(Bell)
(Inaudible)
(fr): We will begin by listening to three sounds of the bell.
Dear Thay, dear sisters, dear friends, dear brothers,
now we will practice together a short guided sitting meditation.
Please find a comfortable and stable sitting posture,
be aware of your breathing,
keep a gentle smile as you breathe.
We will begin by listening to three sounds of the bell.
(Bell)
(French)
Breathing in, I am aware of my in-breath.
Breathing out, I am aware of my out-breath.
In-breath, out-breath.
(Bell)
(French)
Breathing in, my breath goes deep.
Breathing out, my breath goes slowly.
Deep, slow.
(Bell)
(French)
Breathing in, I am aware of my body.
Breathing out, I smile to my body.
Aware of body, smiling to body.
(Bell)
(French)
Breathing in, I feel joyful to be alive.
Breathing out, I smile to life within me and around me.
Being alive, smiling.
(Bell)
(French)
Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment.
Breathing out, I enjoy the present moment.
Present moment, enjoying.
(Bell)
Thank you for your practice. (French)
Dear Thay, dear brothers and sisters,
we would like to invite all the monastic brothers and sisters
to come up for chanting before the Dharma talk. Thank you.
(Bell)
Contemplations before chanting.
The sangha is invited to come back to our breathing
so that our collective energy of mindfulness will bring us together as an organism,
going as a river with no more separation.
Let the whole sangha breathe as one body,
chant as one body, listen as one body,
and transcend the boundaries of a delusive self,
liberating from the superiority complex, the inferiority complex,
and the equality complex.
# May the day be well # and the night be well.
# May the midday hour # bring happiness, too.
# In every minute and every second, # may the day and night be well.
# By the blessing of the Triple Gem, # may all things be protected and safe.
# May all beings # born in each of the four ways
# live in a land of purity.
# May all in three Realms # be born upon Lotus Thrones.
# May countless wandering souls
# realize the three virtuous positions # of the Bodhisattva Path.
# May all living beings, # with grace and ease,
# fulfill the Bodhisattva Stages.
# The countenance of the World-Honored One, # like the full moon,
# or like the orb of the sun, # shines with the light of clarity.
# A halo of wisdom # spreads in every direction,
# enveloping all with love and compassion, # joy, and equanimity.
# Namo Shakyamunaye Buddhaya.
# Namo Shakyamunaye Buddhaya. #
(Bell)
# The Buddha jewel shines infinitely, # enlightened for countless lifetimes.
# The beauty and stability # of a Buddha sitting
# is seen in mountains and rivers.
# How splendid is the Vulture Peak!
# How beautiful the light, # that shines forth from Buddha’s brow,
# illumining the six dark paths.
# To the Nagapushpa assembly we will go,
# to continue the true teachings # and practices.
# We take refuge # in the Buddha ever present.
# The Dharma jewel is infinitely lovely, # the precious words of Buddha.
# Like fragrant flowers # floating down from the heavens.
# The wonderful Dharma is plain to see,
# it is recorded luminously # in three transparent baskets.
# From generation to generation # handed down in ten directions,
# so that today we can see our way. # We vow to learn with all our heart.
# We take refuge # in the Dharma ever present.
# The Sangha jewel is infinitely precious, # a field of merit and good seeds.
# The three robes and begging bowl # are symbols of freedom.
# The mindfulness trainings, # concentration, and insight
# support each other. # In mindfulness day and night,
# the Sangha dwells and is the foundation
# for us to realize # the fruit of meditation.
# With one heart, we come home
# and take refuge # in the Sangha ever present. #
(Bell)
Breathing in, I go back to the island within myself.
There are beautiful trees on the island.
Breathing out, I feel safe.
I enjoy going back to my island.
Most respected Thay, dear sangha,
today is the 8th of May in the year 2022,
we are in the New Hamlet, in the Full Moon meditation hall
on our day of mindfulness.
We are going to listen to three sounds of the bell
in order to come back to the island
(Vietnamese)
in order to come back to the island within ourselves.
Please, enjoy your breathing. That is the best way home.
(Bell)
Dear sangha, in Israel, Palestine, in what I believe is called no man's land,
there is a practice center,
I think founded by a Christian monk.
And the name of the center is Neve Shalom.
The word "neve" means an island.
And "shalom" means peace.
Island of peace.
Because we, human beings,
we all need that island of peace.
Maybe we've been looking for it for a long time.
And we find that when we are looking for our island of peace,
we go around in circles.
Today is also Mother's Day in the United States.
I don't know what other countries.
I think in Australia also.
We have to ask, is my mother in me at peace?
We all have a mother inside of us.
We would not be here if it was not for our mother.
But, is she at peace?
Did she have to go through war?
Has she found peace yet?
I think we can help her.
I think we can help her find peace.
We can talk to her.
Last week, for those of you who were here,
you practiced that meditation before.
You practiced the meditation before the beginning of the Dharma talk.
Aware of my back,
I know that it is my back, but it's also my mother's back.
Because in every cell of my back are the genes of my mother and my father.
So aware of my back,
I am also aware that I am sitting with my mother's back.
It is not just my back.
It is also my mother's back.
I cannot escape that truth.
It's very scientific.
Then we practiced, aware of my lungs.
They are my lungs,
but they are also my mother's lungs.
Because my mother is in every cell of my lungs with her genes.
So I am breathing with my mother's lungs, I am sitting with my mother's back.
That is the practice for us to do on Mother's Day.
Do not think that you are separate from your mother.
Her suffering is also your suffering.
When we can come back to that island of peace in ourselves
with our sitting and our breathing,
then we can begin to feel safe.
We need to feel safe for our mother,
so she can feel safe too.
Because maybe in the in the Second World War,
she had to run away from the bombs.
So talk to her.
Tell her, "Mother, we're safe now."
Maybe she was a child during the war.
That is the war we had in Europe,
or any other war that you have in any other part of the world.
And the fear
that people suffer from during war is very great.
It's very difficult to heal, to transform.
We need to help our mother in us.
Tell her, "Mother, we are safe now."
Because your mother's fear, it can become your fear.
Sometimes we have to recognize this fear that is coming up in me
isn't just my fear.
It is also my mother's fear and my father's fear.
So I take care of my mother, and father, and myself at the same time.
Last week or... I don't remember how many weeks,
sister Eleni, sister Từ Nghiêm, gave a Dharma talk.
She mentioned a story that the Buddha told.
I will tell you again.
There is a couple,
a father and a daughter maybe, or master and disciple.
And together they do an acrobatic act to make their living.
It is quite dangerous.
The father has a bamboo pole to put on his forehead,
and the daughter has to climb up it.
So the father, or the master, says, "My dear child,
this act of us is the way we make our living.
So it's very important.
But our safety is also very important.
So we have to be sure that the act will be successful.
Then, people will give us some money, and we can buy some rice."
Then the father, the master, said, "And this is the best way to do it.
You have to be aware of me.
So in that way, you can protect me. And I have to be aware of you.
And in that way, I will protect you."
And the daughter listened.
Then she said, "Father, I don't agree.
The best way is that I take care of myself,
and you take care of yourself.
If we do that, then we will take care of each other at the same time."
Then they went to the Buddha and asked, "What is the best way to protect us?"
And the Buddha said, "The daughter is right.
If you take care of yourself,
you will also be taking care of the other person."
That is a question we are all asking.
How can we be safe when we see the growth of the right wing?
When we know about the war in Ukraine?
We have the COVID.
There are so many things that stop us from feeling safe.
So the first thing we need to do is to come back to ourselves and realize
that we don't feel safe.
And our mother in us doesn't feel safe.
So what are we going to do?
How are we going to create a feeling of protection?
Protect ourselves and protect others?
We just sang a chant,
the mindfulness trainings,
the sangha is a precious jewel.
The mindfulness trainings, concentration, and insight support each other.
# The mindfulness trainings, # concentration, and insight
# support each other. #
In mindfulness day and night the Sangha dwells and is the foundation
for us to realize the fruit of meditation.
I don't know, when you come to Plum Village,
do you feel that protection?
Do you feel that island of safety, of peace, when you come to Plum Village?
Because that is our aspiration.
That is Thay's aspiration,
that we have a safe place for people to come to.
Many children, when they go to school, many teachers when they go to school,
they don't feel safe in the school. There's a lot of violence.
So we need safe places for our children to come to.
And the family needs to be a safe place for the children to come home to.
Maybe if we spend more time in school than we do at home,
we will be in touch with violence more than we are in touch with safety.
So we need a different kind of school, a different kind of education.
Is that not so?
What is it that helps Plum Village to be a safe place?
The mindfulness trainings, concentration, and insight.
Next Sunday you will have an opportunity, if you want,
either to receive the 5 mindfulness trainings to bring them into your life,
or to support others
who are bringing the five mindfulness trainings into their life.
The five mindfulness trainings are maybe
the greatest protection that we can have for ourselves,
our family, and our society.
The way we take care of ourselves, and at the same time take care of others.
I want to - Poetry.
Poetry can help us in the practice.
When you wake up in the morning,
you need to put your feet on the ground,
and put on your socks, or put on your slippers,
and take your first steps of the day.
Morning, midday, evening and night.
All you little creatures, take care of yourself.
If my footstep is not in the right place, and I step on you,
may you be reborn in a place of safety and security.
I really don't want to step on you, little ant, little caterpillar,
little slug, or snail,
but sometimes you're in my bath, and I don't see you.
And I step on you.
I don't want you to suffer too long.
I want you to be born in a place of no suffering.
So when we begin our day like that,
we are keeping the - we are practicing according to
the first mindfulness training.
It's about protecting life.
And we want to protect life as much as we can.
And we can't do it perfectly,
because we have another little poem when we eat.
Eating in the dimension beyond space and time -
Actually in the historical dimension we are eating our lunch.
I chew in rhythm with my breath.
How dreadful, uh? How dreadful that we eat each other,
I vow to practice compassion,
to take all beings to the other shore,
to help all beings overcome their suffering.
Because you cannot say, "I am 100% vegan". Can you?
When you envisage the rice being grown in the field,
when you envisage the gardener
digging the earth,
you know that little beings have contributed to the food that you eat.
So you know that
in order to stay alive something else has to die,
like the little insects.
Nevertheless, when you eat like that in mindfulness
and you give rise to compassion,
then that is a protection for the world.
Because we know that if we cannot -
We don't want to kill even the smallest insect,
then there's no way we can kill something that is bigger than the smallest insect.
And with the second mindfulness training
we want to develop our, I think it's called true happiness.
We want to develop our contentment, our happiness with what we have.
Because we have fear,
because we have the feeling of insecurity,
then sometimes we feel, "Oh, things are getting dangerous!"
So we will go and we will buy many tinned food and dry food,
and we will stock it up.
Then, when the dangerous time comes, at least we will have something to eat.
But I don't think that is our greatest protection.
When we become a monk or a nun,
we receive a bowl, a begging bowl.
Actually we don't go backing out on the street anymore in Plum Village.
You very kindly
help us by coming to our retreat and paying some money when you come.
That is our alms round in Plum Village.
But when we receive our alms bowl,
we feel that if I practice correctly, I will not need to go hungry.
So don't think about tomorrow, what shall we eat?
Practice the mindfulness trainings of contentment with what we have today.
There were times in the lifetime of the Buddha,
when the monks and the Buddha did not have enough to eat.
And one horse trainer
who had enough food for his horses, and he had extra food for his horses.
And that food was the bran of the rice, the outside part of the rice.
And he gave it to the monks and to the Buddha to eat.
And Ananda, the Buddha's attendant, used the mortar and a pestle,
made it very fine so the Buddha could eat something.
They lived like that for three months.
At that time, they were in Vaisali.
We have to stay in one place for three months as monks and nuns.
So we couldn't say, "Let's go somewhere else
where they don't have a shortage of food."
They have to stay there, and eat the bran for three months
to stay alive. And then after that we will go on tour.
Maybe we will arrive in a place where there's more food.
So in the second mindfulness training, we have to keep reminding ourselves,
"I already have enough conditions to be happy. I have two feet, I can walk.
I have two eyes that can see, two ears that can hear.
I have the mindfulness trainings
that will help me relate in my family, bring happiness to my family.
I have a spiritual path. The most precious thing."
The Dharma jewel is infinitely -
It's infinitely lovely, it's infinitely beautiful.
(Bell)
I do not want to consume too much. I do not want to take more than I need.
That is because I know
I have the conditions for happiness in the present moment.
That is the second mindfulness training.
And the third mindfulness training is also about protection.
I want to protect families, couples, from being broken by sexual misconduct.
It's about integrity, about responsibility.
Because we are human beings,
and we have something that is called human love.
And human beings are also animals.
We are really just another primate, we shouldn't be too proud of ourselves.
But our particular species of primate
is human and has human love.
Now we see the birds are very happy, they're making their nests,
having their family.
And they feel a lot of joy and they sing with joy,
and bring us much happiness when we hear them singing.
But they also get a little bit silly.
That is they are thinking about something,
and they forget that this is a road with cars driving along.
So we are careful when we drive in this season,
because the birds are sometimes a bit too preoccupied with other things.
They go across the road when it is not safe.
So the bird have the bird's love,
and the human have the human love.
And the human love contains many things,
like loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity.
Human love is much more than sexual desire,
but sexual desire is in all of us,
because we are animal species.
And we need to protect our society, our family,
so that sexual desire can be handled in the right way.
That is why we have the third mindfulness training, true love.
Sex is not bad.
Only when it does harm,
when it breaks families, breaks couples,
when it encroaches our children. That is very harmful.
And our deep aspiration is to do everything we can
to protect children, families, and couples.
And our relationships,
if we embark on a physical or a long-term relationship,
it really needs support.
Because a relationship is much more than a physical relationship.
A long-term relationship. There's a spiritual relationship also.
So we need to ask for support.
"Dear sangha, please, support our relationship."
Because a long-term relationship isn't easy, you go through ups and downs.
If you know the sangha is there to support you when it goes down,
then you feel that you can practice with it and bring it up again.
The fourth mindfulness training is about loving speech and deep listening.
Many people, when they receive the mindfulness trainings,
they say, "Receiving the fourth mindfulness training is enough.
It will take me a whole lifetime of practice to speak lovingly and listen deeply.
So I'm going to concentrate completely on that."
And that is wonderful, when we hear that we're very happy.
To only receive one mindfulness training, it makes us very happy,
because we know that when you practice that fourth mindfulness training,
you will practice the other four at the same time.
That is very beautiful, that training,
because listening deeply
to our partner, listening deeply to other members of our family,
if we can do that then we can go to places like Neve Shalom
and we can listen deeply to Palestinians, we can listen deeply to Israelis,
so that they can talk about their suffering.
It doesn't have to build up until it becomes violence.
And so that we can listen to the suffering of the other side,
the other side that we think is so cruel.
The other side which we think will take away all our happiness.
We listen and we realize that they suffer as much as we do.
And then, all you want to do is hold their hand
as you do walking meditation.
This is what we have witnessed in Plum Village
when Israelis, Palestinians have come and listened to each other.
It's very difficult in the first week,
but after that, we can come back to ourselves,
find enough peace and calm in ourselves
in order to be able to listen to the suffering of others.
And when we've heard, we feel,
"I can take your hand and walk with you in walking meditation."
We all have in us a judge who likes to sit in judgment,
and decide who is right and who is wrong.
And usually the one who is right is me, and the one who is wrong is you.
But we can go beyond that judge.
We can help that judge to go back like a seed in our store consciousness.
He doesn't need to sit on his seat of judgment anymore.
She, I shouldn't say he, I'm sorry.
They don't need to sit on their seat of judgment anymore.
Then, you can listen to the suffering of the other person
without judging, without reacting. But it's not always easy,
because the other person will say things that you feel are really not true,
that you feel are wrong perceptions.
And you keep listening.
We have a little poem.
You are me, and I am you.
Do you see that we inter-are?
'Do you see' means,
me, 'Do I see',
do you see that we inter-are?
And that person that you are listening to deeply,
inter-is with you.
And you remind yourself,
when that person says something that you feel is not true,
that we inter-are. You are me, and I am you.
Then you can continue to listen and your eyes continue to be loving.
Then, after you've listened deeply, you say, "Thank you for sharing.
I'm going to reflect deeply on what you have said."
That is enough for the other person to feel relief.
Then, you go away and you reflect,
and you ask, "Why did they say that?
It's not true! But, why?
Then you have to reflect, What do I do?
What habit energies do I have that could make the person feel like that?
And sometimes you see that,
in the past, that person knew somebody like me, who looked like me,
and therefore that person who looked like me in the past
hurt the person who is angry with me.
And that hurt hasn't been resolved yet.
So it continues to make them suffer
and they think that I am the root of their suffering.
But never mind, I have understood that for myself.
That's already enough
for me to be able to feel compassion for the other person.
They suffered so much in the past, because of someone who looked like me.
And now they think that I'm making them suffer.
But I will practice.
And they will see that I'm not the root of their suffering.
This is something I have done. I am not making it up.
The fifth mindfulness training is about -
The fifth mindfulness training.
It's about right consumption, about healing through consumption.
In Buddhism we know that we consume just not food and drink,
but we consume with our six, our five senses.
Eyes, ears, nose, also consume.
Now you are consuming some Dharma talk through your ears, and maybe your eyes.
So we also consume through our mind and our consciousness.
And from our consciousness we consume memories,
things that have happened in the past.
And very often we consume painful memories from the past.
That is not a consumption from outside of us,
that is a consumption from our own consciousness.
So we should be aware of consuming the past,
consuming the future in form of worry.
We have all gone through difficult times,
we've all gone through suffering in the past.
And we carry that suffering with us.
And we don't want to keep consuming it,
because every time we consume it, it gets a little bit stronger.
So now I have the habit energy.
When a painful memory from the past comes up,
as soon as I recognize it is coming up I say, "That is the past."
It's not repression, because I recognize that is the real past.
But I don't want to be caught in it,
I don't want it to make me suffer,
so that then I go and make other people suffer.
So I say to myself, "That is the past.
Now, what is happening in the present?"
And I bring myself back to
what I'm touching, or what I'm with my ears or my eyes in the present moment.
Maybe the birds singing, maybe the book that I have in front of me.
And I can put my hand on the book, and touch the book.
And all the books I read have compassion and wisdom in them.
So I feel in the present moment,
I can touch something that has compassion and wisdom.
And I don't need to drown in the past.
But you don't have to use a book, you can use other things
to be in touch with in the present moment.
(Bell)
And of course, I want to consume food and drink
in a way that protects Mother Earth.
I was very happy when I read a report, I think, in The Lancet,
this is a doctor magazine,
that said, "The best diet for a human being is the best diet for Mother Earth".
That is plant-based diet.
So that is good, we take care of ourselves and Mother Earth at the same time.
And our young friends,
who will have to face climate change in a way
that maybe this particular manifestation won't have to face it,
are very happy when they hear that
becoming vegan will do more to help than not driving your car.
Although if you can do both, it is wonderful.
So this fifth mindfulness training is all about
how we can help Mother Earth by the way we consume.
The five mindfulness trainings, when we receive them,
we make another commitment at the same time,
that we will have sangha friends,
and we will come together with our sangha either online or in person,
and we will discuss together, we will share about the mindfulness trainings.
Because the mindfulness trainings are like a deep ocean.
I like the ocean. One lifetime is not enough
to complete our study and practice of them.
So we need to come together, and share together and learn from each other
in order for our practice of the mindfulness training to grow.
It has to grow like a tree.
A tree is always growing, and our practice grows like that.
So we said that the five mindfulness trainings are the greatest of protection.
Mindfulness trainings, concentration, and insight support each other.
When we feel safe, when we feel protection.
And that safety and that protection
comes from our own actions of body, speech, and mind.
But surround us.
That action of body speech and mind it goes out into the world,
but it also comes back again to the person who is practicing,
and acts as a kind of protection.
So the mindfulness trainings make concentration possible.
We have to have a certain amount of safety, feeling of safety,
to be able to develop our concentration.
And out of concentration that comes insight.
That is the understanding of what I should do and what I should not do.
And the mindfulness trainings can help us in that.
We can refer to them.
In this situation, how should I act? How should I not act?
And if I'm not sure, then I don't want to act.
Because sometimes action coming from
a place of lack of understanding, of wrong perception can do a lot of damage.
And we regret it afterwards.
So we need to use the mindfulness trainings,
use our concentration and our insight in order to be able to act.
Concentration means to come back home to yourself,
body and mind united.
I want to share a poem with you of Thay,
but it's very difficult to translate.
And I don't know if I've translated it -
I hope that there is some correctness in my translation.
[Lòng không bận về]
That is the title of the poem.
So my first difficulty is this word here.
How to translate this word.
I have a dictionary.
When I open my dictionary it says, this word may mean 'mind',
it means 'heart', it means 'feelings', it means 'soul'.
Those four things. That's what my dictionary said.
I believe that this word originally meant,
your entrails, your insides.
In English sometimes, or American English, we talk about gut, gut feeling.
So a little bit related to this word.
Neuroscientists, in our own time, people concentrate, as far as I understand,
very much on the neurons in our brain.
But we have neurons in many other places than our brain.
Our heart is 60% neurons, our intestines are even more, I believe.
So to translate this word as 'mind' is not really correct,
to translate it as 'heart' is not really correct,
although 'heart' may be easier.
Then my second difficulty was with this word here.
This word means 'busy'.
One time, Thay invented a new word, is 'busy-less-ness'.
Not 'business-less-ness', but 'busy-less-ness'.
Because our mind,
our heart is sometimes very busy.
And we don't have time, we don't have time for ourselves.
We don't have time for each other.
So we need the 'busylessness'.
We all need that.
And this word is 'I have come home', 'home', 'I'm at home', 'I've come home'.
So the busy-less heart, or busy-less mind,
comes home.
'To sit here, and to listen to the sound of the birds, flying'.
'The universe'.
I thought of a good way to translate that.
It's a little bit like, 'The universe is in a grain of sand',
like William Blake, to see the universe in a grain of sand.
'The golden crow hides in the west'. The golden crow is the sun.
The sun is hidden in the west.
'In the east, the jewel rabbit is over the top of the hill'.
The jewel rabbit is the Moon. The Moon is like a jewel up in the sky.
Many people think it looks like a rabbit is on the Moon.
'No one in front, no one behind'.
'Just myself'.
'You almost hear Earth and Sky calling to each other'.
'Coming out of the meditation, there is a long moment of stillness'.
'The green leaves, the bamboo screen, the upper story filled with moonlight'.
'The ancient river flows in harmony with the way of the world'.
'The wind follows the eight directions'.
'The busy-less mind-heart has come home'.
Sitting meditation is an important part of our practice.
It's a time when we can unite our body and our mind.
And we can say that our breathing helps our body to be suffused with our mind,
and helps our mind to be suffused with our body.
The mindfulness breathing
is the spirit, the bridge that unites body and mind.
So this is the breathing, this is your body, this is your mind.
And they all come together.
So in your meditation,
breathe in such a way
that you feel united in yourself.
You have to find, you find your own way of breathing.
First of all, let your breathing do what it wants to do.
Don't try and force it to do anything,
but let it let you know that you're still alive,
you can breathe, you are alive.
And when you see the being alive and breathing,
then your body and your mind come together.
So when we practice meditation,
we hear the bell letting us know
that the time for meditation will be in 15 minutes.
If we haven't already started our sitting meditation,
when we hear the sound of the bell telling us
the sitting meditation will begin in 15 minutes,
we don't say in 15 minutes. We say, the sitting meditation begins now.
We put on our whatever we're going to wear during the sitting meditation,
and we start to walk toward the meditation hall.
And that is the meditation already.
Maybe even before you put on what you're going to wear,
you were meditating already. That is even better.
Because before the meditation, and after the meditation,
they are not really separate from, during the meditation.
So when I put on my meditation gear, whatever it is,
I put on my coat or whatever I put on,
then I have a little poem also that I can read.
And that poem is,
'Putting on my clothes in the historical dimension,
I adorn myself'.
They may not be very beautiful clothes,
they are just this kind of clothes.
They don't have to be beautiful clothes to adorn myself.
'I adorn myself and I adorn the world'.
I want to be an adornment for the world.
I think we all want to be that, an adornment of peace.
And because I have received the mindfulness trainings,
it's very easy for me to say, 'I adorn myself with the mindfulness trainings'.
'And at the same time, I adorn the world with the mindfulness trainings'.
Because everyone who received the mindfulness trainings
will contribute to something to the collective consciousness,
contribute some peace to collective consciousness.
And you don't have to receive mindfulness trainings
to contribute peace to the collective consciousness.
You just need to practice them a little bit.
You don't have to come out in front of the sangha if you don't feel like it.
Only if you need the support of the sangha. We are happy to give it to you.
So then, putting on, 'I adorn myself and I adorn the world'.
'The Pure Land is in the palm of my hand'.
This cloth I'm putting on is in the palm of my hand.
But the clothing also belongs to the house of the Buddha, to the Pure Land.
'The Pure Land is made possible by the mountains, by the rivers'.
So at that point, you look out of the window,
and you see the scenery around you. You see something
that inspires you. If you're in the town,
you see the bricks of the other houses, I don't know.
You look up, and you see the cloud in the sky.
So you recognize that the whole world is coming together
to make this cloth possible.
So you're already concentrating, you're already meditating.
And then you come to the meditation hall
with your mindful breathing.
What is the point of running in forgetfulness to the meditation hall?
To have an extra five minutes in the meditation hall?
But then you lose the five minutes when you're running to get there.
So you just do walking meditation to get there.
Then, when you arrive, what you have to do, take off your shoes.
So you pick up your shoes,
and you say,
'Leaving my shoes neatly, I vow that -
All beings have two, well, there are other beings that have four,
they have mindful feet coming in and going out in freedom.
Coming in and going out in freedom has a very deep meaning,
because coming in means being born, and going out means dying.
You want to be able to live your life at all moments in freedom.
You don't only want it for you, you want it for all beings.
So having left your shoes like that,
you have to go in the door of the meditation hall.
'Entering the meditation hall, I see my true nature'.
'Once I am sitting, all the disturbance will cease'.
That is what you want. You make that deep aspiration,
that this sitting meditation is really to come back to yourself,
to be able to see your true nature.
And your true nature is the nature of interbeing, your non-separate self.
So on our way to the meditation hall, when we are concentrated,
we are deeply in touch with everything that surround us.
We hear the birds flying.
And when we just sit down in the meditation hall,
we do so very quietly.
Maybe there are other people already sitting there.
We don't want to disturb them.
One time, Thay said, that when Thay was meditating in the Upper Hamlet,
the brother who sat next to Thay came and sat down.
Thay didn't hear him, but he sat down very mindfully and quietly.
So we should try.
It's not easy, to sit down nobody can hear you,
but we do our best because we want not to disturb the person we're sitting next to.
The same if we start to get a numb feet in the middle of the meditation.
We have to change our position,
it's very bad to sit when the blood can't flow, it's not good for you.
So you need to change, but very quietly so nobody is disturbed,
very mindfully, nobody is disturbed.
This is the meditation taking place
at the time when the sun is just sitting, and the moon is just rising.
It's a good time to meditate,
because at that time the universe is a little bit still.
There's a certain stillness at that time of day.
But another good time to meditate, maybe even better,
is when the morning star is rising and setting,
because at that time,
our mind is very clear.
If we've slept well, I hope you sleep well.
So there is no one. We are alone.
No one in front, no one behind.
In Buddhism, we learn about the better way to be alone.
And the better way to be alone doesn't mean you're up in a cave
where there's no one else living.
The better way to be alone means to have come back to yourself,
and not to be thinking about what other people are doing.
Just to be there for yourself, in yourself is the way to be alone.
If you're thinking about the person in front of you, the person behind you,
you are not alone.
And if you're up in a cave, and thinking about this and that,
you're also not alone.
We forgot about the trichiliocosm.
The universe.
'The universe
does not fill even an inch' is what it says literally.
This has something to do with the meditation that is called
the limitless space meditation.
It is a meditation that the Buddha did
before the Buddha became Buddha.
And after the Buddha became Buddha, continued it in a different way.
When you meditate on space being limitless,
or when we sing the song,
'Breathing in, breathing out, I am blooming,
I am a mountain, I am a flower, I am water reflecting, and I am space'.
So we have that space meditation in our song, I am space, I am free.
Because when we meditate on space,
our consciousness also becomes limitless like the space.
But then we have to recognize
that space is a construct of our mind.
Then we can say, like William Blake,
to be able to see the universe in a grain of sand.
Or like Walt Whitman, I think, who said, 'I am large, I contain multitudes'.
It's as if you can hear the earth, the heaven and the earth,
they are talking to each other.
Because normally we think the earth is down here and the heaven is up there,
they are two separate realities.
But in fact, they inter-are.
The heavens make the earth possible, and the earth makes the heavens possible.
You don't need to go up in a spaceship in order to be able to see that.
When we come out of the meditation, when we come out of the concentration,
there should be that stillness. Don't lose it straight away.
When you hear the sound of the bell to let you know that the meditation is over,
don't start thinking, 'What am I going to do next?'
Enjoy the stillness that you have,
that you have been enjoying during the meditation.
And massage yourself gently not too fierce,
because you may lose the stillness.
Then, you open your eyes, and your eyes are in contact with the things around you,
the green leaves, the bamboo screen, the upper story filled with moonlight.
Then what is the insight that you had from your meditation?
That is the next thing that you might like to -
There was insight during that meditation, during the calm and the concentration.
What was it?
And the insight here is,
'The ancient river flows in harmony with the way of the world'.
The way of the world is the world of dust.
It is the saha world,
the world of change, the world where there is suffering and happiness.
But there is an ancient river which is in harmony with that world.
And that ancient river is the river of spirituality.
We all need that river of spirituality in our life.
We are very lucky that we have blood ancestors,
but we also have spiritual ancestors
who have handed down to us the way of practice.
And that river of a spiritual practice, it is without beginning and without end.
And it helps us to live in the world.
But if we don't live in the world with all this dust,
then we won't look for a spiritual practice.
So the world with its dust needs the spiritual practice,
and the spiritual practice needs the world with its dust.
'The wind follows the eight directions', but
the heart that is without any more busy, busy-less, no more business,
is at home.
When I read, 'The wind follows the eight directions',
immediately came up in my mind, the wind blows where it wishes.
You can hear it.
You don't know where it comes from, and where it goes to.
So the wind has that nature of no coming and no going.
We talk about coming in and going out,
and being born and dying.
But the winter isn't born and doesn't die.
When the causes and conditions are right, the wind -
you feel the wind, you hear the wind.
And when the causes and conditions are not right, you don't hear the wind anymore.
So our mind is free. Free from thought.
Our heart is free from worries.
They're not busy with thinking, busy with worrying.
So we are at home. And our mother is at home,
our father is at home, our ancestors are all at home in us.
I would like to ask the sister
to come and help.
Are you here, sister?
The sister will sing this song for us in Vietnamese.
So please, when you listen,
help your heart, your mind, to be with - No business!
No worry about the future.
No thought about the past.
You can see Thay meditating in complete freedom.
And you can feel that freedom in yourself.
This is a happy moment.
# Ngồi đây lắng tiếng chim bay
# ba ngàn thế giới không đầy tấc gang
# phương Tây vừa khuất quạ vầng
# phương Đông thỏ ngọc đã ngang đỉnh đồi
# trước sau có một mình tôi
# nghe như có tiếng đất trời gọi nhau.
# Xuất thiền lặng lẽ giây lâu
# lá xanh rèm liếp bên lầu sáng trăng
# sông xưa thuận nẻo dương trần
# gió theo tám hướng, lòng không bận về.
# ngồi đây lắng tiếng chim bay
# ba ngàn thế giới không đầy tấc gang
# phương Tây vừa khuất quạ vầng
# phương Đông thỏ ngọc đã ngang đỉnh đồi
# trước sau có một mình tôi
# nghe như có tiếng đất trời gọi nhau.
# Xuất thiền lặng lẽ giây lâu
# lá xanh rèm liếp bên lầu sáng trăng
# sông xưa thuận nẻo dương trần
# gió theo tám hướng, lòng không bận về.
# Xuất thiền lặng lẽ giây lâu
# lá xanh rèm liếp bên lầu sáng trăng
# sông xưa thuận nẻo dương trần
# gió theo tám hướng, lòng không bận về. #
Dear sangha,
in conclusion, one thing that your blood ancestors,
your blood ancestors, your mother, and your father,
they had that river of spirituality.
But maybe they were not able to bathe deeply in it.
It doesn't mean to say, they didn't have it.
You can bathe in that river of spirituality.
You have the right causes and conditions to do that.
So don't miss the opportunity.
And when you bathe in that river,
your ancestors, your mother and your father
have a chance to bathe in that river with you.
Thank you.
(Bell)