(Class #16) The Four Noble Truths: Conditioned and Unconditioned

Dear respected Thay, dear sisters, dear
brothers, welcome to our Wednesday night class.

So, this has been a series on the
core Plum Village teachings since the spring

and many people are following online
as well, so we try to be consistent.

Tomorrow we have a Vietnamese
retreat here at Deer Park starting.

Some of our friends have come early,
so welcome.

So, the practice is a joy.

One easy way to know whether your
practice is a bit off, is if you're not

experiencing joy. If you're
taking things , feeling a little

bit too serious, about organizing things
for your sangha, organizing retreats,

organizing so that people
can learn the dharma,

and then you forget about the joy.

You have to always remember that, I know in
my ancestors, there is that seed of

wanting to just work, work, work and
show the world that I'm working hard!

And if I just express my joy,
then I feel like I'm being lazy,

I'm not working hard enough.

And that kind of attitude is a big problem,

causing a lot of the suffering
that we experience today.

People are working, working, working
and they don't know the end of their work.

They suffer inside, and because they're
not experiencing joy, they harm themselves,

they harm their family members, they harm
the Earth, in their work to at some point

create joy.

But the path is to experience
joy here and now.

And as brothers and sisters in
the monastery, we remind ourselves

all the time of this. I'm always reminded
by my brothers when I get stuck in something

or too serious about something, I can just let it
go because its not so important

What's important is to maintain our joy.

And so, In the last class we learned about how to

practice mindfulness of suffering, in
order to see the conditions of

happiness. So a big misunderstanding
in the Buddhist tradition is this phrase

"Life is suffering".

And then we think, everything is suffering.

And we should put on a grim face
and just bear it up

for as long as we are still alive and until
we die, and then maybe we get reborn

in a place where there is more happiness.

And that's a very wrong understanding
of the Buddha's teachings.

The Buddha taught how to be mindful
of suffering so that we can touch

the conditions of happiness,
that are there.

and learn how not to act in a way
that you water the seeds of anger,

despair, fear and so forth in our consciousness

and so, understanding suffering

is for our happiness

you know, we don't say 'Life is suffering'

in order to describe the world

that it's like that

We see and we are aware of suffering

in order to transform our suffering

to overcome our suffering

# laughs

not for the sake of just

bowing our heads down

and gritting our teeth

'Oh god, life is suffering!'

I just have to grin and bear it

until I die.

It's a pity if we understand

the teaching of the Buddha in that way

And in the last class

I touched again in one of the questions

that were posed

about the historical dimension

and the ultimate dimension

And this is a teaching

to help us not get caught in words

or conventional ideas and concepts

So, we can talk about tables

and monks and monasteries

and Walmart <laughs>

flowers and so forth

but we know that those are only words

and have a tenuous cultural association

with a particular object like an orchid

I can say the word 'orchid'

and here is an orchid

but we don't mistake the word 'orchid'

for the actual living reality of an orchid

And furthermore, we know that

everything arises due to <inaudible> and conditions

and so, we can't talk about anything

being ultimately real in itself

separated from everything else

Everything is connected,

so the flower that is on the table

is a process that is ongoing

it is not a permanent entity <laughs>

It's like we're watching a river of life

and if we watch plants growing

or blossoms opening

in timelapse photography

We see very clearly

that it's like a living animal

moving and changing and growing

so it's not just for the sake of rhetoric

that we say this flower is a process going on

it is just like a stream

just like a fire

maybe it's happening a bit slower <laughs>

but if we look deeply

we see the impermanent nature of the flower

and so any attempt to try to categorise it

classify, even just the name, 'flower'

or, 'orchid' is not sufficient

and so this teaching on historical and ultimate

is to help us to not get caught

in conventions,

like the word 'flower' or 'orchid'

and to see that they are also just part of

a constantly evolving, constantly changing

body of language that only has meaning

because it is used publicly

it's used in the community

so even in PLum Village

we have some of our own words and concepts

that we start using

in order to describe certain phenomena

that we watch or that we see appearing

in the sangha

like many times when a brother or a sister

is upset about something over and over again

we just say, 'Oh, suffering,' <laughs>

and that means that we see already

that person is, by their actions, creating suffering

and there's some suffering in them

that has not been transformed yet

and so we say that to touch our compassion

not to criticise or judge that person

but because we don't want to just see them

at the surface level

of this person is like an evil person

or a bad person

as practitioners we cannot see anything in that way

we only see misunderstanding, ignorance

and we want to help to remove the ignorance

Thay often shared this story

about the teaching in India

there was an expression, for example,

when a student came to the teacher

to learn mathematics

the teacher would not say, 'I will teach you mathematics'

he would rather say,

'I'm going to remove the ignorance

you have about mathematics' <laughs>

and that is always the spirit of the Buddhist teaching

Mindfulness of suffering

is helping to remove our ignorance

about how we are creating suffering for ourselves

The spirit of Buddhism is not

to cram knowledge into our heads

so that we can memorise it

and then give a good Dharma talk later on

it is to remove the obstacles that are there

that keep us from seeing how things actually are

like the nature of causes and conditions

and once we see that then we already suffer less

because we see how to bring about

the conditions for happiness

by removing things that make us suffer

and make others suffer.

Ok, so, this teaching on the historical dimension

and then the ultimate.

Ok? Is it not on?

<inaudible>

# warning, very loud noise briefly, you may wish to mute

Can practice breathing in...

... and breathing out...

<thankyou>

And, so, the teaching on the ultimate

is to help us to, again,

not get caught in the conventional

so we don't make something of the ultimate

we have to be very careful

So, alot of the concepts

of the uncondition that we create -

even the word 'uncondition' -

or, 'God,' 'Allah,' whatever it might be

in whatever religious tradition we're in

it always runs the danger

of identifying some quality

or some discernable aspect

of that unconditioned thing.

And then that aspect can be our obstacle

to actually touching the unconditioned

because the flavour of the unconditioned

is no flavour

is peace, it is calm, right?

It is freedom from any kind of stain or quality

Actually, most of the suffering in the world

is because we misattribute

things from the historical dimension

as being ultimate <laughs>

and that's what we come up with religious customs

that we then judge others by

'good/evil'

'sacred/profane'.

And so this teaching on the historical dimension

and the ultimate dimension

is a skilful means

it's a way of noticing, 'Ah, I'm caught,

in this idea about that person

or this idea about that thing,

and that's because I'm not just touching

the unconditioned nature

in the present moment

and so I'm looking for happiness

in possessing that thing as a concept.'

And so the sixteenth tenet

is connected to the second tenet.

So, the Four Noble Truths

are all conditioned.

The Four Noble Truths

are all unconditioned.

<laughs>

It's very clear!

This is why it's very clear

that Thay is a Zen Master.

The Four Noble Truths are all conditioned.

The Four Noble Truths are all unconditioned.

So, what does this mean?

So, over the time of Buddhism developing,

the tradition looked back

to the first teaching of the Buddha

in Sarnath at the Deer Park

where the Buddha taught about the Four Noble Truths

and the first disciples became enlightened.

And this Buddha taught about

the Four Noble Truths which, of course,

includes the Eight-Fold Noble Path.

And, so, in further commentaries,

in trying to understand the Noble Truths,

in learning how to better transmit those teachings

from teacher to student

then, monks started to categorise things.

And so they said, 'Ok, so as we learned

in the previous class we have

the First Noble Truth, which is suffering

or ill-being

and then the second is the making of suffering

the cause of suffering.

And the Third Noble Truth is the cessation of suffering

so, this same suffering, if we understand

its cause, we can bring about the cessation.

It's not very complicated.

If somebody is getting stuck with a pin

you take the pin out

and then you don't suffer any more.

This is not so difficult.

But it turns out that it's not easy for us

to always understand, at a deeper level

what causes us mental anguish and despair,

but we don't understand

why what we think, say or do

brings about the suffering

that we experience in the present moment.

So, that's why it's not so simple

as just taking the pin out

that's stuck in our arm.

But the Buddha actually saw

that sitting, looking deeply into his own mind

that if he could understand,

if he could be very still

and look into the present moment

he could see his experience of the present moment

his happiness, his suffering

was the product of his actions in the past

and in the present moment.

So, I talked a little bit before about

in every moment we have very likely

an infinite number of possibilities

of what can happen

and, so, as practitioners we learn

how to choose a path of less harm

so that we don't create more suffering

for ourselves and for others

because very early on we learn

that our own suffering

is also connected to the suffering of others.

Suffering is not an individual matter.

So we let go, with the insight of Non-Self

the idea of individual suffering

that is cut off from the collective suffering.

We see that there is a continuity.

And, so, the Four Noble Truths,

we can practice them right here and right now

in our own body and mind,

but we also are transforming

the collective consciousness while we do that.

We're looking into how this pin,

this painful cause, can be removed

from our own mind and also from the collective,

Because what makes me suffer

is also what makes others suffer.

And then the fourth is the path.

The path leading to the cessation of suffering.

But, sometimes this third one

has been misunderstood.

When we hear the word, 'cessation',

we think that we need to cease our life,

and we start to think of the five skandhas

as the cause of all of our suffering

and that, if we just get rid of the five skandhas

our body, feelings, perceptions

mental formations, consciousness

we will be free from suffering.

And, so, that happened, actually

in the Buddha's time

that monks became so disgusted by their body

that they actually got the wrong idea.

They wanted to commit suicide

or have the other monks kill them.

Horrible!

And, so, we have to be careful how we describe.

The essence is there

but the words can be more skilful.

And, so, for me

I don't misunderstand.

It really helps me to think about

the cessation of suffering

because then I can look at it,

I often use the image of a fire -

you have many blocks of wood that are in the fire

that are feeding the flame,

because when I was young I liked to go in the forest

and build a little fire <laughs>

when I was a kid, I learned in boy scouts

and luckily where I live it was very wet

and, so, there was not so much danger

of having forest fires like here.

And, so, I would go, and that was something

I felt like I could... control <laughs>

So, I enjoyed going into the forest

and lighting a little fire

and just sitting near it.

It's given me, it brought me a lot of joy.

Only one time, the fire got out of control

and I burned a little bit of brush

and decided that I didn't plan on doing it.

And I felt a little bit nervous

Like, 'Oh, my gosh! What if I start a forest fire?'

But luckily I was able to put it out.

But, as I learned to build the fire

I learned to understand the fuel

and also how to start it

and how to stop the fire as well

and you learn sometimes it's not a good idea

to try to smother the fire

because it can continue to keep the heat

under whatever you cover the fire with

and then it might come up again.

so, usually the best thing that I learned

was to take the fuel, the sticks and the logs

and separate them

so that the heat was not this concentrated.

Attempt at drawing logs.

And, then, even though they might

still be smouldering a little bit

the concentrated heat was not there anymore.

And, with time, the heat would die down.

And, so, Nirvana means

'Extinction of the Flame'.

It means we learn to remove the fuel

that is causing the fire of our afflictions.

This very important image

in the Buddhist tradition is this

constantly the Buddha was using the image of fire

to describe, is connected with Nirvana.

Nirvana is like the ash when the flame

and all the heat has gone out.

So our body becomes cool, calm, peaceful.

So learning to touch the unconditioned

is a way of removing the flame,

we don't continue to have the kind of thinking

or give attention to the objects of sense pleasures

that are watering the seeds of our desire

or our anger or despair.

We try to remove, separate,

like recently when Sister Dhi mentioned

'Put at a distance,'

the happiness that comes when... <term>

I talked about it in the last class

'Li' means you put at a distance

you separate.

So, when we are in the midst

of a lot of stress, worry, anxiety

it's very easy for our mind

to become unstable

in our family and at work.

And so we have the monasteries,

we can come here and take refuge.

In the monastery we learn, ok,

I need to sit. It's very nice if I can take a half hour

in the morning and just sit.

I just sit there on the cushion,

I kust follow my breathing.

No one expects me to do anything

this time is entirely for me

just to practice sitting and breathing.

So precious!

I never get tired of that

I don't have trouble turning up

for sitting meditation in the morning

because I know I can just sit there

and nobody's going to ask me to do anything

I have this forty-five minutes

and I feel I'm in the most protected space

on the planet.

No matter how many things there might be to do

to serve, teach the dharma, or serve the sangha

in that moment, in those forty-five minutes

no-one has the right to come

and tell me to do anything!

I just can do that and take care of my breathing.

And then I feel that calm.

So, these practices are all doing this:

It's a way of removing

the concentration of fuel

at the point of the flame

so it can die down.

We can listen to a bell.

# waking the bell

# bell

So, because this third Noble Truth

is on the cessation of suffering

in later times they came to be categorised

as being unconditioned.

So the first Noble Truth, suffering,

of course is conditioned

The second, the cause of suffering, is conditioned

And they also said the path

because it involves training ourselves in some way

right concentration, right mindfulness

right thinking, is also a condition.

but the third Noble Truth is unconditioned.

So that, certain schools of Buddhism

they started to categorise the Noble Truths

in that way.

In other schools they started to say

'Well, because the path is leading to,

the path to help us touch the unconditioned

so we should say this one also

is unconditioned

And so some of them said

'The first two are conditioned

and the second two are unconditioned.'

So, this is Thay's response <laughs>

So this kind of thinking

comes from this kind of misunderstanding.

Buddhism is not for the purpose of describing reality

It's very important -

I think I've said this many times -

but the Buddhist teaching is not for the purpose

of describing reality.

It is for the purpose of overcoming suffering.

So, as practitioners, in the past

even in the present, we fall into the trap

of wanting to use the Buddhist teachings

as a way of explaining everything

and we forget, we lose sight of the fact

we here to transform our suffering

to bring abour happiness

and not just to draw a map -

another map of reality.

So we know, from the practice of science

we get many insights which help us

but we also allow ourselves

to have power over natural resources

in such a way that we have created a mess

with the climate crisis, nuclear warfare,

conventional warfare and all these things

so we have to be very careful

because everything has a use

you have to look more deeply when you hear

somebody just saying they're objective

and they're just describing reality.

They may believe it themselves

but when you look more deeply

there's always some use.

As humans, we've always looked at that stone

and seen how we can sharpen it

and make it into a tool

and that is part of our make-up.

Not only humans, but even ravens, crows,

other animals, some macaques and other primates

they have learned how to make tools

out of objects that they have discovered.

And so it's not only a human phenomena -

this tendence to make use of something.

but oftentimes, knowledge has often been

the province of Empire, right?

For example, in Spain, fifteenth century

you could not just go to a library

and look at a map of, say, Africa.

Maps were kept very hidden under royal care

and only the powerful could have a look

at the maps that were being created

of the coasts of Africa for example

and the rise of extended shipping

exploration of the seas.

Because knowledge is power

and we cannot look at it as something just objective

There's always some intentionality in there

and that's not for the sake of tricking us

but it's just the nature of, of knowledge.

But we seem to have forgotten it,

we just think, 'Oh, Wikipedia,'

or we look something up.

It's just facts, just cold, hard facts.

It's just the facts.

But I've experienced, when we look more deeply

we always see there is some intentionality there,

there's something that strikes us about that information

that is connected to some kind of use.

And, so, the Buddhist teaching is for the purpose

of helping us to wake up

and transform our suffering.

So, that's very clear,

the Buddha said that many times,

he was not ambivalent about it,

ambiguous - he was very clear.

We know the story of the Simsapa leaves

where he took a number of the leaves

of the Simsapa tree and he held them up

and he said, 'Dear monks, are the number

of leaves in my hand very great

as the number of leaves in this forest,'

and they said, 'No, the number of leaves

in your hand, dear Blessed One, they are very few

compared to the number of leaves

on the Simsapa trees in the forest.'

And the Buddha said,

'Yes, and just so are the things that I know

and the things that I teach.

So what I teach, are just like these few leaves

in my hand

but my awareness of what I know

is much, much more vast.

And that is for your benefit,

for the wheel of all beings.

to transform their suffering.

So the Buddha saw that, yes,

we can know these things

and not like today

with 24 hour news cycle

We can know so much

about the suffering of the world

and what's going on

We can just keep scrolling and checking.

And I read the news, you know,

but I recognise that I have to moderate

because all that information

is also leading my mind in a direction

and, as a practitioner, I want to decide

what I consume

and what effect consuming those sense objects

will have on me

because that is the nature

of the cause of suffering, right?

We want to understand it

and I know from experience

that if I get... I look at that thing

but then, I'm giving a Dharma talk

or I'm over here and I'm thinking about that thing

I want to go back.

So there's some kind of desire there,

there's a little bit of addiction

to want to go back to that thing.

And, so then, already we know

we're no longer touching the unconditioned.

That's a kind of conditioning.

And I'm talking about a massive addiction yet

but even just at a very subtle level in the mind

there's some kind of ...hmm, I want to go back...

and have that thing, you know?

Or look at that thing, or hear that music,

or whatever it is.

So it's not bad or evil, no,

it's just learning - learning how to transform

our attachments

because that makes us, like, separating the logs,

cool down our mind.

So, Thay also liked to write the first Noble Truth

as 'Suffering' or 'Ill-Being'

and then the second Noble Truth

as 'The Ignoble Path'

or, 'The Path of Suffering,'

And the third Noble Truth, the cessation of suffering

is, 'Happiness'

because the cessation of suffering is 'Happiness,'

It's the presence of happiness.

The cessation of the light is the darkness

The cessation of darkness is the light.

They cannot be separated.

So, in the same way,

happiness is related to our suffering.

So, sometimes, that's why Thay

used the term 'Ill-being' and 'Well-being,'

because that helps us to see more clearly

In English that they are intimately connected

The absence of Ill-being is Well-being,

The absence of Well-being is Ill-being.

You cannot just have your Ill-being

and your well-being

like different plates on a table

but the absence of Ill-being is already happiness.

So if you want to touch happiness

understand your ill-being

understand your suffering

learn how to remove the causes.

So the third Noble Truth is happiness,

there is happiness, happiness is possible

and the fourth Noble Truth

is the Noble Path

which is the path of happiness.

And in each of these

there is the nature of the conditioned

and the unconditioned.

So, that's what Thay is trying to say.

Both are true.

So we already started this series of classes

learning that space is a conditioned dharma.

And we know that these early practitioners

often said space is an unconditioned dharma

because how can you say it's conditioned?

Maybe the air is conditioned

but the actual space between things...

is... how can you say it's conditioned?

And we learned that, through science

that actually space and time

are of the same fabric

and just as time is conditioned

space is also conditioned

and we can bend the space-time continuum

gravity can have an effect on that

and so we need to update our understanding of space

and see it as a conditioned dharma.

But, then Thay went on to say

space is also an unconditioned dharma:

all dharmas are also conditioned

and all dharmas are also unconditioned

And that teaching is to help us

to not get caught in running away

from the conditioned world

in order to find the unconditioned.

So our tendency is always to run away from suffering

in order to find happiness somewhere else.

Since we were a child

when we experienced something unpleasant

we just want to get away from it as soon as possible

and go towards something more pleasant

like an icecream-pop or something

and we are crying and we are suffering so much

and then our mom hands us an ice-cream

and we start eating it

and we forget all about our suffering

and so that is our way of dealing with our pain.

And in many ways

we continue to operate in that same way

we think, if I can just get away from my suffering

then I can get happiness somewhere else.

And so this teaching:

the Four Noble Truths are all conditioned

the Four Noble Truths are all unconditioned,

we're saying that all phenomena are conditioned

and all phenomena are also unconditioned

is to help us see that the unconditioned

is in the conditioned

it's not somewhere else

So we don't look for nirvana outside of samsara

samsara is a term to talk about the impermanent nature

of life and suffering, described like a wheel

constantly turning

you know we can never get off, out of the circle of samsara.

And that's not invented by the Buddha

that was used in his time by other teachers as well

as human, living beings we are born,

we live and then we die

and then we are reborn

according to how we have behaved

in our lifetime.

And that was not just a Buddhist teaching

that was a teaching that was widespread at that time.

And so people wanted to get out of this cycle of rebirth

Sometimes you do some not-so-nice things

in your lifetime and you will be reborn as an ant

or something not-so-pleasant.

Or maybe cruel to people and you will be reborn

as some sort of predator, or maybe the opposite -

you might be reborn as a rabbit

and you'll be preyed upon by a bob-cat or a lion.

And so there's some kind of retribution

built into the nature of karma.

And so this kind of understanding

was very prevalent at this time

and so people struggled to understand this

because they saw that

this body goes back to the earth

and they recognised certain patterns

in the way people behaved

we didn't have this kind of individualism

that we're all kind of indoctrinated into

that we've grown up with

and so we just saw people

as fulfilling very much the same roles

that maybe their uncle filled, or their grandparents

or an ancient ancestor

and so the stories that were passed down

would tell of certain personalities, certain behaviours

and we would recognise them when somebody was born

they started to have that tendency too

so we thought, oh, this is like a rebirth

of that same person.

But today, because we have this very narrow,

shrink-wrapped idea of a personality

of a Self

we cannot believe this kind of understanding.

But I always think it's funny when you look back

because, when you look at the broader scope of history

you see, wow, these patterns do start repeating

over and over again!

And that is very much like this wheel of samsara

this turning and turning

and each person, they have a different passport

different social security number

but their way of behaving is very similar

to others who behaved that way in the past.

And so when you remove the superficial level

you see that somehow in the collective consciousness

certain behaviours

certain patterns of personalities you might say

constantly seem to be resurfacing

and they might not be exactly the same

but they are very similar

and they serve very similar purposes

so that's a more modern way

of understanding samsara

and if we don't know how to transform it

in our own consciousness

in the collective consciousness,

the suffering - we never become free

from this cycle of rebirth.

Many people believed that in the sixties

that civil rights changed everything

and after the Civil War in the United States

many people believed slavery is done

everyone is a free person now

And then, one hundred years later

the Civil Rights Movement

and now we have a situation

where black men, and others,

are still being targeted by police

and treated in cruel ways, discriminatory ways

So we see that there's a pattern.

This is samsara, we're not out of it

at a collective level

And so this is where we try to get a penetrating insight

and we try to not continue to assume

that we have transformed our suffering

when actually we have just changed the surface.

We need to go more deep.

# waking the bell

# bell

So, seeing the unconditioned

in all phenomena is the teaching here.

This is the way out of the samsara.

So it's in the very conditioned,

the way out, is in. As Thay often said.

We need to learn to come back to the conditioned

not try to run away from it.

This is a deep, engaged Buddhism

we don't run away from our suffering

either within us, or outside.

Many of us, we try to run away from our own suffering

by doing good things outside

but actually,

we haven't transformed our own suffering.

Others of us

we want to completely transform our own suffering

before we do anything kind to anyone else.

Both of these are extremes

So we try to find a middle way

So we know we're on the path, we're practitioners

we're all trying to find a way

to transform our suffering

and learn more deeply

what are the causes and conditions

But it doesn't mean we have to wait

until we're totally transformed

until we start doing kind things

and reducing the harm that we cause to others.

So that's the deep, engaged Buddhism

We're doing the work of looking inside ourselves

to understand suffering, while we practice generosity

kindness, non-harming to others

And we know that, until we transform

at a deeper level, our own suffering

even with good intention we may cause harm to others

So, that's kind of the model of the monastery

We're kind of thrown together like potatoes

you have a bunch of dirty potatoes

and you put them in a pot and fill it with water

and you kind of shake it around

and then the potatoes bump into each other

and the dirt falls off.

So they clean each other.

And you could spend all day scrubbing each potato

very carefully to get the dirt off

but if you put them all in a pot together

and you just fill it with water and shake it around

and it does a very good job

and that's the spirit of practicing together

all the potatoes in the pot.

And it turns out that that kind of insight

that comes from practicing in community -

- for me, I love it!

I'm always learning.

Living in community, I mean -

who needs television? Podcasts?

Living in community is so interesting.

Everyone around you is like a mirror

helping you to better understand your own attachments

and worries, and fears, and anxieties

and then, you're also being a mirror to others

and somehow... we learn more compassion

or understanding

we learn about our own habits.

I don't want to go off and do a solo retreat

to try to get enlightenment

because the enlightenment I get

is from being around my brothers and sisters

and them shining the light on my practice

and then I reflect on it

and I transform

so that's the spirit of collective practice.

So, the Four Noble Truths

are not an individual matter

and we learn how to go into

our own body and mind

to touch the unconditioned,

which is not something abstract.

It means, at a psychological level

we're actually recognising

we have the capacity to trigger our hormonal system

our physiology, the way our patterns are firing

in our brain

It's just it's happening all so quickly,

we don't really understand it

and so we need to sit, breathe,

and not give so much attention to our thinking

Because our thinking...

it's just like images on a cinema screen

we constantly throwing up swatches of colour

sound and images

and even smells and all kinds of things.

So thoughts are basically like a cinema show

going on in our mind

and most of us believe in what's being told in that film

we believe it very deeply

and so we can't understand

when others see the world differently

because the cinema in our mind is so clear.

This is where suffering in our relationships

comes about

because we are projecting images of ourselves

of other people

our loved ones...

Thay often used to say

'Are you in love with your partner?'

'Or are you in love with an image of your partner?'

How many of us are constantly trying

to impose an image, that we are in love with,

of our loved one, on them?

And when they don't behave

like the image we are projecting in our mind

we suffer so much

and we judge them

we get angry.

And the same is true for monks and nuns.

When we start to teach our younger brothers

we want them to be a monk just exactly like we are

but, do we really know how we were as a monk.

We know inside, of course we were a perfect novice

always serving the sangha

but somehow we forget all those other difficulties

that we caused as well.

I do very often and I want to project,

I want to only give the best

to the young brothers and sisters

but I am not very successful

because sometimes I haven't seen

my own tendencies

and how I'm also playing a cinema film in my mind

about the perfect monk

or the perfect practitioner.

And so, in the community life,

I learn to let go...

'Ah, right, of course!'

'I'm just attached to that idea.'

And then I feel happy right away.

And then I can be a mentor.

But if I just keep holding on to that image

of what a monk should be

or how a good practitioner should be

then I'll make myself suffer

and also make my younger brothers suffer.

So, I've had that experience too.

So, whether we're in a relationship as a lay person

with our beloved one

or whether we are monastic

we still can be prey,

we can lose sight of the fact

that we're actually just following the storyline

the narrative that we are projecting in our mind

of ourselves, of the world, of others

And the problem with that projection

is that it often blinds us

to what's actually going on.

And that's not like a deeper storyline

it's not a storyline at all

it's just what's going on,

it's things as they are.

And there are causal relationships between things

- that's the insight the Buddha had.

But oftentimes, because we get so caught up

in these connections that we have

in the story in our mind,

we just run rough-shod

right over the actual causes and conditions.

And so, the practise is removing these films

that we're playing in our mind

in order to look more deeply

and see things as they actually are.

This is the practice,

not just continuously to go round

in the wheel of samsara,

on the film reel.

It's very nice, the old film reels?

The circle, you know?

And they go round and around and around.

And you have these little images, right?

But as they run over the light quickly

then it looks like a living, moving image.

And that's the cinematic nature of our mind,

Thay often taught us

of the cinematic nature of consciousness

Like, little flashes of images

that are constantly running over our consciousness

just like a film reel

So, learning to stop...

and just look, and see...

'What am I projecting now?'

It's very helpful.

We start to see, ah, I can do this!

I can just come back to my breathing,

calm my mind

and start to see...

first you slow it down

I like to practice slowing it down

'Ok, let me see -

let me go over this conditioning again that I have,

this story that I've told myself over and over.'

I try to slow it down

and then I can practice just stopping it

just look at one film frame.

Ah of course, now I see it's just a film frame

and I've been running them over and over again

in my mind, and then

it looks like a real story

but it's actually a delusion

something I've been creating.

It may have some basis in reality

but over time, the more we cook it

the more detached it becomes

from how things actually are.

So the point of the practice

is always to go back to those raw, direct perceptions

and not impose a story on them

and try to go with the raw data

the raw, sense input

and not create more stories out of it.

I'm always fascinated when I sit

with brothers or sisters

who are very deep in the practice,

or Thay

and they are very careful in their speech

They're careful not to make something

out of what they learn or what they know

beyond what is just that bare perception

because they know that in the past

that was where the strong emotions come from.

The strong emotions are a kind of

cognitive dissonance between

the film that we're showing in our head

and how things are

and suddenly the film we're showing is

in direct contradiction

to what is actually going on

When we cannot deny it any farther

there's a moment of dissonance

and then we have a strong emotion

like anger, we feel frustrated, 'Ah! -

it's supposed to be this way,

supposed to do this schedule

we agreed on this, ah! I'm so angry.'

So we have to be very careful

in what film we attach to in our mind

and see if we can just let go, let go, let go.

What's amazing is, when you stop the film

you still continue to keep living!

I always am fascinated by that

when I gather stories that are going through my head

I feel, ah, this story!

I don't tell myself necessarily

but somehow it's right, I have the right story!

I really have the right story

and that other person?

They've got it all wrong.

When you feel like that, when you're so sure,

that's the best time to let go

'Ok, I'm going to let go of that idea.'

Usually, we have the story

and then somebody else tries to help us

to let go of it by telling us, 'Well, look -

but did you consider this?

which is contradicting our story.

But then we reach

and say, 'Ach! You're just taking her side!'

And then we divide

and we try to get more people onto our story

and our way of telling the events.

Get allies, that are all telling the same story.

And we do this at the national level

That's why history becomes so emotional

and people say, 'How can you teach that history?

You forgot completely about these horrible things

that happened.'

'But you're so negative, we need to think positive!'

And so we craft history

and because we don't have that understanding

that knowledge is not only about describing reality

but has intentionality

and we so, 'Oh, that history is factual,

it's real - how can you deny it?'

So this is where the storyline

at the collective level

becomes a film, patriotism

you know, nativistic thinking

that can lead to a lot of suffering

when you attach this physical body,

the story, to the land itself.

this is creating suffering at a collective level.

So this is all happening in the mind

the individual level and the collective level

and so this teaching,

it seems very, oh it's just a paradox

Thay's just saying they're all conditioned

they're all unconditioned,

ah, Thay's just being a Zen master.

It's very deep. It's the invitation

to go into the condition

and touch the unconditioned

not to just say, oh, life is suffering

I just want to bear it up until I get through it

But seeing that, yeah, life is suffering

that is a wonder:

suffering is a wonder

because to experience life as a wonder

it's a miracle

it's a miracle to suffer

it's one of the greatest miracles

in that, if there was no suffering

we could not touch the unconditioned

Thay often said, 'I don't want to send my students

to a place where there is no suffering

because I know

in a place with no suffering

there's no real happiness

So it's by going into the suffering

we touch happiness

we touch the unconditioned.

So that's what this teaching is:

we need to see that all the Four Noble Truths

they are in the historical dimension

just like the pin - when we remove it

we no longer have the pain

but they also have the ultimate aspect.

So, already in the First Noble Truth

we have the presence of happiness.

We don't need to wait until we get to the third one

to discover happiness

it's already there

so we get beyond the historical dimension

we see that there's no first, second, third or fourth

Noble Truth, but they all interpenetrate

so we don't need to get caught in the dogma

like, 'Oh, you're Buddhist?

You believe in the Four Noble Truths, right?'

Kind of thing, right?

'Oh, these are Buddhists, they believe

the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths.

The First Truth is suffering,' this kind of thing

like a documentary you watch in High School.

'And Muslims think this...'

Again, this is getting into the mode

of just describing reality

so whether we are Muslim, we're Christian

Jewish, it doesn't matter. Buddhist.

We all experience suffering

and we want to transform

and understand that suffering

so that we can bring about happiness.

That's transforming suffering

It's not like we've got to take a bunch of clay

and then mould it into something else

but it's looking into the suffering

and seeing, ah! - now I understand,

I thought that thing, I said that thing

I did that thing, that created suffering for myself

and also made that other person suffer a lot

so how can I learn to...I mean, at a simplistic level

you just think, oh, I'm a bad person

I must be a really nasty person

but this is not true.

We all have the capacity to harm others

But we also have the capacity to be kind

we have the capacity to reconcile

we have the capacity to repent

to look at something that we've done

and say, ah, yeah,,,

in someways that was not so skillful

and I can see how my emotion

my attachment to some end was there

I wanted that thing

and so, in that conversation there was something

that left a not so pleasant taste

So you look with honesty and humility

at your own actions

and you learn to maybe not say that thing

not do that thing

and cause a little bit less harm in this life

So, for me, the miracle in life

is to cause a little bit less harm

I mean, if you can really help many people

to cause less harm, that's wonderful

but, even just in yourself, if you can do less harm

not say that thing, that hurtful thing

that is already a huge success

And you won't be on the cover

of the New York Times because you did that

you're not going to be famous

because you're causing less harm.

Lots of people are famous because

they cause a lot of harm

and some people are famous

because they help a lot of people to suffer less

But, anyway, most of us don't want

to be on the cover of the New York Times -

- that's a suffering!

We just want to be happy.

What we have is the experience of life

this is what the Noble Truths are telling us

this is so precious

All these things you see out there

like people in powerful positions

people with wealth

people with all kinds of sense pleasures

don't be deluded by that

don't think that they're not with a hole inside themselves

trying to fill that hole with their sense pleasures

or with their wealth

That's what the Buddha is trying to tell us

because all you have is the experience of your life

which means what you are experiencing right now

And that is everything

And so, you want to be happy? You need to go into that

into that suffering and touch the unconditioned nature

that's the insight that Thay wants to transmit to us

with this teaching, which seems paradoxical.

Ok, thank you for listening,

have a wonderful evening,

I hope you enjoy very much the retreat starting tomorrow

and we're so happy you're here

we feel so fortunate that we can open Deer Park

to in-person retreats

it's not only your joy, it's also our joy.

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