Compassion is Non-Local | Dharma Talk by Sr. Annabel Chân Đức

most respected Thai dear Sangha wherever

you are this wonderful to be connected

with each other in many different places

and now we want to come back to our

breathing and really feel our connection

with everyone else who is there to the

edge of the Dharma talk and first of all

in order to bring us together we are

going to sing a song for you from the

New Hamlet in Plum Village

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most respected Thay, dear Sangha

everywhere, today is the 26th of April in

the year 2020 and we are in the New

Hamlet of Plum village sending out a

Dharma talk online, we are very lucky that

we have ways of communicating when we

cannot be physically together, we have

the telephone, we have the internet so

that we can we can be together in a

sense, we can see each other, we can hear

each other, but before these things were

invented people also had the need to be

together with those who were far away

and they were also able to do that, we

have a way in which we can send our love

there is a way in which we are connected

and recently with the discovery of how

how the nature of the particle the

sub-atomic particle

the scientists have discovered something

called "non-local" it means in a sense we

can be where we are not. In Plum Village

on the day of mindfulness we often

practice sending energy sending our love

to people who are not there in Plum

Village people who may be in the

hospital, people who maybe have died

already, we say their name we concentrate

on our breathing we concentrate on the

Bodhisattva of compassion who is in us

and in our Sangha, and we use that energy

in order to send it to the one whose

name we have mentioned and we know that

this is effective because I have heard

people say at the very time when we said

the name of the person and concentrated

on the Bodhisattvas maybe someone who

was dying and not at peace became

peaceful while someone who was not dying

but not at peace also became peaceful at

that very moment, although there were

hundreds of kilometers away, so we know

both from science and from our own

experience it is possible to send love

is possible to send peace

and it's possible to send your smile to

those who need it, you just need to say

the name of the person and smile, and say

dear whatever the name is I'm smiling

for you this is the smile of compassion

a smile of relaxation of peace but of

course the important thing is that the

one who is sending the love

this smile

has to feel peace, has to be peace, and

that is what is essential and all of us

who have met the practice we know how to

do that say that even you were in the

same room as the person who is sick or

dying it would be so important that you

could feel peace, if you were afraid if

you were crying at that time it would

not help the person who needs your help

and now though you cannot be in the same

room still your peace can reach the

person you wanted to reach you only need

to say their name

you only need to feel the deep peace

within you and to feel also that you are

a Bodhisattva that means you are someone

who has the mind of love, the mind

awakening, and that Bodhisattva is in you

is not someone outside of you, maybe in

the beginning the Bodhisattva you

visualize outside of you, you visualize

that great being who is full of

compassion and understanding as being

outside of you, but as you go deeper into

your concentration you will see the

Bodhisattva is inside of you and another

wonderful thing that you may see is that

the Bodhisattva is inside of the person

you are sending your energy to, the

Bodhisattva is also non-local. Many of us

now we find ourselves in confinement I

don't know whether you feel that you are

in a prison, you may do, when we first

published in English the manual for

novices with the code of discipline for

novices somehow it got that book got

inside the walls of a prison

and a prisoner who had a very long

sentence to serve read the book from

cover to cover and said to himself I can

become a novice in prison the prison can

become my monastery

he shaved his head (you don't need to

shave your head) he recited the novice

precept for himself and he decided that

he's become a novice and every day from

the moment he woke up he could use the

poems that the novice uses in order to

be able to feel that he is really in a

monastery, his prison has become his

monastery, so this is something that we

can, we can do we can make our

environment a monastery, we can make our

environment the house of the Buddha, the

house of Jesus Christ, where we can enjoy

our breathing

enjoy our mindful walking at every

moment of the day... do you know the little

poem waking up I smile I have 24

brand-new hours I vow to live them fully

looking at life with the eyes of love

someone is translating into Vietnamese

and there's no word I in Vietnamese

waking up smile, no I, 24 brand-new hours

even if you don't feel like smiling it

doesn't have to be I that smiles there

just has to be a smile and the smile is

wonderful the smile is the kind of mouth

yoga, that can transform our state of

mind when we smile we send a message to

the nerves in our brain and the message

is something like it's alright

everything is going to be okay

so we need that smile very much at this

time, so that we can take care of the

present moment don't think there's an

I who is smiling, when you smile your

ancestors your mother and your father

are smiling with you your children are

smiling with you you inter-are that is

the most wonderful teaching that we have

it is the teaching that we need most in

our time interbeing, I am NOT a separate

self, but in order to be able to touch

deeply the true nature of interbeing we

have to be very much there in the

present moment, not carried away by what

is happening around us

some people say that in this time when

they are in good health

when their loved ones are also in good

health when they have financial

resources they have everything they need

they feel all the same

they do not have the right to be happy

when so many others are suffering

but please remember that the world needs

your happiness not the happiness of

indulging your sense pleasures but the

happiness that comes from being at peace

from being able to accept, from being

able to breathe and to walk, this

happiness is very important for the

world at this time and out of this

happiness you can bring happiness to

others you can console those who

are mourning, who are afraid, so allow

yourself to enjoy the true happiness as

a gift to the world. So what we want to

be, what we need to do to reestablish

peace is to be able to come back to

ourselves. We just sang for you being an

island unto myself this means I have the

capacity to come back to my body as it

is in the present moment and your body

may be in good shape your body may not

be in good shape

but all the same it's doing its best and

you can come back to it and when you

come back to your body

you can help your body your body will

feel happy when your mind comes back to

it and that is why we say breathing in

I'm aware of my whole body it's to be

able to come back and for your mind rest

peacefully in every cell of your body

and in the Sutras they use the example of

a turtle, a turtle has its four legs its

head and its tail, and when the turtle

needs to it will withdraw its legs its

head and its tail under its shell, and

there it is perfectly safe in its shell

and many times in the Sutra we are

reminded that we should pull in our six

senses our eyes ears nose etc. bring them

back on mind bring them back to the

island of our self it's like on a windy

day if you leave all the doors open

everything in the room will be blown

around it will be cold in the room so we

need to close the doors we need to close

the windows and although it's wonderful

to have the Internet as a means of

connection as a way of being with our

Sangha it can also pull us out of ourself

if we don't use it in the right way

so we should be very careful how we use

the Internet and we should always know

how not to get lost in it, carried away

by it, to come back into our shell and

take care of our body and our mind as

they are in the present moment. Now we

enjoy the bell to do just that

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You know that we are made up of what are

called five skandhas: our body, our

feelings, perceptions, mental formations

and consciousness. What this means is

that sometimes you identify yourself

with your body you feel I am my body

sometimes you identify yourself with

your feeling with your thinking with

your emotions and with your consciousness

all these things you can call myself

because we have the practice of

mindfulness we are able to take good

care of these five rivers that are

always flowing in us and changing at

every moment so the first step is to

come back to yourself and the second

step is to take care of

yourself and don't feel that that

is selfish because taking care of

yourself you are taking care of your

ancestors who gave you who transmited

to you

your body and your mind

you are taking care of your descendants

to whom you have transmitted your body

and your mind, and something else: you are

taking care of Mother Earth because you

are a child of the Earth and when you

take care of yourself

it's no different from taking care of

the earth. If you are environmentalist

and you don't take care of your body you

are not really taking care of the Earth

if you do not call yourself an

environmentalist but you take good care

of your body

you are taking care of the Earth and you will

love the Earth every time you walk on

the Earth

recently they've done, scientists have

done much research on what kind of diet

is best for the human being and they

have discovered that the best diet for a

human being is also the diet which will

help preserve Mother Earth for the

longest time that is a diet without

animal products so we can see even from

a scientific point of view that taking

care of ourselves is taking care of the

Earth

so we come back to our five skandhas and

we see that our body needs our love and our

care some people say that when they

become sick they lose confidence in

their body "I don't trust my body anymore"

because it has become sick but in fact I

have more trust in my body when I become

sick because I have to go back to my

body I have to watch it very carefully I

have to be aware of it

at every moment and I see how it's doing

its best

I see how it's changing at every moment

and it's trying to deal with the

situation it has, so in fact my

confidence

increases, so we come back and we take

take care we are aware and they have

discovered that relaxation is a

wonderful way of healing you don't

really have to do very much except allow

your body to relax allow your body to to

get back its strength to rest

sometimes when we get sick it's because our

body is wanting us to do just that to

relax and to rest so it want to give us

it wants to give us that message it's

also an opportunity for us to be able to

look deeply at how we've been living our

life and to make changes and now we have

to go through this pandemic it's an

opportunity for all of us to look deeply

and to see how we've been living because

surely what we are going through now has

something to do with how we have lived

as a human species and when it is over

how are we going to be are we going to

are we going to live differently

otherwise we cannot avoid having more

pandemics so in a way this is a an

opportunity for us to wake up as a human

species and to begin to do things

differently and the first thing that we

will learn is to come back to ourselves

to rest to do less to have more time for

our family now we are forced to do less

we are forced to be with our family to

be with the earth

take care of the earth these are all

things we can do better so we come back

first of all to our body and we take

care and by coming back to our body

understanding our body we understand how

it's not a separate self entity it inter

is first of all your body into is with

the body of your mother and your father

and then of your grandparents and after

that your body into is with the forests

the air that you breathe the food that

you eat the water that you drink

and after we have come back to our body

and recognize its interbeing nature and

we take better care of our body we

recognize our feelings we really want to

have pleasant feelings we don't want to

have unpleasant feelings but for as long

as there are pleasant feelings there

will also be unpleasant feelings so we

cannot hope one day there will be no

more unpleasant feeling once somebody

said to me or you'd say if you don't

have unpleasant feelings you can't have

Pleasant feelings then I don't mind not

having Pleasant feelings as long as I

don't have to have unpleasant feelings

but who is going to be God and organize

the species that doesn't have feelings

anymore that is not possible so we we

know that unpleasant feelings are part

of life and they need our care and our

attention they don't need us to push

them out of the door say you are in

confinement you are sitting in your flat

and in the flat there's a lot of

unpleasant feelings what are you going

to do open the window and shoo them out

they won't they won't go away

first of all unpleasant feelings need to

be heard then

to be recognized they need to be

acknowledged so you say my dear little

frustration I know you're there I accept

you

oh my dear lack of energy someone said

to me in the beginning of the

confinement she had so much energy she

wanted to do so many things to help like

organizing online Sangha practicing

diligently every day listening to Dharma

talks but after a while there's no more

energy left no more desire to no more

desire to listen to Dharma dogs so that

is something only normal because

everything is impermanent everything is

in a wonderful state of change at every

moment and sometimes we grasp hold of a

moment and we want it to be like that

forever but that is not the nature of

how things are going to change so the

first thing is to recognize that I don't

have energy I'm tired

what is the point of fighting against it

it'll only make me more tired

so I accept like that but just as the

moment when the wave is at its highest

it can feel happy but also when it's at

its worst it can also feel at peace

because it knows that this is

impermanent and it knows that whether it

is high or whether it is low it is water

all the same so when we are able to

accept our tiredness our lack of energy

we just live with it

follow our breathing and quite naturally

it will change the energy will come back

the peace will come back and then you

can continue to do the work you want to

do to help others

this has something to do with the

practice of contentment the practice of

knowing that I have inner maybe in your

flat you have a plant which has green

leaves

you cannot go outside and you cannot be

in touch with nature outside but you can

be in touch with the plant you might be

able to touch it gently with your

fingers you can look at it you can

contemplate it you can see that the

plant is coming from the whole universe

it coming from the rain is coming from

the earth and when you look at that leaf

you can also see that you are a kind of

leaf you also come from the sunshine and

you come from the rain so you and the

leaf you have a great deal in common and

if you look even more deeply you will

see that you in turn are because the

plant is also breathing and helping to

give more oxygen for you to breathe in

and you breathe out the carbon dioxide

for the plant so feeling our oneness

with the with the universe feeling our

oneness with nature it's something that

the human being can do because the human

being is just part of nature

it's not something different so touching

a leaf you also touch the non beginning

and the non ending you see that the leaf

does not really have a beginning the

plant comes from a seed and the seed

comes from the plant that that was there

before it and in the same way you have

no beginning and you have no end before

we said that when you cannot see someone

you cannot hear someone you think that

they do not exist when someone you love

dies you cannot see them you cannot hear

them in Vietnamese when someone dies

they say hiding behind the mountain but

hiding behind the mountain doesn't mean

to say that that person is not it's not

there it just means to say oh we can't

see you anymore we can't hear you

anymore and we can experience that for

ourself how to be in touch with someone

who has who has died because that person

is always there in our consciousness is

available to us

and it may take a long time to really be

in touch with your loved one who has

died it may take years three years or

four years so we do not need to be in a

hurry in order to end our grief we

should recognize that grief is something

natural but all the time when we feel

grief we are practicing to be able to go

beyond the idea of being and bonding to

go beyond the idea of the and and so to

be able to see that even when we thought

that person existed and was alive they

weren't really alive in the way that we

thought they were they were manifesting

to our consciousness manifesting to our

visual cortex to Audio cortex but they

were not real in the way that we thought

they were real and now when they have

died they are not going out of being

into internal nandi so that is our our

practice of looking deeply our practice

of inter interview when you touch the

leaf you look at the leaf deeply

you recognize that if your consciousness

was not if there was not consciousness

your eye consciousness your mind

consciousness then the leaf would not be

manifesting and at the same time you

recognize that the leaf has

consciousness that the consciousness is

in the leaf and not just in you and this

is also something that science is able

to demonstrate because someone who is

observing who thinks they are observing

a particle outside of them actually

changes the nature of the particle as

soon as you begin to observe a particle

the particle changes so the

consciousness is not just in you is also

in the particle this is also an aspect

of interbeing for us all to be able to

look deeply into and to be able to

overcome our our fear that we have

because we see that we are a separate

self in in the suture there is the

example of clapping clapping with your

hands and obviously you cannot clap with

one hand

you need to have two hands so there is

not a one hand that can tempt left there

is not an I who can clap we could say

that the two hands clap but when we look

deeply into our hands what do we see we

see another system we see the bones you

see the skin the flesh and if we go even

deeper and we look into the cells of all

these things we will see that there are

mitochondria in each of this cell and

those mitochondria they do not share our

DNA our genes they are not really our

self they come from bacteria a long time

ago so we will find out that there is no

separate cell that is that is clapping

similarly the Buddha said do you want to

overcome your fear of sickness old age

and death do you want to see the end of

sickness old age and death then ask the

question who is it who grows sick who is

it who grows old who is it who dies and

normally we say I grow sick I grow old I

die oh you and with that thought I grow

old I die we become afraid but if we

look deeply we will see there is no one

who grows old there is no one who dies

there is growing old there is sickness

there is death but there is no one who

grows old who is he yeah and that is

what I like to practice when I am NOT

well I asked myself who is it who is

sick and I see there is no one who is

see there is sickness but there is no

one who is sick times often told us when

I was a novice in the do heal temple

practicing under his teacher the master

whose first name is Tong Lu second name

is green

one day they were in the garden hoeing

the earth to plant the taters and ties

Master was already advanced in age but

he still insisted on helping in the

garden and he he was tired and he put

the hole aside and said that soon I will

not be tired anymore and then after a

moment of reflection he looked at Ty and

he said but who is it who will not be

tired anymore we have the idea I am here

now I'm tired and I'm not going to live

much longer and when I'm not alive I

will not be tired and all these ideas

they come from the idea of a separate

self but when you look at deeply at that

separate self you can't find it and it's

changing at every moment from one second

to the next

it's not the same so even though I was

only a novice he received the

transmission of that teaching it went

very deep in the life

[Music]

I have seen people die and I have seen

that the moment of death can be a moment

of deep peace and sometimes before that

moment comes there is quite a struggle

it's difficult sometimes for the body to

give up but maybe it's even more

difficult for for for the mind from

Manas to give up but with the practice

of breathing the practice of recognizing

there is death but there is no one who

who dies is possible - to let go and

even if someone has not practiced those

who are with the dying person can

practice for them so that is another

wonderful aspect of into being that the

way our state of mind is is able to

influence those who we are with that is

why we need the Sangha and you really

need your online Sangha

this time you do not have to be with

somebody in the same room in order to be

able to connect with that person I think

that now we can we can sit still we can

enjoy our breathing and if we light we

can close our eyes we can feel how we

are connected with our large Sangha we

can feel how we are connected to the

monks and nuns in plum village as we

breathe in and out we can feel the

energy of those who are practicing with

us at this moment and we can use that

energy in order to be able to send it to

our loved ones who need it we can say to

our loved ones who need our energy I'm

sending the Sangha energy to you I'm

sending the energy of plum village to

you

and when we hear the sound of the Bell

all together we will be feeling our

interconnectedness and sending our love

our peace and our smile to support you

in sending your image

energy moving across the continent to

those who need it

dear Sangha one of the attributes of the

human mind is called grasping tomahto we

have two arms two two hands to grasp

things but there are certain things that

we cannot grasp cannot grasp the the

spring breeze and with our mind it's not

only with our hands that we try and

grasp things we also try and grasp them

with our with our mind and a grasping

like that it causes us to suffer

especially when we find that we cannot

grasp what we wanted to grasp you know

that plum village is in a wine growing

area so we have many vineyards around

and most of them they are not organic

vineyards where I am staying we have

been yard on two sides and other fields

on other side and at this time of year

the farmers come on their big large

tractors and spray a lot of toxins

insecticide fungicide

outside herbicide and the air is not

good after they've in spray and I find

that I grasp to this situation I grasped

to it as something that has to end as

soon as possible

but obviously that is not going to

happen if I look deeply I will see that

it's going to take time for the human

species not wanting to drink wine

anymore

and for the farmers not wanting to make

their money in that way

so this is what I know is that I can

take care of Mother Earth with every

step and with every breath and I can

accept the human species as not being

perfect in accepting that the human

species is not perfect I also accept

that I am not perfect but I'm very lucky

that I have the mindfulness trainings

you have the five mindfulness trainings

so you can be the kind of human being

that can take care of the earth

I learned the verse when I was just

beginning to be interested in Buddhism

nothing whatsoever to remove from this

not a single thing there on to add

nothing to take away no increase no

degree not a single thing to add

properly beholding properly looking at

the true nature when truly seen complete

liberation

[Music]

from this no single thing there are

property holding true nature

when truly seen completely nothing to

remove from this no single thing they're

holding true nature

when truly seemed completely variation

[Music]

and this is what we mean when we talk

about the ultimate dimension in the

historical dimension the human species

goes up and goes down begins and ends

and that is something we have to accept

that is the impermanence but in the

ultimate dimension nothing is lost but

nothing is added every compassionate

thought every smile and does not stay

with you

becomes part of a wonderful energy which

cannot be lost every day with our

practice of mindfulness our practice of

mindful walking of mindful breathing we

are able to touch the ultimate dimension

and touching the ultimate dimension we

can be ourselves we can be the best kind

of human being

in order to touch the ultimate dimension

we practice to be aware of interbeing

we practice mindfulness

once you are no longer in confinement

you will really have an opportunity to

enjoy Mother Earth as you never enjoyed

her before but maybe while you are still

in confinement you don't need to go up

onto the high mountain you can enjoy

Mother Earth right away because she is

there in the food you eat in the sky and

the clouds outside of your window she is

there under your feet whether the floor

is made of wood or made of Earth it's

still mad at her every step that we make

can be a peaceful step when you go from

your kitchen to the your bedroom from

your bedroom to the bathroom every step

can bring peace to yourself bring peace

to your loved ones and bring peace to

the world

[Music]

not a he even a walking on the walking

on the earth and that doesn't media only

there

it also means walking from your bedroom

to the bathroom walking on the earth is

to realize a miracle every

awaitin every awaitin step manifests the

madonna tire the ultimate dimension we

have another song which before we end I

will sing to you suddenly

I'm aware of every step I take through I

follow the little

piglets Oh child suddenly I'm aware of

every step I take and this is our don't

drama I'm aware I yeah I'm very careful

and very heedful of every step and it

happened suddenly suddenly I'm

completely there in the present moment

because I have done my best to follow my

breathing to follow my steps I now find

myself in the present moment well

there's nothing to add on nothing to

take away and liberation from sorrow and

suffering

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you