(Half bell)

(Bell)

I often have a volition to want 
to spread happiness

and also to see the beauty in the world.

But sometimes, when I see things
without dualities

and I realize that happiness 
and suffering inter-are and

beauty and ugliness inter-are,

I lack the purpose or volition

for goodness or beauty.

Because it seems meaningless.

If all things are one another,

what is the purpose?

How can we have purpose
to do good and to create happiness?

If happiness is inter-being 
with suffering,

and beauty is inter-being with ugliness?

When I was a young monk,

reading the sutras,

I learned that the Buddha 
also practices sitting meditation,

and walking meditation,

mindful breathing and so on.

And I asked myself: Why?

You have already become a Buddha,

and you need to practice more?

(Laughter)

And that became object of my meditation.

The question is linked 
to another question,

whether the Buddha still suffers
as a human being.

Because the Buddha is not a god,
the Buddha is an enlightened being

who has a lot of compassion and insight.

And also the other question is, if having 
become a Buddha, you continue to suffer,

what is the use of becoming a Buddha?

(Laughter)

I tried to meditate and then 
I found the answers by myself.

That reality can be described 
in term of inter-being.

If there is no right, there is no left.

If there is no subject,there is no object.
And so on.

The notion of interbeing, good and evil,

and reality transcends all these notions.

But speaking from conventional truth ...

because there are two kinds of truth; 
conventional truth and ultimate truth,

we still have to use the notion 
of birth and death,

being and non-being, happiness 
and suffering, and so on.

So if we touch the ultimate truth and 
we can transcend all these notions,

we will be at peace.

But still in the realm of conventional 
truth, that truth can be applied also.

It's like a classical science -inauthentic
but Newton still applicable.

Because happiness cannot be 
by itself alone.

That is why suffering has to be there

in order to play the role 
of a non-happiness element.

A lotus is made of non-lotus elements, 
including the mud.

So without the mud, there is no lotus.

There is no suffering, 
there is no happiness without suffering.

Because happiness is made 
of non-happiness elements,

and among these non-happiness elements,
there is the element of mud.

So mud is very essential.

It is by making good use of the mud
that you can have lotus.

It is by making good use of happiness
that you have beauty.

It is by making good use of suffering 
that you can have happiness.

So, for a person like the Buddha, who 
has a lot of understanding and compassion,

if he has to suffer,
he suffers much much lesser.

That is the advantage of being a Buddha.

If you have to suffer, 
you suffer much less

because you know how to suffer.

You have so much wisdom and then
you can make good use of suffering

in order to create understanding
and compassion.

And that is the answer 
to my first question:

whether a Buddha still suffers 
after having become a Buddha or not.

As for the other question is that,

everything is impermanent 
including happiness.

If everything is impermanent, then 
love and happiness are also impermanent.

And that is why, the Buddha
having love and happiness

has to continue 
to nourish love and happiness.

That is why, he continues 
to do walking meditation,

sitting meditation, mindful breathing.

So it is very comfortable to know 
that everything is impermanent,

that everything inter-is 
with everything else.

And you see a perfect coordination between
conventional truth and ultimate truth.

(Half bell)

(Bell)