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The fourth source of nutriment
is called consciousness.
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Consciousness as food.
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[4. consciousness]
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First of all our individual consciousness.
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Each if us has
our individual consciousness,
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[mind] consciousness
and store consciousness.
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In our store consciousness
there may be a dark spot.
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Maybe we have been abused
as a child in the past.
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We have suffered quite a lot as a child.
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And the memories of suffering
are still there, very vivid.
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It is in that corner
of our store consciousness.
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Also, that kind of suffering may have
been transmitted to us by our parents,
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our ancestors.
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Many of us have the habit
of going back to the past
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and suffer again and again
the suffering of the past.
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We don't follow the teaching of the Buddha
that the past is already gone,
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we should be able to enjoy
the wonders of life in the present moment.
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But many of us cannot do that,
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because the past
has become a kind of prison.
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We are caught and
we go back always to the past
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and we live again and again
the suffering of the past.
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There are films of the past
projected in that dark corner.
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And we go back day and night and
watch the film of suffering in the past.
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We need someone like a teacher or a friend
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to try to take us out of
that dark corner of our consciousness.
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There are animals like cows and buffaloes,
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after they have eaten grass they swallow,
they have so many stomachs.
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They chew, they swallow and then
they bring it out again and chew again.
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So we do exactly like that.
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We swallow our suffering
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and we bring it up again
and swallow again and again.
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That is not good food.
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Not [good] consciousness as food.
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The materials
in our individual consciousness
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should be recognized and transformed,
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and should not continue
to be a source of nutriment for us.
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As a practitioner,
we have to be aware of that.
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We should stop consuming the past.
Consuming the suffering of the past.
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We should try to be
in the here and the now.
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Profit from the light and the beauty
of the cosmos, of the earth
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to nourish us, to make us strong
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in order to transform and illuminate
that corner in our consciousness.
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You need a friend, a teacher, a sangha,
maybe a psychotherapist to help you
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to get out of that prison and learn
to live deeply in the present moment.
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To heal.
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Then, there is
the collective consciousness.
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Collective consciousness
can be very wholesome.
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Like when we come to a retreat like this
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and 1,300 people are breathing together,
smiling together, walking together.
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We produce a very wholesome
energy of peace and joy.
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That is a very good nutriment,
very good food.
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Last year, while giving a Dharma talk
in Northern Germany,
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I saw four young mothers sitting
in the front row and nursing their babies.
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Of course the babies
did not understand the talk.
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(Laughter)
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But they inherited,
they benefited from the peaceful
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and loving atmosphere in the hall.
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They were receiving
two types of food at the same time;
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the milk from their mother's breast,
and the atmosphere of peace,
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and the brotherhood and sisterhood
generated by the practice in the hall.
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So as a sangha,
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we can produce that kind of collective
wholesome energy of peace and compassion
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that can help to heal
and to transform.
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That is why building a sangha
is a very noble thing to do.
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After the retreat,
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maybe you'd like to go home with the
intention, the volition to build a sangha.
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To do walking, sitting, breathing,
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to generate that collective energy
of peace and brotherhood.
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Many people in the neighborhood
can come and inherit from that.
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But there are neighborhoods that are
full of anger, fear, and hate.
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The collective energy of anger
and despair is so destructive.
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If you happen to spend a few days in that
neighborhood, you feel that you suffer.
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And if you happen to settle
in that neighborhood,
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you should know that you have
to pull out as quickly as possible.
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Otherwise you will be like them; thinking,
acting in a hateful way, in a violent way.
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And your children will do that.
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Not because we want to abandon
the suffering people,
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we have to take care of ourselves first.
We have to pull out and heal ourselves.
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If can go back with strength as a sangha,
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we can help that neighborhood
to transform.
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We know that the collective energy of hate
of anger, of fear is very destructive.
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It leads to killing,
it leads to committing suicide.
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On the day of September 11th,
I was in America
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on a speaking tour.
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We had to offer retreats and Dharma talks.
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And I felt that collective energy of anger
and fear in America. It is so dangerous.
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So the first public talk I gave was
3 days after September 11th in Berkeley.
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4.000 people attended.
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I asked all members
of the monastic sangha to join me
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and help the crowd to practice calming
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because the feeling of anger and fear
was so overwhelming.
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We practiced breathing and calming.
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We know that reacting with that
collective consciousness of fear and anger
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is very dangerous.
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A number of days later,
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I gave another talk at
the Riverside Church in New York City.
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And I encouraged the people to practice
the same kind of practice of calming down.
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When I boarded the plane
to go to another city
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I could feel the anger and the fear
of everyone sitting on the plane.
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The pilot tried to say something to cheer
people up, but he did not succeed.
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That is why
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we should not allow ourselves to consume
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that collective energy of fear,
anger and despair.
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It is not good for our health and
not good for the health of our children.
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If that neighborhood produces so much
hate and despair and anger,
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we should not continue to be there,
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because if we do,
we'll be like them, very quickly.
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Our children also. That is why
we have to learn to protect ourselves
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and try our best to come back to help
when we are stronger.
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These are the four kinds of nutriments
that the Buddha spoke about.
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I have a friend who works in the faculty
of nutrition in Harvard University.
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She wrote a book, 'Savor',
on eating, mindful eating.
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I advised her to print the whole text of
the [4 Nutriments] Sutra inside.
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Mindful consumption is the way out,
and this is a national problem,
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it is a world problem,
not only a family problem.
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(Bell)
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(Bell)