WEBVTT 00:00:07.222 --> 00:00:08.530 (Bell) 00:00:11.798 --> 00:00:17.601 (Bell) 00:00:40.393 --> 00:00:46.734 (Bell) 00:01:05.017 --> 00:01:11.408 (Bell) 00:01:23.299 --> 00:01:27.590 Dear respected Thay, dear noble community, 00:01:30.932 --> 00:01:37.955 it's such a happiness to walk into a room so full of love. 00:01:43.598 --> 00:01:47.746 My brother and I we just arrived a few minutes ago, and came in. 00:01:48.227 --> 00:01:54.370 And to feel the sangha sitting in peace - 00:01:57.214 --> 00:01:59.755 (fr.) La traduction, ça marche? 00:01:59.912 --> 00:02:01.716 Pas encore. 00:02:01.862 --> 00:02:06.272 Can we turn the volume up on the French? 00:02:11.545 --> 00:02:16.022 So walking into this room and feel the energy of peace, of calm, 00:02:17.479 --> 00:02:20.728 of deep aspiration to practice 00:02:21.604 --> 00:02:25.399 is like walking into a kind of Pure Land. 00:02:33.298 --> 00:02:35.109 (fr.) Ça va? 00:02:40.752 --> 00:02:44.804 Là-bas ça va, mais, là-bas? Ça ne va pas. 00:02:54.176 --> 00:02:57.351 We can just enjoy our breathing. 00:03:02.851 --> 00:03:07.392 The beautiful thing about a smile is it doesn't require a translation. 00:03:07.895 --> 00:03:12.256 So maybe if you like you can look around the room and smile to one another. 00:03:14.172 --> 00:03:17.072 Just to appreciate the presence of 00:03:18.352 --> 00:03:20.785 so many people who 00:03:23.615 --> 00:03:26.553 come for the bodhisattva path. 00:03:29.600 --> 00:03:33.694 Today's talk is about the path of the bodhisattvas. 00:03:38.929 --> 00:03:43.416 How the Buddha taught of how 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:51.843 he takes good care of the bodhisattvas. 00:03:52.189 --> 00:03:57.023 And by looking at each other and smiling to other bodhisattvas, 00:03:57.251 --> 00:04:00.578 we take good care of each other. 00:04:01.084 --> 00:04:05.596 Bring up that seed of caretaking. 00:04:10.806 --> 00:04:13.985 And then our heart opens and we, 00:04:15.894 --> 00:04:19.723 we water the seed of joy in the other person. 00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:25.110 (fr.) Ça va? Okay, voilà. 00:04:26.172 --> 00:04:29.636 So dear respected Thay, dear brothers and sisters, 00:04:29.824 --> 00:04:32.267 today is the 6th of December 00:04:32.417 --> 00:04:35.497 in the year 2018, 00:04:36.177 --> 00:04:38.465 and we are gathered in 00:04:39.897 --> 00:04:44.135 Loving Kindness temple, in New Hamlet, 00:04:46.298 --> 00:04:51.885 for the last lay day Dharma talk of the Winter Retreat. 00:04:53.036 --> 00:04:55.286 (fr.) N'est-ce pas? 00:05:05.442 --> 00:05:11.554 There is a very wonderful book called The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion. 00:05:12.749 --> 00:05:14.779 And it's 00:05:16.744 --> 00:05:23.207 Thay's teaching on the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, 00:05:23.524 --> 00:05:26.363 or sometimes called The Diamond Sutra. 00:05:26.503 --> 00:05:29.617 The diamond that cuts through illusion. 00:05:29.856 --> 00:05:34.647 And I was preparing for this talk reading through this book, 00:05:34.834 --> 00:05:38.417 and I remembered that it was one, 00:05:38.568 --> 00:05:42.315 I think the first book of Thay's that I read all the way through. 00:05:42.478 --> 00:05:45.387 Somebody had given it to me when I was a lay friend 00:05:45.769 --> 00:05:49.466 practicing in a Vipassana center. 00:05:50.163 --> 00:05:53.648 And it was like receiving a stroke of lighting. 00:05:54.869 --> 00:05:56.960 I, and - 00:06:00.760 --> 00:06:03.148 The sangha asks us 00:06:04.217 --> 00:06:07.844 to look into this sutra today 00:06:08.814 --> 00:06:14.854 as the last lay Dharma talk. Lay day Dharma talk. 00:06:16.247 --> 00:06:22.500 So I practice getting in touch with the teaching in the Diamond Sutra. 00:06:24.534 --> 00:06:30.464 But somehow I've forgotten that I - How important finding this book was to me, 00:06:30.660 --> 00:06:35.170 and my study of Thay's teaching. 00:06:38.732 --> 00:06:41.736 And so, actually I re-read it this morning. 00:06:41.960 --> 00:06:44.038 (Laughter) 00:06:45.452 --> 00:06:48.427 Sometimes it's like that. Because Thay is such a 00:06:49.141 --> 00:06:51.523 profound teacher, 00:06:51.724 --> 00:06:56.093 that sometimes I like to look in other places first. 00:06:56.730 --> 00:07:00.320 Because I know when I read Thay's teaching, Thay's - 00:07:03.980 --> 00:07:06.178 One thunderbolt after another. 00:07:07.002 --> 00:07:12.534 And it is difficult to find areas that Thay doesn't go into, 00:07:12.699 --> 00:07:17.061 that Thay doesn't reveal deeply. 00:07:23.512 --> 00:07:28.021 So we are invited this morning to look into this teaching. 00:07:28.224 --> 00:07:31.159 How many of you have ever read The Diamond Sutra? 00:07:32.449 --> 00:07:35.267 Wow! Okay, not bad! 00:07:43.049 --> 00:07:46.104 So I want to start to share a little bit about 00:07:47.221 --> 00:07:49.819 the relationship of this teaching with 00:07:50.006 --> 00:07:53.424 some other teachings we already had in this retreat. 00:07:53.603 --> 00:07:56.176 So we've learned about mindful breathing, 00:07:56.339 --> 00:07:59.816 we've going into the 14 mindfulness trainings. 00:08:01.024 --> 00:08:04.036 So we know the Sutra on Mindful Breathing, 00:08:04.196 --> 00:08:07.433 the Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness 00:08:07.617 --> 00:08:10.981 are very old teachings of the Buddha. 00:08:11.161 --> 00:08:15.225 Like the teachings that the Buddha gave later in his life. 00:08:15.488 --> 00:08:19.146 At that time the sangha had grown quite large, 00:08:20.002 --> 00:08:23.023 and it was not so easy as just going 00:08:24.263 --> 00:08:28.320 to the Buddha website and registering for a retreat 00:08:28.664 --> 00:08:32.106 to go study personally with the Buddha. 00:08:33.107 --> 00:08:35.137 It's not so easy. 00:08:35.320 --> 00:08:39.361 People only learned about the Buddha through word of mouth. 00:08:44.881 --> 00:08:49.311 When the Buddha first came to a big city, to Rajgir, 00:08:52.225 --> 00:08:56.078 which at that time was the capital 00:08:58.454 --> 00:09:01.533 of that region of Magadha, 00:09:03.989 --> 00:09:07.521 they spread the word 00:09:08.402 --> 00:09:12.051 to all the women, and the parents, 00:09:12.690 --> 00:09:17.101 'Please, take care! Hide your men! 00:09:17.665 --> 00:09:20.844 Because the Buddha is coming, and wherever he goes, 00:09:20.975 --> 00:09:23.629 many of the men become monks!' 00:09:23.744 --> 00:09:25.285 (Laughter) 00:09:25.417 --> 00:09:27.432 'Be careful!' 00:09:28.572 --> 00:09:33.226 So the teaching of the Buddha in this day and age sometimes we forget 00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:37.421 was very dependent on physically meeting the Buddha. 00:09:38.245 --> 00:09:41.330 He didn't have a - 00:09:43.034 --> 00:09:47.024 an iPhone, or a GPS transmitter, 00:09:47.468 --> 00:09:50.591 so it is not easy to find where the Buddha is. 00:09:51.287 --> 00:09:53.656 You had to ask. 00:09:58.733 --> 00:10:01.829 So the early community, as it began to grow, 00:10:01.998 --> 00:10:07.655 was surrounded by monks that had studied personally with the Buddha. 00:10:07.846 --> 00:10:11.012 They had spent time living with him, walking with him, 00:10:11.202 --> 00:10:13.998 going on alms round with him. 00:10:15.021 --> 00:10:19.020 And so a lot of what they learned was just by watching him. 00:10:19.227 --> 00:10:23.674 Watching how he talked, watching how he walked. 00:10:27.082 --> 00:10:29.872 Listening directly to his teaching. 00:10:38.152 --> 00:10:40.990 We are listening to a direct teaching now. 00:10:41.139 --> 00:10:42.577 (Laughter) 00:10:42.732 --> 00:10:45.008 From the Buddha himself. 00:10:53.119 --> 00:10:55.955 So often times, when we talk about the Dharma, 00:10:56.110 --> 00:10:58.466 we think about some book. 00:10:59.790 --> 00:11:02.103 And when we study the Dharma, 00:11:02.301 --> 00:11:05.670 we need to go buy that book and we need to read that book. 00:11:05.965 --> 00:11:10.320 But that would be completely foreign to the sangha of the Buddha. 00:11:12.251 --> 00:11:16.493 None of what the Buddha was teaching was being written down as far as we know 00:11:16.635 --> 00:11:21.056 at that time. In fact, writing was considered a kind of 00:11:22.373 --> 00:11:28.017 lower form of transmitting or communicating. 00:11:30.997 --> 00:11:33.396 When something was - 00:11:33.944 --> 00:11:36.633 When something was sacred, 00:11:37.012 --> 00:11:40.423 then it would come directly from the mouth of a teacher. 00:11:40.577 --> 00:11:43.324 So the teaching came orally. 00:11:47.978 --> 00:11:51.233 Nowadays we are like - We've turned it upside down. 00:11:51.355 --> 00:11:54.352 If something is written down, we take it as an authority, 00:11:54.535 --> 00:12:00.303 but if it is said from spoken word we tend to question whether it's true or not. 00:12:01.054 --> 00:12:03.581 So we suffer a lot. 00:12:04.144 --> 00:12:07.405 And so, hopefully, in looking into The Diamond Sutra 00:12:07.585 --> 00:12:10.526 we will be able to pierce through that veil of, 00:12:11.809 --> 00:12:14.576 that veil of delusion. 00:12:22.464 --> 00:12:26.017 Our practice is always to come back to the here and now, 00:12:26.189 --> 00:12:30.712 to experience life as it is in the present moment. 00:12:31.882 --> 00:12:35.678 That is a - Is there is something that we can call truth, 00:12:36.932 --> 00:12:41.284 in the Plum Village tradition in the Buddhist teaching it is that. 00:12:41.481 --> 00:12:45.072 It's that truth is found in life. Not in books, 00:12:45.285 --> 00:12:49.963 not even in the words of people, what people tell us. 00:12:50.491 --> 00:12:54.572 Even if that person is a very prominent spiritual teacher. 00:12:56.169 --> 00:12:59.296 Thay always reminds us that we need to take the teaching 00:12:59.479 --> 00:13:03.578 and apply it in our daily life. That is where we find truth. 00:13:06.009 --> 00:13:08.797 So we walk the talk. 00:13:12.059 --> 00:13:14.857 But we know that 00:13:15.017 --> 00:13:18.928 studying the teachings can benefit our practice. 00:13:19.165 --> 00:13:22.141 It can help us to break through 00:13:22.358 --> 00:13:26.511 a view that we are holding on to tightly. 00:13:27.139 --> 00:13:31.137 We can become aware of the ways in which our vision is limited. 00:13:32.595 --> 00:13:35.225 Like the blinders on a horse. 00:13:35.359 --> 00:13:39.208 We only see the way forward 00:13:40.743 --> 00:13:44.011 so that we only continue to walk forward. 00:13:44.858 --> 00:13:48.433 And much (inaudible) education in the modern world 00:13:48.626 --> 00:13:56.845 is really how to get well-fitting blinders so that we do the things 00:13:57.112 --> 00:14:01.190 that are expected of us. 00:14:04.108 --> 00:14:09.617 That we get a job, that we make money, that we have a family, that we 00:14:11.013 --> 00:14:13.849 so we can have a car, and a house, 00:14:14.022 --> 00:14:17.278 and then we can go home and enjoy Christmas together. 00:14:18.046 --> 00:14:20.643 And then we can yell at each other. 00:14:20.808 --> 00:14:22.211 (Laughter) 00:14:22.373 --> 00:14:24.444 And complain, and, yeah. 00:14:24.581 --> 00:14:28.621 Because of all the problems we have making sure we have a house, and a car, 00:14:28.769 --> 00:14:32.201 and a family, and a job, and money, and all those things. 00:14:33.167 --> 00:14:37.239 So our current education system is designed like that, 00:14:38.607 --> 00:14:43.644 to try to increase our capacity to obtain those things. 00:14:45.625 --> 00:14:48.325 Those objects of desire. 00:14:54.465 --> 00:14:57.346 So when the Buddha walked into Rajgir, 00:14:59.097 --> 00:15:01.624 he cut through all of that 00:15:02.455 --> 00:15:10.846 by his mindful step, his mindful gaze, his mindful speech. 00:15:12.961 --> 00:15:16.324 And many young men who were very well-educated, 00:15:16.604 --> 00:15:21.987 many of them who studied to become the spiritual leaders of their community, 00:15:23.301 --> 00:15:25.737 prominent priests 00:15:26.750 --> 00:15:30.769 who would take care of the spiritual needs of their community, 00:15:31.989 --> 00:15:35.686 just by seeing the Buddha walking mindfully, 00:15:36.983 --> 00:15:39.521 looking mindfully, 00:15:40.149 --> 00:15:43.892 eating mindfully, speaking mindfully, 00:15:44.157 --> 00:15:48.559 they cut through the veil of their delusion, those blinders they had 00:15:48.725 --> 00:15:55.106 that were keeping them on the path that was accepted in society 00:15:55.558 --> 00:15:58.157 for them to walk on. 00:15:59.956 --> 00:16:06.447 And so that is why they warned people, 'Please hide your son, hide your husband!' 00:16:08.840 --> 00:16:13.161 People were afraid of what can happen when people remove those blinders, 00:16:13.340 --> 00:16:16.931 when suddenly their view becomes very wide and open, 00:16:17.104 --> 00:16:22.062 and they go beyond just the limited idea of who they are, 00:16:22.287 --> 00:16:24.671 and what they are here for. 00:16:26.303 --> 00:16:29.172 So this teaching of The Diamond Sutra 00:16:31.976 --> 00:16:34.751 is part of the fruit of a tradition that developed 00:16:35.832 --> 00:16:39.922 when the Buddha was no longer physically there 00:16:41.497 --> 00:16:46.809 in the form of which we think of him as a human being walking on the Earth. 00:16:53.936 --> 00:16:57.153 And for many centuries the monks, 00:16:57.340 --> 00:17:02.888 in order to get in touch with the Dharma body of the Buddha, 00:17:03.953 --> 00:17:06.940 without his physical presence, 00:17:07.248 --> 00:17:13.511 had begun orally reciting 00:17:15.011 --> 00:17:19.765 the teachings that the Buddha gave in many different situations. 00:17:20.864 --> 00:17:24.607 Chanting them regularly, and then 00:17:26.086 --> 00:17:30.250 teaching the young monks that came in also to chant them. 00:17:30.422 --> 00:17:36.904 And so the teachings were passed on through this practice of oral recitation. 00:17:38.455 --> 00:17:41.988 Also the precepts, we call the Vinaya, 00:17:42.279 --> 00:17:45.480 it means the way of life of the monastic community, 00:17:45.648 --> 00:17:48.086 was regularly chanted 00:17:48.275 --> 00:17:50.684 and recited in that way. 00:17:56.220 --> 00:17:58.406 And at some point, 00:17:59.293 --> 00:18:02.192 people started to write them down 00:18:02.350 --> 00:18:04.581 on palm leaves. 00:18:05.816 --> 00:18:08.509 Can of like a cheat sheet. 00:18:10.768 --> 00:18:14.094 But sometimes they forgot some passage 00:18:15.226 --> 00:18:18.684 or maybe a monk would go to a very remote area, 00:18:18.951 --> 00:18:21.610 and he wanted to make sure that 00:18:22.117 --> 00:18:23.997 he would not be a - 00:18:25.590 --> 00:18:30.407 In the midst of a large community, where there would be elders he could consult 00:18:30.585 --> 00:18:33.853 when he forgot one passage of the sutra. 00:18:34.279 --> 00:18:38.079 Maybe there was one text like the Dharmapada 00:18:38.261 --> 00:18:43.243 which had very precise sayings and he wanted to remember them exactly. 00:18:43.428 --> 00:18:47.845 So he started to write them down on palm leaves 00:18:48.103 --> 00:18:51.897 so that he could bring them with him in his robe. 00:18:52.494 --> 00:18:59.365 And whenever he forgot a line, he could take them out to remember that line. 00:18:59.875 --> 00:19:02.378 So a kind of cheat sheet. 00:19:06.816 --> 00:19:11.014 A new technology, very controversial. 00:19:12.697 --> 00:19:14.972 Like the Internet. 00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:19.250 And, 00:19:20.352 --> 00:19:24.089 and this new form of transmitting the Dharma 00:19:25.857 --> 00:19:30.307 brought in new issues in the community. Just like the Internet 00:19:31.459 --> 00:19:33.826 has brought in new 00:19:35.408 --> 00:19:38.891 wonderful things and also sometimes difficult things 00:19:39.106 --> 00:19:41.756 into our monastic community. 00:19:43.528 --> 00:19:46.621 So in the same way, writing also 00:19:47.275 --> 00:19:49.682 did the same thing. 00:19:50.842 --> 00:19:54.244 So we have to a little bit expand our view 00:19:55.702 --> 00:19:59.411 to see ourselves in a time when we don't have books everywhere, 00:19:59.601 --> 00:20:02.666 we don't have the telephone, or we don't have Internet. 00:20:02.832 --> 00:20:05.942 And we deeply want to practice the Dharma. 00:20:06.092 --> 00:20:09.864 We take refuge in the Buddha, in the Dharma, in the Sangha. 00:20:10.893 --> 00:20:14.647 So we know the sangha is all around us. 00:20:15.803 --> 00:20:20.316 At that time, the sangha was clearly the monastic community. 00:20:27.206 --> 00:20:29.694 And the Dharma with how we 00:20:31.973 --> 00:20:35.186 see the Buddha in ourselves. 00:20:35.584 --> 00:20:38.431 Through studying the Dharma, we learn how to 00:20:38.605 --> 00:20:42.802 reveal the nature of awakening already within us. 00:20:46.562 --> 00:20:51.982 So keeping in touch with the Dharma is very important. 00:20:52.718 --> 00:20:56.069 And so how do we do that when the sangha 00:20:56.404 --> 00:20:59.693 is going a little bit everywhere all over India? 00:21:03.458 --> 00:21:07.163 So we can write it down so we can remember. 00:21:07.597 --> 00:21:10.566 So the words themselves took on 00:21:11.230 --> 00:21:13.917 a kind of sacred meaning. 00:21:14.125 --> 00:21:17.420 First the oral word and then the written word. 00:21:17.691 --> 00:21:20.767 Can we listen to the sound of the bell? 00:21:21.540 --> 00:21:23.982 We come back to our body. 00:21:24.204 --> 00:21:25.543 (Bell) 00:21:27.714 --> 00:21:34.131 (Bell) 00:21:46.584 --> 00:21:50.181 If we are a Christian, it is not difficult for us 00:21:50.393 --> 00:21:55.310 to understand how the word becomes sacred. 00:21:56.759 --> 00:22:00.777 If you read the Gospel of John, I think it says, 00:22:01.528 --> 00:22:05.733 'In the beginning, there was the Word - 00:22:06.138 --> 00:22:08.945 The Word is God and God is the Word.' 00:22:09.319 --> 00:22:11.354 Logos. 00:22:11.522 --> 00:22:14.336 The Greek word is logos. 00:22:14.903 --> 00:22:18.155 Was God, and God is Logos. 00:22:19.393 --> 00:22:21.969 If we are Muslim, 00:22:24.551 --> 00:22:29.942 and we know that to recite the Koran in Arabic has a special importance. 00:22:31.714 --> 00:22:36.336 A translation is only an approximation of the direct word of the God 00:22:36.551 --> 00:22:39.060 as it was told to Muhammad. 00:22:39.403 --> 00:22:41.323 In Arabic. 00:22:42.934 --> 00:22:47.171 Also we know in the Jewish tradition there is a similar attitude. 00:22:47.318 --> 00:22:51.410 Ultimately the name of God we cannot pronounce. 00:22:53.903 --> 00:22:56.985 It is only an approximation. 00:22:57.776 --> 00:23:03.014 Recently I was asked by the community to go to Abu Dhabi. 00:23:04.782 --> 00:23:08.741 And we went in the mosque there, and they had 00:23:11.007 --> 00:23:13.517 100 names of God. 00:23:15.267 --> 00:23:20.880 So there are many names, like The Firm One, The Infinite One, 00:23:22.239 --> 00:23:26.080 written in Arabic in beautiful thorough patterns 00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:31.106 all in the wall, in the main prayer room in the mosque in Abu Dhabi. 00:23:32.199 --> 00:23:34.396 But a the very top, 00:23:34.587 --> 00:23:38.364 there is a very beautiful floral pattern 00:23:38.505 --> 00:23:41.654 around empty tiles. 00:23:43.001 --> 00:23:46.482 And the 100th name of God cannot be pronounced. 00:23:47.372 --> 00:23:50.852 It is empty of form. 00:23:55.571 --> 00:23:59.470 And at that time, in India, when the Buddha was teaching, 00:23:59.768 --> 00:24:04.616 there was also this sense that the word had a sacred quality. 00:24:09.031 --> 00:24:13.517 There were two young Brahmin men who came to the Buddha, 00:24:13.655 --> 00:24:16.279 and were very concerned about 00:24:17.406 --> 00:24:20.512 the future of the Buddha's teaching. 00:24:21.131 --> 00:24:27.420 And they knew that in the Vedic tradition, they were trained to orally recite 00:24:28.240 --> 00:24:32.216 the words of the Rigveda and other sacred texts, 00:24:33.810 --> 00:24:36.772 to commit them to memory, 00:24:36.932 --> 00:24:40.181 in order to approach 00:24:42.285 --> 00:24:44.627 God, to approach 00:24:47.595 --> 00:24:49.988 liberation. 00:24:54.355 --> 00:24:56.106 And, 00:24:59.204 --> 00:25:02.293 and because of their love of the Buddhist teaching, 00:25:02.456 --> 00:25:05.697 they were monastic disciples of the Buddha, 00:25:06.300 --> 00:25:08.764 they said, 'We need to do that! 00:25:08.955 --> 00:25:12.882 Please Buddha, let us put your teachings into verse!' 00:25:13.823 --> 00:25:19.552 Into the formal language that we now call Sanskrit, 00:25:20.863 --> 00:25:24.888 so that future generations would benefit 00:25:25.198 --> 00:25:27.808 and be able to remember it. 00:25:27.975 --> 00:25:30.163 And the Buddha said, 'No! 00:25:32.241 --> 00:25:35.485 You have misunderstood my teaching.' 00:25:36.551 --> 00:25:39.013 I'm paraphrasing a little bit. 00:25:39.147 --> 00:25:41.190 (Laughter) 00:25:41.819 --> 00:25:47.186 He told them, 'My teachings should be taught in the common language, 00:25:49.247 --> 00:25:52.713 in the vernacular, the language of the people. 00:25:52.898 --> 00:25:56.091 The daily language that people use.' 00:25:56.894 --> 00:25:59.863 So he refused them, 00:26:03.775 --> 00:26:06.659 to give in to their fear 00:26:07.404 --> 00:26:09.978 of the teachings disappearing. 00:26:11.272 --> 00:26:15.524 It means that the Buddhist tradition continues through the realized practice 00:26:16.325 --> 00:26:19.467 of living human beings. 00:26:20.828 --> 00:26:25.025 Not through a word, or a text. 00:26:26.544 --> 00:26:30.521 That is how the Buddha is offering us. 00:26:32.794 --> 00:26:38.865 In our laziness sometimes to practice, we want to put up some text 00:26:39.073 --> 00:26:41.409 as being the ultimate. 00:26:41.557 --> 00:26:45.065 And if we want to discover God, we only have to look in there. 00:26:45.274 --> 00:26:48.766 We only have to read that text and then we will find God, 00:26:48.879 --> 00:26:52.250 we will find Awakening, we will find Liberation. 00:26:52.764 --> 00:26:56.577 And the Buddha said, no, he didn't allow us to be that lazy. 00:27:01.934 --> 00:27:05.298 So the Diamond Sutra 00:27:05.954 --> 00:27:11.211 is arising after the teachings of the Buddha had began to be written down 00:27:11.372 --> 00:27:14.823 for already a few hundred years. 00:27:16.014 --> 00:27:22.578 And so, very quickly the monastic community started to depend on 00:27:22.828 --> 00:27:28.222 these written teachings to get in contact with the Dharma, 00:27:28.660 --> 00:27:32.929 rather than looking to their brothers around them. 00:27:33.450 --> 00:27:37.038 Rather than taking refuge maybe in the elder brothers, 00:27:37.162 --> 00:27:40.227 and their capacity to recite, 00:27:40.585 --> 00:27:43.461 teach and put into practice the Dharma. 00:27:43.601 --> 00:27:48.077 And instead they started to look for it in the words on a page. 00:27:48.833 --> 00:27:53.008 That was where the true Dharma lived! 00:27:53.171 --> 00:27:57.523 Not in my elder brother, or my elder sister. 00:27:59.270 --> 00:28:03.800 They don't say it so explicitly, they just spend all their time studying the text. 00:28:03.972 --> 00:28:06.773 And they don't spend very much time 00:28:07.195 --> 00:28:11.751 taking refuge in the brothers and sisters in the Dharma. 00:28:15.192 --> 00:28:18.737 And so, as a result of that phenomena, 00:28:19.918 --> 00:28:24.299 and also the experience of reading the Buddhist teachings, 00:28:24.514 --> 00:28:27.496 written down on these palm leaves 00:28:27.683 --> 00:28:31.020 which soon became sacred objects in their own right, 00:28:31.736 --> 00:28:34.418 then many monks, 00:28:34.967 --> 00:28:37.416 and perhaps nuns, 00:28:38.428 --> 00:28:40.483 began to 00:28:42.194 --> 00:28:47.020 try to find a way to help the young monastics 00:28:47.205 --> 00:28:51.904 to become free from that attachment to the written word, 00:28:52.556 --> 00:28:58.213 to become free from the attachment to the form of the teaching. 00:29:03.241 --> 00:29:09.598 And so, a whole form of literature we call prajñāpāramitā arose. 00:29:11.432 --> 00:29:19.282 These are teachings that were written down and they spoke about how to 00:29:22.711 --> 00:29:26.534 awaken to the highest understanding. 00:29:27.520 --> 00:29:30.270 The understanding of the Buddha 00:29:30.418 --> 00:29:33.185 which cannot be found in words, 00:29:34.998 --> 00:29:38.430 but can only be lived and touched directly 00:29:38.614 --> 00:29:42.025 in our life, in our practice. 00:29:42.497 --> 00:29:46.354 And it is in that spirit that Thay founded Plum Village, 00:29:46.886 --> 00:29:49.636 to create a community of practice, 00:29:49.784 --> 00:29:53.502 to create a community where there is the living Dharma, 00:29:54.592 --> 00:29:57.257 not just the Dharma that can be found in books. 00:29:57.418 --> 00:30:00.958 Thay said, if you want to get a degree 00:30:01.710 --> 00:30:05.537 in an Institute of High Buddhist Studies, then you can go to many universities 00:30:05.711 --> 00:30:07.861 and do that. 00:30:10.745 --> 00:30:14.108 But if you want to realize the living Dharma, 00:30:14.633 --> 00:30:17.922 then you need a community of practice. 00:30:18.980 --> 00:30:23.103 That is what the Buddha built, he built a beautiful sangha, 00:30:23.369 --> 00:30:25.984 walking into Rajgir. 00:30:32.879 --> 00:30:35.567 There is a beautiful scene, where 00:30:35.706 --> 00:30:38.194 the Buddha walks into Rajgir, 00:30:38.376 --> 00:30:43.889 and he is with Uruvela Kasyapa, 00:30:44.795 --> 00:30:48.068 who was a very famous spiritual teacher. 00:30:48.286 --> 00:30:51.055 He and his brothers they led a number of 00:30:51.886 --> 00:30:57.756 kind of dreadlocked spiritual ascetics in that region. 00:30:59.033 --> 00:31:02.518 And they worshiped this fire. 00:31:02.667 --> 00:31:05.638 So we can take a word as a sacred, 00:31:05.800 --> 00:31:09.567 we can also take fire, or some object in nature 00:31:09.798 --> 00:31:12.949 and worship it as sacred, as the ultimate. 00:31:13.202 --> 00:31:16.247 So they were part of a kind of fire worshiping cult. 00:31:18.423 --> 00:31:21.130 And the Buddha came in and he - 00:31:22.152 --> 00:31:25.501 And because Uruvela Kasyapa had a community of many people, 00:31:25.667 --> 00:31:27.826 many disciples, 00:31:28.156 --> 00:31:30.472 he was a little bit proud. 00:31:31.895 --> 00:31:35.275 And so it took many teachings from the Buddha 00:31:35.463 --> 00:31:38.185 before he realized that the Buddha actually 00:31:38.394 --> 00:31:42.441 had awaken to a deeper understanding. 00:31:44.484 --> 00:31:49.635 I'm not going into it now, but you can read it in the Vinaya. 00:31:51.144 --> 00:31:53.937 Eventually, after many 00:31:55.253 --> 00:32:01.052 times of seeing the Buddha prove his deep understanding, 00:32:01.659 --> 00:32:04.934 Kasyapa eventually accepted him as his teacher. 00:32:05.803 --> 00:32:07.662 It's kind of like 00:32:07.833 --> 00:32:11.097 a monk suddenly showing up here in Plum Village, 00:32:11.297 --> 00:32:15.294 and then, over the course of many weeks, 00:32:16.281 --> 00:32:20.754 the eldest brothers and sisters and the community suddenly accept, 00:32:20.863 --> 00:32:23.073 'You are now our teacher.' 00:32:23.281 --> 00:32:25.798 You can imagine such a thing. 00:32:26.847 --> 00:32:31.116 Sometimes in Plum Village in the past we had people come in a little bit 00:32:33.046 --> 00:32:35.712 unstable mentally, and they believed 00:32:35.869 --> 00:32:39.004 they would be the new teacher of the community. 00:32:39.164 --> 00:32:43.870 But, unlike the Buddha, they didn't have that deep understanding, and so - 00:32:45.794 --> 00:32:49.275 But sometimes that happened in a spiritual community. 00:32:50.134 --> 00:32:53.628 So Uruvela Kasyapa was not quite sure. 'The Buddha really 00:32:54.290 --> 00:32:56.464 has a deep understanding? 00:32:56.658 --> 00:33:01.175 My eye kept seeing my understanding is still deeper, still higher.' 00:33:01.513 --> 00:33:08.093 But eventually, he could not - He saw a few wonderful actions of the Buddha 00:33:08.483 --> 00:33:14.030 that he could not deny any longer the understanding of the Buddha, 00:33:14.352 --> 00:33:18.078 and he accepted the Buddha as his teacher. And then, immediately after that, 00:33:18.350 --> 00:33:21.796 all of his students, who probably already had realized 00:33:21.922 --> 00:33:26.700 the Buddha's deep understanding, they became disciples as well right away. 00:33:26.875 --> 00:33:30.419 And then his two brothers as well and their communities. 00:33:30.553 --> 00:33:33.445 So very quickly the sangha became quite large, 00:33:33.566 --> 00:33:35.577 and all these kind of 00:33:35.841 --> 00:33:40.368 grungy looking dreadlocked ascetics, they shaved off their dreads, 00:33:41.102 --> 00:33:43.350 and became, 00:33:44.956 --> 00:33:49.290 they got a robe and a bowl and they started following the Buddha. 00:33:49.701 --> 00:33:54.003 And so there was a very interesting scene, where the Buddha walks into Rajgir, 00:33:54.108 --> 00:33:57.995 and the people are quite confused, because they never heard of the Buddha. 00:33:58.116 --> 00:34:02.482 But everyone knows about Uruvela Kasyapa, he is a very famous spiritual teacher, 00:34:02.614 --> 00:34:08.085 he is all over YouTube, and, you know, many people are buying his books, 00:34:08.970 --> 00:34:13.698 and you can see all over the airports, and anyway, you know what I mean. 00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:15.735 (Laughter) 00:34:15.878 --> 00:34:18.976 And so, when the Buddha came in, people are quite confused, 00:34:19.116 --> 00:34:22.376 because they saw Uruvela Kasyapa and the Buddha, and they said, 00:34:22.491 --> 00:34:25.106 'Is the Buddha the student of Uruvela Kasyapa? 00:34:25.204 --> 00:34:28.177 Or is Uruvela Kasyapa the student of the Buddha?' 00:34:28.280 --> 00:34:30.917 They did not know. 00:34:31.077 --> 00:34:32.998 And then, 00:34:33.456 --> 00:34:39.096 at that moment, Kasyapa begins to fan the Buddha. 00:34:39.684 --> 00:34:42.954 And it is at that moment that the people know that, 'Ah! 00:34:43.079 --> 00:34:46.680 Uruvela Kasyapa has now become the student of the Buddha.' 00:34:47.339 --> 00:34:53.585 And through that gesture, he recognizes he is now studying with the Buddha. 00:34:56.154 --> 00:35:01.451 There are all kinds of beautiful teachings like this in the Buddhist teachings. 00:35:02.645 --> 00:35:05.570 Maybe we can listen to another sound of the bell. 00:35:05.730 --> 00:35:07.030 (Bell) 00:35:10.932 --> 00:35:16.966 (Bell) 00:35:28.930 --> 00:35:33.340 So looking around us, as a monk, 00:35:34.212 --> 00:35:37.224 a few hundred years before the Common Era, 00:35:37.523 --> 00:35:41.585 maybe in the northwest of India, 00:35:42.680 --> 00:35:48.709 and seeing how our monastic brothers and sisters are now 00:35:49.799 --> 00:35:55.122 spending much of their time reading the sutras in written form rather than, 00:35:56.367 --> 00:36:00.904 in addition to reciting them but how this reading is now taking on a new importance, 00:36:02.184 --> 00:36:04.195 and seeing how - 00:36:06.276 --> 00:36:09.675 Yes, because when we live together as monastics, 00:36:11.686 --> 00:36:15.165 we come to understand each other pretty deeply. 00:36:15.953 --> 00:36:20.882 We are not very blinded by the insights of our brothers and sisters. 00:36:22.855 --> 00:36:25.732 I think Thay Pháp Dung gave the talk last week. 00:36:25.875 --> 00:36:28.610 He told me he came up with a new line, 00:36:28.767 --> 00:36:31.969 'It's hard to live with people who understand us.' 00:36:32.144 --> 00:36:34.352 (Laughter) 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, 00:36:39.913 --> 00:36:43.006 but then when people start to understand us, oh! 00:36:43.907 --> 00:36:47.536 It becomes a little bit difficult. Because they always seem to be looking at 00:36:47.536 --> 00:36:50.172 those things that we don't want to look at in ourselves! 00:36:50.172 --> 00:36:51.562 (Laughter) 00:36:53.214 --> 00:36:57.229 So I think something like that happened as well in those monasteries. 00:36:57.408 --> 00:36:59.987 And the monks looked around, and they said, 00:37:00.217 --> 00:37:03.188 'Mmm, wow! He knows a lot about the Dharma!' 00:37:03.780 --> 00:37:07.607 He can teach the Abhidharma, the highest form of the Dharma, 00:37:08.028 --> 00:37:15.905 where everything becomes atomic particles of the teachings of the Buddha, 00:37:21.137 --> 00:37:24.687 'But he still slurps a lot when he eats his food, 00:37:25.832 --> 00:37:27.557 and he 00:37:29.390 --> 00:37:31.592 smells really bad, 00:37:33.306 --> 00:37:35.825 walks unmindfully.' 00:37:38.194 --> 00:37:43.418 So this attachment to knowledge became a virtue in itself. 00:37:44.542 --> 00:37:47.202 And even though the Buddha taught very clearly 00:37:47.356 --> 00:37:50.965 that knowledge, along with afflictions, are the main obstacles, 00:37:51.244 --> 00:37:53.748 the main hindrances to awakening, 00:37:53.947 --> 00:37:58.673 but the community became a little bit attached to its knowledge. 00:38:00.245 --> 00:38:04.353 And the monasteries become a kind of ivory towers 00:38:05.133 --> 00:38:09.054 guarding the sacred teachings of the Dharma, 00:38:10.635 --> 00:38:15.434 no longer very concerned with the life of the common people. 00:38:16.153 --> 00:38:22.162 So that the teaching that the Buddha gave about not putting my teaching in verse 00:38:22.316 --> 00:38:25.334 but teaching in the language of the common people, 00:38:26.191 --> 00:38:30.388 although the monks would be very able to recite that teaching, 00:38:30.558 --> 00:38:34.877 but that is not how they were living so much some of them. 00:38:36.769 --> 00:38:42.079 And so, as a monk living in that time, and trying to renew Buddhism, 00:38:42.269 --> 00:38:44.378 what do you do? 00:38:44.693 --> 00:38:47.341 How do you deal with the situation? 00:38:47.496 --> 00:38:51.574 How can you use this written form, this new written form 00:38:52.614 --> 00:38:55.443 as an skillful way 00:38:55.699 --> 00:38:59.917 to help people to get beyond the attachment 00:39:00.129 --> 00:39:02.980 to the words that the Buddha taught? 00:39:03.248 --> 00:39:06.864 How can you help to cut through the delusion 00:39:07.418 --> 00:39:12.139 that the words themselves are the Dharma? 00:39:12.732 --> 00:39:17.271 That the words themselves are the teaching that the Buddha offered? 00:39:18.229 --> 00:39:25.088 So out of that deep wish, deep hope to renew Buddhism 00:39:27.225 --> 00:39:33.173 came these new texts called the prajñāpāramitā texts. 00:39:35.153 --> 00:39:36.962 How can we 00:39:37.867 --> 00:39:41.389 get the insight that brings us to the other shore? 00:39:43.027 --> 00:39:47.127 We don't just sit down in the same shore with that insight. 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. 00:39:52.121 --> 00:39:55.208 We cannot just hold on to our knowledge 00:39:56.185 --> 00:40:02.617 in a way of getting offerings, of getting status, getting respect. 00:40:08.754 --> 00:40:13.404 And so these teachings of prajñāpāramitā they became quite lengthy. 00:40:15.105 --> 00:40:19.523 And there were many texts we don't know exactly where they were written. 00:40:20.149 --> 00:40:23.101 We don't have that much information. 00:40:23.233 --> 00:40:27.920 We didn't have somebody making a video of the Dharma talks 00:40:28.365 --> 00:40:33.679 on the early prajñāpāramitā with the date written on the board. 00:40:34.293 --> 00:40:37.596 So it's very difficult for us to know exactly when, 00:40:37.777 --> 00:40:43.983 we have to use different means to try to place the exact location 00:40:44.540 --> 00:40:47.404 where these texts where composed. 00:40:49.276 --> 00:40:53.632 But the internal evidences from the text suggest what I'm sharing is that 00:40:53.771 --> 00:40:59.378 there was a response to the increasing scholastic nature of monastic life. 00:40:59.638 --> 00:41:03.911 So how can we recreate through the form of a text 00:41:04.290 --> 00:41:08.604 the experience of being near the Buddha? 00:41:09.595 --> 00:41:11.931 How can we recreate 00:41:13.069 --> 00:41:19.864 in the written form, the kind of awakening that is experienced 00:41:20.583 --> 00:41:24.673 by someone directly witnessing how the Buddha walked, 00:41:24.833 --> 00:41:29.770 how the Buddha talked, how the Buddha ate, and how the Buddha taught? 00:41:30.369 --> 00:41:37.392 That is the aspiration of these monastics who composed these prajñāpāramitā texts. 00:41:37.662 --> 00:41:42.735 And they knew full well that the danger also came with that. 00:41:43.306 --> 00:41:47.927 Which is that people would start to take these new texts and make them 00:41:49.100 --> 00:41:51.698 holy and sacred. 00:41:56.547 --> 00:41:59.545 So somehow we have to build into it, 00:42:01.909 --> 00:42:04.367 the teaching that allows us to see 00:42:04.520 --> 00:42:07.827 that the words themselves are only representations, 00:42:07.941 --> 00:42:11.959 they are not the deep teaching. 00:42:15.679 --> 00:42:20.117 Okay, so we are going to start to look into this a little bit. 00:42:20.631 --> 00:42:26.913 And I'm just going to really what is the most essential part of the teaching. 00:42:27.886 --> 00:42:32.386 And I hope you have a chance to read the rest for yourself. 00:42:33.135 --> 00:42:36.309 "This is what I heard one time 00:42:36.432 --> 00:42:40.574 when the Buddha was staying in the monastery in Anathapindika’s park 00:42:40.752 --> 00:42:47.392 in the Jeta Grove near Shravasti with a community of 1,250 bhikshus, 00:42:48.021 --> 00:42:50.557 fully ordained monks. 00:42:54.094 --> 00:42:57.601 That day, when it was time to make the round for alms, 00:42:58.073 --> 00:43:00.924 the Buddha put on his sanghati robe 00:43:01.612 --> 00:43:08.110 and, holding his bowl, went into the city of Shravasti to seek almsfood, 00:43:09.703 --> 00:43:12.306 going from house to house. 00:43:12.914 --> 00:43:15.298 When the almsround was completed, 00:43:15.454 --> 00:43:18.448 he returned to the monastery to eat the midday meal. 00:43:18.807 --> 00:43:23.276 Then he put away his sanghati robe and his bowl, washed his feet, 00:43:23.627 --> 00:43:26.921 arranged his cushion, and sat down." 00:43:30.764 --> 00:43:35.328 So the teaching of the sutra is happening in Shravasti, 00:43:35.957 --> 00:43:39.577 a place where the Buddha spent many of his rain's retreats, 00:43:40.108 --> 00:43:43.540 not far from modern-day Nepal. 00:43:47.466 --> 00:43:51.927 And there was a monastery that had been founded there. 00:43:56.401 --> 00:43:59.079 We may have heard of Anathapindika, 00:43:59.230 --> 00:44:02.369 in our Chanting Book we have a wonderful discourse on 00:44:02.521 --> 00:44:07.948 The Teachings to Be Given to the Sick, which Shariputra offers to Anathapindika 00:44:08.070 --> 00:44:12.748 when he is passing away. He was a very loved lay disciple of the Buddha 00:44:13.186 --> 00:44:16.975 who lives a very simple life 00:44:17.103 --> 00:44:19.575 and he was called Anathapindika, 00:44:19.707 --> 00:44:23.699 it wasn't the name that he was given at birth, 00:44:25.003 --> 00:44:31.206 but it's a name that means 'the one who gives to the poor'. 00:44:31.656 --> 00:44:33.777 Anatha are those who - 00:44:34.012 --> 00:44:36.988 An-atha, it means 'those who don't have wealth', 00:44:37.093 --> 00:44:41.269 and pindika is 'food', a kind of like almsfood. 00:44:41.752 --> 00:44:45.095 So he was known as the one who was always offering food 00:44:45.253 --> 00:44:49.405 for people who were poor, who didn't have food to eat. 00:44:50.894 --> 00:44:54.970 The legend is that he payed for the Jeta Grove by laying 00:44:55.222 --> 00:45:01.842 coins of gold on every part of the park. 00:45:03.358 --> 00:45:06.597 Because the prince Jeta, he loved so much that forest 00:45:06.752 --> 00:45:09.322 and he didn't want to sell it. And he said, 00:45:09.437 --> 00:45:14.624 'I will only sell it if you can lay coins of gold across the entire park.' 00:45:15.048 --> 00:45:18.513 So that's a legend, I don't know if that really happened, 00:45:18.681 --> 00:45:23.014 but that's just to show how much Anathapindika loved the Buddha. 00:45:23.372 --> 00:45:27.859 He was willing to give up everything he had in order to provide a place 00:45:28.072 --> 00:45:31.892 for the Buddha to teach, for the monks and nuns to live. 00:45:35.813 --> 00:45:40.315 So the Buddha passed many rain's retreats in Shravasti. 00:45:46.492 --> 00:45:50.925 And we have the Buddha going on almsround. Sometimes we forget that the Buddha went 00:45:51.018 --> 00:45:54.706 just like the other monks and nuns, to go on service on food. 00:45:54.849 --> 00:45:58.137 Or to receive food from the lay friends. 00:45:58.640 --> 00:46:03.230 It could be very easy for the Buddha, he had many disciples, 1,250 monks, 00:46:03.374 --> 00:46:08.066 'Please go, can you go get my food for me today? 00:46:08.737 --> 00:46:13.019 I'm a little bit lazy. I have to give many Dharma talks, 00:46:13.131 --> 00:46:16.002 would you mind to bring my food for me?' 00:46:16.704 --> 00:46:19.664 We wonder why do we always have that information. 00:46:19.823 --> 00:46:23.055 But it is to show the humility, and also the freedom. 00:46:23.195 --> 00:46:27.971 Because by offering - Sometimes when we become a teacher in a spiritual community 00:46:28.091 --> 00:46:31.419 we can become a slave of our disciples. 00:46:32.097 --> 00:46:37.988 They want to wash our clothes for us, they want to cook wonderful food for us, 00:46:38.881 --> 00:46:41.840 and then we think, 'Oh! it's so lovely in the monastery. 00:46:41.972 --> 00:46:43.955 I don't want to go out anymore!' 00:46:44.059 --> 00:46:46.946 It is like the Pure Land, my personal Pure Land. 00:46:47.392 --> 00:46:50.650 But the Buddha saw that if he wanted to maintain his freedom, 00:46:50.758 --> 00:46:53.363 he could continue to go on almsround, 00:46:53.500 --> 00:46:56.315 and then receive food from even the poorest person, 00:46:56.421 --> 00:46:58.957 even the people who never heard of the Buddha. 00:46:59.059 --> 00:47:03.611 He would just come like any other beggar to their door and receive almsfood. 00:47:08.888 --> 00:47:12.979 And then, "At that time, the Venerable Subhuti stood up, 00:47:13.136 --> 00:47:16.787 bared his right shoulder, put his knee on the ground, 00:47:17.050 --> 00:47:21.540 and, folding his palms respectfully, said to the Buddha, 00:47:22.787 --> 00:47:27.869 'World-Honored One, it is rare to find someone like you. 00:47:28.613 --> 00:47:34.036 You always support and show special confidence in the Bodhisattvas." 00:47:44.094 --> 00:47:47.623 So to bare your right shoulder is a sign of respect. 00:47:48.484 --> 00:47:54.293 So we know the monks they had robes they put over their shoulders. 00:47:57.322 --> 00:48:00.117 But nowadays, when we see Theravadan monks 00:48:00.226 --> 00:48:02.944 we often see that their right shoulder is bare. 00:48:03.070 --> 00:48:07.199 And that is a part of the tradition, it's respectful to show the right shoulder 00:48:07.309 --> 00:48:09.315 in that culture. 00:48:09.497 --> 00:48:12.395 When Buddhism came to China, 00:48:12.883 --> 00:48:17.559 the Chinese were scandalized by somebody showing their shoulder. 00:48:18.088 --> 00:48:23.623 In Chinese culture, that's very inappropriate. 00:48:24.859 --> 00:48:30.653 So in that way Buddhism always adapted to the culture in which it took root. 00:48:31.092 --> 00:48:35.581 And that is why we have robes that - You don't see my shoulder. 00:48:36.847 --> 00:48:41.371 So I'm wearing a robe that is Chinese style robe. 00:48:41.559 --> 00:48:45.896 We cover the shoulder. That is considered more respectful. 00:48:49.442 --> 00:48:52.624 He puts his knee on the ground. 00:48:53.688 --> 00:48:57.084 So we don't know that at that time 00:48:57.281 --> 00:49:01.771 the monks practiced touching the Earth in the way that we do today. 00:49:02.711 --> 00:49:06.358 But they put their knee on the ground 00:49:06.601 --> 00:49:09.624 in order to show their respect for someone. 00:49:12.533 --> 00:49:17.202 And they fold their palms. () it means like this, join the palms, 00:49:17.362 --> 00:49:19.643 respectfully. 00:49:25.903 --> 00:49:29.532 “World-Honored One, it is rare to find someone like you. 00:49:29.699 --> 00:49:33.733 You always support and show special confidence in the Bodhisattvas." 00:49:35.606 --> 00:49:42.214 So this ideal of a Bodhisattva was part of what 00:49:45.145 --> 00:49:48.762 inspired the young monastics at that time 00:49:49.488 --> 00:49:52.889 to go deeper in their practice. 00:49:54.146 --> 00:49:57.633 A bodhisattva is a kind of awakened being. 00:49:58.418 --> 00:50:01.367 It could be translated as 00:50:01.589 --> 00:50:04.870 someone who is bent on awakening. 00:50:05.278 --> 00:50:07.197 They are 00:50:09.557 --> 00:50:11.354 leaning towards awakening. 00:50:17.982 --> 00:50:22.396 In Pali, we have many references to the bodhisatta, 00:50:22.879 --> 00:50:26.482 which is the Buddha before his awakening. 00:50:26.781 --> 00:50:31.086 And 'satta' can be translated as 'being', but it can also be translated as 00:50:31.232 --> 00:50:33.931 kind of like 'attachment'. 00:50:34.137 --> 00:50:38.886 Like you are drawn towards awakening. 00:50:41.323 --> 00:50:46.130 But in Sanskrit it was translated as 'sattva', which is very clearly 'being'. 00:50:46.583 --> 00:50:53.876 So it lost that ambiguity. Bodhisattva, awakened being. 00:50:59.057 --> 00:51:03.754 So this ideal of a bodhisattva was a kind of revolution 00:51:03.981 --> 00:51:06.560 within the Buddhist community. 00:51:06.775 --> 00:51:09.752 Because up into that point, 00:51:10.757 --> 00:51:15.155 it was very clear, one became a bhikshu or a bhikshuni 00:51:15.363 --> 00:51:19.230 in order to attain arhatship, it means, perfection. 00:51:19.841 --> 00:51:23.194 And it is very clear that to become an arhat 00:51:23.334 --> 00:51:26.954 one had to become a bhikshu or a bhikshuni. 00:51:27.301 --> 00:51:30.558 So the monastics had a kind of 00:51:31.920 --> 00:51:34.263 monopoly on awakening. 00:51:34.647 --> 00:51:36.270 (Laughter) 00:51:37.575 --> 00:51:41.741 And the Bodhisattvayana, which is usually how we find it, 00:51:41.972 --> 00:51:47.695 it means, the vehicle or the path of a bodhisattva, 00:51:48.410 --> 00:51:52.291 suddenly burst through that monopoly 00:51:53.241 --> 00:51:59.912 and allowed both monastics and lay people to be on the bodhisattva path. 00:52:00.903 --> 00:52:05.203 So this is a path that can be taken not only by monastics, 00:52:05.395 --> 00:52:08.297 but also by lay practitioners. 00:52:08.638 --> 00:52:11.149 The Bodhisattvayana. 00:52:13.022 --> 00:52:18.400 Usually we talk about Mahayana, you probably heard the term Mahayana, 00:52:18.898 --> 00:52:21.272 the great vehicle, 00:52:21.393 --> 00:52:24.852 but more often in that time what later became called the Mahayana 00:52:24.979 --> 00:52:27.587 was called the Bodhisattvayana, it means, 00:52:27.734 --> 00:52:31.927 the path, the vehicle, of awakened beings. 00:52:34.944 --> 00:52:37.955 And the prajñāpāramitā texts are 00:52:38.326 --> 00:52:41.598 teaching us the way of the bodhisattva. 00:52:42.066 --> 00:52:44.950 What is the way to wake up 00:52:45.189 --> 00:52:48.537 to walk the talk, to the lived awakening. 00:52:51.755 --> 00:52:54.839 So Subhuti is pointing out to the Buddha, 00:52:55.044 --> 00:52:59.060 "You always support and show special confidence in the Bodhisattvas." 00:53:04.110 --> 00:53:07.978 That means, when there is somebody who has that deep aspiration, 00:53:08.377 --> 00:53:10.380 we feel very 00:53:10.587 --> 00:53:14.051 inspired also to help them on their path. 00:53:14.223 --> 00:53:17.875 When we see somebody who does kind things to another person, 00:53:17.977 --> 00:53:21.312 we don't care whether they are Catholic, whether they are Muslim, 00:53:21.429 --> 00:53:24.979 whether they are Jewish, whether they are monastic or they are lay, 00:53:25.131 --> 00:53:28.193 we just want to help that person, we want to support them, 00:53:28.365 --> 00:53:31.391 we feel inspired to help them in their path. 00:53:31.575 --> 00:53:34.991 When we are generous, when our generosity is not 00:53:36.333 --> 00:53:40.962 transactional, it is based on just giving only just to give, 00:53:42.088 --> 00:53:47.471 we want to help someone to continue to do that. 00:53:48.627 --> 00:53:51.224 We are coming into the Christmas season, 00:53:51.366 --> 00:53:55.132 and sometimes we feel like, 'Well, I have to give a present to my mum, 00:53:55.520 --> 00:53:58.264 to my niece, to my nephew, to my - 00:53:58.432 --> 00:54:01.241 That brother, if I don't give a present to that brother, 00:54:01.444 --> 00:54:03.580 then he is going to get mad at me.' 00:54:03.677 --> 00:54:06.443 So our generosity is based on a form. 00:54:07.036 --> 00:54:10.655 What is expected from us socially. 00:54:11.404 --> 00:54:14.948 Maybe we give a lot to our son or our daughter, 00:54:18.676 --> 00:54:20.710 but that is also, 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 00:54:25.874 --> 00:54:29.913 that we give to our son or daughter. But can we give to somebody 00:54:30.557 --> 00:54:34.179 who is very, is living in poverty on the street? 00:54:35.176 --> 00:54:39.025 Can we open our heart to somebody who has killed somebody? 00:54:39.242 --> 00:54:41.288 Somebody who has stolen? 00:54:41.450 --> 00:54:44.412 Maybe somebody who is causing great harm. 00:54:44.561 --> 00:54:49.176 Do we have enough generosity in our heart to offer our time, our presence, 00:54:49.387 --> 00:54:51.102 to that person? 00:54:52.166 --> 00:54:56.870 That is the path of the bodhisattva. We don't rely only on form. 00:54:57.950 --> 00:55:01.510 If people yell at us and slander us, they say, 00:55:01.711 --> 00:55:05.019 'Why do you help that person, why do you give to that person? 00:55:05.156 --> 00:55:09.858 Look at what they are doing! They are the living incarnation of evil!' 00:55:11.182 --> 00:55:14.278 We don't care, because that is part of our path, 00:55:14.543 --> 00:55:18.565 we are not dependent on the form in our way of giving. 00:55:18.885 --> 00:55:22.278 And so, when you see someone like that, 00:55:23.602 --> 00:55:27.117 you feel inspired, and the Buddha felt inspired 00:55:27.307 --> 00:55:32.089 to give them special attention, special confidence. 00:55:38.079 --> 00:55:42.676 “World-Honored One, if sons and daughters of good families 00:55:42.800 --> 00:55:47.797 want to give rise to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened mind, 00:55:48.462 --> 00:55:54.668 what should they rely on and what should they do to master their thinking?” 00:55:56.835 --> 00:56:00.278 If sons and daughters of good families 00:56:00.550 --> 00:56:06.131 want to give rise to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened mind, 00:56:07.211 --> 00:56:13.192 what should they rely on and what should they do to master their thinking? 00:56:13.736 --> 00:56:16.970 This is what everybody wants to know! 00:56:18.788 --> 00:56:22.420 This is what we all want to know when we come to Plum Village! 00:56:24.473 --> 00:56:27.572 Just tell me, can I buy it in the bookstore? 00:56:27.739 --> 00:56:29.563 (Laughter) 00:56:34.259 --> 00:56:39.171 It is some special ring I can wear, or maybe some special incense I can burn 00:56:40.599 --> 00:56:43.884 that is going to give me the highest, most fulfilled awakening? 00:56:44.043 --> 00:56:46.495 Just tell me, please, and I'll buy it! 00:56:47.397 --> 00:56:50.700 Even if it is sold on Amazon! 00:56:51.111 --> 00:56:52.562 (Laughter) 00:56:53.822 --> 00:56:56.849 Everybody is coming because they want this awakening, 00:56:56.999 --> 00:57:01.194 they want to be happy, in every moment of their life their want to be free! 00:57:01.428 --> 00:57:04.297 So what can we do 00:57:06.048 --> 00:57:09.478 to give rise to this highest, most fulfilled, awakened mind? 00:57:09.611 --> 00:57:14.004 Where should we rely on? What should they do to master their thinking? 00:57:14.926 --> 00:57:18.775 So everybody is waiting with bated breath to find out 00:57:19.405 --> 00:57:21.463 what it is. 00:57:22.821 --> 00:57:28.479 The Buddha replied, "Well said, Subhuti. What you have said is absolutely correct. 00:57:29.248 --> 00:57:34.377 The Tathagata always supports and shows special confidence in the Bodhisattvas. 00:57:37.109 --> 00:57:40.248 Please, listen with all of your attention, 00:57:40.446 --> 00:57:43.423 and the Tathagata will respond to your question." 00:57:49.557 --> 00:57:52.400 Thank you for listening with all your attention. 00:57:53.525 --> 00:57:57.050 "'If daughters and sons of good families want to give rise 00:57:57.221 --> 00:58:02.201 to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened mind, they should rely on the following 00:58:02.569 --> 00:58:05.587 and master their thinking in the following way.' 00:58:07.494 --> 00:58:11.836 The Venerable Subhuti said, 'Lord, we are so happy to hear your teachings.' 00:58:14.466 --> 00:58:19.662 The Buddha said to Subhuti, 'This is how the Bodhisattva Mahasattvas 00:58:19.880 --> 00:58:22.217 master their thinking: 00:58:23.669 --> 00:58:27.494 ‘However many species of living beings there are 00:58:28.527 --> 00:58:36.645 – whether born from eggs, from the womb, from moisture, or spontaneously; 00:58:37.549 --> 00:58:41.386 whether they have form or do not have form; 00:58:42.837 --> 00:58:47.349 whether they have perceptions or do not have perceptions; 00:58:48.561 --> 00:58:50.941 or whether it cannot be said of them 00:58:51.115 --> 00:58:54.838 that they have perceptions or that they do not have perceptions, 00:58:56.199 --> 00:59:01.216 we must lead all these beings to the ultimate nirvana 00:59:02.032 --> 00:59:04.724 so that they can be liberated. 00:59:06.665 --> 00:59:13.075 And yet, when this innumerable, immeasurable, infinite number of beings 00:59:13.463 --> 00:59:19.866 has become liberated, we do not, in truth, think 00:59:20.128 --> 00:59:23.257 that a single being has been liberated. 00:59:25.461 --> 00:59:27.701 Why is this so? 00:59:28.206 --> 00:59:32.755 If, Subhuti, a bodhisattva holds on to the idea 00:59:33.134 --> 00:59:40.618 that a self, a person, a living being, or a life span exists, 00:59:41.180 --> 00:59:45.463 that person is not an authentic bodhisattva.'" 00:59:49.916 --> 00:59:52.514 Maybe we can listen to a sound of the bell. 00:59:53.223 --> 00:59:54.434 (Bell) 00:59:57.441 --> 01:00:03.815 (Bell) 01:00:20.742 --> 01:00:27.118 So in the Sanskrit, it says, 01:00:28.444 --> 01:00:32.993 Whatever beings -yeah? - sattvaha, it says living beings, 01:00:35.463 --> 01:00:43.446 that are born from an egg, from a womb, from moisture, or spontaneously, 01:00:44.362 --> 01:00:47.858 whether they have form or they have no form; 01:00:48.528 --> 01:00:52.078 whether they have perceptions or they don't have perceptions; 01:00:52.658 --> 01:00:56.758 whether they neither have perceptions nor non-perceptions; 01:01:02.616 --> 01:01:10.470 all these I would lead to nirvana without remainder, ultimate nirvana. 01:01:11.989 --> 01:01:16.441 And even when these immeasurable, innumerable beings 01:01:16.992 --> 01:01:19.678 are thus liberated, 01:01:20.868 --> 01:01:24.250 not any single living being, 01:01:25.291 --> 01:01:28.138 we do not think that any single living being 01:01:28.778 --> 01:01:32.092 has been liberated. Why is that? 01:01:34.680 --> 01:01:39.811 Subhuti, it is not said of a bodhisattva 01:01:41.120 --> 01:01:46.516 that he has the perception of a being. Why is that? 01:01:48.165 --> 01:01:52.932 A bodhisattva, we cannot call someone a bodhisattva 01:01:53.720 --> 01:01:59.101 who has the perception of a self, the perception of a being, 01:01:59.527 --> 01:02:05.091 the perception of a life, a life span, and the perception of a person. 01:02:08.096 --> 01:02:10.657 So these four areas. 01:02:11.342 --> 01:02:14.934 [ātman] 01:02:16.811 --> 01:02:18.884 A self. 01:02:19.152 --> 01:02:21.089 [self] 01:02:24.937 --> 01:02:28.982 [sattva] 01:02:31.648 --> 01:02:33.577 A being. 01:02:34.008 --> 01:02:36.018 [being] 01:02:36.503 --> 01:02:38.617 A living being. 01:02:39.071 --> 01:02:42.038 [(living being)] 01:02:49.890 --> 01:02:52.005 [jīva] 01:02:52.628 --> 01:02:54.982 A life. 01:02:56.243 --> 01:02:58.012 [life] 01:02:58.248 --> 01:03:00.102 Or a life span. 01:03:01.447 --> 01:03:03.928 [life span] 01:03:06.718 --> 01:03:09.024 And the pudgala. 01:03:09.386 --> 01:03:13.213 [pudgala] 01:03:13.453 --> 01:03:15.885 Which is just a person. 01:03:16.281 --> 01:03:19.073 [person] 01:03:23.129 --> 01:03:25.320 So the text is saying that 01:03:25.485 --> 01:03:32.127 as long as we, in our thinking, give rise to the idea of a self, 01:03:33.092 --> 01:03:36.385 of a living being, of a life span, or a person, 01:03:37.876 --> 01:03:41.881 then we cannot be called a true, we cannot be called a bodhisattva. 01:03:42.663 --> 01:03:47.511 We cannot be called someone who is on the bodhisattva path. 01:03:56.012 --> 01:03:58.507 It seems like a contradiction, right? 01:03:58.657 --> 01:04:06.613 So we are, we need to give rise to the aspiration to lead all living beings. 01:04:06.918 --> 01:04:09.316 And the Buddha is quite specific. 01:04:09.527 --> 01:04:13.217 You know, those born from the eggs those born from the womb, 01:04:13.931 --> 01:04:19.295 so all the reptiles, and the fish, and the amphibians, 01:04:20.756 --> 01:04:24.092 born from eggs, then all those born from a womb, 01:04:24.537 --> 01:04:27.637 then those born from moisture. 01:04:27.767 --> 01:04:33.744 Sometimes the insects, they have such a small eggs 01:04:33.921 --> 01:04:36.169 that they don't call them eggs. 01:04:36.294 --> 01:04:41.365 They seem to be born spontaneously from moisture, but even bacteria, mold, 01:04:42.271 --> 01:04:44.360 living things. 01:04:46.390 --> 01:04:50.595 So you can imagine that, as a bodhisattva we have to lead mold to nirvana. 01:04:50.768 --> 01:04:52.469 (Laughter) 01:04:57.162 --> 01:05:00.911 And even though we have to lead mold to nirvana, 01:05:01.432 --> 01:05:02.947 (Laughter) 01:05:03.103 --> 01:05:07.188 we cannot think that any mold has been lead to nirvana. 01:05:07.644 --> 01:05:11.899 So I'm bringing this to its natural extension. 01:05:12.709 --> 01:05:15.974 We cannot only think of 01:05:16.717 --> 01:05:19.132 even just living beings. 01:05:19.619 --> 01:05:22.753 How about the very stones beneath our feet? 01:05:26.626 --> 01:05:29.070 It has a kind of life, 01:05:29.209 --> 01:05:31.549 if we look deeply. 01:05:33.807 --> 01:05:39.732 We also use to dividing up the world between the inanimate and the animate, 01:05:40.480 --> 01:05:43.460 the non-living and the living. 01:05:43.931 --> 01:05:47.311 And the Buddha is just pointing that out. 01:05:49.020 --> 01:05:53.906 So first of all, we have to learn how to understand 01:05:54.974 --> 01:06:00.082 when we define ourselves and others in terms of a self. 01:06:02.240 --> 01:06:08.281 So in what way do we say, this is me, this is mine, this is myself? 01:06:10.122 --> 01:06:12.900 We think, I can extend my hand, 01:06:13.082 --> 01:06:15.265 so that must be me. 01:06:15.451 --> 01:06:18.801 But I cannot extend the brother's hand. 01:06:19.572 --> 01:06:22.229 So that must be not me. 01:06:23.384 --> 01:06:26.616 So we rely on this very simplistic understanding 01:06:26.748 --> 01:06:29.300 of what is me and what is not me. 01:06:29.962 --> 01:06:32.592 But if I look more deeply, I see that when 01:06:33.111 --> 01:06:35.847 I practice and I live together with my brother, 01:06:35.966 --> 01:06:39.857 then he knows the right time to invite the bell 01:06:41.428 --> 01:06:43.408 in the Dharma talk. 01:06:43.571 --> 01:06:46.683 And so somehow, even though he is not me, 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. 01:06:53.465 --> 01:06:56.190 There is a kind of understanding. 01:06:56.344 --> 01:06:58.353 And so, when we see that, 01:06:58.524 --> 01:07:02.330 we see that actually this body, the limit of this body 01:07:02.443 --> 01:07:05.726 is not the limit of who we are. 01:07:08.346 --> 01:07:10.451 There is not only the, 01:07:10.747 --> 01:07:14.575 this body which we can move and animate which is 01:07:17.047 --> 01:07:19.020 ourselves. 01:07:19.798 --> 01:07:23.277 But we are made up of many non-self elements. 01:07:25.188 --> 01:07:29.631 When we look into the orchid, we can see that 01:07:31.394 --> 01:07:34.829 the orchid is on the platform. 01:07:35.339 --> 01:07:38.473 We do not say that the orchid is up in the sky. 01:07:40.743 --> 01:07:46.233 We do not say that the orchid is in the earth that is surrounding New Hamlet. 01:07:47.520 --> 01:07:51.347 But if we look deeply, we can see that the sun is in the orchid. 01:07:51.933 --> 01:07:57.986 Without the sun, there would be no photosynthesis 01:07:59.475 --> 01:08:02.158 for the plant to generate 01:08:02.608 --> 01:08:07.918 the branch that comes up to offer these flowers to us. 01:08:09.367 --> 01:08:11.824 If there is no earth, 01:08:12.094 --> 01:08:17.620 then there is no nutriments to provide the minerals that the plant needs to grow. 01:08:19.773 --> 01:08:23.806 And we know that there is also the farmer, the one who grew the orchid, 01:08:23.969 --> 01:08:28.601 the one who transported it here. All these elements, we can say, 01:08:28.755 --> 01:08:32.466 non-orchid elements are present in the orchid. 01:08:33.094 --> 01:08:37.903 And we are also made of no-self elements. We are made up of our friends, 01:08:38.198 --> 01:08:45.251 of our parents, of countless generations of ancestors. They are all in us. 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. 01:08:53.991 --> 01:09:00.204 So that way of dividing up the world, that dualistic way of seeing things, 01:09:00.355 --> 01:09:02.731 then suddenly falls away. 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. 01:09:08.560 --> 01:09:11.158 I'm not limited by this body. 01:09:11.572 --> 01:09:14.779 And we see that we are also present in all things, and 01:09:14.886 --> 01:09:17.705 all things are also present in us. 01:09:18.073 --> 01:09:21.187 So the mold is not separate from me. 01:09:22.756 --> 01:09:27.341 The stones are not separate from me. The deer are not separate. 01:09:27.729 --> 01:09:30.793 But we actually inter-are. 01:09:31.388 --> 01:09:34.730 So this is a deep teaching of the Buddha on interbeing. 01:09:37.059 --> 01:09:40.022 And when we look at the world in that way, 01:09:40.206 --> 01:09:43.684 we become free from our ideas about ourselves, 01:09:44.977 --> 01:09:49.506 we practice what Thay called the deep ecology. 01:09:50.603 --> 01:09:54.849 He said, the Diamond Sutra is the earliest teaching on deep ecology, 01:09:56.663 --> 01:09:59.962 because we see that we are not separate from Mother Earth. 01:10:01.464 --> 01:10:03.922 That all of our efforts 01:10:04.125 --> 01:10:07.848 to raise up human beings, 01:10:09.614 --> 01:10:12.405 to make them comfortable, 01:10:12.973 --> 01:10:15.611 so they always have enough food to eat, 01:10:15.921 --> 01:10:18.912 so the always have enough places to live, 01:10:19.737 --> 01:10:22.920 so they are warm enough, so they get to go on a vacation 01:10:23.045 --> 01:10:25.067 once a year, 01:10:26.775 --> 01:10:30.372 that that all has come at a price. 01:10:31.865 --> 01:10:36.188 And that price is our attachment to our idea about ourselves. 01:10:36.687 --> 01:10:42.805 Ourselves as a person, who is separated from other living beings, 01:10:43.672 --> 01:10:47.262 like animals, the plants, the minerals. 01:10:47.586 --> 01:10:52.398 So we exploit the Earth, we think of the Earth as something separate from us 01:10:52.955 --> 01:10:56.384 that we can dig in, that we can extract oil from, 01:10:57.855 --> 01:11:00.610 and we don't think about all the consequences 01:11:00.753 --> 01:11:03.768 that that has on ourselves, on our well-being, 01:11:03.941 --> 01:11:06.632 because we don't see it as ourselves. 01:11:06.738 --> 01:11:10.393 We see ourselves as something separate from the Earth. 01:11:12.311 --> 01:11:16.033 We treat animals with great cruelty, 01:11:16.500 --> 01:11:19.406 raising them in horrible conditions 01:11:21.048 --> 01:11:23.107 to be slaughtered 01:11:23.274 --> 01:11:25.777 to serve our appetite. 01:11:26.081 --> 01:11:28.722 Because we think that they are not us. 01:11:28.861 --> 01:11:32.753 Of course, we say we would never do that for human beings. 01:11:34.122 --> 01:11:37.494 I remember when I was a young practitioner and I read 01:11:39.701 --> 01:11:41.948 a saying from Mahatma Gandhi, 01:11:42.214 --> 01:11:47.302 which was, 'If you want to understand the nature of a civilization 01:11:47.851 --> 01:11:50.747 look at how it treats its animals'. 01:11:52.418 --> 01:11:55.646 If you want to understand the nature of a civilization 01:11:56.182 --> 01:11:59.579 look at how it treats its animals. 01:12:01.723 --> 01:12:06.405 Does it hide its animals away when they are going to be slaughtered, 01:12:06.581 --> 01:12:09.753 or mistreated, or killed? 01:12:12.762 --> 01:12:17.583 So when we look deeply, there are structures that had been created 01:12:17.934 --> 01:12:20.098 in the human mind, 01:12:20.161 --> 01:12:24.685 which have split us off from that which is also ourselves. 01:12:25.322 --> 01:12:28.761 That have removed us from Mother Earth. 01:12:29.031 --> 01:12:31.618 And the Buddha is trying to point those out. 01:12:31.771 --> 01:12:34.407 What is the source of those wrong perceptions? 01:12:34.545 --> 01:12:40.180 What are those ideas which separate us from our connection to the Earth? 01:12:43.277 --> 01:12:44.580 (Bell) 01:12:48.710 --> 01:12:55.097 (Bell) 01:13:05.282 --> 01:13:09.813 "We must lead all these beings to the ultimate nirvana 01:13:10.044 --> 01:13:12.763 so that they can be liberated." 01:13:13.232 --> 01:13:16.189 This is a very radical statement. 01:13:17.498 --> 01:13:19.695 The early Buddhist community 01:13:20.808 --> 01:13:23.560 was mainly concerned with its, 01:13:23.788 --> 01:13:27.124 with its own attainment of nirvana. 01:13:28.794 --> 01:13:30.762 You became a monk or a nun 01:13:30.905 --> 01:13:34.057 because you wanted to become an arhat, a perfected one. 01:13:34.164 --> 01:13:38.605 You wanted to attain the nirvana that the Buddha taught. 01:13:42.753 --> 01:13:46.568 And that led to attachment to these kind of ideas, 01:13:46.740 --> 01:13:52.350 the idea about a self, even though the teaching of non-self was there, 01:13:53.353 --> 01:13:57.608 but ¡wow!, the monks tend to have a very big self. 01:13:58.166 --> 01:14:00.638 A very big non-self. 01:14:03.586 --> 01:14:07.213 And they can have a very strong idea that 01:14:10.007 --> 01:14:13.126 they are sattvas, they are living beings, 01:14:13.530 --> 01:14:16.824 but the stones, the minerals, 01:14:17.492 --> 01:14:21.528 those things that are not living, those things we don't need to care about. 01:14:21.878 --> 01:14:25.300 What we need to take care of is only the living beings. 01:14:26.344 --> 01:14:29.810 Or they have an idea, 'I'm an important person. 01:14:33.607 --> 01:14:37.532 These animals, these plants, they are not 01:14:39.316 --> 01:14:41.651 they are not so important. 01:14:41.794 --> 01:14:45.350 What is important is my own attainment of nirvana.' 01:14:46.428 --> 01:14:48.901 So when we look deeply into this statement 01:14:49.069 --> 01:14:53.696 we see we break through these very limited concepts of nirvana. 01:14:54.495 --> 01:14:56.393 And we see that 01:14:57.016 --> 01:15:01.315 awakening is something that can be experienced by all. 01:15:03.314 --> 01:15:05.190 That is possible for - 01:15:05.370 --> 01:15:09.515 When we no longer see the separation between me and not me, 01:15:11.838 --> 01:15:16.197 we see that the wood that I'm sitting on is not separate from me, 01:15:16.572 --> 01:15:19.766 when I see that the stones are not separate from me, 01:15:19.943 --> 01:15:24.682 they become part of my path to awakening. 01:15:25.486 --> 01:15:27.505 They are not separate. 01:15:27.690 --> 01:15:29.158 And so, 01:15:29.551 --> 01:15:33.249 taking care of the stones is taking care of myself. 01:15:33.686 --> 01:15:37.439 Taking care of the trees is taking care of myself. 01:15:37.807 --> 01:15:41.657 Taking care of the cows, the sheep, 01:15:42.453 --> 01:15:45.779 taking care of, even of the mosquitoes, 01:15:46.977 --> 01:15:49.784 is taking care of myself. 01:15:51.330 --> 01:15:55.056 The brothers we become very expert at capturing mosquitoes 01:15:55.161 --> 01:15:58.493 and putting them back outside so they can be free. 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 01:16:06.729 --> 01:16:09.362 was to protect us from mosquitoes. 01:16:10.376 --> 01:16:12.708 Also, you know, is a little bit - 01:16:12.850 --> 01:16:15.341 Even in the Buddha's time, to walk around naked 01:16:15.446 --> 01:16:17.163 was a little bit extreme. 01:16:17.301 --> 01:16:18.559 (Laughter) 01:16:19.275 --> 01:16:23.309 So we don't have to kill the mosquitoes, but we can be protected, 01:16:23.501 --> 01:16:28.298 we take care of ourselves but in a way that is not harming other living beings, 01:16:28.540 --> 01:16:31.398 or even the stones themselves. 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 01:16:36.830 --> 01:16:40.585 at another stone or something hard, and then you look at it. 01:16:40.982 --> 01:16:43.006 What do you see? 01:16:44.469 --> 01:16:49.706 A kind of like white, powdery bit at the impact. 01:16:50.558 --> 01:16:53.087 That is a kind of suffering. 01:16:55.018 --> 01:16:59.182 We tend to think of suffering only in terms of the human nervous system. 01:16:59.386 --> 01:17:01.587 That is a very limited view. 01:17:01.747 --> 01:17:05.067 But now we start to extend that to include 01:17:05.536 --> 01:17:07.969 the suffering of animals. 01:17:08.137 --> 01:17:11.519 Even as short as the past few fifty years, 01:17:12.934 --> 01:17:17.892 people have believed, many scientists believed that animals did not suffer pain 01:17:18.655 --> 01:17:21.984 in a way that can be compared to human beings. 01:17:23.784 --> 01:17:28.607 That is a way of justifying doing studies on animals. 01:17:29.450 --> 01:17:32.836 You can treat them however you want as long as they don't suffer 01:17:32.985 --> 01:17:35.510 in the way that human beings suffer. 01:17:35.803 --> 01:17:40.266 So we have to be careful when our mind is caught in these perceptions 01:17:40.919 --> 01:17:44.503 we can use it to justify hurting. 01:17:45.444 --> 01:17:48.616 We can use it to justify creating suffering. 01:17:50.207 --> 01:17:55.311 And it doesn't take much deep looking to then go and extend that understanding 01:17:55.454 --> 01:17:58.383 to the stones, to the minerals. 01:17:58.866 --> 01:18:02.490 Then, when we look in - We hear about climate change, 01:18:02.658 --> 01:18:07.080 or we experience this pretty warm December right now, 01:18:08.229 --> 01:18:11.197 then we know that maybe we haven't been taking good care 01:18:11.371 --> 01:18:14.444 of our mineral brothers and sisters. 01:18:16.876 --> 01:18:19.296 Maybe in our greed to 01:18:20.428 --> 01:18:23.703 have electricity, to have power, 01:18:25.357 --> 01:18:27.245 to produce, 01:18:28.191 --> 01:18:31.549 we extract minerals from the Earth, 01:18:32.024 --> 01:18:36.270 and then release the remains into the atmosphere. 01:18:37.650 --> 01:18:41.508 So this is all connected. This is coming from human desire. 01:18:42.156 --> 01:18:44.816 So in early teachings, we have 01:18:45.006 --> 01:18:46.827 the teachings on 01:18:47.769 --> 01:18:50.800 too much craving leads to suffering. 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? 01:18:56.440 --> 01:18:59.890 What is it that leads us to have a kind of wrong perceptions 01:19:00.091 --> 01:19:03.181 that bring about the suffering? 01:19:03.430 --> 01:19:06.963 And so the insight of the Diamond Sutra is that these four - 01:19:07.182 --> 01:19:10.957 That when we look deeply into our perceptions, we can find these four 01:19:11.065 --> 01:19:13.679 somewhere there at the bottom. 01:19:14.992 --> 01:19:17.673 Our ideas about ourselves. 01:19:18.885 --> 01:19:22.277 Our ideas about living beings separated from 01:19:23.387 --> 01:19:25.940 non living beings. 01:19:27.595 --> 01:19:32.653 One of our long term lay practitioners, in Upper Hamlet, 01:19:32.897 --> 01:19:37.736 he has dedicated his life to building sanghas that 01:19:38.522 --> 01:19:42.344 live near fracking operations in the United Kingdom, 01:19:44.014 --> 01:19:48.394 so that they can put their bodies there in a non-violent way 01:19:49.427 --> 01:19:53.197 to shine light on what we are doing to Mother Earth 01:19:53.333 --> 01:19:56.102 when we get caught in this kind of perception. 01:19:56.955 --> 01:20:00.985 The Earth, that is not a living being. 01:20:01.833 --> 01:20:07.451 So if we inject chemicals into the earth in order to produce more oil, produce more 01:20:09.808 --> 01:20:14.214 other products that we have a lot of craving for, that is no problem. 01:20:14.553 --> 01:20:18.006 And then we don't look at the suffering, we don't look at the water 01:20:18.128 --> 01:20:21.020 that comes out of the tap that you can light on fire. 01:20:24.408 --> 01:20:27.468 So sometimes, when we are on the bodhisattva path 01:20:27.647 --> 01:20:29.636 we need to put our own body 01:20:30.420 --> 01:20:34.494 in the way, in order to help people to look deeply into - 01:20:36.005 --> 01:20:39.852 Encourage others to practice looking deeply. 01:20:40.946 --> 01:20:44.234 Sometimes, that is why some of us become monks and nuns. 01:20:44.731 --> 01:20:48.706 We want to deal with our own suffering, but we also have an aspiration, 01:20:48.830 --> 01:20:53.320 we know sometimes we need to be, go a little bit outside of the norm 01:20:53.647 --> 01:20:58.445 in order to help each other to look deeply into what is really going on. 01:21:02.858 --> 01:21:06.780 We are attached to the idea of a life span, jīva. 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. 01:21:16.342 --> 01:21:19.167 And when I get old, I will be like that. 01:21:19.965 --> 01:21:24.104 When I get old, I will travel. I will have a bucket list 01:21:24.269 --> 01:21:27.995 and I will go to all those countries and do all those things.' 01:21:31.450 --> 01:21:33.684 Thay often told the story 01:21:34.012 --> 01:21:36.169 of Frederic, a business man, 01:21:36.647 --> 01:21:39.186 whose wife came to Plum Village. 01:21:44.582 --> 01:21:46.519 He told his son, 01:21:47.978 --> 01:21:53.049 'Son, what do you want for Christmas?' 01:21:55.708 --> 01:21:59.862 And the son was not sure what he really wanted for Christmas. 01:22:00.035 --> 01:22:02.600 He had to think about it. And when he thought, 01:22:02.723 --> 01:22:06.302 he shared with his father, 'Daddy, I want to be with you. 01:22:08.031 --> 01:22:10.497 I want to be with you.' 01:22:10.918 --> 01:22:14.893 Because Frederic was head of a large company, and he was so busy! 01:22:18.165 --> 01:22:21.024 He could buy his son anything that he wants. 01:22:22.598 --> 01:22:26.860 Anything that he imagines. But all his son wanted was just to spend more time 01:22:27.372 --> 01:22:29.198 with his father. 01:22:31.319 --> 01:22:33.725 And even when his wife 01:22:36.166 --> 01:22:37.972 was sick, 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, 01:22:45.739 --> 01:22:47.530 and he could not 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 01:22:53.492 --> 01:22:59.114 with him. He had to ask his wife to represent him, to be present for him. 01:23:00.197 --> 01:23:05.908 And he told his wife, 'Very soon I will be able to transmit all my responsibilities 01:23:06.425 --> 01:23:10.406 in the company to someone else. So just in few years, 01:23:11.212 --> 01:23:15.921 we will have so much free time! Just bear with me for this moment.' 01:23:17.202 --> 01:23:19.892 And then, very soon after he told his wife that, 01:23:20.030 --> 01:23:22.646 he was killed in a car accident. 01:23:26.493 --> 01:23:31.289 And so all his hopes, his dreams to spend more time with his son, 01:23:31.540 --> 01:23:34.187 to spend more time with his family, 01:23:35.004 --> 01:23:38.133 they never had a chance to be realized. 01:23:40.407 --> 01:23:43.702 And we all live that reality. 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, 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. 01:23:56.243 --> 01:24:01.149 And so, when we learn to live happily, to dwell happily in the present moment, 01:24:01.316 --> 01:24:05.107 without basing our thinking on these perceptions, 01:24:06.246 --> 01:24:08.670 we no longer have fear. 01:24:11.822 --> 01:24:13.609 We no longer 01:24:14.276 --> 01:24:17.974 place our hopes and our dreams in some future time 01:24:18.687 --> 01:24:21.301 when we will do this, or we will do that. 01:24:21.453 --> 01:24:24.305 'I promise you! Just next year I will do that! 01:24:24.455 --> 01:24:27.019 We will have enough time to do it.' 01:24:27.173 --> 01:24:30.706 We learn to come back to ourselves, come back to the present moment, 01:24:30.861 --> 01:24:34.408 and to really enjoy all the wonders of life that are here and now, 01:24:34.511 --> 01:24:36.946 fully present for us. 01:24:37.783 --> 01:24:40.045 Within us and around us. 01:24:41.375 --> 01:24:46.986 So, mastering our thinking is learning how to dwell happily in the present moment. 01:24:48.057 --> 01:24:52.434 Remembering all the good conditions for happiness that are already here. 01:24:54.037 --> 01:24:57.367 That is how a bodhisattva masters her thinking. 01:24:58.871 --> 01:25:01.555 And even though we have that teaching, 01:25:01.754 --> 01:25:04.040 oftentimes we forget. 01:25:04.290 --> 01:25:06.689 And we still hope, and we plan, 01:25:06.871 --> 01:25:09.482 and it is not that planning is bad, 01:25:10.843 --> 01:25:14.066 but we do it in a joyful way in the present moment. 01:25:14.236 --> 01:25:17.144 And we are happy to let go of our plan. 01:25:17.544 --> 01:25:19.662 We are happy to let go of it, 01:25:19.853 --> 01:25:23.358 because we know that our happiness doesn't depend on that. 01:25:24.414 --> 01:25:29.110 Our happiness doesn't depend on going to see that person for Christmas, 01:25:30.064 --> 01:25:33.138 or being with our family for Christmas. 01:25:34.077 --> 01:25:38.275 Or doing that thing, or getting that job, or getting that promotion. 01:25:39.347 --> 01:25:43.557 But it is realized right here and right now with our mindful breathing, 01:25:44.544 --> 01:25:49.428 with our mindful step, with the community of practice around us. 01:25:50.682 --> 01:25:52.985 And we don't have to 01:25:54.473 --> 01:25:57.368 become some important person 01:25:59.236 --> 01:26:02.523 who is respected, who is respectable. 01:26:05.524 --> 01:26:09.950 Sometimes our greatest teacher can be a homeless person in the street. 01:26:11.975 --> 01:26:15.025 They can give us a wisdom that we need. 01:26:15.163 --> 01:26:18.289 And that was the insight that the Buddha was trying to 01:26:18.533 --> 01:26:23.041 give to people by living humbly himself, by begging for his food, 01:26:24.217 --> 01:26:28.075 putting himself as the lowest in society. 01:26:29.839 --> 01:26:33.830 Not riding around in fancy, on fancy elephants. 01:26:35.843 --> 01:26:38.359 Some of his disciples, when they became monks, 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 01:26:42.452 --> 01:26:44.082 like I did before.' 01:26:44.190 --> 01:26:48.190 That is why we have the precept about not riding in luxurious vehicles. 01:26:48.428 --> 01:26:49.781 (Laughter) 01:26:49.900 --> 01:26:53.640 Most of us don't think about riding an elephant as a luxurious vehicle, 01:26:54.268 --> 01:26:58.031 but at that time, it was a sign of royalty. 01:26:59.677 --> 01:27:02.821 So how can we learn to recognize these, 01:27:02.980 --> 01:27:05.808 when our thinking is based on these perceptions? 01:27:05.960 --> 01:27:08.935 When we look for approval from others, 01:27:09.049 --> 01:27:13.256 how much of it is based on an idea of a self? Of a person? 01:27:15.283 --> 01:27:18.561 We want to be appreciated, we want to be recognized. 01:27:20.931 --> 01:27:25.665 We treat human beings well but we don't treat Mother Earth in a respectful way. 01:27:28.387 --> 01:27:31.745 In Thay's commentary, we can read 01:27:31.924 --> 01:27:37.253 that he loved to get out of the city and to go into the countryside. 01:27:38.731 --> 01:27:43.584 And Thay said, because in the city, you have to, when you go to pee 01:27:44.610 --> 01:27:49.058 you have to go into very smelly bathrooms, very 01:27:51.009 --> 01:27:53.999 dirty, very unpleasant. 01:27:54.370 --> 01:27:58.271 But in the countryside, you can go and you can pee anywhere you want. 01:28:00.276 --> 01:28:03.963 But then, after a while, when Thay started to look deeply, 01:28:04.478 --> 01:28:08.367 he felt very ashamed when he would go and pee behind a tree. 01:28:08.525 --> 01:28:12.221 Because the tree was such a beautiful, sacred thing, 01:28:12.409 --> 01:28:14.329 how could you pee on it? 01:28:14.436 --> 01:28:15.793 (Laughter) 01:28:16.457 --> 01:28:18.989 But then he - So he tried to go somewhere else, 01:28:19.124 --> 01:28:22.313 but there would always be a bush or a tree somewhere, everywhere, 01:28:22.625 --> 01:28:26.272 and then he realized, what would he do? He has to pee somewhere! 01:28:28.040 --> 01:28:32.576 And then, one day he had the insight which is that peeing is also sacred. 01:28:33.183 --> 01:28:34.686 (Laughter) 01:28:35.992 --> 01:28:38.762 That he was caught in the idea that peeing 01:28:40.196 --> 01:28:42.618 is something profane. 01:28:43.100 --> 01:28:46.581 That by peeing on it he is disrespecting Mother Earth. 01:28:46.969 --> 01:28:51.949 But we know when we pee we are returning our nutrients back to the earth. 01:28:55.255 --> 01:28:58.216 So we can see that the tree is sacred, 01:28:58.400 --> 01:29:01.529 and when we pee next to it it is also a sacred act. 01:29:01.968 --> 01:29:06.666 That is the insight we get from freeing ourselves from this kind of perception. 01:29:09.175 --> 01:29:14.369 We see we are not damaging the tree, we are not causing suffering to the tree. 01:29:14.566 --> 01:29:17.956 So we pee in such a way, that we can bring happiness and joy 01:29:18.342 --> 01:29:20.735 to us and to the tree. 01:29:22.383 --> 01:29:26.673 We have to learn to recognize suffering. That is why it is the first noble truth. 01:29:26.801 --> 01:29:29.248 And that suffering is not only in ourselves, 01:29:29.381 --> 01:29:32.090 we need to recognize the suffering of fracking. 01:29:33.189 --> 01:29:36.733 The suffering of not taking care of 01:29:37.987 --> 01:29:39.768 the animals. 01:29:42.648 --> 01:29:47.030 That is why in Plum Village we eat vegetarian, it's very easy for us, 01:29:47.219 --> 01:29:51.823 because we know, we know how animals are treated when they are used for meat, 01:29:52.432 --> 01:29:54.997 or to produce dairy products. 01:29:55.239 --> 01:29:59.254 Now with the Internet, if you don't know, you can find out very quickly. 01:29:59.685 --> 01:30:01.609 It is not difficult. 01:30:03.175 --> 01:30:05.717 And so when we get in touch with that suffering, 01:30:05.852 --> 01:30:09.159 and we really practice deeply the teaching of the Diamond Sutra, 01:30:09.330 --> 01:30:12.203 we want to lead all beings to nirvana. 01:30:14.363 --> 01:30:18.765 Then we become free from the idea that that cow, that that chicken 01:30:19.474 --> 01:30:21.756 is separate from me. 01:30:21.861 --> 01:30:23.958 That the tree is separate from me, 01:30:24.132 --> 01:30:26.970 that the oil deep in the earth is separate from me. 01:30:27.107 --> 01:30:30.654 That we are all part of one organism, Mother Earth. 01:30:31.251 --> 01:30:35.994 And Mother Earth is also part of a beautiful family of brothers and sisters 01:30:36.558 --> 01:30:39.285 going around our Sun. 01:30:40.190 --> 01:30:45.936 And that the Sun is also part of a beautiful Cosmos, the Milky Way, 01:30:46.403 --> 01:30:52.155 universe, galaxy, and that beyond that, 01:30:52.333 --> 01:30:57.037 the whole universe of many hundreds of millions of galaxies. 01:30:59.012 --> 01:31:02.990 And when we look in that way, we see that we are not alone. 01:31:05.403 --> 01:31:07.413 So that teaching 01:31:07.590 --> 01:31:10.672 that we see that no one single being has been saved 01:31:10.843 --> 01:31:13.906 is another way of saying we are not alone. 01:31:14.836 --> 01:31:18.346 We break through the barrier of loneliness. 01:31:19.003 --> 01:31:24.791 And we see that this body, these feelings, these perceptions, 01:31:25.004 --> 01:31:27.824 these mental formations, and this consciousness 01:31:27.980 --> 01:31:30.890 are not me. They are not mine. 01:31:31.655 --> 01:31:34.423 They are not a separate self. 01:31:37.487 --> 01:31:40.864 We become free from all those concepts. 01:31:42.254 --> 01:31:45.268 And then we can begin the true work 01:31:46.019 --> 01:31:47.988 of liberation 01:31:49.041 --> 01:31:53.420 knowing that not any single being has been liberated. 01:31:54.377 --> 01:31:57.157 That is how we master our thinking. 01:31:57.447 --> 01:31:59.760 That is how we set our mind. 01:32:03.850 --> 01:32:05.089 (Bell) 01:32:09.493 --> 01:32:15.635 (Bell) 01:32:26.371 --> 01:32:27.778 So, 01:32:28.473 --> 01:32:30.822 so we didn't get very far today 01:32:31.829 --> 01:32:34.721 in the sutra, but I think that 01:32:36.261 --> 01:32:39.041 we get to touch the essence. 01:32:39.441 --> 01:32:41.782 We cannot be caught in words. 01:32:43.452 --> 01:32:47.208 Many times in the Diamond Sutra we will hear something like, 01:32:48.403 --> 01:32:53.504 'When the Tathagata speaks of signs, there are no signs being talked about. 01:32:55.519 --> 01:33:01.357 Subhuti, what is called Buddhadharma is everything that is not Buddhadharma." 01:33:06.456 --> 01:33:10.358 When the Buddha talks about the highest, most fulfilled awakened mind, 01:33:10.489 --> 01:33:14.978 there is nothing that can be called the highest, most fulfilled awakened mind. 01:33:15.405 --> 01:33:19.334 That is why it is called the highest, most fulfilled awakened mind. 01:33:19.505 --> 01:33:23.647 That is the refrain that we see often in the Diamond Sutra. 01:33:24.367 --> 01:33:27.692 And it seems like, 'What sense do we make of that?' 01:33:30.287 --> 01:33:34.574 And that is also to help us break through this barrier 01:33:35.200 --> 01:33:37.125 of perception. 01:33:37.836 --> 01:33:40.540 Of getting caught in a perception. 01:33:42.021 --> 01:33:45.227 Thay talked about one Zen master 01:33:45.548 --> 01:33:49.398 that when he - Because everyone keeps saying, 01:33:49.573 --> 01:33:52.307 Buddha, Buddha, so much, Buddha this and Buddha that 01:33:52.310 --> 01:33:55.634 that he got so sick and he said, 'I have to go to the stream outside 01:33:55.647 --> 01:33:58.264 and wash my mouth out, it's like saying a filthy word. 01:33:58.384 --> 01:34:00.770 If you say the Buddha one more time.' 01:34:00.916 --> 01:34:03.946 And he is trying to point out that tendency we have 01:34:04.112 --> 01:34:08.405 to idolize, whether it is the word, whether it's a person, 01:34:08.602 --> 01:34:11.084 whether it's a concept. 01:34:12.828 --> 01:34:17.235 And so when we talk about the highest, most fulfilled awakened mind, 01:34:17.813 --> 01:34:21.337 we can start repeating it and it loses all of its meaning. 01:34:24.738 --> 01:34:27.464 And so when the Buddha says, 01:34:27.607 --> 01:34:31.658 'What I call the highest, most fulfilled awakened mind, 01:34:31.820 --> 01:34:35.296 that is not the highest, most fulfilled awakened mind.' 01:34:35.457 --> 01:34:39.973 It means that it is not the word, highest, most fulfilled awakened mind, 01:34:40.087 --> 01:34:42.392 it is not that phrase. 01:34:42.633 --> 01:34:45.956 It is much more than that. It can only be realized. 01:34:49.290 --> 01:34:53.643 That is why I just call it highest, most fulfilled awakened mind. 01:34:53.776 --> 01:34:58.092 But you need to realize it yourself. You need to touch it by breaking through 01:34:58.842 --> 01:35:03.343 and freeing yourself from these wrong perceptions. 01:35:04.261 --> 01:35:07.984 So I invite you to continue your study of the Diamond Sutra. 01:35:09.104 --> 01:35:15.934 And as you go out, and be back to your family, back to your friends, 01:35:18.420 --> 01:35:24.230 you can really have a chance to sit and look deeply at them in that way. 01:35:24.776 --> 01:35:27.770 You think, 'That is my mother, that is my father. 01:35:27.948 --> 01:35:31.427 That is my son, that is my daughter, that is my husband.' 01:35:31.613 --> 01:35:37.357 And because your ideas of husband, and father, and mother, and son and daughter 01:35:37.523 --> 01:35:40.717 have become a view, 01:35:41.801 --> 01:35:43.819 a perception, 01:35:44.018 --> 01:35:47.005 maybe you don't really see them as they are, 01:35:47.105 --> 01:35:50.814 as this wondrous manifestation 01:35:51.967 --> 01:35:57.846 of beauty, of understanding, as well as of suffering, 01:35:58.941 --> 01:36:01.664 of pain, of ignorance. 01:36:08.454 --> 01:36:10.813 But with the help of this teaching, 01:36:10.921 --> 01:36:14.132 you can sit and look at them, and really look at them. 01:36:15.261 --> 01:36:18.530 Look them in the eye. You don't have to say anything. 01:36:18.675 --> 01:36:20.792 You can smile. 01:36:21.808 --> 01:36:24.660 That is a smile of a bodhisattva. 01:36:26.456 --> 01:36:30.170 So I wish you well on your path of practice, 01:36:30.605 --> 01:36:35.426 and thank you for being together on the bodhisattva path. 01:36:39.999 --> 01:36:41.177 (Bell) 01:36:45.217 --> 01:36:51.527 (Bell) 01:37:06.031 --> 01:37:12.126 (Bell) 01:37:28.261 --> 01:37:34.446 (Bell) 01:37:55.829 --> 01:37:58.687 (Small bell)