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(Bell)

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(Bell)

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(Bell)

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(Bell)

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Dear respected Thay,
dear noble community,

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it's such a happiness to walk into a room
so full of love.

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My brother and I we just arrived
a few minutes ago, and came in.

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And to feel the sangha sitting in peace -

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(fr.) La traduction, ça marche?

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Pas encore.

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Can we turn the volume
up on the French?

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So walking into this room and feel
the energy of peace, of calm,

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of deep aspiration to practice

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is like walking into a kind of Pure Land.

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(fr.) Ça va?

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Là-bas ça va, mais, là-bas? Ça ne va pas.

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We can just enjoy our breathing.

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The beautiful thing about a smile
is it doesn't require a translation.

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So maybe if you like you can look around
the room and smile to one another.

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Just to appreciate the presence of

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so many people who

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come for the bodhisattva path.

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Today's talk is about
the path of the bodhisattvas.

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How the Buddha taught of how

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he takes good care of the bodhisattvas.

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And by looking at each other
and smiling to other bodhisattvas,

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we take good care of each other.

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Bring up that seed of caretaking.

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And then our heart opens and we,

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we water the seed of joy
in the other person.

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(fr.) Ça va? Okay, voilà.

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So dear respected Thay,
dear brothers and sisters,

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today is the 6th of December

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in the year 2018,

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and we are gathered in

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Loving Kindness temple,
in New Hamlet,

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for the last lay day Dharma talk
of the Winter Retreat.

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(fr.) N'est-ce pas?

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There is a very wonderful book called
The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion.

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And it's

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Thay's teaching on the Vajracchedikā
Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra,

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or sometimes called The Diamond Sutra.

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The diamond that cuts through illusion.

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And I was preparing for this talk
reading through this book,

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and I remembered that it was one,

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I think the first book of Thay's
that I read all the way through.

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Somebody had given it to me
when I was a lay friend

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practicing in a Vipassana center.

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And it was like receiving
a stroke of lighting.

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I, and -

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The sangha asks us

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to look into this sutra today

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as the last lay Dharma talk.
Lay day Dharma talk.

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So I practice getting in touch with
the teaching in the Diamond Sutra.

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But somehow I've forgotten that I -
How important finding this book was to me,

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and my study of Thay's teaching.

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And so, actually
I re-read it this morning.

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(Laughter)

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Sometimes it's like that.
Because Thay is such a

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profound teacher,

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that sometimes I like to look
in other places first.

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Because I know when I read
Thay's teaching, Thay's -

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One thunderbolt after another.

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And it is difficult to find areas that
Thay doesn't go into,

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that Thay doesn't reveal deeply.

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So we are invited this morning
to look into this teaching.

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How many of you have ever read
The Diamond Sutra?

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Wow! Okay, not bad!

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So I want to start to share
a little bit about

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the relationship of this teaching with

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some other teachings
we already had in this retreat.

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So we've learned about mindful breathing,

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we've going into
the 14 mindfulness trainings.

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So we know the Sutra on Mindful Breathing,

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the Sutra on the Four
Establishments of Mindfulness

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are very old teachings of the Buddha.

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Like the teachings that the Buddha
gave later in his life.

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At that time the sangha
had grown quite large,

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and it was not so easy
as just going

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to the Buddha website and
registering for a retreat

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to go study personally with the Buddha.

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It's not so easy.

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People only learned about the Buddha
through word of mouth.

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When the Buddha first came to
a big city, to Rajgir,

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which at that time was the capital

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of that region of Magadha,

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they spread the word

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to all the women, and the parents,

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'Please, take care! Hide your men!

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Because the Buddha is coming,
and wherever he goes,

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many of the men become monks!'

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(Laughter)

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'Be careful!'

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So the teaching of the Buddha
in this day and age sometimes we forget

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was very dependent on physically
meeting the Buddha.

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He didn't have a -

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an iPhone, or a GPS transmitter,

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so it is not easy to find
where the Buddha is.

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You had to ask.

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So the early community,
as it began to grow,

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was surrounded by monks that
had studied personally with the Buddha.

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They had spent time living with him,
walking with him,

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going on alms round with him.

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And so a lot of what they learned
was just by watching him.

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Watching how he talked,
watching how he walked.

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Listening directly to his teaching.

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We are listening to a direct teaching now.

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(Laughter)

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From the Buddha himself.

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So often times,
when we talk about the Dharma,

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we think about some book.

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And when we study the Dharma,

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we need to go buy that book
and we need to read that book.

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But that would be completely foreign
to the sangha of the Buddha.

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None of what the Buddha was teaching
was being written down as far as we know

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at that time. In fact,
writing was considered a kind of

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lower form of transmitting
or communicating.

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When something was -

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When something was sacred,

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then it would come directly
from the mouth of a teacher.

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So the teaching came orally.

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Nowadays we are like -
We've turned it upside down.

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If something is written down,
we take it as an authority,

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but if it is said from spoken word we tend
to question whether it's true or not.

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So we suffer a lot.

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And so, hopefully, in looking into
The Diamond Sutra

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we will be able to pierce through
that veil of,

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that veil of delusion.

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Our practice is always to come back
to the here and now,

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to experience life as it is
in the present moment.

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That is a - Is there is something
that we can call truth,

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in the Plum Village tradition
in the Buddhist teaching it is that.

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It's that truth is found in life.
Not in books,

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not even in the words of people,
what people tell us.

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Even if that person is a very
prominent spiritual teacher.

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Thay always reminds us
that we need to take the teaching

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and apply it in our daily life.
That is where we find truth.

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So we walk the talk.

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But we know that

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studying the teachings
can benefit our practice.

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It can help us to break through

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a view that we are holding on to tightly.

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We can become aware of the ways in which
our vision is limited.

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Like the blinders on a horse.

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We only see the way forward

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so that we only continue to walk forward.

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And much (inaudible) education
in the modern world

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is really how to get well-fitting blinders
so that we do the things

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that are expected of us.

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That we get a job, that we make money,
that we have a family, that we

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so we can have a car, and a house,

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and then we can go home
and enjoy Christmas together.

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And then we can yell at each other.

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(Laughter)

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And complain, and, yeah.

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Because of all the problems we have
making sure we have a house, and a car,

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and a family, and a job, and money,
and all those things.

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So our current education system
is designed like that,

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to try to increase our capacity
to obtain those things.

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Those objects of desire.

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So when the Buddha walked into Rajgir,

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he cut through all of that

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by his mindful step, his mindful gaze,
his mindful speech.

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And many young men
who were very well-educated,

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many of them who studied to become
the spiritual leaders of their community,

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prominent priests

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who would take care of the spiritual needs
of their community,

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just by seeing the Buddha
walking mindfully,

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looking mindfully,

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eating mindfully,
speaking mindfully,

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they cut through the veil
of their delusion, those blinders they had

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that were keeping them
on the path that was accepted in society

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for them to walk on.

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And so that is why they warned people,
'Please hide your son, hide your husband!'

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People were afraid of what can happen
when people remove those blinders,

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when suddenly their view becomes
very wide and open,

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and they go beyond just the limited idea
of who they are,

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and what they are here for.

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So this teaching of The Diamond Sutra

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is part of the fruit of a tradition
that developed

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when the Buddha was
no longer physically there

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in the form of which we think of him
as a human being walking on the Earth.

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And for many centuries the monks,

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in order to get in touch with
the Dharma body of the Buddha,

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without his physical presence,

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had begun orally reciting

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the teachings that the Buddha gave
in many different situations.

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Chanting them regularly,
and then

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teaching the young monks that came in
also to chant them.

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And so the teachings were passed on
through this practice of oral recitation.

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Also the precepts, we call the Vinaya,

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it means the way of life
of the monastic community,

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was regularly chanted

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and recited in that way.

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And at some point,

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people started to write them down

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on palm leaves.

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Can of like a cheat sheet.

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But sometimes they forgot some passage

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or maybe a monk would go
to a very remote area,

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and he wanted to make sure that

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he would not be a -

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In the midst of a large community, where
there would be elders he could consult

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when he forgot one passage of the sutra.

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Maybe there was one text
like the Dharmapada

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which had very precise sayings
and he wanted to remember them exactly.

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So he started to write them down
on palm leaves

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so that he could bring them with him
in his robe.

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And whenever he forgot a line, he could
take them out to remember that line.

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So a kind of cheat sheet.

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A new technology,
very controversial.

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Like the Internet.

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And,

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and this new form
of transmitting the Dharma

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brought in new issues in the community.
Just like the Internet

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has brought in new

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wonderful things
and also sometimes difficult things

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into our monastic community.

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So in the same way, writing also

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did the same thing.

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So we have to a little bit
expand our view

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to see ourselves in a time
when we don't have books everywhere,

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we don't have the telephone,
or we don't have Internet.

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And we deeply want to practice the Dharma.

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We take refuge in the Buddha,
in the Dharma, in the Sangha.

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So we know the sangha is all around us.

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At that time, the sangha was clearly
the monastic community.

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And the Dharma with how we

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see the Buddha in ourselves.

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Through studying the Dharma,
we learn how to

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reveal the nature of awakening
already within us.

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So keeping in touch with the Dharma
is very important.

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And so how do we do that when the sangha

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is going a little bit everywhere
all over India?

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So we can write it down
so we can remember.

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So the words themselves took on

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a kind of sacred meaning.

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First the oral word
and then the written word.

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00:21:17,691 --> 00:21:20,767
Can we listen to
the sound of the bell?

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We come back to our body.

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(Bell)

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00:21:27,714 --> 00:21:34,131
(Bell)

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00:21:46,584 --> 00:21:50,181
If we are a Christian,
it is not difficult for us

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00:21:50,393 --> 00:21:55,310
to understand how the word
becomes sacred.

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00:21:56,759 --> 00:22:00,777
If you read the Gospel of John,
I think it says,

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'In the beginning,
there was the Word -

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The Word is God
and God is the Word.'

248
00:22:09,319 --> 00:22:11,354
Logos.

249
00:22:11,522 --> 00:22:14,336
The Greek word is logos.

250
00:22:14,903 --> 00:22:18,155
Was God, and God is Logos.

251
00:22:19,393 --> 00:22:21,969
If we are Muslim,

252
00:22:24,551 --> 00:22:29,942
and we know that to recite the Koran
in Arabic has a special importance.

253
00:22:31,714 --> 00:22:36,336
A translation is only an approximation
of the direct word of the God

254
00:22:36,551 --> 00:22:39,060
as it was told to Muhammad.

255
00:22:39,403 --> 00:22:41,323
In Arabic.

256
00:22:42,934 --> 00:22:47,171
Also we know in the Jewish tradition
there is a similar attitude.

257
00:22:47,318 --> 00:22:51,410
Ultimately the name of God
we cannot pronounce.

258
00:22:53,903 --> 00:22:56,985
It is only an approximation.

259
00:22:57,776 --> 00:23:03,014
Recently I was asked by the community
to go to Abu Dhabi.

260
00:23:04,782 --> 00:23:08,741
And we went in the mosque there,
and they had

261
00:23:11,007 --> 00:23:13,517
100 names of God.

262
00:23:15,267 --> 00:23:20,880
So there are many names,
like The Firm One, The Infinite One,

263
00:23:22,239 --> 00:23:26,080
written in Arabic
in beautiful thorough patterns

264
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:31,106
all in the wall, in the main prayer room
in the mosque in Abu Dhabi.

265
00:23:32,199 --> 00:23:34,396
But a the very top,

266
00:23:34,587 --> 00:23:38,364
there is a very beautiful floral pattern

267
00:23:38,505 --> 00:23:41,654
around empty tiles.

268
00:23:43,001 --> 00:23:46,482
And the 100th name of God
cannot be pronounced.

269
00:23:47,372 --> 00:23:50,852
It is empty of form.

270
00:23:55,571 --> 00:23:59,470
And at that time, in India,
when the Buddha was teaching,

271
00:23:59,768 --> 00:24:04,616
there was also this sense that
the word had a sacred quality.

272
00:24:09,031 --> 00:24:13,517
There were two young Brahmin men
who came to the Buddha,

273
00:24:13,655 --> 00:24:16,279
and were very concerned about

274
00:24:17,406 --> 00:24:20,512
the future of the Buddha's teaching.

275
00:24:21,131 --> 00:24:27,420
And they knew that in the Vedic tradition,
they were trained to orally recite

276
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:32,216
the words of the Rigveda
and other sacred texts,

277
00:24:33,810 --> 00:24:36,772
to commit them to memory,

278
00:24:36,932 --> 00:24:40,181
in order to approach

279
00:24:42,285 --> 00:24:44,627
God, to approach

280
00:24:47,595 --> 00:24:49,988
liberation.

281
00:24:54,355 --> 00:24:56,106
And,

282
00:24:59,204 --> 00:25:02,293
and because of their love
of the Buddhist teaching,

283
00:25:02,456 --> 00:25:05,697
they were monastic disciples
of the Buddha,

284
00:25:06,300 --> 00:25:08,764
they said, 'We need to do that!

285
00:25:08,955 --> 00:25:12,882
Please Buddha, let us put your teachings
into verse!'

286
00:25:13,823 --> 00:25:19,552
Into the formal language
that we now call Sanskrit,

287
00:25:20,863 --> 00:25:24,888
so that future generations
would benefit

288
00:25:25,198 --> 00:25:27,808
and be able to remember it.

289
00:25:27,975 --> 00:25:30,163
And the Buddha said, 'No!

290
00:25:32,241 --> 00:25:35,485
You have misunderstood my teaching.'

291
00:25:36,551 --> 00:25:39,013
I'm paraphrasing a little bit.

292
00:25:39,147 --> 00:25:41,190
(Laughter)

293
00:25:41,819 --> 00:25:47,186
He told them, 'My teachings should be
taught in the common language,

294
00:25:49,247 --> 00:25:52,713
in the vernacular,
the language of the people.

295
00:25:52,898 --> 00:25:56,091
The daily language that people use.'

296
00:25:56,894 --> 00:25:59,863
So he refused them,

297
00:26:03,775 --> 00:26:06,659
to give in to their fear

298
00:26:07,404 --> 00:26:09,978
of the teachings disappearing.

299
00:26:11,272 --> 00:26:15,524
It means that the Buddhist tradition
continues through the realized practice

300
00:26:16,325 --> 00:26:19,467
of living human beings.

301
00:26:20,828 --> 00:26:25,025
Not through a word, or a text.

302
00:26:26,544 --> 00:26:30,521
That is how the Buddha is offering us.

303
00:26:32,794 --> 00:26:38,865
In our laziness sometimes to practice,
we want to put up some text

304
00:26:39,073 --> 00:26:41,409
as being the ultimate.

305
00:26:41,557 --> 00:26:45,065
And if we want to discover God,
we only have to look in there.

306
00:26:45,274 --> 00:26:48,766
We only have to read that text
and then we will find God,

307
00:26:48,879 --> 00:26:52,250
we will find Awakening,
we will find Liberation.

308
00:26:52,764 --> 00:26:56,577
And the Buddha said, no,
he didn't allow us to be that lazy.

309
00:27:01,934 --> 00:27:05,298
So the Diamond Sutra

310
00:27:05,954 --> 00:27:11,211
is arising after the teachings
of the Buddha had began to be written down

311
00:27:11,372 --> 00:27:14,823
for already a few hundred years.

312
00:27:16,014 --> 00:27:22,578
And so, very quickly the monastic
community started to depend on

313
00:27:22,828 --> 00:27:28,222
these written teachings
to get in contact with the Dharma,

314
00:27:28,660 --> 00:27:32,929
rather than looking to
their brothers around them.

315
00:27:33,450 --> 00:27:37,038
Rather than taking refuge maybe
in the elder brothers,

316
00:27:37,162 --> 00:27:40,227
and their capacity to recite,

317
00:27:40,585 --> 00:27:43,461
teach and put into practice the Dharma.

318
00:27:43,601 --> 00:27:48,077
And instead they started to look for it
in the words on a page.

319
00:27:48,833 --> 00:27:53,008
That was where the true Dharma lived!

320
00:27:53,171 --> 00:27:57,523
Not in my elder brother,
or my elder sister.

321
00:27:59,270 --> 00:28:03,800
They don't say it so explicitly, they just
spend all their time studying the text.

322
00:28:03,972 --> 00:28:06,773
And they don't spend very much time

323
00:28:07,195 --> 00:28:11,751
taking refuge in the brothers and sisters
in the Dharma.

324
00:28:15,192 --> 00:28:18,737
And so, as a result of that phenomena,

325
00:28:19,918 --> 00:28:24,299
and also the experience of reading
the Buddhist teachings,

326
00:28:24,514 --> 00:28:27,496
written down on these palm leaves

327
00:28:27,683 --> 00:28:31,020
which soon became
sacred objects in their own right,

328
00:28:31,736 --> 00:28:34,418
then many monks,

329
00:28:34,967 --> 00:28:37,416
and perhaps nuns,

330
00:28:38,428 --> 00:28:40,483
began to

331
00:28:42,194 --> 00:28:47,020
try to find a way to help
the young monastics

332
00:28:47,205 --> 00:28:51,904
to become free from that attachment
to the written word,

333
00:28:52,556 --> 00:28:58,213
to become free from the attachment to
the form of the teaching.

334
00:29:03,241 --> 00:29:09,598
And so, a whole form of literature we call
prajñāpāramitā arose.

335
00:29:11,432 --> 00:29:19,282
These are teachings that were written down
and they spoke about how to

336
00:29:22,711 --> 00:29:26,534
awaken to the highest understanding.

337
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,270
The understanding of the Buddha

338
00:29:30,418 --> 00:29:33,185
which cannot be found in words,

339
00:29:34,998 --> 00:29:38,430
but can only be lived and touched directly

340
00:29:38,614 --> 00:29:42,025
in our life, in our practice.

341
00:29:42,497 --> 00:29:46,354
And it is in that spirit that Thay founded
Plum Village,

342
00:29:46,886 --> 00:29:49,636
to create a community of practice,

343
00:29:49,784 --> 00:29:53,502
to create a community
where there is the living Dharma,

344
00:29:54,592 --> 00:29:57,257
not just the Dharma
that can be found in books.

345
00:29:57,418 --> 00:30:00,958
Thay said, if you want to
get a degree

346
00:30:01,710 --> 00:30:05,537
in an Institute of High Buddhist Studies,
then you can go to many universities

347
00:30:05,711 --> 00:30:07,861
and do that.

348
00:30:10,745 --> 00:30:14,108
But if you want to realize
the living Dharma,

349
00:30:14,633 --> 00:30:17,922
then you need a community of practice.

350
00:30:18,980 --> 00:30:23,103
That is what the Buddha built,
he built a beautiful sangha,

351
00:30:23,369 --> 00:30:25,984
walking into Rajgir.

352
00:30:32,879 --> 00:30:35,567
There is a beautiful scene, where

353
00:30:35,706 --> 00:30:38,194
the Buddha walks into Rajgir,

354
00:30:38,376 --> 00:30:43,889
and he is with Uruvela Kasyapa,

355
00:30:44,795 --> 00:30:48,068
who was a very famous spiritual teacher.

356
00:30:48,286 --> 00:30:51,055
He and his brothers they led a number of

357
00:30:51,886 --> 00:30:57,756
kind of dreadlocked spiritual ascetics
in that region.

358
00:30:59,033 --> 00:31:02,518
And they worshiped this fire.

359
00:31:02,667 --> 00:31:05,638
So we can take a word as a sacred,

360
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:09,567
we can also take fire,
or some object in nature

361
00:31:09,798 --> 00:31:12,949
and worship it as sacred, as the ultimate.

362
00:31:13,202 --> 00:31:16,247
So they were part of a kind of
fire worshiping cult.

363
00:31:18,423 --> 00:31:21,130
And the Buddha came in and he -

364
00:31:22,152 --> 00:31:25,501
And because Uruvela Kasyapa had
a community of many people,

365
00:31:25,667 --> 00:31:27,826
many disciples,

366
00:31:28,156 --> 00:31:30,472
he was a little bit proud.

367
00:31:31,895 --> 00:31:35,275
And so it took
many teachings from the Buddha

368
00:31:35,463 --> 00:31:38,185
before he realized
that the Buddha actually

369
00:31:38,394 --> 00:31:42,441
had awaken to a deeper understanding.

370
00:31:44,484 --> 00:31:49,635
I'm not going into it now, but
you can read it in the Vinaya.

371
00:31:51,144 --> 00:31:53,937
Eventually, after many

372
00:31:55,253 --> 00:32:01,052
times of seeing the Buddha
prove his deep understanding,

373
00:32:01,659 --> 00:32:04,934
Kasyapa eventually accepted him
as his teacher.

374
00:32:05,803 --> 00:32:07,662
It's kind of like

375
00:32:07,833 --> 00:32:11,097
a monk suddenly
showing up here in Plum Village,

376
00:32:11,297 --> 00:32:15,294
and then, over the course of many weeks,

377
00:32:16,281 --> 00:32:20,754
the eldest brothers and sisters
and the community suddenly accept,

378
00:32:20,863 --> 00:32:23,073
'You are now our teacher.'

379
00:32:23,281 --> 00:32:25,798
You can imagine such a thing.

380
00:32:26,847 --> 00:32:31,116
Sometimes in Plum Village in the past
we had people come in a little bit

381
00:32:33,046 --> 00:32:35,712
unstable mentally, and they believed

382
00:32:35,869 --> 00:32:39,004
they would be the new teacher
of the community.

383
00:32:39,164 --> 00:32:43,870
But, unlike the Buddha, they didn't have
that deep understanding, and so -

384
00:32:45,794 --> 00:32:49,275
But sometimes that happened
in a spiritual community.

385
00:32:50,134 --> 00:32:53,628
So Uruvela Kasyapa was not quite sure.
'The Buddha really

386
00:32:54,290 --> 00:32:56,464
has a deep understanding?

387
00:32:56,658 --> 00:33:01,175
My eye kept seeing my understanding
is still deeper, still higher.'

388
00:33:01,513 --> 00:33:08,093
But eventually, he could not - He saw
a few wonderful actions of the Buddha

389
00:33:08,483 --> 00:33:14,030
that he could not deny any longer
the understanding of the Buddha,

390
00:33:14,352 --> 00:33:18,078
and he accepted the Buddha as his teacher.
And then, immediately after that,

391
00:33:18,350 --> 00:33:21,796
all of his students,
who probably already had realized

392
00:33:21,922 --> 00:33:26,700
the Buddha's deep understanding,
they became disciples as well right away.

393
00:33:26,875 --> 00:33:30,419
And then his two brothers as well
and their communities.

394
00:33:30,553 --> 00:33:33,445
So very quickly the sangha
became quite large,

395
00:33:33,566 --> 00:33:35,577
and all these kind of

396
00:33:35,841 --> 00:33:40,368
grungy looking dreadlocked ascetics,
they shaved off their dreads,

397
00:33:41,102 --> 00:33:43,350
and became,

398
00:33:44,956 --> 00:33:49,290
they got a robe and a bowl
and they started following the Buddha.

399
00:33:49,701 --> 00:33:54,003
And so there was a very interesting scene,
where the Buddha walks into Rajgir,

400
00:33:54,108 --> 00:33:57,995
and the people are quite confused,
because they never heard of the Buddha.

401
00:33:58,116 --> 00:34:02,482
But everyone knows about Uruvela Kasyapa,
he is a very famous spiritual teacher,

402
00:34:02,614 --> 00:34:08,085
he is all over YouTube, and, you know,
many people are buying his books,

403
00:34:08,970 --> 00:34:13,698
and you can see all over the airports,
and anyway, you know what I mean.

404
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:15,735
(Laughter)

405
00:34:15,878 --> 00:34:18,976
And so, when the Buddha came in,
people are quite confused,

406
00:34:19,116 --> 00:34:22,376
because they saw Uruvela Kasyapa
and the Buddha, and they said,

407
00:34:22,491 --> 00:34:25,106
'Is the Buddha the student
of Uruvela Kasyapa?

408
00:34:25,204 --> 00:34:28,177
Or is Uruvela Kasyapa
the student of the Buddha?'

409
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:30,917
They did not know.

410
00:34:31,077 --> 00:34:32,998
And then,

411
00:34:33,456 --> 00:34:39,096
at that moment, Kasyapa begins to fan
the Buddha.

412
00:34:39,684 --> 00:34:42,954
And it is at that moment that the people
know that, 'Ah!

413
00:34:43,079 --> 00:34:46,680
Uruvela Kasyapa has now become
the student of the Buddha.'

414
00:34:47,339 --> 00:34:53,585
And through that gesture, he recognizes
he is now studying with the Buddha.

415
00:34:56,154 --> 00:35:01,451
There are all kinds of beautiful teachings
like this in the Buddhist teachings.

416
00:35:02,645 --> 00:35:05,570
Maybe we can listen
to another sound of the bell.

417
00:35:05,730 --> 00:35:07,030
(Bell)

418
00:35:10,932 --> 00:35:16,966
(Bell)

419
00:35:28,930 --> 00:35:33,340
So looking around us,
as a monk,

420
00:35:34,212 --> 00:35:37,224
a few hundred years before the Common Era,

421
00:35:37,523 --> 00:35:41,585
maybe in the northwest of India,

422
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:48,709
and seeing how our monastic brothers
and sisters are now

423
00:35:49,799 --> 00:35:55,122
spending much of their time reading
the sutras in written form rather than,

424
00:35:56,367 --> 00:36:00,904
in addition to reciting them but how this
reading is now taking on a new importance,

425
00:36:02,184 --> 00:36:04,195
and seeing how -

426
00:36:06,276 --> 00:36:09,675
Yes, because when we live together
as monastics,

427
00:36:11,686 --> 00:36:15,165
we come to understand each other
pretty deeply.

428
00:36:15,953 --> 00:36:20,882
We are not very blinded by
the insights of our brothers and sisters.

429
00:36:22,855 --> 00:36:25,732
I think Thay Pháp Dung
gave the talk last week.

430
00:36:25,875 --> 00:36:28,610
He told me he came up with a new line,

431
00:36:28,767 --> 00:36:31,969
'It's hard to live with people
who understand us.'

432
00:36:32,144 --> 00:36:34,352
(Laughter)

433
00:36:35,463 --> 00:36:39,738
It is very easy to come for a week,
or two weeks, or even a few months,

434
00:36:39,913 --> 00:36:43,006
but then when people
start to understand us, oh!

435
00:36:43,907 --> 00:36:47,536
It becomes a little bit difficult.
Because they always seem to be looking at

436
00:36:47,536 --> 00:36:50,172
those things that we don't want
to look at in ourselves!

437
00:36:50,172 --> 00:36:51,562
(Laughter)

438
00:36:53,214 --> 00:36:57,229
So I think something like that
happened as well in those monasteries.

439
00:36:57,408 --> 00:36:59,987
And the monks looked around,
and they said,

440
00:37:00,217 --> 00:37:03,188
'Mmm, wow! He knows a lot
about the Dharma!'

441
00:37:03,780 --> 00:37:07,607
He can teach the Abhidharma,
the highest form of the Dharma,

442
00:37:08,028 --> 00:37:15,905
where everything becomes atomic particles
of the teachings of the Buddha,

443
00:37:21,137 --> 00:37:24,687
'But he still slurps a lot
when he eats his food,

444
00:37:25,832 --> 00:37:27,557
and he

445
00:37:29,390 --> 00:37:31,592
smells really bad,

446
00:37:33,306 --> 00:37:35,825
walks unmindfully.'

447
00:37:38,194 --> 00:37:43,418
So this attachment to knowledge
became a virtue in itself.

448
00:37:44,542 --> 00:37:47,202
And even though the Buddha
taught very clearly

449
00:37:47,356 --> 00:37:50,965
that knowledge, along with afflictions,
are the main obstacles,

450
00:37:51,244 --> 00:37:53,748
the main hindrances to awakening,

451
00:37:53,947 --> 00:37:58,673
but the community became
a little bit attached to its knowledge.

452
00:38:00,245 --> 00:38:04,353
And the monasteries become a kind of
ivory towers

453
00:38:05,133 --> 00:38:09,054
guarding the sacred
teachings of the Dharma,

454
00:38:10,635 --> 00:38:15,434
no longer very concerned with
the life of the common people.

455
00:38:16,153 --> 00:38:22,162
So that the teaching that the Buddha gave
about not putting my teaching in verse

456
00:38:22,316 --> 00:38:25,334
but teaching in the language
of the common people,

457
00:38:26,191 --> 00:38:30,388
although the monks would be very able
to recite that teaching,

458
00:38:30,558 --> 00:38:34,877
but that is not how they were living
so much some of them.

459
00:38:36,769 --> 00:38:42,079
And so, as a monk living in that time,
and trying to renew Buddhism,

460
00:38:42,269 --> 00:38:44,378
what do you do?

461
00:38:44,693 --> 00:38:47,341
How do you deal with the situation?

462
00:38:47,496 --> 00:38:51,574
How can you use this written form,
this new written form

463
00:38:52,614 --> 00:38:55,443
as an skillful way

464
00:38:55,699 --> 00:38:59,917
to help people to
get beyond the attachment

465
00:39:00,129 --> 00:39:02,980
to the words that the Buddha taught?

466
00:39:03,248 --> 00:39:06,864
How can you help
to cut through the delusion

467
00:39:07,418 --> 00:39:12,139
that the words themselves are the Dharma?

468
00:39:12,732 --> 00:39:17,271
That the words themselves
are the teaching that the Buddha offered?

469
00:39:18,229 --> 00:39:25,088
So out of that deep wish, deep hope
to renew Buddhism

470
00:39:27,225 --> 00:39:33,173
came these new texts called
the prajñāpāramitā texts.

471
00:39:35,153 --> 00:39:36,962
How can we

472
00:39:37,867 --> 00:39:41,389
get the insight that brings us
to the other shore?

473
00:39:43,027 --> 00:39:47,127
We don't just sit down
in the same shore with that insight.

474
00:39:47,473 --> 00:39:51,958
It has to bring us to the other shore,
it means we have to walk the talk.

475
00:39:52,121 --> 00:39:55,208
We cannot just hold on to our knowledge

476
00:39:56,185 --> 00:40:02,617
in a way of getting offerings,
of getting status, getting respect.

477
00:40:08,754 --> 00:40:13,404
And so these teachings of prajñāpāramitā
they became quite lengthy.

478
00:40:15,105 --> 00:40:19,523
And there were many texts we don't know
exactly where they were written.

479
00:40:20,149 --> 00:40:23,101
We don't have that much information.

480
00:40:23,233 --> 00:40:27,920
We didn't have somebody making a video
of the Dharma talks

481
00:40:28,365 --> 00:40:33,679
on the early prajñāpāramitā with the date
written on the board.

482
00:40:34,293 --> 00:40:37,596
So it's very difficult for us
to know exactly when,

483
00:40:37,777 --> 00:40:43,983
we have to use different means
to try to place the exact location

484
00:40:44,540 --> 00:40:47,404
where these texts where composed.

485
00:40:49,276 --> 00:40:53,632
But the internal evidences from the text
suggest what I'm sharing is that

486
00:40:53,771 --> 00:40:59,378
there was a response to the increasing
scholastic nature of monastic life.

487
00:40:59,638 --> 00:41:03,911
So how can we recreate
through the form of a text

488
00:41:04,290 --> 00:41:08,604
the experience of
being near the Buddha?

489
00:41:09,595 --> 00:41:11,931
How can we recreate

490
00:41:13,069 --> 00:41:19,864
in the written form, the kind of awakening
that is experienced

491
00:41:20,583 --> 00:41:24,673
by someone directly witnessing
how the Buddha walked,

492
00:41:24,833 --> 00:41:29,770
how the Buddha talked, how the Buddha ate,
and how the Buddha taught?

493
00:41:30,369 --> 00:41:37,392
That is the aspiration of these monastics
who composed these prajñāpāramitā texts.

494
00:41:37,662 --> 00:41:42,735
And they knew full well that
the danger also came with that.

495
00:41:43,306 --> 00:41:47,927
Which is that people would start to
take these new texts and make them

496
00:41:49,100 --> 00:41:51,698
holy and sacred.

497
00:41:56,547 --> 00:41:59,545
So somehow we have to build into it,

498
00:42:01,909 --> 00:42:04,367
the teaching that allows us to see

499
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:07,827
that the words themselves
are only representations,

500
00:42:07,941 --> 00:42:11,959
they are not the deep teaching.

501
00:42:15,679 --> 00:42:20,117
Okay, so we are going to start
to look into this a little bit.

502
00:42:20,631 --> 00:42:26,913
And I'm just going to really what is
the most essential part of the teaching.

503
00:42:27,886 --> 00:42:32,386
And I hope you have a chance
to read the rest for yourself.

504
00:42:33,135 --> 00:42:36,309
"This is what I heard one time

505
00:42:36,432 --> 00:42:40,574
when the Buddha was staying
in the monastery in Anathapindika’s park

506
00:42:40,752 --> 00:42:47,392
in the Jeta Grove near Shravasti with
a community of 1,250 bhikshus,

507
00:42:48,021 --> 00:42:50,557
fully ordained monks.

508
00:42:54,094 --> 00:42:57,601
That day, when it was time
to make the round for alms,

509
00:42:58,073 --> 00:43:00,924
the Buddha put on his sanghati robe

510
00:43:01,612 --> 00:43:08,110
and, holding his bowl, went into the city
of Shravasti to seek almsfood,

511
00:43:09,703 --> 00:43:12,306
going from house to house.

512
00:43:12,914 --> 00:43:15,298
When the almsround was completed,

513
00:43:15,454 --> 00:43:18,448
he returned to the monastery
to eat the midday meal.

514
00:43:18,807 --> 00:43:23,276
Then he put away his sanghati robe
and his bowl, washed his feet,

515
00:43:23,627 --> 00:43:26,921
arranged his cushion, and sat down."

516
00:43:30,764 --> 00:43:35,328
So the teaching of the sutra
is happening in Shravasti,

517
00:43:35,957 --> 00:43:39,577
a place where the Buddha
spent many of his rain's retreats,

518
00:43:40,108 --> 00:43:43,540
not far from modern-day Nepal.

519
00:43:47,466 --> 00:43:51,927
And there was a monastery
that had been founded there.

520
00:43:56,401 --> 00:43:59,079
We may have heard of Anathapindika,

521
00:43:59,230 --> 00:44:02,369
in our Chanting Book we have
a wonderful discourse on

522
00:44:02,521 --> 00:44:07,948
The Teachings to Be Given to the Sick,
which Shariputra offers to Anathapindika

523
00:44:08,070 --> 00:44:12,748
when he is passing away. He was
a very loved lay disciple of the Buddha

524
00:44:13,186 --> 00:44:16,975
who lives a very simple life

525
00:44:17,103 --> 00:44:19,575
and he was called Anathapindika,

526
00:44:19,707 --> 00:44:23,699
it wasn't the name
that he was given at birth,

527
00:44:25,003 --> 00:44:31,206
but it's a name that means
'the one who gives to the poor'.

528
00:44:31,656 --> 00:44:33,777
Anatha are those who -

529
00:44:34,012 --> 00:44:36,988
An-atha, it means
'those who don't have wealth',

530
00:44:37,093 --> 00:44:41,269
and pindika is 'food', a kind of like
almsfood.

531
00:44:41,752 --> 00:44:45,095
So he was known as the one
who was always offering food

532
00:44:45,253 --> 00:44:49,405
for people who were poor,
who didn't have food to eat.

533
00:44:50,894 --> 00:44:54,970
The legend is that he payed for
the Jeta Grove by laying

534
00:44:55,222 --> 00:45:01,842
coins of gold on every part of the park.

535
00:45:03,358 --> 00:45:06,597
Because the prince Jeta,
he loved so much that forest

536
00:45:06,752 --> 00:45:09,322
and he didn't want to sell it.
And he said,

537
00:45:09,437 --> 00:45:14,624
'I will only sell it if you can lay
coins of gold across the entire park.'

538
00:45:15,048 --> 00:45:18,513
So that's a legend,
I don't know if that really happened,

539
00:45:18,681 --> 00:45:23,014
but that's just to show how much
Anathapindika loved the Buddha.

540
00:45:23,372 --> 00:45:27,859
He was willing to give up everything
he had in order to provide a place

541
00:45:28,072 --> 00:45:31,892
for the Buddha to teach,
for the monks and nuns to live.

542
00:45:35,813 --> 00:45:40,315
So the Buddha passed many rain's retreats
in Shravasti.

543
00:45:46,492 --> 00:45:50,925
And we have the Buddha going on almsround.
Sometimes we forget that the Buddha went

544
00:45:51,018 --> 00:45:54,706
just like the other monks and nuns,
to go on service on food.

545
00:45:54,849 --> 00:45:58,137
Or to receive food from the lay friends.

546
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:03,230
It could be very easy for the Buddha,
he had many disciples, 1,250 monks,

547
00:46:03,374 --> 00:46:08,066
'Please go, can you go
get my food for me today?

548
00:46:08,737 --> 00:46:13,019
I'm a little bit lazy.
I have to give many Dharma talks,

549
00:46:13,131 --> 00:46:16,002
would you mind to bring my food for me?'

550
00:46:16,704 --> 00:46:19,664
We wonder why do we always have
that information.

551
00:46:19,823 --> 00:46:23,055
But it is to show the humility,
and also the freedom.

552
00:46:23,195 --> 00:46:27,971
Because by offering - Sometimes when we
become a teacher in a spiritual community

553
00:46:28,091 --> 00:46:31,419
we can become a slave of our disciples.

554
00:46:32,097 --> 00:46:37,988
They want to wash our clothes for us,
they want to cook wonderful food for us,

555
00:46:38,881 --> 00:46:41,840
and then we think, 'Oh! it's so lovely
in the monastery.

556
00:46:41,972 --> 00:46:43,955
I don't want to go out anymore!'

557
00:46:44,059 --> 00:46:46,946
It is like the Pure Land,
my personal Pure Land.

558
00:46:47,392 --> 00:46:50,650
But the Buddha saw that
if he wanted to maintain his freedom,

559
00:46:50,758 --> 00:46:53,363
he could continue to go on almsround,

560
00:46:53,500 --> 00:46:56,315
and then receive food
from even the poorest person,

561
00:46:56,421 --> 00:46:58,957
even the people who
never heard of the Buddha.

562
00:46:59,059 --> 00:47:03,611
He would just come like any other beggar
to their door and receive almsfood.

563
00:47:08,888 --> 00:47:12,979
And then, "At that time,
the Venerable Subhuti stood up,

564
00:47:13,136 --> 00:47:16,787
bared his right shoulder,
put his knee on the ground,

565
00:47:17,050 --> 00:47:21,540
and, folding his palms respectfully,
said to the Buddha,

566
00:47:22,787 --> 00:47:27,869
'World-Honored One,
it is rare to find someone like you.

567
00:47:28,613 --> 00:47:34,036
You always support and show
special confidence in the Bodhisattvas."

568
00:47:44,094 --> 00:47:47,623
So to bare your right shoulder
is a sign of respect.

569
00:47:48,484 --> 00:47:54,293
So we know the monks they had robes
they put over their shoulders.

570
00:47:57,322 --> 00:48:00,117
But nowadays, when we see Theravadan monks

571
00:48:00,226 --> 00:48:02,944
we often see that
their right shoulder is bare.

572
00:48:03,070 --> 00:48:07,199
And that is a part of the tradition,
it's respectful to show the right shoulder

573
00:48:07,309 --> 00:48:09,315
in that culture.

574
00:48:09,497 --> 00:48:12,395
When Buddhism came to China,

575
00:48:12,883 --> 00:48:17,559
the Chinese were scandalized
by somebody showing their shoulder.

576
00:48:18,088 --> 00:48:23,623
In Chinese culture, that's very
inappropriate.

577
00:48:24,859 --> 00:48:30,653
So in that way Buddhism always adapted
to the culture in which it took root.

578
00:48:31,092 --> 00:48:35,581
And that is why we have robes that -
You don't see my shoulder.

579
00:48:36,847 --> 00:48:41,371
So I'm wearing a robe
that is Chinese style robe.

580
00:48:41,559 --> 00:48:45,896
We cover the shoulder.
That is considered more respectful.

581
00:48:49,442 --> 00:48:52,624
He puts his knee on the ground.

582
00:48:53,688 --> 00:48:57,084
So we don't know that at that time

583
00:48:57,281 --> 00:49:01,771
the monks practiced touching the Earth
in the way that we do today.

584
00:49:02,711 --> 00:49:06,358
But they put their knee on the ground

585
00:49:06,601 --> 00:49:09,624
in order to show their respect
for someone.

586
00:49:12,533 --> 00:49:17,202
And they fold their palms.
() it means like this, join the palms,

587
00:49:17,362 --> 00:49:19,643
respectfully.

588
00:49:25,903 --> 00:49:29,532
“World-Honored One,
it is rare to find someone like you.

589
00:49:29,699 --> 00:49:33,733
You always support and show
special confidence in the Bodhisattvas."

590
00:49:35,606 --> 00:49:42,214
So this ideal of a Bodhisattva
was part of what

591
00:49:45,145 --> 00:49:48,762
inspired the young monastics at that time

592
00:49:49,488 --> 00:49:52,889
to go deeper in their practice.

593
00:49:54,146 --> 00:49:57,633
A bodhisattva is a kind of awakened being.

594
00:49:58,418 --> 00:50:01,367
It could be translated as

595
00:50:01,589 --> 00:50:04,870
someone who is bent on awakening.

596
00:50:05,278 --> 00:50:07,197
They are

597
00:50:09,557 --> 00:50:11,354
leaning towards awakening.

598
00:50:17,982 --> 00:50:22,396
In Pali, we have many references
to the bodhisatta,

599
00:50:22,879 --> 00:50:26,482
which is the Buddha before his awakening.

600
00:50:26,781 --> 00:50:31,086
And 'satta' can be translated as
'being', but it can also be translated as

601
00:50:31,232 --> 00:50:33,931
kind of like 'attachment'.

602
00:50:34,137 --> 00:50:38,886
Like you are drawn towards awakening.

603
00:50:41,323 --> 00:50:46,130
But in Sanskrit it was translated as
'sattva', which is very clearly 'being'.

604
00:50:46,583 --> 00:50:53,876
So it lost that ambiguity.
Bodhisattva, awakened being.

605
00:50:59,057 --> 00:51:03,754
So this ideal of a bodhisattva
was a kind of revolution

606
00:51:03,981 --> 00:51:06,560
within the Buddhist community.

607
00:51:06,775 --> 00:51:09,752
Because up into that point,

608
00:51:10,757 --> 00:51:15,155
it was very clear, one became a bhikshu
or a bhikshuni

609
00:51:15,363 --> 00:51:19,230
in order to attain arhatship,
it means, perfection.

610
00:51:19,841 --> 00:51:23,194
And it is very clear that
to become an arhat

611
00:51:23,334 --> 00:51:26,954
one had to become
a bhikshu or a bhikshuni.

612
00:51:27,301 --> 00:51:30,558
So the monastics had a kind of

613
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:34,263
monopoly on awakening.

614
00:51:34,647 --> 00:51:36,270
(Laughter)

615
00:51:37,575 --> 00:51:41,741
And the Bodhisattvayana, which is
usually how we find it,

616
00:51:41,972 --> 00:51:47,695
it means, the vehicle or the path
of a bodhisattva,

617
00:51:48,410 --> 00:51:52,291
suddenly burst through that monopoly

618
00:51:53,241 --> 00:51:59,912
and allowed both monastics and lay people
to be on the bodhisattva path.

619
00:52:00,903 --> 00:52:05,203
So this is a path that can be taken
not only by monastics,

620
00:52:05,395 --> 00:52:08,297
but also by lay practitioners.

621
00:52:08,638 --> 00:52:11,149
The Bodhisattvayana.

622
00:52:13,022 --> 00:52:18,400
Usually we talk about Mahayana,
you probably heard the term Mahayana,

623
00:52:18,898 --> 00:52:21,272
the great vehicle,

624
00:52:21,393 --> 00:52:24,852
but more often in that time
what later became called the Mahayana

625
00:52:24,979 --> 00:52:27,587
was called the Bodhisattvayana,
it means,

626
00:52:27,734 --> 00:52:31,927
the path, the vehicle, of awakened beings.

627
00:52:34,944 --> 00:52:37,955
And the prajñāpāramitā texts are

628
00:52:38,326 --> 00:52:41,598
teaching us the way of the bodhisattva.

629
00:52:42,066 --> 00:52:44,950
What is the way to wake up

630
00:52:45,189 --> 00:52:48,537
to walk the talk, to the lived awakening.

631
00:52:51,755 --> 00:52:54,839
So Subhuti is pointing out to the Buddha,

632
00:52:55,044 --> 00:52:59,060
"You always support and show
special confidence in the Bodhisattvas."

633
00:53:04,110 --> 00:53:07,978
That means, when there is somebody
who has that deep aspiration,

634
00:53:08,377 --> 00:53:10,380
we feel very

635
00:53:10,587 --> 00:53:14,051
inspired also to help them on their path.

636
00:53:14,223 --> 00:53:17,875
When we see somebody who does kind things
to another person,

637
00:53:17,977 --> 00:53:21,312
we don't care whether they are Catholic,
whether they are Muslim,

638
00:53:21,429 --> 00:53:24,979
whether they are Jewish, whether
they are monastic or they are lay,

639
00:53:25,131 --> 00:53:28,193
we just want to help that person,
we want to support them,

640
00:53:28,365 --> 00:53:31,391
we feel inspired
to help them in their path.

641
00:53:31,575 --> 00:53:34,991
When we are generous,
when our generosity is not

642
00:53:36,333 --> 00:53:40,962
transactional, it is based on
just giving only just to give,

643
00:53:42,088 --> 00:53:47,471
we want to help someone
to continue to do that.

644
00:53:48,627 --> 00:53:51,224
We are coming into the Christmas season,

645
00:53:51,366 --> 00:53:55,132
and sometimes we feel like,
'Well, I have to give a present to my mum,

646
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:58,264
to my niece, to my nephew, to my -

647
00:53:58,432 --> 00:54:01,241
That brother, if I don't give
a present to that brother,

648
00:54:01,444 --> 00:54:03,580
then he is going to get mad at me.'

649
00:54:03,677 --> 00:54:06,443
So our generosity is based on a form.

650
00:54:07,036 --> 00:54:10,655
What is expected from us socially.

651
00:54:11,404 --> 00:54:14,948
Maybe we give a lot
to our son or our daughter,

652
00:54:18,676 --> 00:54:20,710
but that is also,

653
00:54:20,888 --> 00:54:25,206
that is was is expected from us. If we are
a mother or a father it is expected

654
00:54:25,874 --> 00:54:29,913
that we give to our son or daughter.
But can we give to somebody

655
00:54:30,557 --> 00:54:34,179
who is very,
is living in poverty on the street?

656
00:54:35,176 --> 00:54:39,025
Can we open our heart to somebody
who has killed somebody?

657
00:54:39,242 --> 00:54:41,288
Somebody who has stolen?

658
00:54:41,450 --> 00:54:44,412
Maybe somebody who is causing great harm.

659
00:54:44,561 --> 00:54:49,176
Do we have enough generosity in our heart
to offer our time, our presence,

660
00:54:49,387 --> 00:54:51,102
to that person?

661
00:54:52,166 --> 00:54:56,870
That is the path of the bodhisattva.
We don't rely only on form.

662
00:54:57,950 --> 00:55:01,510
If people yell at us and slander us,
they say,

663
00:55:01,711 --> 00:55:05,019
'Why do you help that person,
why do you give to that person?

664
00:55:05,156 --> 00:55:09,858
Look at what they are doing!
They are the living incarnation of evil!'

665
00:55:11,182 --> 00:55:14,278
We don't care, because
that is part of our path,

666
00:55:14,543 --> 00:55:18,565
we are not dependent on the form
in our way of giving.

667
00:55:18,885 --> 00:55:22,278
And so, when you see someone like that,

668
00:55:23,602 --> 00:55:27,117
you feel inspired, and
the Buddha felt inspired

669
00:55:27,307 --> 00:55:32,089
to give them special attention,
special confidence.

670
00:55:38,079 --> 00:55:42,676
“World-Honored One, if sons and daughters
of good families

671
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:47,797
want to give rise to the highest,
most fulfilled, awakened mind,

672
00:55:48,462 --> 00:55:54,668
what should they rely on and what
should they do to master their thinking?”

673
00:55:56,835 --> 00:56:00,278
If sons and daughters of good families

674
00:56:00,550 --> 00:56:06,131
want to give rise to the highest,
most fulfilled, awakened mind,

675
00:56:07,211 --> 00:56:13,192
what should they rely on and what
should they do to master their thinking?

676
00:56:13,736 --> 00:56:16,970
This is what everybody wants to know!

677
00:56:18,788 --> 00:56:22,420
This is what we all want to know
when we come to Plum Village!

678
00:56:24,473 --> 00:56:27,572
Just tell me, can I buy it
in the bookstore?

679
00:56:27,739 --> 00:56:29,563
(Laughter)

680
00:56:34,259 --> 00:56:39,171
It is some special ring I can wear,
or maybe some special incense I can burn

681
00:56:40,599 --> 00:56:43,884
that is going to give me the highest,
most fulfilled awakening?

682
00:56:44,043 --> 00:56:46,495
Just tell me, please, and I'll buy it!

683
00:56:47,397 --> 00:56:50,700
Even if it is sold on Amazon!

684
00:56:51,111 --> 00:56:52,562
(Laughter)

685
00:56:53,822 --> 00:56:56,849
Everybody is coming because
they want this awakening,

686
00:56:56,999 --> 00:57:01,194
they want to be happy, in every moment
of their life their want to be free!

687
00:57:01,428 --> 00:57:04,297
So what can we do

688
00:57:06,048 --> 00:57:09,478
to give rise to this highest,
most fulfilled, awakened mind?

689
00:57:09,611 --> 00:57:14,004
Where should we rely on? What should
they do to master their thinking?

690
00:57:14,926 --> 00:57:18,775
So everybody is waiting with bated breath
to find out

691
00:57:19,405 --> 00:57:21,463
what it is.

692
00:57:22,821 --> 00:57:28,479
The Buddha replied, "Well said, Subhuti.
What you have said is absolutely correct.

693
00:57:29,248 --> 00:57:34,377
The Tathagata always supports and shows
special confidence in the Bodhisattvas.

694
00:57:37,109 --> 00:57:40,248
Please, listen with all of your attention,

695
00:57:40,446 --> 00:57:43,423
and the Tathagata will respond
to your question."

696
00:57:49,557 --> 00:57:52,400
Thank you for listening
with all your attention.

697
00:57:53,525 --> 00:57:57,050
"'If daughters and sons
of good families want to give rise

698
00:57:57,221 --> 00:58:02,201
to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened
mind, they should rely on the following

699
00:58:02,569 --> 00:58:05,587
and master their thinking
in the following way.'

700
00:58:07,494 --> 00:58:11,836
The Venerable Subhuti said, 'Lord,
we are so happy to hear your teachings.'

701
00:58:14,466 --> 00:58:19,662
The Buddha said to Subhuti,
'This is how the Bodhisattva Mahasattvas

702
00:58:19,880 --> 00:58:22,217
master their thinking:

703
00:58:23,669 --> 00:58:27,494
‘However many species
of living beings there are

704
00:58:28,527 --> 00:58:36,645
– whether born from eggs, from the womb,
from moisture, or spontaneously;

705
00:58:37,549 --> 00:58:41,386
whether they have form
or do not have form;

706
00:58:42,837 --> 00:58:47,349
whether they have perceptions
or do not have perceptions;

707
00:58:48,561 --> 00:58:50,941
or whether it cannot be said of them

708
00:58:51,115 --> 00:58:54,838
that they have perceptions
or that they do not have perceptions,

709
00:58:56,199 --> 00:59:01,216
we must lead all these beings
to the ultimate nirvana

710
00:59:02,032 --> 00:59:04,724
so that they can be liberated.

711
00:59:06,665 --> 00:59:13,075
And yet, when this innumerable,
immeasurable, infinite number of beings

712
00:59:13,463 --> 00:59:19,866
has become liberated, we do not,
in truth, think

713
00:59:20,128 --> 00:59:23,257
that a single being
has been liberated.

714
00:59:25,461 --> 00:59:27,701
Why is this so?

715
00:59:28,206 --> 00:59:32,755
If, Subhuti, a bodhisattva
holds on to the idea

716
00:59:33,134 --> 00:59:40,618
that a self, a person, a living being,
or a life span exists,

717
00:59:41,180 --> 00:59:45,463
that person is not
an authentic bodhisattva.'"

718
00:59:49,916 --> 00:59:52,514
Maybe we can listen
to a sound of the bell.

719
00:59:53,223 --> 00:59:54,434
(Bell)

720
00:59:57,441 --> 01:00:03,815
(Bell)

721
01:00:20,742 --> 01:00:27,118
So in the Sanskrit, it says,

722
01:00:28,444 --> 01:00:32,993
Whatever beings -yeah? - sattvaha,
it says living beings,

723
01:00:35,463 --> 01:00:43,446
that are born from an egg, from a womb,
from moisture, or spontaneously,

724
01:00:44,362 --> 01:00:47,858
whether they have form
or they have no form;

725
01:00:48,528 --> 01:00:52,078
whether they have perceptions
or they don't have perceptions;

726
01:00:52,658 --> 01:00:56,758
whether they neither have perceptions
nor non-perceptions;

727
01:01:02,616 --> 01:01:10,470
all these I would lead to nirvana
without remainder, ultimate nirvana.

728
01:01:11,989 --> 01:01:16,441
And even when these immeasurable,
innumerable beings

729
01:01:16,992 --> 01:01:19,678
are thus liberated,

730
01:01:20,868 --> 01:01:24,250
not any single living being,

731
01:01:25,291 --> 01:01:28,138
we do not think that
any single living being

732
01:01:28,778 --> 01:01:32,092
has been liberated.
Why is that?

733
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:39,811
Subhuti, it is not said of a bodhisattva

734
01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:46,516
that he has the perception of a being.
Why is that?

735
01:01:48,165 --> 01:01:52,932
A bodhisattva, we cannot call someone
a bodhisattva

736
01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:59,101
who has the perception of a self,
the perception of a being,

737
01:01:59,527 --> 01:02:05,091
the perception of a life, a life span,
and the perception of a person.

738
01:02:08,096 --> 01:02:10,657
So these four areas.

739
01:02:11,342 --> 01:02:14,934
[ātman]

740
01:02:16,811 --> 01:02:18,884
A self.

741
01:02:19,152 --> 01:02:21,089
[self]

742
01:02:24,937 --> 01:02:28,982
[sattva]

743
01:02:31,648 --> 01:02:33,577
A being.

744
01:02:34,008 --> 01:02:36,018
[being]

745
01:02:36,503 --> 01:02:38,617
A living being.

746
01:02:39,071 --> 01:02:42,038
[(living being)]

747
01:02:49,890 --> 01:02:52,005
[jīva]

748
01:02:52,628 --> 01:02:54,982
A life.

749
01:02:56,243 --> 01:02:58,012
[life]

750
01:02:58,248 --> 01:03:00,102
Or a life span.

751
01:03:01,447 --> 01:03:03,928
[life span]

752
01:03:06,718 --> 01:03:09,024
And the pudgala.

753
01:03:09,386 --> 01:03:13,213
[pudgala]

754
01:03:13,453 --> 01:03:15,885
Which is just a person.

755
01:03:16,281 --> 01:03:19,073
[person]

756
01:03:23,129 --> 01:03:25,320
So the text is saying that

757
01:03:25,485 --> 01:03:32,127
as long as we, in our thinking,
give rise to the idea of a self,

758
01:03:33,092 --> 01:03:36,385
of a living being, of a life span,
or a person,

759
01:03:37,876 --> 01:03:41,881
then we cannot be called a true,
we cannot be called a bodhisattva.

760
01:03:42,663 --> 01:03:47,511
We cannot be called someone who is on
the bodhisattva path.

761
01:03:56,012 --> 01:03:58,507
It seems like a contradiction, right?

762
01:03:58,657 --> 01:04:06,613
So we are, we need to give rise to
the aspiration to lead all living beings.

763
01:04:06,918 --> 01:04:09,316
And the Buddha is quite specific.

764
01:04:09,527 --> 01:04:13,217
You know, those born from the eggs
those born from the womb,

765
01:04:13,931 --> 01:04:19,295
so all the reptiles,
and the fish, and the amphibians,

766
01:04:20,756 --> 01:04:24,092
born from eggs, then all those
born from a womb,

767
01:04:24,537 --> 01:04:27,637
then those born from moisture.

768
01:04:27,767 --> 01:04:33,744
Sometimes the insects, they have
such a small eggs

769
01:04:33,921 --> 01:04:36,169
that they don't call them eggs.

770
01:04:36,294 --> 01:04:41,365
They seem to be born spontaneously
from moisture, but even bacteria, mold,

771
01:04:42,271 --> 01:04:44,360
living things.

772
01:04:46,390 --> 01:04:50,595
So you can imagine that, as a bodhisattva
we have to lead mold to nirvana.

773
01:04:50,768 --> 01:04:52,469
(Laughter)

774
01:04:57,162 --> 01:05:00,911
And even though we have to lead mold
to nirvana,

775
01:05:01,432 --> 01:05:02,947
(Laughter)

776
01:05:03,103 --> 01:05:07,188
we cannot think that any mold
has been lead to nirvana.

777
01:05:07,644 --> 01:05:11,899
So I'm bringing this
to its natural extension.

778
01:05:12,709 --> 01:05:15,974
We cannot only think of

779
01:05:16,717 --> 01:05:19,132
even just living beings.

780
01:05:19,619 --> 01:05:22,753
How about the very stones
beneath our feet?

781
01:05:26,626 --> 01:05:29,070
It has a kind of life,

782
01:05:29,209 --> 01:05:31,549
if we look deeply.

783
01:05:33,807 --> 01:05:39,732
We also use to dividing up the world
between the inanimate and the animate,

784
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:43,460
the non-living and the living.

785
01:05:43,931 --> 01:05:47,311
And the Buddha is just pointing that out.

786
01:05:49,020 --> 01:05:53,906
So first of all, we have to learn
how to understand

787
01:05:54,974 --> 01:06:00,082
when we define ourselves and others
in terms of a self.

788
01:06:02,240 --> 01:06:08,281
So in what way do we say, this is me,
this is mine, this is myself?

789
01:06:10,122 --> 01:06:12,900
We think, I can extend my hand,

790
01:06:13,082 --> 01:06:15,265
so that must be me.

791
01:06:15,451 --> 01:06:18,801
But I cannot extend the brother's hand.

792
01:06:19,572 --> 01:06:22,229
So that must be not me.

793
01:06:23,384 --> 01:06:26,616
So we rely on this
very simplistic understanding

794
01:06:26,748 --> 01:06:29,300
of what is me and what is not me.

795
01:06:29,962 --> 01:06:32,592
But if I look more deeply,
I see that when

796
01:06:33,111 --> 01:06:35,847
I practice and I live
together with my brother,

797
01:06:35,966 --> 01:06:39,857
then he knows the right time
to invite the bell

798
01:06:41,428 --> 01:06:43,408
in the Dharma talk.

799
01:06:43,571 --> 01:06:46,683
And so somehow, even though he is not me,

800
01:06:46,849 --> 01:06:51,995
and yet there is some capacity to be able
to invite the bell at the appropriate time.

801
01:06:53,465 --> 01:06:56,190
There is a kind of understanding.

802
01:06:56,344 --> 01:06:58,353
And so, when we see that,

803
01:06:58,524 --> 01:07:02,330
we see that actually this body,
the limit of this body

804
01:07:02,443 --> 01:07:05,726
is not the limit of who we are.

805
01:07:08,346 --> 01:07:10,451
There is not only the,

806
01:07:10,747 --> 01:07:14,575
this body which we can move
and animate which is

807
01:07:17,047 --> 01:07:19,020
ourselves.

808
01:07:19,798 --> 01:07:23,277
But we are made up
of many non-self elements.

809
01:07:25,188 --> 01:07:29,631
When we look into the orchid,
we can see that

810
01:07:31,394 --> 01:07:34,829
the orchid is on the platform.

811
01:07:35,339 --> 01:07:38,473
We do not say that
the orchid is up in the sky.

812
01:07:40,743 --> 01:07:46,233
We do not say that the orchid is in
the earth that is surrounding New Hamlet.

813
01:07:47,520 --> 01:07:51,347
But if we look deeply, we can see that
the sun is in the orchid.

814
01:07:51,933 --> 01:07:57,986
Without the sun, there would be no
photosynthesis

815
01:07:59,475 --> 01:08:02,158
for the plant to generate

816
01:08:02,608 --> 01:08:07,918
the branch that comes up
to offer these flowers to us.

817
01:08:09,367 --> 01:08:11,824
If there is no earth,

818
01:08:12,094 --> 01:08:17,620
then there is no nutriments to provide
the minerals that the plant needs to grow.

819
01:08:19,773 --> 01:08:23,806
And we know that there is also the farmer,
the one who grew the orchid,

820
01:08:23,969 --> 01:08:28,601
the one who transported it here.
All these elements, we can say,

821
01:08:28,755 --> 01:08:32,466
non-orchid elements
are present in the orchid.

822
01:08:33,094 --> 01:08:37,903
And we are also made of no-self elements.
We are made up of our friends,

823
01:08:38,198 --> 01:08:45,251
of our parents, of countless generations
of ancestors. They are all in us.

824
01:08:46,229 --> 01:08:52,353
And when we see that, then we become free
from this idea of a self, of an atman.

825
01:08:53,991 --> 01:09:00,204
So that way of dividing up the world,
that dualistic way of seeing things,

826
01:09:00,355 --> 01:09:02,731
then suddenly falls away.

827
01:09:02,906 --> 01:09:08,408
And we see that this body is not me,
it is not mine, it is not myself.

828
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:11,158
I'm not limited by this body.

829
01:09:11,572 --> 01:09:14,779
And we see that we are also present
in all things, and

830
01:09:14,886 --> 01:09:17,705
all things are also present in us.

831
01:09:18,073 --> 01:09:21,187
So the mold is not separate from me.

832
01:09:22,756 --> 01:09:27,341
The stones are not separate from me.
The deer are not separate.

833
01:09:27,729 --> 01:09:30,793
But we actually inter-are.

834
01:09:31,388 --> 01:09:34,730
So this is a deep teaching of the Buddha
on interbeing.

835
01:09:37,059 --> 01:09:40,022
And when we look at the world in that way,

836
01:09:40,206 --> 01:09:43,684
we become free from our ideas
about ourselves,

837
01:09:44,977 --> 01:09:49,506
we practice what Thay called
the deep ecology.

838
01:09:50,603 --> 01:09:54,849
He said, the Diamond Sutra is
the earliest teaching on deep ecology,

839
01:09:56,663 --> 01:09:59,962
because we see that we are not separate
from Mother Earth.

840
01:10:01,464 --> 01:10:03,922
That all of our efforts

841
01:10:04,125 --> 01:10:07,848
to raise up human beings,

842
01:10:09,614 --> 01:10:12,405
to make them comfortable,

843
01:10:12,973 --> 01:10:15,611
so they always have enough food to eat,

844
01:10:15,921 --> 01:10:18,912
so the always have enough places to live,

845
01:10:19,737 --> 01:10:22,920
so they are warm enough,
so they get to go on a vacation

846
01:10:23,045 --> 01:10:25,067
once a year,

847
01:10:26,775 --> 01:10:30,372
that that all has come
at a price.

848
01:10:31,865 --> 01:10:36,188
And that price is our attachment
to our idea about ourselves.

849
01:10:36,687 --> 01:10:42,805
Ourselves as a person, who is
separated from other living beings,

850
01:10:43,672 --> 01:10:47,262
like animals, the plants, the minerals.

851
01:10:47,586 --> 01:10:52,398
So we exploit the Earth, we think of
the Earth as something separate from us

852
01:10:52,955 --> 01:10:56,384
that we can dig in,
that we can extract oil from,

853
01:10:57,855 --> 01:11:00,610
and we don't think about
all the consequences

854
01:11:00,753 --> 01:11:03,768
that that has on ourselves,
on our well-being,

855
01:11:03,941 --> 01:11:06,632
because we don't see it as ourselves.

856
01:11:06,738 --> 01:11:10,393
We see ourselves as something separate
from the Earth.

857
01:11:12,311 --> 01:11:16,033
We treat animals with great cruelty,

858
01:11:16,500 --> 01:11:19,406
raising them in horrible conditions

859
01:11:21,048 --> 01:11:23,107
to be slaughtered

860
01:11:23,274 --> 01:11:25,777
to serve our appetite.

861
01:11:26,081 --> 01:11:28,722
Because we think that they are not us.

862
01:11:28,861 --> 01:11:32,753
Of course, we say we would never do that
for human beings.

863
01:11:34,122 --> 01:11:37,494
I remember when I was a young practitioner
and I read

864
01:11:39,701 --> 01:11:41,948
a saying from Mahatma Gandhi,

865
01:11:42,214 --> 01:11:47,302
which was, 'If you want to understand
the nature of a civilization

866
01:11:47,851 --> 01:11:50,747
look at how it treats its animals'.

867
01:11:52,418 --> 01:11:55,646
If you want to understand
the nature of a civilization

868
01:11:56,182 --> 01:11:59,579
look at how it treats its animals.

869
01:12:01,723 --> 01:12:06,405
Does it hide its animals away
when they are going to be slaughtered,

870
01:12:06,581 --> 01:12:09,753
or mistreated, or killed?

871
01:12:12,762 --> 01:12:17,583
So when we look deeply, there are
structures that had been created

872
01:12:17,934 --> 01:12:20,098
in the human mind,

873
01:12:20,161 --> 01:12:24,685
which have split us off from
that which is also ourselves.

874
01:12:25,322 --> 01:12:28,761
That have removed us from Mother Earth.

875
01:12:29,031 --> 01:12:31,618
And the Buddha is trying
to point those out.

876
01:12:31,771 --> 01:12:34,407
What is the source
of those wrong perceptions?

877
01:12:34,545 --> 01:12:40,180
What are those ideas which separate us
from our connection to the Earth?

878
01:12:43,277 --> 01:12:44,580
(Bell)

879
01:12:48,710 --> 01:12:55,097
(Bell)

880
01:13:05,282 --> 01:13:09,813
"We must lead all these beings
to the ultimate nirvana

881
01:13:10,044 --> 01:13:12,763
so that they can be liberated."

882
01:13:13,232 --> 01:13:16,189
This is a very radical statement.

883
01:13:17,498 --> 01:13:19,695
The early Buddhist community

884
01:13:20,808 --> 01:13:23,560
was mainly concerned with its,

885
01:13:23,788 --> 01:13:27,124
with its own attainment of nirvana.

886
01:13:28,794 --> 01:13:30,762
You became a monk or a nun

887
01:13:30,905 --> 01:13:34,057
because you wanted to become
an arhat, a perfected one.

888
01:13:34,164 --> 01:13:38,605
You wanted to attain the nirvana
that the Buddha taught.

889
01:13:42,753 --> 01:13:46,568
And that led to attachment
to these kind of ideas,

890
01:13:46,740 --> 01:13:52,350
the idea about a self, even though
the teaching of non-self was there,

891
01:13:53,353 --> 01:13:57,608
but ¡wow!, the monks
tend to have a very big self.

892
01:13:58,166 --> 01:14:00,638
A very big non-self.

893
01:14:03,586 --> 01:14:07,213
And they can have a very
strong idea that

894
01:14:10,007 --> 01:14:13,126
they are sattvas, they are living beings,

895
01:14:13,530 --> 01:14:16,824
but the stones, the minerals,

896
01:14:17,492 --> 01:14:21,528
those things that are not living,
those things we don't need to care about.

897
01:14:21,878 --> 01:14:25,300
What we need to take care of
is only the living beings.

898
01:14:26,344 --> 01:14:29,810
Or they have an idea,
'I'm an important person.

899
01:14:33,607 --> 01:14:37,532
These animals, these plants,
they are not

900
01:14:39,316 --> 01:14:41,651
they are not so important.

901
01:14:41,794 --> 01:14:45,350
What is important is
my own attainment of nirvana.'

902
01:14:46,428 --> 01:14:48,901
So when we look deeply into this statement

903
01:14:49,069 --> 01:14:53,696
we see we break through
these very limited concepts of nirvana.

904
01:14:54,495 --> 01:14:56,393
And we see that

905
01:14:57,016 --> 01:15:01,315
awakening is something
that can be experienced by all.

906
01:15:03,314 --> 01:15:05,190
That is possible for -

907
01:15:05,370 --> 01:15:09,515
When we no longer see the separation
between me and not me,

908
01:15:11,838 --> 01:15:16,197
we see that the wood that I'm sitting on
is not separate from me,

909
01:15:16,572 --> 01:15:19,766
when I see that the stones
are not separate from me,

910
01:15:19,943 --> 01:15:24,682
they become part of my path to awakening.

911
01:15:25,486 --> 01:15:27,505
They are not separate.

912
01:15:27,690 --> 01:15:29,158
And so,

913
01:15:29,551 --> 01:15:33,249
taking care of the stones
is taking care of myself.

914
01:15:33,686 --> 01:15:37,439
Taking care of the trees
is taking care of myself.

915
01:15:37,807 --> 01:15:41,657
Taking care of the cows, the sheep,

916
01:15:42,453 --> 01:15:45,779
taking care of, even of the mosquitoes,

917
01:15:46,977 --> 01:15:49,784
is taking care of myself.

918
01:15:51,330 --> 01:15:55,056
The brothers we become very expert
at capturing mosquitoes

919
01:15:55,161 --> 01:15:58,493
and putting them back outside
so they can be free.

920
01:16:01,273 --> 01:16:06,614
And the Buddha, one of the reasons he had
us wear a robe and not walk around naked

921
01:16:06,729 --> 01:16:09,362
was to protect us from mosquitoes.

922
01:16:10,376 --> 01:16:12,708
Also, you know, is a little bit -

923
01:16:12,850 --> 01:16:15,341
Even in the Buddha's time,
to walk around naked

924
01:16:15,446 --> 01:16:17,163
was a little bit extreme.

925
01:16:17,301 --> 01:16:18,559
(Laughter)

926
01:16:19,275 --> 01:16:23,309
So we don't have to kill the mosquitoes,
but we can be protected,

927
01:16:23,501 --> 01:16:28,298
we take care of ourselves but in a way
that is not harming other living beings,

928
01:16:28,540 --> 01:16:31,398
or even the stones themselves.

929
01:16:31,576 --> 01:16:35,881
We know that if we've ever thrown
something at a stone, or you throw a stone

930
01:16:36,830 --> 01:16:40,585
at another stone or something hard,
and then you look at it.

931
01:16:40,982 --> 01:16:43,006
What do you see?

932
01:16:44,469 --> 01:16:49,706
A kind of like white, powdery bit
at the impact.

933
01:16:50,558 --> 01:16:53,087
That is a kind of suffering.

934
01:16:55,018 --> 01:16:59,182
We tend to think of suffering only
in terms of the human nervous system.

935
01:16:59,386 --> 01:17:01,587
That is a very limited view.

936
01:17:01,747 --> 01:17:05,067
But now we start to extend that
to include

937
01:17:05,536 --> 01:17:07,969
the suffering of animals.

938
01:17:08,137 --> 01:17:11,519
Even as short as the past few fifty years,

939
01:17:12,934 --> 01:17:17,892
people have believed, many scientists
believed that animals did not suffer pain

940
01:17:18,655 --> 01:17:21,984
in a way that can be compared
to human beings.

941
01:17:23,784 --> 01:17:28,607
That is a way of justifying
doing studies on animals.

942
01:17:29,450 --> 01:17:32,836
You can treat them however you want
as long as they don't suffer

943
01:17:32,985 --> 01:17:35,510
in the way that human beings suffer.

944
01:17:35,803 --> 01:17:40,266
So we have to be careful when our mind
is caught in these perceptions

945
01:17:40,919 --> 01:17:44,503
we can use it to justify hurting.

946
01:17:45,444 --> 01:17:48,616
We can use it to justify
creating suffering.

947
01:17:50,207 --> 01:17:55,311
And it doesn't take much deep looking
to then go and extend that understanding

948
01:17:55,454 --> 01:17:58,383
to the stones, to the minerals.

949
01:17:58,866 --> 01:18:02,490
Then, when we look in -
We hear about climate change,

950
01:18:02,658 --> 01:18:07,080
or we experience this pretty warm
December right now,

951
01:18:08,229 --> 01:18:11,197
then we know that maybe
we haven't been taking good care

952
01:18:11,371 --> 01:18:14,444
of our mineral brothers and sisters.

953
01:18:16,876 --> 01:18:19,296
Maybe in our greed to

954
01:18:20,428 --> 01:18:23,703
have electricity, to have power,

955
01:18:25,357 --> 01:18:27,245
to produce,

956
01:18:28,191 --> 01:18:31,549
we extract minerals from the Earth,

957
01:18:32,024 --> 01:18:36,270
and then release the remains
into the atmosphere.

958
01:18:37,650 --> 01:18:41,508
So this is all connected.
This is coming from human desire.

959
01:18:42,156 --> 01:18:44,816
So in early teachings, we have

960
01:18:45,006 --> 01:18:46,827
the teachings on

961
01:18:47,769 --> 01:18:50,800
too much craving leads to suffering.

962
01:18:51,519 --> 01:18:55,929
And so here, in the Diamond Sutra
we're going into what is it that we crave?

963
01:18:56,440 --> 01:18:59,890
What is it that leads us to have a kind of
wrong perceptions

964
01:19:00,091 --> 01:19:03,181
that bring about the suffering?

965
01:19:03,430 --> 01:19:06,963
And so the insight of the Diamond Sutra
is that these four -

966
01:19:07,182 --> 01:19:10,957
That when we look deeply into
our perceptions, we can find these four

967
01:19:11,065 --> 01:19:13,679
somewhere there at the bottom.

968
01:19:14,992 --> 01:19:17,673
Our ideas about ourselves.

969
01:19:18,885 --> 01:19:22,277
Our ideas about living beings
separated from

970
01:19:23,387 --> 01:19:25,940
non living beings.

971
01:19:27,595 --> 01:19:32,653
One of our long term lay practitioners,
in Upper Hamlet,

972
01:19:32,897 --> 01:19:37,736
he has dedicated his life
to building sanghas that

973
01:19:38,522 --> 01:19:42,344
live near fracking operations
in the United Kingdom,

974
01:19:44,014 --> 01:19:48,394
so that they can put their bodies there
in a non-violent way

975
01:19:49,427 --> 01:19:53,197
to shine light on what we are doing
to Mother Earth

976
01:19:53,333 --> 01:19:56,102
when we get caught
in this kind of perception.

977
01:19:56,955 --> 01:20:00,985
The Earth, that is not a living being.

978
01:20:01,833 --> 01:20:07,451
So if we inject chemicals into the earth
in order to produce more oil, produce more

979
01:20:09,808 --> 01:20:14,214
other products that we have
a lot of craving for, that is no problem.

980
01:20:14,553 --> 01:20:18,006
And then we don't look at the suffering,
we don't look at the water

981
01:20:18,128 --> 01:20:21,020
that comes out of the tap
that you can light on fire.

982
01:20:24,408 --> 01:20:27,468
So sometimes, when we are
on the bodhisattva path

983
01:20:27,647 --> 01:20:29,636
we need to put our own body

984
01:20:30,420 --> 01:20:34,494
in the way, in order to help people
to look deeply into -

985
01:20:36,005 --> 01:20:39,852
Encourage others
to practice looking deeply.

986
01:20:40,946 --> 01:20:44,234
Sometimes, that is why some of us
become monks and nuns.

987
01:20:44,731 --> 01:20:48,706
We want to deal with our own suffering,
but we also have an aspiration,

988
01:20:48,830 --> 01:20:53,320
we know sometimes we need to be,
go a little bit outside of the norm

989
01:20:53,647 --> 01:20:58,445
in order to help each other to look
deeply into what is really going on.

990
01:21:02,858 --> 01:21:06,780
We are attached to
the idea of a life span, jīva.

991
01:21:10,132 --> 01:21:15,446
We have the kind of thinking, 'Ah! Now it
is this time in my life for me to do this.

992
01:21:16,342 --> 01:21:19,167
And when I get old, I will be like that.

993
01:21:19,965 --> 01:21:24,104
When I get old, I will travel.
I will have a bucket list

994
01:21:24,269 --> 01:21:27,995
and I will go to all those countries
and do all those things.'

995
01:21:31,450 --> 01:21:33,684
Thay often told the story

996
01:21:34,012 --> 01:21:36,169
of Frederic, a business man,

997
01:21:36,647 --> 01:21:39,186
whose wife came to Plum Village.

998
01:21:44,582 --> 01:21:46,519
He told his son,

999
01:21:47,978 --> 01:21:53,049
'Son, what do you want for Christmas?'

1000
01:21:55,708 --> 01:21:59,862
And the son was not sure what he
really wanted for Christmas.

1001
01:22:00,035 --> 01:22:02,600
He had to think about it.
And when he thought,

1002
01:22:02,723 --> 01:22:06,302
he shared with his father,
'Daddy, I want to be with you.

1003
01:22:08,031 --> 01:22:10,497
I want to be with you.'

1004
01:22:10,918 --> 01:22:14,893
Because Frederic was head
of a large company, and he was so busy!

1005
01:22:18,165 --> 01:22:21,024
He could buy his son
anything that he wants.

1006
01:22:22,598 --> 01:22:26,860
Anything that he imagines. But all his son
wanted was just to spend more time

1007
01:22:27,372 --> 01:22:29,198
with his father.

1008
01:22:31,319 --> 01:22:33,725
And even when his wife

1009
01:22:36,166 --> 01:22:37,972
was sick,

1010
01:22:39,506 --> 01:22:44,733
then he could not- I'm sorry, not his wife
it was his son, his son got sick,

1011
01:22:45,739 --> 01:22:47,530
and he could not

1012
01:22:48,311 --> 01:22:52,720
he could not be there, he could not leave
work to go to the hospital to be there

1013
01:22:53,492 --> 01:22:59,114
with him. He had to ask his wife
to represent him, to be present for him.

1014
01:23:00,197 --> 01:23:05,908
And he told his wife, 'Very soon I will be
able to transmit all my responsibilities

1015
01:23:06,425 --> 01:23:10,406
in the company to someone else.
So just in few years,

1016
01:23:11,212 --> 01:23:15,921
we will have so much free time!
Just bear with me for this moment.'

1017
01:23:17,202 --> 01:23:19,892
And then, very soon after
he told his wife that,

1018
01:23:20,030 --> 01:23:22,646
he was killed in a car accident.

1019
01:23:26,493 --> 01:23:31,289
And so all his hopes, his dreams
to spend more time with his son,

1020
01:23:31,540 --> 01:23:34,187
to spend more time with his family,

1021
01:23:35,004 --> 01:23:38,133
they never had a chance to be realized.

1022
01:23:40,407 --> 01:23:43,702
And we all live that reality.

1023
01:23:44,297 --> 01:23:48,951
We live our life, we think, 'Oh! After I'm
in Plum Village, I will go there,

1024
01:23:49,141 --> 01:23:53,558
I will do that'. But we don't know
what will happen even in the next moment.

1025
01:23:56,243 --> 01:24:01,149
And so, when we learn to live happily,
to dwell happily in the present moment,

1026
01:24:01,316 --> 01:24:05,107
without basing our thinking
on these perceptions,

1027
01:24:06,246 --> 01:24:08,670
we no longer have fear.

1028
01:24:11,822 --> 01:24:13,609
We no longer

1029
01:24:14,276 --> 01:24:17,974
place our hopes and our dreams
in some future time

1030
01:24:18,687 --> 01:24:21,301
when we will do this,
or we will do that.

1031
01:24:21,453 --> 01:24:24,305
'I promise you! Just next year
I will do that!

1032
01:24:24,455 --> 01:24:27,019
We will have enough time to do it.'

1033
01:24:27,173 --> 01:24:30,706
We learn to come back to ourselves,
come back to the present moment,

1034
01:24:30,861 --> 01:24:34,408
and to really enjoy all the wonders
of life that are here and now,

1035
01:24:34,511 --> 01:24:36,946
fully present for us.

1036
01:24:37,783 --> 01:24:40,045
Within us and around us.

1037
01:24:41,375 --> 01:24:46,986
So, mastering our thinking is learning how
to dwell happily in the present moment.

1038
01:24:48,057 --> 01:24:52,434
Remembering all the good conditions
for happiness that are already here.

1039
01:24:54,037 --> 01:24:57,367
That is how a bodhisattva
masters her thinking.

1040
01:24:58,871 --> 01:25:01,555
And even though we have that teaching,

1041
01:25:01,754 --> 01:25:04,040
oftentimes we forget.

1042
01:25:04,290 --> 01:25:06,689
And we still hope, and we plan,

1043
01:25:06,871 --> 01:25:09,482
and it is not that planning is bad,

1044
01:25:10,843 --> 01:25:14,066
but we do it in a joyful way
in the present moment.

1045
01:25:14,236 --> 01:25:17,144
And we are happy to let go of our plan.

1046
01:25:17,544 --> 01:25:19,662
We are happy to let go of it,

1047
01:25:19,853 --> 01:25:23,358
because we know that our happiness
doesn't depend on that.

1048
01:25:24,414 --> 01:25:29,110
Our happiness doesn't depend on going
to see that person for Christmas,

1049
01:25:30,064 --> 01:25:33,138
or being with our family for Christmas.

1050
01:25:34,077 --> 01:25:38,275
Or doing that thing, or getting that job,
or getting that promotion.

1051
01:25:39,347 --> 01:25:43,557
But it is realized right here
and right now with our mindful breathing,

1052
01:25:44,544 --> 01:25:49,428
with our mindful step,
with the community of practice around us.

1053
01:25:50,682 --> 01:25:52,985
And we don't have to

1054
01:25:54,473 --> 01:25:57,368
become some important person

1055
01:25:59,236 --> 01:26:02,523
who is respected, who is respectable.

1056
01:26:05,524 --> 01:26:09,950
Sometimes our greatest teacher can be
a homeless person in the street.

1057
01:26:11,975 --> 01:26:15,025
They can give us a wisdom that we need.

1058
01:26:15,163 --> 01:26:18,289
And that was the insight that the Buddha
was trying to

1059
01:26:18,533 --> 01:26:23,041
give to people by living humbly himself,
by begging for his food,

1060
01:26:24,217 --> 01:26:28,075
putting himself as the lowest
in society.

1061
01:26:29,839 --> 01:26:33,830
Not riding around in fancy,
on fancy elephants.

1062
01:26:35,843 --> 01:26:38,359
Some of his disciples,
when they became monks,

1063
01:26:38,568 --> 01:26:42,452
they thought, 'Well, I'm a monk. But I can
continue to ride around on an elephant

1064
01:26:42,452 --> 01:26:44,082
like I did before.'

1065
01:26:44,190 --> 01:26:48,190
That is why we have the precept about
not riding in luxurious vehicles.

1066
01:26:48,428 --> 01:26:49,781
(Laughter)

1067
01:26:49,900 --> 01:26:53,640
Most of us don't think about
riding an elephant as a luxurious vehicle,

1068
01:26:54,268 --> 01:26:58,031
but at that time, it was
a sign of royalty.

1069
01:26:59,677 --> 01:27:02,821
So how can we learn to recognize these,

1070
01:27:02,980 --> 01:27:05,808
when our thinking is based
on these perceptions?

1071
01:27:05,960 --> 01:27:08,935
When we look for approval from others,

1072
01:27:09,049 --> 01:27:13,256
how much of it is based
on an idea of a self? Of a person?

1073
01:27:15,283 --> 01:27:18,561
We want to be appreciated,
we want to be recognized.

1074
01:27:20,931 --> 01:27:25,665
We treat human beings well but we don't
treat Mother Earth in a respectful way.

1075
01:27:28,387 --> 01:27:31,745
In Thay's commentary, we can read

1076
01:27:31,924 --> 01:27:37,253
that he loved to get out of the city
and to go into the countryside.

1077
01:27:38,731 --> 01:27:43,584
And Thay said, because in the city,
you have to, when you go to pee

1078
01:27:44,610 --> 01:27:49,058
you have to go into
very smelly bathrooms, very

1079
01:27:51,009 --> 01:27:53,999
dirty, very unpleasant.

1080
01:27:54,370 --> 01:27:58,271
But in the countryside, you can go
and you can pee anywhere you want.

1081
01:28:00,276 --> 01:28:03,963
But then, after a while,
when Thay started to look deeply,

1082
01:28:04,478 --> 01:28:08,367
he felt very ashamed when he would go
and pee behind a tree.

1083
01:28:08,525 --> 01:28:12,221
Because the tree was
such a beautiful, sacred thing,

1084
01:28:12,409 --> 01:28:14,329
how could you pee on it?

1085
01:28:14,436 --> 01:28:15,793
(Laughter)

1086
01:28:16,457 --> 01:28:18,989
But then he - So he tried to go
somewhere else,

1087
01:28:19,124 --> 01:28:22,313
but there would always be a bush or a tree
somewhere, everywhere,

1088
01:28:22,625 --> 01:28:26,272
and then he realized, what would he do?
He has to pee somewhere!

1089
01:28:28,040 --> 01:28:32,576
And then, one day he had the insight
which is that peeing is also sacred.

1090
01:28:33,183 --> 01:28:34,686
(Laughter)

1091
01:28:35,992 --> 01:28:38,762
That he was caught in the idea
that peeing

1092
01:28:40,196 --> 01:28:42,618
is something profane.

1093
01:28:43,100 --> 01:28:46,581
That by peeing on it
he is disrespecting Mother Earth.

1094
01:28:46,969 --> 01:28:51,949
But we know when we pee we are returning
our nutrients back to the earth.

1095
01:28:55,255 --> 01:28:58,216
So we can see that the tree is sacred,

1096
01:28:58,400 --> 01:29:01,529
and when we pee next to it
it is also a sacred act.

1097
01:29:01,968 --> 01:29:06,666
That is the insight we get from freeing
ourselves from this kind of perception.

1098
01:29:09,175 --> 01:29:14,369
We see we are not damaging the tree,
we are not causing suffering to the tree.

1099
01:29:14,566 --> 01:29:17,956
So we pee in such a way, that
we can bring happiness and joy

1100
01:29:18,342 --> 01:29:20,735
to us and to the tree.

1101
01:29:22,383 --> 01:29:26,673
We have to learn to recognize suffering.
That is why it is the first noble truth.

1102
01:29:26,801 --> 01:29:29,248
And that suffering
is not only in ourselves,

1103
01:29:29,381 --> 01:29:32,090
we need to recognize
the suffering of fracking.

1104
01:29:33,189 --> 01:29:36,733
The suffering of not taking care of

1105
01:29:37,987 --> 01:29:39,768
the animals.

1106
01:29:42,648 --> 01:29:47,030
That is why in Plum Village
we eat vegetarian, it's very easy for us,

1107
01:29:47,219 --> 01:29:51,823
because we know, we know how animals
are treated when they are used for meat,

1108
01:29:52,432 --> 01:29:54,997
or to produce dairy products.

1109
01:29:55,239 --> 01:29:59,254
Now with the Internet, if you don't know,
you can find out very quickly.

1110
01:29:59,685 --> 01:30:01,609
It is not difficult.

1111
01:30:03,175 --> 01:30:05,717
And so when we get in touch
with that suffering,

1112
01:30:05,852 --> 01:30:09,159
and we really practice deeply
the teaching of the Diamond Sutra,

1113
01:30:09,330 --> 01:30:12,203
we want to lead all beings to nirvana.

1114
01:30:14,363 --> 01:30:18,765
Then we become free from the idea
that that cow, that that chicken

1115
01:30:19,474 --> 01:30:21,756
is separate from me.

1116
01:30:21,861 --> 01:30:23,958
That the tree is separate from me,

1117
01:30:24,132 --> 01:30:26,970
that the oil deep in the earth
is separate from me.

1118
01:30:27,107 --> 01:30:30,654
That we are all part of one organism,
Mother Earth.

1119
01:30:31,251 --> 01:30:35,994
And Mother Earth is also part of
a beautiful family of brothers and sisters

1120
01:30:36,558 --> 01:30:39,285
going around our Sun.

1121
01:30:40,190 --> 01:30:45,936
And that the Sun is also part of
a beautiful Cosmos, the Milky Way,

1122
01:30:46,403 --> 01:30:52,155
universe, galaxy,
and that beyond that,

1123
01:30:52,333 --> 01:30:57,037
the whole universe of many hundreds
of millions of galaxies.

1124
01:30:59,012 --> 01:31:02,990
And when we look in that way,
we see that we are not alone.

1125
01:31:05,403 --> 01:31:07,413
So that teaching

1126
01:31:07,590 --> 01:31:10,672
that we see that no one single being
has been saved

1127
01:31:10,843 --> 01:31:13,906
is another way of saying we are not alone.

1128
01:31:14,836 --> 01:31:18,346
We break through
the barrier of loneliness.

1129
01:31:19,003 --> 01:31:24,791
And we see that this body,
these feelings, these perceptions,

1130
01:31:25,004 --> 01:31:27,824
these mental formations,
and this consciousness

1131
01:31:27,980 --> 01:31:30,890
are not me. They are not mine.

1132
01:31:31,655 --> 01:31:34,423
They are not a separate self.

1133
01:31:37,487 --> 01:31:40,864
We become free from all those concepts.

1134
01:31:42,254 --> 01:31:45,268
And then we can begin the true work

1135
01:31:46,019 --> 01:31:47,988
of liberation

1136
01:31:49,041 --> 01:31:53,420
knowing that not any single being
has been liberated.

1137
01:31:54,377 --> 01:31:57,157
That is how we master our thinking.

1138
01:31:57,447 --> 01:31:59,760
That is how we set our mind.

1139
01:32:03,850 --> 01:32:05,089
(Bell)

1140
01:32:09,493 --> 01:32:15,635
(Bell)

1141
01:32:26,371 --> 01:32:27,778
So,

1142
01:32:28,473 --> 01:32:30,822
so we didn't get very far today

1143
01:32:31,829 --> 01:32:34,721
in the sutra, but I think that

1144
01:32:36,261 --> 01:32:39,041
we get to touch the essence.

1145
01:32:39,441 --> 01:32:41,782
We cannot be caught in words.

1146
01:32:43,452 --> 01:32:47,208
Many times in the Diamond Sutra
we will hear something like,

1147
01:32:48,403 --> 01:32:53,504
'When the Tathagata speaks of signs,
there are no signs being talked about.

1148
01:32:55,519 --> 01:33:01,357
Subhuti, what is called Buddhadharma
is everything that is not Buddhadharma."

1149
01:33:06,456 --> 01:33:10,358
When the Buddha talks about the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind,

1150
01:33:10,489 --> 01:33:14,978
there is nothing that can be called
the highest, most fulfilled awakened mind.

1151
01:33:15,405 --> 01:33:19,334
That is why it is called the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind.

1152
01:33:19,505 --> 01:33:23,647
That is the refrain that we see often
in the Diamond Sutra.

1153
01:33:24,367 --> 01:33:27,692
And it seems like, 'What sense
do we make of that?'

1154
01:33:30,287 --> 01:33:34,574
And that is also to help us
break through this barrier

1155
01:33:35,200 --> 01:33:37,125
of perception.

1156
01:33:37,836 --> 01:33:40,540
Of getting caught in a perception.

1157
01:33:42,021 --> 01:33:45,227
Thay talked about one Zen master

1158
01:33:45,548 --> 01:33:49,398
that when he -
Because everyone keeps saying,

1159
01:33:49,573 --> 01:33:52,307
Buddha, Buddha, so much,
Buddha this and Buddha that

1160
01:33:52,310 --> 01:33:55,634
that he got so sick and he said,
'I have to go to the stream outside

1161
01:33:55,647 --> 01:33:58,264
and wash my mouth out,
it's like saying a filthy word.

1162
01:33:58,384 --> 01:34:00,770
If you say the Buddha one more time.'

1163
01:34:00,916 --> 01:34:03,946
And he is trying to point out
that tendency we have

1164
01:34:04,112 --> 01:34:08,405
to idolize, whether it is the word,
whether it's a person,

1165
01:34:08,602 --> 01:34:11,084
whether it's a concept.

1166
01:34:12,828 --> 01:34:17,235
And so when we talk about the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind,

1167
01:34:17,813 --> 01:34:21,337
we can start repeating it and
it loses all of its meaning.

1168
01:34:24,738 --> 01:34:27,464
And so when the Buddha says,

1169
01:34:27,607 --> 01:34:31,658
'What I call the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind,

1170
01:34:31,820 --> 01:34:35,296
that is not the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind.'

1171
01:34:35,457 --> 01:34:39,973
It means that it is not the word,
highest, most fulfilled awakened mind,

1172
01:34:40,087 --> 01:34:42,392
it is not that phrase.

1173
01:34:42,633 --> 01:34:45,956
It is much more than that.
It can only be realized.

1174
01:34:49,290 --> 01:34:53,643
That is why I just call it
highest, most fulfilled awakened mind.

1175
01:34:53,776 --> 01:34:58,092
But you need to realize it yourself.
You need to touch it by breaking through

1176
01:34:58,842 --> 01:35:03,343
and freeing yourself from these
wrong perceptions.

1177
01:35:04,261 --> 01:35:07,984
So I invite you to continue your study
of the Diamond Sutra.

1178
01:35:09,104 --> 01:35:15,934
And as you go out, and be back
to your family, back to your friends,

1179
01:35:18,420 --> 01:35:24,230
you can really have a chance to sit
and look deeply at them in that way.

1180
01:35:24,776 --> 01:35:27,770
You think, 'That is my mother,
that is my father.

1181
01:35:27,948 --> 01:35:31,427
That is my son, that is my daughter,
that is my husband.'

1182
01:35:31,613 --> 01:35:37,357
And because your ideas of husband, and
father, and mother, and son and daughter

1183
01:35:37,523 --> 01:35:40,717
have become a view,

1184
01:35:41,801 --> 01:35:43,819
a perception,

1185
01:35:44,018 --> 01:35:47,005
maybe you don't really see them
as they are,

1186
01:35:47,105 --> 01:35:50,814
as this wondrous manifestation

1187
01:35:51,967 --> 01:35:57,846
of beauty, of understanding,
as well as of suffering,

1188
01:35:58,941 --> 01:36:01,664
of pain, of ignorance.

1189
01:36:08,454 --> 01:36:10,813
But with the help of this teaching,

1190
01:36:10,921 --> 01:36:14,132
you can sit and look at them,
and really look at them.

1191
01:36:15,261 --> 01:36:18,530
Look them in the eye.
You don't have to say anything.

1192
01:36:18,675 --> 01:36:20,792
You can smile.

1193
01:36:21,808 --> 01:36:24,660
That is a smile of a bodhisattva.

1194
01:36:26,456 --> 01:36:30,170
So I wish you well
on your path of practice,

1195
01:36:30,605 --> 01:36:35,426
and thank you for being together
on the bodhisattva path.

1196
01:36:39,999 --> 01:36:41,177
(Bell)

1197
01:36:45,217 --> 01:36:51,527
(Bell)

1198
01:37:06,031 --> 01:37:12,126
(Bell)

1199
01:37:28,261 --> 01:37:34,446
(Bell)

1200
01:37:55,829 --> 01:37:58,687
(Small bell)