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Dear Thay, Dear Sangha

In difficult moments, and 
in not difficult moments also,

we have the practice of coming back

to the island within ourself.

We have a song, 
“Being an Island Unto Myself”

and guided meditation
“Being an Island Unto Myself”

[singing] Being an island
Unto myself

as an island unto myself.

Buddha is my mindfulness

shining near, shining far

Dharma is my breathing

guarding bodhi and mind.
I am free.

Being an island unto myself

as an island unto myself.

Sangha is the five skandhas

working in harmony.

Taking refuge in myself,
coming back to myself

I am free, I am free,
I am free. [end singing]

So this practice has been 
recommended to us

above all when we are in 
difficult moments.

But in order to be able to 
practice it when we are in difficulty,

we need to have a training, 
we need to

train ourself when it’s not 
difficult to come back

to ourself. So many times 
the Buddha taught non-self,

and now we are practicing 
coming back to our self.

Non-self is an idea,
and self is also an idea.

Non-self is the cure, the idea
to cure the idea of self.

So, primarily coming back to 
our self means coming back

to our body, feeling our body 
as it is in the present moment.

We have the layer of skin
on the outside of our body,

so in a way, our body has 
limits, but we also know our

body depends on everything
outside of our body, also.

In this practice, we come

back to our body primarily

The example that we hear
the Buddha give

is the example of a turtle: has
a head, four legs, and a tail.

When the turtle is in a difficult
moment, the turtle will

draw back its legs, its head, 
its tail under its shell.

So for us, it means bringing
back our eyes, ears, nose,

all those things that sense
the world around us,

not letting them go out, 
be dispersed around us,

but coming back so we can 
come back inside of ourself

and be there for ourself
to take care of ourself.

Because if we do not be there 
to take care of ourself,

we cannot really be there to
take care of the other person.

When you take care of 
somebody who is very sick,

you know very well that the 
first thing you need to do

is come back and be solid
and stable in yourself.

So this exercise is taught us, 
so that we can be solid,

and we can be stable in the 
present moment.

When we hear the sound of 
the bell, we come back to the

island in ourself. We become 
a refuge for ourself.

The human mind has a 
tendency to go out and try to

find a refuge in things around, 
but we know if we’re not

stable ourself, then we cannot 
have a place of refuge,

so also we practice coming 
back to be a refuge for ourself.

Being an island unto myself.
Being a refuge for myself.

And my self is that island,
my self is that refuge.

In Chinese and Vietnamese 
[C/V], self is the island, [C/V]

self is the refuge. In Pali, 
atta dippha, atta sharana.

Then the Buddha teaches us,
to make it clearer,

the Dharma is your island,
the Dharma is your refuge.

That means that when we 
come back to our true self,

we can find the Buddha in 
ourself, the Dharma in ourself

and the Sangha in ourself.

This wonderful teaching was 
given to Ananda, Buddha’s

attendant, three times: twice 
individually, and once with the

rest of the Sangha. The 
Buddha gave this teaching at

end of the life of the Buddha,

when the Buddha was 
already 80 years old.

Maybe many people, they 
took refuge in the Buddha;

there was the practice of the 
three refuges in India at that time.

People, when they came and 
listened to the teaching of the

Buddha, they would practice, 
“I take refuge in the Buddha,

I take refuge in the Dharma, 
I take refuge in the Sangha.”

Maybe people, when they 
took refuge in the Buddha,

they were taking refuge in a 
Buddha outside themselves,

but that Buddha, like 
everything else, was

impermanent, and would not
be there much longer.

That is why the Buddha gave 
that teaching to Ananda.

The Venerable Ananda was a 
wonderful attendant for

Buddha. The Venerable 
Ananda gave all his life, all

his being, attending the Buddha.

So he did not have time so
much to practice coming back

to himself.

In the last rains retreat that

the Buddha was alive

in Vaishali,

the Buddha became very, 
very sick.

In the sutra it says
bordering on death.

The Buddha was in a 
lot of pain, his body became

extremely weak, and there 
are times when it is very easy

when the body is in so much 
pain, and so much

weakness, it’s easy to leave 
the body, to die.

The Buddha knew that at
any moment, when he was

sick like that, that he could 
die. Knowing that, looking

deeply and knowing he had
not taken leave of the Sangha

he had not said good-bye to
the sangha, maybe there was

some last instructions that the
Sangha still needed, Buddha

had not given. It is said that 
Buddha had to make a strong

resolution, strong 
determination, based on the

life force. A strong
determination to live for

some more months in order
to be able to give the

teachings that the Sangha
may still need.

I remember one time when
Thay, our teacher, was

very unwell, in Germany. 
Thay could not eat anything

for a long time. Thay said,
“I am living by volition food.”

We know that volition
food is the third kind of food.

A very important food
for us.

So when the Buddha made 
that determination to live

for some more months,
the Buddha was using volition food,

that food that comes from 
within, when we come back

to the island of the self. That
food does not come from

without.

If you think of the five 
particular mental formations

the first one is zeal [...] 
chanda. It is really wanting

something. The second one 
is adimoksha, [...] and that

means determination,
resolution.

We all know that in our 
practice, we develop

these mental formations,
the mental formation of

determination, because when 
when we come to the practice

and maybe for many years 
afterwards, we have many

habit energies. If we want
really to transform them

we need a strong 
determination, a strong

resolution. So it’s said
that the Buddha resolved

on what is one of the
first six universal

mental formations [...]
universal mental formations

in the Theravada tradition
What is that? That is

jivitandriya, the life force,
the force for life that is there

in all of us, in our 
consciousness.

The Buddha gave his
attention to that

mental formation, 
the life force.

Using concentration, which
is another of the particular

mental formations...
remember zeal, resolution

or determination is the 
second, and the third is

mindfulness, concentration
the fourth, and the fifth is

insight. These are mental
formations that we can

choose to practice or not.
We can choose to use them

in a wholesome or not
wholesome way. They are

called particular mental
formations.

So the Buddha used
concentration in order to

be able to overcome the pain
and he was able to recover

from his sickness. He went 
outside his hut and sat

outside, and Ananda saw the 
Buddha sitting outside, and

Ananda was overwhelmed
with joy.

“The Buddha is going to live!
The Buddha is still alive!”

Ananda came to the Buddha 
and said, “How wonderful!

How wonderful! You are still
there, you are better,

you are going to be with us.”
Then Ananda said, “When the

Buddha was sick like that,
my knees shook, I lost my

concentration, my mind 
became confused.”

The Buddha said, “That won’t 
do, Ananda.”

Then gave the teaching of
being an island to yourself,

to find the Buddha in
yourself.

Buddha said that in a 
short time, the Buddha will

not be with you anymore, so
now is the time to practice

being an island to yourself,
being a refuge for yourself,

to find the Buddha within
you.

Ananda said to the Buddha,
“Altho’ you were very sick,

I had quite some hope that
you would get better, be

with us for longer, because
you had not yet told us

what to do when you weren’t
there anymore.

You had not told us who 
would guide the Sangha

after you were not there
anymore.”

Then the Buddha said, “Oh,
Ananda, why...”

Ananda said, “We were 
waiting for you to make

some announcement
concerning the Sangha,

who would guide the sangha,
who would lead the sangha.”

The Buddha said, “What 
more is the Sangha waiting

for? I have taught everythng, I 
have taught all the practices.”

The Buddha said, “I am not a
teacher with a closed fist,

I don’t hold anything back,
everything I practice I hand

on to my disciples. What 
more are you waiting for?

If you are waiting for me to
tell you who’s going to lead

you, who’s going to guide you
that is something I will not do,

because the Buddha never 
thinks, “I am in charge of

the Sangha, I direct the 
Sangha.”

The Buddha is only a bhikkhu
like the other bhikkhus.

If the Buddha does not direct 
the Sangha, why should the

Buddha want to hand on to
somebody else

to direct the Sangha?”

After that

the Buddha set out on his
last tour,

wanting, probably, to go back
to

Kapilavastu, the place
he came from, where he’d

grown up. So he went from 
Nalanda, from Rajagriha, in

that direction. In the sutra
it says that when he came to

Sravasthi, the Buddha 
received the news

of the death of Shariputra

and Mogallana.
It’s strange, because

Shravasti is not really on
the route from Rajagriha to

Kapilavastu, it’s a 200 km
deviation.

Maybe it’s a mistake, he 
wasn’t in Shravasti, he was

somewhere else. So 
then...we have...if you look in

the Samyutta Nikaya, [...]
in Chap. 47, which is about

the practice of mindfulness,
you will find 3 sutras about

end of the life of the Buddha.
The first is sutra #9, it’s called

Gelanna, it means sickness,
it’s about the time when the

Buddha was sick. The second 
is #13, it’s called Chunda.

Chunda is the name of the
attendant of Ven. Shariputra.

Shariputra comes from 
Nalanda, and he went back to

Nalanda with the Buddha.
When the Buddha and

Shariputra were in Nalanda
maybe Shariputra knew that

he would not meet the 
Buddha again, so he came to

the Buddha, and said to the 
Buddha, “Of all the Buddhas

that have been there in the 
past, will be there in the

future, and are there in the 
present moment, you are the

number one, you are the 
foremost Buddha.”

The Buddha said to 
Shariputra, “How can you say that,

Shariputra? Did you know all 
the Buddhas in the past?

Do you know all the Buddhas 
in the present, and in future in

order to say I am the 
foremost?” Shariputra had to

admit he didn’t know all those 
Buddhas. But he said, “When

I look at the practice of the 
Buddha, how the Buddha

guards the six senses, always 
practices mindfulness, I

cannot think that any human 
being could practice better

than that, so that is why I say 
the Buddha is the foremost of

all Buddhas.”

Of course, the Buddhas of the 
past and the future, they also

practice to guard the six senses.

In the end, the Buddha said 
to Shariputra, “That is a good

teaching that you can give to 
people, that the Buddha is the

one who practices guarding 
the six senses at all times.”

But Shariputra was not to live 
for much longer.

After the Buddha had left 
Nalanda, Shariputra had

asked to stay behind. 
Shariputra also became very

sick, and died. His attendant, 
Chunda, after the cremation,

brought the ashes, brought 
the robe and the bowl, back

to the Buddha, wherever the 
Buddha was. First of all,

whenever Chunda arrived at 
where the Buddha was,

he went to Ananda. He told 
Ananda what had happened,

that the Ven. Shariputra had 
died.

Ananda said, “This is news 
that together we need to bring

to the Buddha.” So together 
Chunda and Ananda went to

the Buddha, and told the 
Buddha what had happened.

Then Ananda said again, 
“When I heard that Shariputra

had died, my knees shook, I 
lost my stability, I became

confused in my mind, 
because we had lost our

elder brother.”

The Buddha said, “When 
Shariputra died, did he take

away your mindfulness with 
him? Did he take away your

concentration and your insight?”

Ananda said, “No, he didn’t, 
but Shariputra was an elder

brother we all took refuge in. 
We knew that he could give

us the teachings that we 
needed. Now he’s no longer

there in the Sangha.”

Then, for the second time, 
Buddha taught Ananda,

“Ananda, you should be an 
island to yourself, you should

be a refuge to yourself. Let 
the Dharma be your island,

let the Dharma be your 
refuge, and do not take

refuge in any other person, in 
any other thing.

That is the second time 
Ananda received the teaching

on being an island to yourself.

The third time was in a sutra 
we are all familiar with,

because it’s part of our 
chanting book, which is called

the Discourse on Taking 
Refuge in Yourself; that is

how we translated it. If you 
look in the Samyukta Agama

[...] #639 You’ll see that it is 
called the Uposatha Sutra,

and that is because uposatha 
means the day when the

Precepts are recited, and it 
happened to be the full moon

day when the Buddha gave this sutra.

In Pali, it is in the Samyutta 
Nikaya [...] [Chap 47], #14,

and it is called Ukkacela, 
which is just the name of a

place where the Buddha gave 
this teaching.

“I heard these words of the 
Buddha one time, when the

Lord was staying in the 
mango grove, in the cool

shade of the mango trees, on 
the bank of the river Ganges,

in the forest of Magadha. The 
elders Shariputra and

Moggallana had recently 
passed away. It was the full

moon day of the Uposatha 
ceremony, and the Precepts

were being recited.

The Buddha spread out his 
sitting mat, and, facing the

community, after looking out, 
he said, ”As I look at our

community, I see a large 
space left by the

Ven. Shariputra and Moggallana.

In the Pali version, it says, “It 
appears to me there is an

empty space in our Sangha.”
It APPEARS that there’s an

empty space, because where 
Shariputra and Moggallana

had been in the Sangha, we 
can no longer see them there.

Oo, I forgot to say that two 
weeks after Shariputra died,

the Ven. Moggallana died.

So by the time the Buddha 
gave this sutra, both

Shariputra and Moggallana had died.

So, ‘it appears to me there is 
a large space’, before, we

could always rely on 
Moggallana and Shariputra to

be there, and now we see 
they’re not there.

The Buddha uses the word 
‘appears’, which means that it

appears, but it’s not really like that.

If you want, you can still find 
Shariputra and Moggallana.

“In the Sangha, these two 
venerable monks were the

most eloquent in giving 
Dharma talks, encouraging

and instructing all the other 
monks, nuns, and

lay people.”

Then the Buddha uses the word...searching for, looking

for, looking for something.
“Oh monks, people look for

two kinds of riches: material 
riches, and the riches of the

Dharma. In their search for 
material riches, they go to

worldly people. In their search 
for the riches of the Dharma,

they would go to Shariputra 
and Moggallana. The

Tathagatha is not searching 
for anything, whether it is

material or the Dharma.”

If you remember, there’s a 
verse in the Udanavagga in

Sanskrit, and it says the deer 
take refuge in the countryside

the birds take refuge in the 
sky, those who discriminate

take refuge in the Dharma, 
and the arahats, those who

have enlightenment, take 
refuge in Nirvana.

That is us, those who 
discriminate. Discriminate

here means be able to 
discriminate what is

wholesome from what is
unwholesome, to rely on

the practice of the Precepts, 
mindfulness, concentration,

insight, in order to train 
ourselves in our daily life.

So here it says we can go for 
refuge to our teachers for the

riches of the Dharma, and we 
are always looking for the

riches of the Dharma to help 
us to transform our afflictions.

Those who have transformed 
the afflictions do not need to

search for the Dharma 
anymore.

Maybe they have found the 
Dharma within themselves.

They just practice 
mindfulness, concentration,

and insight.

We should remember, also, 
that tho’ they do not search

for anything more, the 
arahats always practice

mindfulness. 
All four pairs, and eight kinds

of holy people in the Sangha, 
from the stream-enterer to the

arahat, they all practice 
mindfulness, concentration,

and insight. 
When you become an

arahat, you do not stop 
practicing mindfulness.

Does that mean to say that 
when we are looking for the

Dharma, we are not able to 
be in touch with nirvana?

No, it doesn’t mean that.
Nirvana is available

to us when we become a 
stream-enterer, or even

before. But, we cannot be in 
touch with nirvana the whole

time, so we need to keep 
listening to the Dharma,

contemplating the Dharma, 
and putting the Dharma into

practice in order to be able to 
be in touch with nirvana

all the time.

Then the Buddha gives the 
example of the tree, a very

old, large tree. Like the oak 
tree in the Lower Hamlet.

The Buddha said that that tree 
was made of heartwood,

it had very good wood inside 
the tree, it’s not rotten inside.

That tree is the sangha, 
the Sangha that has 8 kinds

and 4 pairs of holy people. 
The Sangha that practices

mindfulness, concentration, 
and insight is like a tree.

That tree, when it first starts, 
has two large branches. They

are the oldest branches, the 
elder brother, or elder sister

branches of the Sangha.
Relying on all those branches

other branches also grow on 
the tree, just like a banana

tree has the leaves, and the 
first two leaves, they nourish

all the other leaves that come 
along afterwards.

So, Shariputra and Mogallana 
were like the large branches,

and when those large 
branches break, there are still

all the other branches, and 
the tree, the Sangha, is still there.

The Buddha gave that example.

In the Sangha of the 
Tathagatha, Shariputra and

Mogallana were the greatest 
students, so it’s natural that

they would enter nirvana first.

The next paragraph is about 
what is natural.

Actually, it says like this, if
you look at the Chinese,

it says, ‘All phenomena that 
are either born, or arise,

or are made, or are 
conditioned phenomena,

all these phenomena have to
disintegrate, they have to

decay. They cannot exist 
without someday being

decayed, without 
disintegrating.’

Then it says, ‘If you want any 
phenomena not to decay,

then that is something 
impossible.’

Somehow, in our mind we 
have an idea of something

impossible.
All phenomena, that means

psychological phenomena,
physiological phenomena,

physical phenomena...
they all disintegrate

after a time.
In our mind we have an idea

that there must be things that 
don’t disintergrate,

the people we love, they don’t disintegrate.

Because of that, when they 
do, we have to suffer

because we are not prepared.

So in our practice, what we 
are doing is we prepare

ourselves—like the 
meditation we did this

morning: I am of the nature to 
get sick—is a way to prepare

ourself, to face the reality of 
what happens, so we don’t

live in a world of things that 
are not possible, wanting

things that are not possible.

Here it says things that are 
born. When we say things

that are born, we mean living 
beings who are born from the

womb or the egg. Things that 
arise means things that arise

in dependence on other 
things, things that arise like

the flowers, the trees.
Things that are made are

what human beings can 
make, those phenomena, like

the clothes we wear, are 
made; they also disintegrate.

There’s nothing that can 
escape disintegration.

Not just human beings.

And all things which are 
conditioned phenomena...

a conditioned phenomena is 
something that relies on what

is not itself in order to be 
there. So we are conditioned

phenomena, because we rely 
on the food that we eat,

we rely on those around us,
in order to continue to

manifest. If we look around 
us, most things are

conditioned, nearly everything 
is conditioned dharma.

It is said that only one thing 
that is not conditioned, and

that is nirvana, because
nirvana is the removal of all

concepts.

Everything we cherish and 
hold dear today we will have

to let go of and be separated 
from.

‘In not too long a time, I will 
also pass away. Therefore,

practice being an island to 
yourself. Know how to take

refuge in yourself, and not 
take refuge in anyone or

anything else. Practice taking 
refuge in the island of the

Dharma.’ The Dharma here 
means the practice of

mindfulness.

‘Meditate on the body in the 
body,

nourishing right 
understanding and

mindfulness.’

In this version that I have 
here, he just talks about

meditating on the body in the 
body, but if you read the

sutra, you will see that it also 
says meditate on the feelings

in the feelings, on the 
perceptions in the percep...on

the mind in the mind, and on 
the dharmas in the dharmas.

So it includes all the four 
establishments of

mindfulness.

Even tho’ the Buddha 
recovered from his illness,

his body was very weak
and he told Ananda that

he practiced something, it’s 
called the animitta

cetosamadhi. It means the 
concentration on

signlessness.

‘Nimitta’ means a sign.
Suffering is a sign, and

no suffering is also a sign.
Permanence is a sign,

impermanence is also a sign.
A sign means a characteristic,

a mark of how something is.
In English we can call this

signlessness [of the mind 
concentration].

When you have pain in your 
body, it has to go along with

the suffering in your mind.
Normally it’s like that.

As soon as there is pain in 
the body, the mind begins to

feel also in pain. That is why 
sometime we say the mind

and body suffer in unison, or
the mind and the body are

happy in unison.
We can say like that.

But if you practice, you can 
recognize that the pain in the

body does not have to be the 
pain in the mind.

You can take care of your 
mind so that the pain does

not influence your mind.

At that point, you are not 
caught in the sign of

suffering.

In the Vajracchedika Sutra, 
it just teaches about not being

caught in signs. Not being 
caught in phenomena, but

also not being caught in signs
In the Vajracchedika we hear

about different kinds of signs 
like human and living being...

wait a minute...human, ah, 
self, human, living being and

life span. But there are many 
other signs as well that we

get caught in. Suffering is one 
of those signs that we get

caught in.

In fact, when they talk about 
the 3 signs in Theravada

Buddhism, suffering is one of 
them. Impermanence, no self,

and suffering. But suffering 
has an opposite, whose name

is not suffering. In terms of 
the Four Noble Truths, the

first Noble Truth is suffering, 
and the third Noble Truth is

not suffering, the end of 
suffering, the cessation of

suffering. If suffering is a sign, 
then not suffering is also a

sign. We can be caught in the 
sign ‘suffering’, and we can

also be caught in the sign 
‘not suffering’.

According to the Buddha, we 
practice the Middle Way,

which is not being caught in 
either extreme.

By practicing this samadhi, 
this concentration, by not

being caught in signs, the 
Buddha was able to live fully

enough in the last few months 
of the Buddha’s life, and give

the teaching the Buddha gave 
on being an island unto

yourself. If the Buddha had 
not lived for those last

months, we may not have the 
teaching for being an island

to yourself, which is 
something that we can all

practice in our daily lives, and 
need to practice in our daily

lives, in order [that] when we 
come across difficult

moments, we can truly come 
back and take care of our

mind. By taking care of our 
mind, we can also take care

of our body.

Coming back to mindfulness 
of our body is the first

establishment of mindfulness. 
The second establishment of

mindfulness is coming back 
to our feelings, and taking

care of our feelings. Feelings 
are really what is the

suffering, what is the not 
suffering that is due to kinds

of feelings. When we practice 
the concentration on

signlessness, we have to first 
of all recognize that ‘this

feeling is suffering’, then we 
have to go beyond the sign

and recognize that that 
feeling just comes from what

is happening in our body, and 
it doesn’t have to influence

our mind. The feeling does 
not have a separate self, it’s

impermanent and changing at 
every moment.

We can concentrate on the 
island in ourself in terms of

our feelings and not just in 
terms of our body.

When we first start to island 
of ourself, we come back to

our body, and then we 
recognize our feelings.

The Buddha said that those 
practitioners—monks, nuns,

laymen, laywomen—who are 
able to come back to the

island of self, take refuge in 
the island of self, come back

to the island of Dharma, take 
refuge in the island of

Dharma, are the best 
practitioners, both now, while

the Buddha is still alive, and 
after the Buddha is no longer alive.

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