
to make the flower happy, the earth, our beloved ones.
To make ourselves happy,
so that we will not have regrets later.
But is we do have regrets there is a way to heal them,
and I will come to that later.
Thanks to impermanence, life is possible.
We have a seed, and the seed becomes a flower.
If it weren't for impermanence, the seed would never become a flower.
The flower becomes a seed again, and the seed becomes more flowers.
The seed is a seed, but when I look deeply into the seed, we will see the flower.
When I look deeply into the flower, I see the seed.
So the seed is a seed, and the flower is a flower:
they inter-are.
In Zen terms they call this: 'not two'.
Not two.
If you've ever visited Zen temples in China,
they have a gate, and it's kind of a tradition that on the gate
there is a character, a Chinese character, that means: not two.
It is the heart of the practice, to touch this 'not two'.
Not two.
We already have had guided meditations,
we have looked into ourselves as a five year old child.
Is the five year old child the same as we are now, an adult?
Yes? No?
Neither the same, nor different.
Not two.
We've looked into our mother, our father, as five year old children,
We've looked into ourselves, are we the same or different?
Not two.
Look at anything, it is not two.
When we really look deeply into impermanence,
we touch the signlessness, the nature of signlessness of all that is,
and when we touch that, we can overcome our grief and our fear.
You may or may not know most of monastics like hiking in the mountains.
I'm one of the monastics that likes to go hiking with other monastics.
On one of our hiking trips in the Alps a few years ago,
I was lying on my back, having a nap after lunch, and then I woke up.
We were in a valley, high up in the mountains,
so there is a valley and there are just some peaks,
very sharp high peaks that you need to --
what would you call it, mountain-climb, you need an axe or something
and ropes and things to get up, we decided not to go that day
(Laughing)
we just enjoyed the valley, high up in the mountain --
and I opened my eyes and I was looking at this clear blue sky.
The peaks on one side, a wide open valley, and some more peaks there,
and then, just at the edge of the peak of the mountain,
I saw something whitish, but very vaguely,
and kept looking and it became whiter and whiter and whiter
and whiter and -- a white cloud manifested.
Out of the blue.
(Laughing)
-- Maybe that's where the expression comes from? --
That white cloud just manifested itself,
and as I was looking at this wonder of this white cloud manifesting itself,
all of a sudden a thought came,
ooh, what if it gets denser and denser and it will rain and no shelter.
There's another way of looking at this.
If it gets denser and denser, what will become of that cloud?
Rain.
The cloud will continue to manifest itself as rain,
like we've seen in the cookie.
As rain, good.
It's time for tea anyway, so the rain, the cloud as rain will become my tea,
and I will drink my cloud as tea, and then I will probably have to pee --
(Laughing)
in a while.
Pee my cloud;
in fact I will be returning the cloud to where it originally came from, partly.
Return the cloud to the earth, which will be turning to vapor at a certain point.
The vapor will rise up again into the air,
the atmospheric conditions, weather conditions,
it will come together, and there will be another cloud.
A cloud never dies.
A cloud never dies, and this is the same with everything.
Things manifest, or stop to manifest,
according to causes and conditions.
The French scientist and chemist Antoine Lavoisier said:
"Nothing is created and nothing is lost, everything transforms."
A cloud never dies.
And we know also of the law of conservation of matter and energy,
that we cannot create matter, we cannot create energy.
We cannot destroy: matter can become matter,
matter can become energy, energy energy, energy can manifest as matter,
matter as matter as energy --
It's a journey with no beginning and no end.
So, what we tend to call birth or death are moments of continuation.
That is the nature of no birth and no death:
moments of continuation.
Just because we do not see something
in the form, in the sign that we're used to, doesn't mean it's not there.
It's difficult to see vapor, but the vapor is there,
we will see it in water form, right?
In our breath.
In fact, the cloud, we're breathing in and out clouds.
Are you aware of that? Nice. We don't just drink it, we also breathe our cloud.
I like that.
So this is signlessness.
Signlessness is not a theory, it is a practice.
I ordained first in a Japanese tradition in Japan,
in a temple tucked away in the mountains on the northern shore of Japan.
Shortly after I ordained, about six weeks,
I received a telephone call from one of my siblings
telling me my mother had been taken to hospital.
I had asked her,
"If anything happens to you or mother, please let me know as soon as possible.
Don't ring me to tell me when the cremation will be.
If possible, let me know beforehand.
So, I was only there for six weeks
and I went to my master and shared this with him, and he asked me,
"Would you like to go home, to be with your mother?"
And I said, "Yes."
And within two days I was back in Europe.
All our siblings were there,
we were all at our mother's bedside when she passed away,
and I realized what a privilege that was for our mother and for us.
She was very peaceful, breathing, no sign of fear.
We asked her whether she would like us to recite her favorite prayers;
she was Catholic.
She nodded, and we did.
We sang, and she passed away.
Just like that.
Outside was a beautiful day, blue sky and snow on the ground.
We stayed there telling her how beautiful it was outside.
So beautiful, so peaceful, so calm.
I was only there for a very short time, and then I was back in Japan.
It was not until I was sitting in my room,
I sat down and thought, 'oh, I'm going to write a letter to mom.'
Then I thought, wait a minute, no, she just passed away.
At that time I was just recently ordained,
and I didn't really know much about the teaching of no birth and death.
I didn't know it very well.
I sat down -- well I was sitting down -- but I continued to think,
where is mom now? Where is she?
What happened to her? I know her body -- I know what happened to her body,
it was cremated, ashes were distributed over the ocean as she has wished,
but where --
you know, mom is more than her body.
What happened?
I couldn't figure it out.
But I wanted a reply.
I thought, well, what was mom, besides a physical body?
What did I call mom? Not just her body, other things.
And this is how I quite naturally, without knowing --
just about anything about the teachings of no birth and no death --
What was mom?
Immediately came to my mind: love for nature.
Everything she liked: love for nature, poetry, music, dance.
Her sense of humor.
Her total acceptance of her children, as we were.
We didn't need to be different.
She loved us as we were.
Her capacity to face difficulties,
even what we saw, being blown away at sometimes by a difficulty,
to fall over, to get back onto her feet, and to continue her perseverance.
Friends were always welcome, there was always a bed in the house.
There was always a bed for us in the house,
even long after we had built our own life, if you like.
In cases we needed it, it was there.
She was Irish, a Quak woman, spirited.
I looked into 'what was my mother' and saw
all her strengths and all her weaknesses.
Then I thought, but all that is still there.
Nature is there, and the love for nature is still there,
in me, in my siblings, in others.
Poetry is there,
dance, music, sense of music is there,
perseverance is there, it is all still there.
It's just not all together in one form as I am used to
have seen it in that particular manifestation.
But all my non-mom elements were all still there.
I had always been close to my mom,
I take after her if you like, we had many things in common,
but when I saw this -- I found my mother inside.
I thought, everything she was, still is.
And it brought me great relief of my grief.
I still missed her presence, physical, if you like, in some way.
But the grief, was not there.
Just gratitude, gratitude,
and joy of having found my mother inside.
And we enjoyed poetry together, music,
was not supposed to dance in that Zen temple,
(Laughing)
but I know it was there.
I recognized her strengths in me.
It took me a little bit more time to recognize and say,
"Yes, the weaknesses are also in me."
And now we practice together, we nourish together and we transform together.
So it became very clear: my mother is still there.
I am my mother's continuation, my siblings are my mother's continuation,
my mother continues in many, many ways.
Now I think, how about my continuation, I don't have children, how about that?
I think I need to breathe a little bit.
(Laughing)
Let's enjoy the sound of the bell.
(Bell rings)
Nothing is ever lost.
A little over ten years ago, a group of us visited Israel.
In Jerusalem we visited the wall.
Very powerful energy in the whole of Israel, everywhere.
It calls for presence.
As I was standing in front of the wall, I put my hands against the wall.
The stones were warm, and I stood there breathing.
Then inside of me, came this thought, kind of this voice saying,
nothing is ever lost, no thought is ever lost.
I thought, all my thoughts, they don't disappear?
There're not lost?
Thay tells us that our thoughts wear our signature,
and that our thoughts are our continuation.
When I was standing there at the wall,
I thought, nothing ever lost, no thoughts, no words, no action ever lost,
it only transforms.
I wondered about the unskillful thoughts I had, the unwholesome thoughts I've had,
the unskillful words I've spoken, the unskillful actions I've committed.
They're not lost? I found it scary.
Thay teaches us, if we've had a thought, our continuation,
and we're not so happy about that thought,
we can think another thought, to balance it out, to neutralize it.
If we've said something, we arere not happy about, say something else,
that you are happy about, that makes you happy, that makes others happy,
that contributes to the well-being.
We have an action we're not happy about, do something you'll be happy about,
for your benefit, the benefit of all, the benefit of the cosmos.
I thought, wow, this is what I call empowerment, this is empowerment.
It was so healing to hear that, so healing, it was just what I needed.
This is an empowerment.
The five mindfulness trainings we looked at together,
and the fourteen mindfulness trainings we looked at together
and heard being recited yesterday,
they are a very good guideline for that.
To think, to speak, to act, in order to balance, to neutralize,
to unwholesome thoughts, words and actions
that are there in the cosmos, either produced by us or by others.
When we think, speak or act wholesomely, we neutralize any unwholesome thought,
any unwholesome word, any unwholesome action that is there.
Not just our own.
This is hope.
This is the practice we can do, any moment, anywhere.
Maybe, we have another bell.
We can breathe, breathe and come back to ourselves,
find our stability, our freedom,
and we will send out stability and freedom as our continuation into the cosmos.
(Bell rings)
Our path is a path --
into happiness, into well-being, from ill-being to well-being.
If we have many desires --
all those things that we think we need in order to be happy,
I call them the 'ifs' and the 'whens'.
If this were only different, I would be happy.
One of our sisters shared with me many years ago,
that part of her body was sick, and she felt very sad.
Then she decided to look into her body, and look into all the parts of her body.
She then said, "You know what,
I realized, one part of my body is sick, and the other parts are still healthy.
Then I asked my healthy parts, to send their love and energy to my sick part,
and I felt much better."
I thanked her for her sharing. Not the 'if', but what can I do,
how can I respond to the situation?
The 'ifs' and the 'whens':
When I have this, when I'm wealthy, when I'm famous,
when I will be more powerful, then I will be happy.
So if we can throw away the 'whens' and the 'ifs'
and stop running after all those things, when we come back to the present moment,
we will see we already have enough conditions to be happy.
There are enough conditions to be happy.
We may see that, thát moment we are waiting for, is actually this moment.
This moment ís the moment we are waiting for.
It is that moment.
We will see that 'this' is 'it'.
(Laughing)
No need to run after anything anymore.
There is nothing lacking, as our brother said.
When we touch non-self and impermanence deeply,
we touch our true nature, which is Nirvana.
No coming, no going, no birth, no death,
not same, not different, no being, no non-being.
We find Nirvana in impermanence and non-self.
I didn't write it on the board, but you can imagine,
impermanence and non-self on the top, line underneath: Nirvana.
Simple equation -- to write on the board, I mean --
(Laughing)
and then we have time to practice.
We've been here over one week together,
and this retreat was scheduled to happen in the physical presence of Thay.
Was Thay here, was Thay not here? Is Thay here, is Thay not here?
I see -- means yes? Here?
OK, yes, here.
All together, we've made manifest Thay.
Thay is: breathing in, breathing out. Enjoying our breathing.
Thay is: enjoying our steps. Thay is: mindful eating.
Thay is: deep listening. Thay is: loving speech.
Thay is: compassion. Thay is understanding.
We cannot find Thay outside of that.
Thay is nothing other than that,
so together we have made manifest Thay.
Thay is here, and we can touch Thay.
Thay is in us.
We are in each other.
We have shared, whoever we have touched, we are in them.
By whomever we have been touched, in our education for instance, at school,
they are in us.
So we are in each other.
We are in you, you are in us.
And we can nourish each other in each other.
We can enhance each other in each other.
We can transform each other in each other.
We cannot take each other out of each other.
We inter-are.
You may like to study
the sixteen exercises of breathing, full awareness of breathing,
in the light of the practice of the five mindfulness trainings
and the fourteen mindfulness trainings.
You will see, they inter-are.
It will help you to concretely practice them.
So study the sixteen in the light of the five and the fourteen,
study the five and the fourteen in the light of the sixteen exercises.
They inter-are.
Dear friends, we know you are there, and we are so happy.
Happy continuation.
(Bell rings)
[The Plum Village Online Monastery]
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[The Plum Village Online Monastery]