WEBVTT

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(Half bell)

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(Bell)

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I often have a volition to want 
to spread happiness

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and also to see the beauty in the world.

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But sometimes, when I see things
without dualities

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and I realize that happiness 
and suffering inter-are and

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beauty and ugliness inter-are,

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I lack the purpose or volition

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for goodness or beauty.

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Because it seems meaningless.

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If all things are one another,

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what is the purpose?

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

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If happiness is inter-being 
with suffering,

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and beauty is inter-being with ugliness?

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When I was a young monk,

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reading the sutras,

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I learned that the Buddha 
also practices sitting meditation,

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and walking meditation,

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mindful breathing and so on.

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And I asked myself: Why?

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You have already become a Buddha,

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and you need to practice more?

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(Laughter)

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And that became object of my meditation.

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The question is linked 
to another question,

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whether the Buddha still suffers
as a human being.

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

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who has a lot of compassion and insight.

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

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what is the use of becoming a Buddha?

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(Laughter)

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

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

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If there is no right, there is no left.

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

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The notion of interbeing, good and evil,

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and reality transcends all these notions.

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But speaking from conventional truth ...

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

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

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

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

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we will be at peace.

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

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

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Because happiness cannot be 
by itself alone.

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That is why suffering has to be there

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

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

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So without the mud, there is no lotus.

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

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Because happiness is made 
of non-happiness elements,

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

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So mud is very essential.

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

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

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

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

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

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That is the advantage of being a Buddha.

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If you have to suffer, 
you suffer much less

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because you know how to suffer.

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

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in order to create understanding
and compassion.

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And that is the answer 
to my first question:

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

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As for the other question is that,

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everything is impermanent 
including happiness.

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

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And that is why, the Buddha
having love and happiness

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has to continue 
to nourish love and happiness.

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That is why, he continues 
to do walking meditation,

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sitting meditation, mindful breathing.

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

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that everything inter-is 
with everything else.

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

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(Half bell)

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(Bell)