2018 12 06 NH EN The Diamond Sutra & the practice of signlessness br Phap Luu

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(Bell)

(Bell)

(Bell)

(Bell)

Dear respected Thay,
dear noble community,

it's such a happiness to walk into a room
so full of love.

My brother and I we just arrived
a few minutes ago, and came in.

And to feel the sangha sitting in peace -

(fr.) La traduction, ça marche?

Pas encore.

Can we turn the volume
up on the French?

So walking into this room and feel
the energy of peace, of calm,

of deep aspiration to practice

is like walking into a kind of Pure Land.

(fr.) Ça va?

Là-bas ça va, mais, là-bas? Ça ne va pas.

We can just enjoy our breathing.

The beautiful thing about a smile
is it doesn't require a translation.

So maybe if you like you can look around
the room and smile to one another.

Just to appreciate the presence of

so many people who

come for the bodhisattva path.

Today's talk is about
the path of the bodhisattvas.

How the Buddha taught of how

he takes good care of the bodhisattvas.

And by looking at each other
and smiling to other bodhisattvas,

we take good care of each other.

Bring up that seed of caretaking.

And then our heart opens and we,

we water the seed of joy
in the other person.

(fr.) Ça va? Okay, voilà.

So dear respected Thay,
dear brothers and sisters,

today is the 6th of December

in the year 2018,

and we are gathered in

Loving Kindness temple,
in New Hamlet,

for the last lay day Dharma talk
of the Winter Retreat.

(fr.) N'est-ce pas?

There is a very wonderful book called
The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion.

And it's

Thay's teaching on the Vajracchedikā
Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra,

or sometimes called The Diamond Sutra.

The diamond that cuts through illusion.

And I was preparing for this talk
reading through this book,

and I remembered that it was one,

I think the first book of Thay's
that I read all the way through.

Somebody had given it to me
when I was a lay friend

practicing in a Vipassana center.

And it was like receiving
a stroke of lighting.

I, and -

The sangha asks us

to look into this sutra today

as the last lay Dharma talk.
Lay day Dharma talk.

So I practice getting in touch with
the teaching in the Diamond Sutra.

But somehow I've forgotten that I -
How important finding this book was to me,

and my study of Thay's teaching.

And so, actually
I re-read it this morning.

(Laughter)

Sometimes it's like that.
Because Thay is such a

profound teacher,

that sometimes I like to look
in other places first.

Because I know when I read
Thay's teaching, Thay's -

One thunderbolt after another.

And it is difficult to find areas that
Thay doesn't go into,

that Thay doesn't reveal deeply.

So we are invited this morning
to look into this teaching.

How many of you have ever read
The Diamond Sutra?

Wow! Okay, not bad!

So I want to start to share
a little bit about

the relationship of this teaching with

some other teachings
we already had in this retreat.

So we've learned about mindful breathing,

we've going into
the 14 mindfulness trainings.

So we know the Sutra on Mindful Breathing,

the Sutra on the Four
Establishments of Mindfulness

are very old teachings of the Buddha.

Like the teachings that the Buddha
gave later in his life.

At that time the sangha
had grown quite large,

and it was not so easy
as just going

to the Buddha website and
registering for a retreat

to go study personally with the Buddha.

It's not so easy.

People only learned about the Buddha
through word of mouth.

When the Buddha first came to
a big city, to Rajgir,

which at that time was the capital

of that region of Magadha,

they spread the word

to all the women, and the parents,

'Please, take care! Hide your men!

Because the Buddha is coming,
and wherever he goes,

many of the men become monks!'

(Laughter)

'Be careful!'

So the teaching of the Buddha
in this day and age sometimes we forget

was very dependent on physically
meeting the Buddha.

He didn't have a -

an iPhone, or a GPS transmitter,

so it is not easy to find
where the Buddha is.

You had to ask.

So the early community,
as it began to grow,

was surrounded by monks that
had studied personally with the Buddha.

They had spent time living with him,
walking with him,

going on alms round with him.

And so a lot of what they learned
was just by watching him.

Watching how he talked,
watching how he walked.

Listening directly to his teaching.

We are listening to a direct teaching now.

(Laughter)

From the Buddha himself.

So often times,
when we talk about the Dharma,

we think about some book.

And when we study the Dharma,

we need to go buy that book
and we need to read that book.

But that would be completely foreign
to the sangha of the Buddha.

None of what the Buddha was teaching
was being written down as far as we know

at that time. In fact,
writing was considered a kind of

lower form of transmitting
or communicating.

When something was -

When something was sacred,

then it would come directly
from the mouth of a teacher.

So the teaching came orally.

Nowadays we are like -
We've turned it upside down.

If something is written down,
we take it as an authority,

but if it is said from spoken word we tend
to question whether it's true or not.

So we suffer a lot.

And so, hopefully, in looking into
The Diamond Sutra

we will be able to pierce through
that veil of,

that veil of delusion.

Our practice is always to come back
to the here and now,

to experience life as it is
in the present moment.

That is a - Is there is something
that we can call truth,

in the Plum Village tradition
in the Buddhist teaching it is that.

It's that truth is found in life.
Not in books,

not even in the words of people,
what people tell us.

Even if that person is a very
prominent spiritual teacher.

Thay always reminds us
that we need to take the teaching

and apply it in our daily life.
That is where we find truth.

So we walk the talk.

But we know that

studying the teachings
can benefit our practice.

It can help us to break through

a view that we are holding on to tightly.

We can become aware of the ways in which
our vision is limited.

Like the blinders on a horse.

We only see the way forward

so that we only continue to walk forward.

And much (inaudible) education
in the modern world

is really how to get well-fitting blinders
so that we do the things

that are expected of us.

That we get a job, that we make money,
that we have a family, that we

so we can have a car, and a house,

and then we can go home
and enjoy Christmas together.

And then we can yell at each other.

(Laughter)

And complain, and, yeah.

Because of all the problems we have
making sure we have a house, and a car,

and a family, and a job, and money,
and all those things.

So our current education system
is designed like that,

to try to increase our capacity
to obtain those things.

Those objects of desire.

So when the Buddha walked into Rajgir,

he cut through all of that

by his mindful step, his mindful gaze,
his mindful speech.

And many young men
who were very well-educated,

many of them who studied to become
the spiritual leaders of their community,

prominent priests

who would take care of the spiritual needs
of their community,

just by seeing the Buddha
walking mindfully,

looking mindfully,

eating mindfully,
speaking mindfully,

they cut through the veil
of their delusion, those blinders they had

that were keeping them
on the path that was accepted in society

for them to walk on.

And so that is why they warned people,
'Please hide your son, hide your husband!'

People were afraid of what can happen
when people remove those blinders,

when suddenly their view becomes
very wide and open,

and they go beyond just the limited idea
of who they are,

and what they are here for.

So this teaching of The Diamond Sutra

is part of the fruit of a tradition
that developed

when the Buddha was
no longer physically there

in the form of which we think of him
as a human being walking on the Earth.

And for many centuries the monks,

in order to get in touch with
the Dharma body of the Buddha,

without his physical presence,

had begun orally reciting

the teachings that the Buddha gave
in many different situations.

Chanting them regularly,
and then

teaching the young monks that came in
also to chant them.

And so the teachings were passed on
through this practice of oral recitation.

Also the precepts, we call the Vinaya,

it means the way of life
of the monastic community,

was regularly chanted

and recited in that way.

And at some point,

people started to write them down

on palm leaves.

Can of like a cheat sheet.

But sometimes they forgot some passage

or maybe a monk would go
to a very remote area,

and he wanted to make sure that

he would not be a -

In the midst of a large community, where
there would be elders he could consult

when he forgot one passage of the sutra.

Maybe there was one text
like the Dharmapada

which had very precise sayings
and he wanted to remember them exactly.

So he started to write them down
on palm leaves

so that he could bring them with him
in his robe.

And whenever he forgot a line, he could
take them out to remember that line.

So a kind of cheat sheet.

A new technology,
very controversial.

Like the Internet.

And,

and this new form
of transmitting the Dharma

brought in new issues in the community.
Just like the Internet

has brought in new

wonderful things
and also sometimes difficult things

into our monastic community.

So in the same way, writing also

did the same thing.

So we have to a little bit
expand our view

to see ourselves in a time
when we don't have books everywhere,

we don't have the telephone,
or we don't have Internet.

And we deeply want to practice the Dharma.

We take refuge in the Buddha,
in the Dharma, in the Sangha.

So we know the sangha is all around us.

At that time, the sangha was clearly
the monastic community.

And the Dharma with how we

see the Buddha in ourselves.

Through studying the Dharma,
we learn how to

reveal the nature of awakening
already within us.

So keeping in touch with the Dharma
is very important.

And so how do we do that when the sangha

is going a little bit everywhere
all over India?

So we can write it down
so we can remember.

So the words themselves took on

a kind of sacred meaning.

First the oral word
and then the written word.

Can we listen to
the sound of the bell?

We come back to our body.

(Bell)

(Bell)

If we are a Christian,
it is not difficult for us

to understand how the word
becomes sacred.

If you read the Gospel of John,
I think it says,

'In the beginning,
there was the Word -

The Word is God
and God is the Word.'

Logos.

The Greek word is logos.

Was God, and God is Logos.

If we are Muslim,

and we know that to recite the Koran
in Arabic has a special importance.

A translation is only an approximation
of the direct word of the God

as it was told to Muhammad.

In Arabic.

Also we know in the Jewish tradition
there is a similar attitude.

Ultimately the name of God
we cannot pronounce.

It is only an approximation.

Recently I was asked by the community
to go to Abu Dhabi.

And we went in the mosque there,
and they had

100 names of God.

So there are many names,
like The Firm One, The Infinite One,

written in Arabic
in beautiful thorough patterns

all in the wall, in the main prayer room
in the mosque in Abu Dhabi.

But a the very top,

there is a very beautiful floral pattern

around empty tiles.

And the 100th name of God
cannot be pronounced.

It is empty of form.

And at that time, in India,
when the Buddha was teaching,

there was also this sense that
the word had a sacred quality.

There were two young Brahmin men
who came to the Buddha,

and were very concerned about

the future of the Buddha's teaching.

And they knew that in the Vedic tradition,
they were trained to orally recite

the words of the Rigveda
and other sacred texts,

to commit them to memory,

in order to approach

God, to approach

liberation.

And,

and because of their love
of the Buddhist teaching,

they were monastic disciples
of the Buddha,

they said, 'We need to do that!

Please Buddha, let us put your teachings
into verse!'

Into the formal language
that we now call Sanskrit,

so that future generations
would benefit

and be able to remember it.

And the Buddha said, 'No!

You have misunderstood my teaching.'

I'm paraphrasing a little bit.

(Laughter)

He told them, 'My teachings should be
taught in the common language,

in the vernacular,
the language of the people.

The daily language that people use.'

So he refused them,

to give in to their fear

of the teachings disappearing.

It means that the Buddhist tradition
continues through the realized practice

of living human beings.

Not through a word, or a text.

That is how the Buddha is offering us.

In our laziness sometimes to practice,
we want to put up some text

as being the ultimate.

And if we want to discover God,
we only have to look in there.

We only have to read that text
and then we will find God,

we will find Awakening,
we will find Liberation.

And the Buddha said, no,
he didn't allow us to be that lazy.

So the Diamond Sutra

is arising after the teachings
of the Buddha had began to be written down

for already a few hundred years.

And so, very quickly the monastic
community started to depend on

these written teachings
to get in contact with the Dharma,

rather than looking to
their brothers around them.

Rather than taking refuge maybe
in the elder brothers,

and their capacity to recite,

teach and put into practice the Dharma.

And instead they started to look for it
in the words on a page.

That was where the true Dharma lived!

Not in my elder brother,
or my elder sister.

They don't say it so explicitly, they just
spend all their time studying the text.

And they don't spend very much time

taking refuge in the brothers and sisters
in the Dharma.

And so, as a result of that phenomena,

and also the experience of reading
the Buddhist teachings,

written down on these palm leaves

which soon became
sacred objects in their own right,

then many monks,

and perhaps nuns,

began to

try to find a way to help
the young monastics

to become free from that attachment
to the written word,

to become free from the attachment to
the form of the teaching.

And so, a whole form of literature we call
prajñāpāramitā arose.

These are teachings that were written down
and they spoke about how to

awaken to the highest understanding.

The understanding of the Buddha

which cannot be found in words,

but can only be lived and touched directly

in our life, in our practice.

And it is in that spirit that Thay founded
Plum Village,

to create a community of practice,

to create a community
where there is the living Dharma,

not just the Dharma
that can be found in books.

Thay said, if you want to
get a degree

in an Institute of High Buddhist Studies,
then you can go to many universities

and do that.

But if you want to realize
the living Dharma,

then you need a community of practice.

That is what the Buddha built,
he built a beautiful sangha,

walking into Rajgir.

There is a beautiful scene, where

the Buddha walks into Rajgir,

and he is with Uruvela Kasyapa,

who was a very famous spiritual teacher.

He and his brothers they led a number of

kind of dreadlocked spiritual ascetics
in that region.

And they worshiped this fire.

So we can take a word as a sacred,

we can also take fire,
or some object in nature

and worship it as sacred, as the ultimate.

So they were part of a kind of
fire worshiping cult.

And the Buddha came in and he -

And because Uruvela Kasyapa had
a community of many people,

many disciples,

he was a little bit proud.

And so it took
many teachings from the Buddha

before he realized
that the Buddha actually

had awaken to a deeper understanding.

I'm not going into it now, but
you can read it in the Vinaya.

Eventually, after many

times of seeing the Buddha
prove his deep understanding,

Kasyapa eventually accepted him
as his teacher.

It's kind of like

a monk suddenly
showing up here in Plum Village,

and then, over the course of many weeks,

the eldest brothers and sisters
and the community suddenly accept,

'You are now our teacher.'

You can imagine such a thing.

Sometimes in Plum Village in the past
we had people come in a little bit

unstable mentally, and they believed

they would be the new teacher
of the community.

But, unlike the Buddha, they didn't have
that deep understanding, and so -

But sometimes that happened
in a spiritual community.

So Uruvela Kasyapa was not quite sure.
'The Buddha really

has a deep understanding?

My eye kept seeing my understanding
is still deeper, still higher.'

But eventually, he could not - He saw
a few wonderful actions of the Buddha

that he could not deny any longer
the understanding of the Buddha,

and he accepted the Buddha as his teacher.
And then, immediately after that,

all of his students,
who probably already had realized

the Buddha's deep understanding,
they became disciples as well right away.

And then his two brothers as well
and their communities.

So very quickly the sangha
became quite large,

and all these kind of

grungy looking dreadlocked ascetics,
they shaved off their dreads,

and became,

they got a robe and a bowl
and they started following the Buddha.

And so there was a very interesting scene,
where the Buddha walks into Rajgir,

and the people are quite confused,
because they never heard of the Buddha.

But everyone knows about Uruvela Kasyapa,
he is a very famous spiritual teacher,

he is all over YouTube, and, you know,
many people are buying his books,

and you can see all over the airports,
and anyway, you know what I mean.

(Laughter)

And so, when the Buddha came in,
people are quite confused,

because they saw Uruvela Kasyapa
and the Buddha, and they said,

'Is the Buddha the student
of Uruvela Kasyapa?

Or is Uruvela Kasyapa
the student of the Buddha?'

They did not know.

And then,

at that moment, Kasyapa begins to fan
the Buddha.

And it is at that moment that the people
know that, 'Ah!

Uruvela Kasyapa has now become
the student of the Buddha.'

And through that gesture, he recognizes
he is now studying with the Buddha.

There are all kinds of beautiful teachings
like this in the Buddhist teachings.

Maybe we can listen
to another sound of the bell.

(Bell)

(Bell)

So looking around us,
as a monk,

a few hundred years before the Common Era,

maybe in the northwest of India,

and seeing how our monastic brothers
and sisters are now

spending much of their time reading
the sutras in written form rather than,

in addition to reciting them but how this
reading is now taking on a new importance,

and seeing how -

Yes, because when we live together
as monastics,

we come to understand each other
pretty deeply.

We are not very blinded by
the insights of our brothers and sisters.

I think Thay Pháp Dung
gave the talk last week.

He told me he came up with a new line,

'It's hard to live with people
who understand us.'

(Laughter)

It is very easy to come for a week,
or two weeks, or even a few months,

but then when people
start to understand us, oh!

It becomes a little bit difficult.
Because they always seem to be looking at

those things that we don't want
to look at in ourselves!

(Laughter)

So I think something like that
happened as well in those monasteries.

And the monks looked around,
and they said,

'Mmm, wow! He knows a lot
about the Dharma!'

He can teach the Abhidharma,
the highest form of the Dharma,

where everything becomes atomic particles
of the teachings of the Buddha,

'But he still slurps a lot
when he eats his food,

and he

smells really bad,

walks unmindfully.'

So this attachment to knowledge
became a virtue in itself.

And even though the Buddha
taught very clearly

that knowledge, along with afflictions,
are the main obstacles,

the main hindrances to awakening,

but the community became
a little bit attached to its knowledge.

And the monasteries become a kind of
ivory towers

guarding the sacred
teachings of the Dharma,

no longer very concerned with
the life of the common people.

So that the teaching that the Buddha gave
about not putting my teaching in verse

but teaching in the language
of the common people,

although the monks would be very able
to recite that teaching,

but that is not how they were living
so much some of them.

And so, as a monk living in that time,
and trying to renew Buddhism,

what do you do?

How do you deal with the situation?

How can you use this written form,
this new written form

as an skillful way

to help people to
get beyond the attachment

to the words that the Buddha taught?

How can you help
to cut through the delusion

that the words themselves are the Dharma?

That the words themselves
are the teaching that the Buddha offered?

So out of that deep wish, deep hope
to renew Buddhism

came these new texts called
the prajñāpāramitā texts.

How can we

get the insight that brings us
to the other shore?

We don't just sit down
in the same shore with that insight.

It has to bring us to the other shore,
it means we have to walk the talk.

We cannot just hold on to our knowledge

in a way of getting offerings,
of getting status, getting respect.

And so these teachings of prajñāpāramitā
they became quite lengthy.

And there were many texts we don't know
exactly where they were written.

We don't have that much information.

We didn't have somebody making a video
of the Dharma talks

on the early prajñāpāramitā with the date
written on the board.

So it's very difficult for us
to know exactly when,

we have to use different means
to try to place the exact location

where these texts where composed.

But the internal evidences from the text
suggest what I'm sharing is that

there was a response to the increasing
scholastic nature of monastic life.

So how can we recreate
through the form of a text

the experience of
being near the Buddha?

How can we recreate

in the written form, the kind of awakening
that is experienced

by someone directly witnessing
how the Buddha walked,

how the Buddha talked, how the Buddha ate,
and how the Buddha taught?

That is the aspiration of these monastics
who composed these prajñāpāramitā texts.

And they knew full well that
the danger also came with that.

Which is that people would start to
take these new texts and make them

holy and sacred.

So somehow we have to build into it,

the teaching that allows us to see

that the words themselves
are only representations,

they are not the deep teaching.

Okay, so we are going to start
to look into this a little bit.

And I'm just going to really what is
the most essential part of the teaching.

And I hope you have a chance
to read the rest for yourself.

"This is what I heard one time

when the Buddha was staying
in the monastery in Anathapindika’s park

in the Jeta Grove near Shravasti with
a community of 1,250 bhikshus,

fully ordained monks.

That day, when it was time
to make the round for alms,

the Buddha put on his sanghati robe

and, holding his bowl, went into the city
of Shravasti to seek almsfood,

going from house to house.

When the almsround was completed,

he returned to the monastery
to eat the midday meal.

Then he put away his sanghati robe
and his bowl, washed his feet,

arranged his cushion, and sat down."

So the teaching of the sutra
is happening in Shravasti,

a place where the Buddha
spent many of his rain's retreats,

not far from modern-day Nepal.

And there was a monastery
that had been founded there.

We may have heard of Anathapindika,

in our Chanting Book we have
a wonderful discourse on

The Teachings to Be Given to the Sick,
which Shariputra offers to Anathapindika

when he is passing away. He was
a very loved lay disciple of the Buddha

who lives a very simple life

and he was called Anathapindika,

it wasn't the name
that he was given at birth,

but it's a name that means
'the one who gives to the poor'.

Anatha are those who -

An-atha, it means
'those who don't have wealth',

and pindika is 'food', a kind of like
almsfood.

So he was known as the one
who was always offering food

for people who were poor,
who didn't have food to eat.

The legend is that he payed for
the Jeta Grove by laying

coins of gold on every part of the park.

Because the prince Jeta,
he loved so much that forest

and he didn't want to sell it.
And he said,

'I will only sell it if you can lay
coins of gold across the entire park.'

So that's a legend,
I don't know if that really happened,

but that's just to show how much
Anathapindika loved the Buddha.

He was willing to give up everything
he had in order to provide a place

for the Buddha to teach,
for the monks and nuns to live.

So the Buddha passed many rain's retreats
in Shravasti.

And we have the Buddha going on almsround.
Sometimes we forget that the Buddha went

just like the other monks and nuns,
to go on service on food.

Or to receive food from the lay friends.

It could be very easy for the Buddha,
he had many disciples, 1,250 monks,

'Please go, can you go
get my food for me today?

I'm a little bit lazy.
I have to give many Dharma talks,

would you mind to bring my food for me?'

We wonder why do we always have
that information.

But it is to show the humility,
and also the freedom.

Because by offering - Sometimes when we
become a teacher in a spiritual community

we can become a slave of our disciples.

They want to wash our clothes for us,
they want to cook wonderful food for us,

and then we think, 'Oh! it's so lovely
in the monastery.

I don't want to go out anymore!'

It is like the Pure Land,
my personal Pure Land.

But the Buddha saw that
if he wanted to maintain his freedom,

he could continue to go on almsround,

and then receive food
from even the poorest person,

even the people who
never heard of the Buddha.

He would just come like any other beggar
to their door and receive almsfood.

And then, "At that time,
the Venerable Subhuti stood up,

bared his right shoulder,
put his knee on the ground,

and, folding his palms respectfully,
said to the Buddha,

'World-Honored One,
it is rare to find someone like you.

You always support and show
special confidence in the Bodhisattvas."

So to bare your right shoulder
is a sign of respect.

So we know the monks they had robes
they put over their shoulders.

But nowadays, when we see Theravadan monks

we often see that
their right shoulder is bare.

And that is a part of the tradition,
it's respectful to show the right shoulder

in that culture.

When Buddhism came to China,

the Chinese were scandalized
by somebody showing their shoulder.

In Chinese culture, that's very
inappropriate.

So in that way Buddhism always adapted
to the culture in which it took root.

And that is why we have robes that -
You don't see my shoulder.

So I'm wearing a robe
that is Chinese style robe.

We cover the shoulder.
That is considered more respectful.

He puts his knee on the ground.

So we don't know that at that time

the monks practiced touching the Earth
in the way that we do today.

But they put their knee on the ground

in order to show their respect
for someone.

And they fold their palms.
() it means like this, join the palms,

respectfully.

“World-Honored One,
it is rare to find someone like you.

You always support and show
special confidence in the Bodhisattvas."

So this ideal of a Bodhisattva
was part of what

inspired the young monastics at that time

to go deeper in their practice.

A bodhisattva is a kind of awakened being.

It could be translated as

someone who is bent on awakening.

They are

leaning towards awakening.

In Pali, we have many references
to the bodhisatta,

which is the Buddha before his awakening.

And 'satta' can be translated as
'being', but it can also be translated as

kind of like 'attachment'.

Like you are drawn towards awakening.

But in Sanskrit it was translated as
'sattva', which is very clearly 'being'.

So it lost that ambiguity.
Bodhisattva, awakened being.

So this ideal of a bodhisattva
was a kind of revolution

within the Buddhist community.

Because up into that point,

it was very clear, one became a bhikshu
or a bhikshuni

in order to attain arhatship,
it means, perfection.

And it is very clear that
to become an arhat

one had to become
a bhikshu or a bhikshuni.

So the monastics had a kind of

monopoly on awakening.

(Laughter)

And the Bodhisattvayana, which is
usually how we find it,

it means, the vehicle or the path
of a bodhisattva,

suddenly burst through that monopoly

and allowed both monastics and lay people
to be on the bodhisattva path.

So this is a path that can be taken
not only by monastics,

but also by lay practitioners.

The Bodhisattvayana.

Usually we talk about Mahayana,
you probably heard the term Mahayana,

the great vehicle,

but more often in that time
what later became called the Mahayana

was called the Bodhisattvayana,
it means,

the path, the vehicle, of awakened beings.

And the prajñāpāramitā texts are

teaching us the way of the bodhisattva.

What is the way to wake up

to walk the talk, to the lived awakening.

So Subhuti is pointing out to the Buddha,

"You always support and show
special confidence in the Bodhisattvas."

That means, when there is somebody
who has that deep aspiration,

we feel very

inspired also to help them on their path.

When we see somebody who does kind things
to another person,

we don't care whether they are Catholic,
whether they are Muslim,

whether they are Jewish, whether
they are monastic or they are lay,

we just want to help that person,
we want to support them,

we feel inspired
to help them in their path.

When we are generous,
when our generosity is not

transactional, it is based on
just giving only just to give,

we want to help someone
to continue to do that.

We are coming into the Christmas season,

and sometimes we feel like,
'Well, I have to give a present to my mum,

to my niece, to my nephew, to my -

That brother, if I don't give
a present to that brother,

then he is going to get mad at me.'

So our generosity is based on a form.

What is expected from us socially.

Maybe we give a lot
to our son or our daughter,

but that is also,

that is was is expected from us. If we are
a mother or a father it is expected

that we give to our son or daughter.
But can we give to somebody

who is very,
is living in poverty on the street?

Can we open our heart to somebody
who has killed somebody?

Somebody who has stolen?

Maybe somebody who is causing great harm.

Do we have enough generosity in our heart
to offer our time, our presence,

to that person?

That is the path of the bodhisattva.
We don't rely only on form.

If people yell at us and slander us,
they say,

'Why do you help that person,
why do you give to that person?

Look at what they are doing!
They are the living incarnation of evil!'

We don't care, because
that is part of our path,

we are not dependent on the form
in our way of giving.

And so, when you see someone like that,

you feel inspired, and
the Buddha felt inspired

to give them special attention,
special confidence.

“World-Honored One, if sons and daughters
of good families

want to give rise to the highest,
most fulfilled, awakened mind,

what should they rely on and what
should they do to master their thinking?”

If sons and daughters of good families

want to give rise to the highest,
most fulfilled, awakened mind,

what should they rely on and what
should they do to master their thinking?

This is what everybody wants to know!

This is what we all want to know
when we come to Plum Village!

Just tell me, can I buy it
in the bookstore?

(Laughter)

It is some special ring I can wear,
or maybe some special incense I can burn

that is going to give me the highest,
most fulfilled awakening?

Just tell me, please, and I'll buy it!

Even if it is sold on Amazon!

(Laughter)

Everybody is coming because
they want this awakening,

they want to be happy, in every moment
of their life their want to be free!

So what can we do

to give rise to this highest,
most fulfilled, awakened mind?

Where should we rely on? What should
they do to master their thinking?

So everybody is waiting with bated breath
to find out

what it is.

The Buddha replied, "Well said, Subhuti.
What you have said is absolutely correct.

The Tathagata always supports and shows
special confidence in the Bodhisattvas.

Please, listen with all of your attention,

and the Tathagata will respond
to your question."

Thank you for listening
with all your attention.

"'If daughters and sons
of good families want to give rise

to the highest, most fulfilled, awakened
mind, they should rely on the following

and master their thinking
in the following way.'

The Venerable Subhuti said, 'Lord,
we are so happy to hear your teachings.'

The Buddha said to Subhuti,
'This is how the Bodhisattva Mahasattvas

master their thinking:

‘However many species
of living beings there are

– whether born from eggs, from the womb,
from moisture, or spontaneously;

whether they have form
or do not have form;

whether they have perceptions
or do not have perceptions;

or whether it cannot be said of them

that they have perceptions
or that they do not have perceptions,

we must lead all these beings
to the ultimate nirvana

so that they can be liberated.

And yet, when this innumerable,
immeasurable, infinite number of beings

has become liberated, we do not,
in truth, think

that a single being
has been liberated.

Why is this so?

If, Subhuti, a bodhisattva
holds on to the idea

that a self, a person, a living being,
or a life span exists,

that person is not
an authentic bodhisattva.'"

Maybe we can listen
to a sound of the bell.

(Bell)

(Bell)

So in the Sanskrit, it says,

Whatever beings -yeah? - sattvaha,
it says living beings,

that are born from an egg, from a womb,
from moisture, or spontaneously,

whether they have form
or they have no form;

whether they have perceptions
or they don't have perceptions;

whether they neither have perceptions
nor non-perceptions;

all these I would lead to nirvana
without remainder, ultimate nirvana.

And even when these immeasurable,
innumerable beings

are thus liberated,

not any single living being,

we do not think that
any single living being

has been liberated.
Why is that?

Subhuti, it is not said of a bodhisattva

that he has the perception of a being.
Why is that?

A bodhisattva, we cannot call someone
a bodhisattva

who has the perception of a self,
the perception of a being,

the perception of a life, a life span,
and the perception of a person.

So these four areas.

[ātman]

A self.

[self]

[sattva]

A being.

[being]

A living being.

[(living being)]

[jīva]

A life.

[life]

Or a life span.

[life span]

And the pudgala.

[pudgala]

Which is just a person.

[person]

So the text is saying that

as long as we, in our thinking,
give rise to the idea of a self,

of a living being, of a life span,
or a person,

then we cannot be called a true,
we cannot be called a bodhisattva.

We cannot be called someone who is on
the bodhisattva path.

It seems like a contradiction, right?

So we are, we need to give rise to
the aspiration to lead all living beings.

And the Buddha is quite specific.

You know, those born from the eggs
those born from the womb,

so all the reptiles,
and the fish, and the amphibians,

born from eggs, then all those
born from a womb,

then those born from moisture.

Sometimes the insects, they have
such a small eggs

that they don't call them eggs.

They seem to be born spontaneously
from moisture, but even bacteria, mold,

living things.

So you can imagine that, as a bodhisattva
we have to lead mold to nirvana.

(Laughter)

And even though we have to lead mold
to nirvana,

(Laughter)

we cannot think that any mold
has been lead to nirvana.

So I'm bringing this
to its natural extension.

We cannot only think of

even just living beings.

How about the very stones
beneath our feet?

It has a kind of life,

if we look deeply.

We also use to dividing up the world
between the inanimate and the animate,

the non-living and the living.

And the Buddha is just pointing that out.

So first of all, we have to learn
how to understand

when we define ourselves and others
in terms of a self.

So in what way do we say, this is me,
this is mine, this is myself?

We think, I can extend my hand,

so that must be me.

But I cannot extend the brother's hand.

So that must be not me.

So we rely on this
very simplistic understanding

of what is me and what is not me.

But if I look more deeply,
I see that when

I practice and I live
together with my brother,

then he knows the right time
to invite the bell

in the Dharma talk.

And so somehow, even though he is not me,

and yet there is some capacity to be able
to invite the bell at the appropriate time.

There is a kind of understanding.

And so, when we see that,

we see that actually this body,
the limit of this body

is not the limit of who we are.

There is not only the,

this body which we can move
and animate which is

ourselves.

But we are made up
of many non-self elements.

When we look into the orchid,
we can see that

the orchid is on the platform.

We do not say that
the orchid is up in the sky.

We do not say that the orchid is in
the earth that is surrounding New Hamlet.

But if we look deeply, we can see that
the sun is in the orchid.

Without the sun, there would be no
photosynthesis

for the plant to generate

the branch that comes up
to offer these flowers to us.

If there is no earth,

then there is no nutriments to provide
the minerals that the plant needs to grow.

And we know that there is also the farmer,
the one who grew the orchid,

the one who transported it here.
All these elements, we can say,

non-orchid elements
are present in the orchid.

And we are also made of no-self elements.
We are made up of our friends,

of our parents, of countless generations
of ancestors. They are all in us.

And when we see that, then we become free
from this idea of a self, of an atman.

So that way of dividing up the world,
that dualistic way of seeing things,

then suddenly falls away.

And we see that this body is not me,
it is not mine, it is not myself.

I'm not limited by this body.

And we see that we are also present
in all things, and

all things are also present in us.

So the mold is not separate from me.

The stones are not separate from me.
The deer are not separate.

But we actually inter-are.

So this is a deep teaching of the Buddha
on interbeing.

And when we look at the world in that way,

we become free from our ideas
about ourselves,

we practice what Thay called
the deep ecology.

He said, the Diamond Sutra is
the earliest teaching on deep ecology,

because we see that we are not separate
from Mother Earth.

That all of our efforts

to raise up human beings,

to make them comfortable,

so they always have enough food to eat,

so the always have enough places to live,

so they are warm enough,
so they get to go on a vacation

once a year,

that that all has come
at a price.

And that price is our attachment
to our idea about ourselves.

Ourselves as a person, who is
separated from other living beings,

like animals, the plants, the minerals.

So we exploit the Earth, we think of
the Earth as something separate from us

that we can dig in,
that we can extract oil from,

and we don't think about
all the consequences

that that has on ourselves,
on our well-being,

because we don't see it as ourselves.

We see ourselves as something separate
from the Earth.

We treat animals with great cruelty,

raising them in horrible conditions

to be slaughtered

to serve our appetite.

Because we think that they are not us.

Of course, we say we would never do that
for human beings.

I remember when I was a young practitioner
and I read

a saying from Mahatma Gandhi,

which was, 'If you want to understand
the nature of a civilization

look at how it treats its animals'.

If you want to understand
the nature of a civilization

look at how it treats its animals.

Does it hide its animals away
when they are going to be slaughtered,

or mistreated, or killed?

So when we look deeply, there are
structures that had been created

in the human mind,

which have split us off from
that which is also ourselves.

That have removed us from Mother Earth.

And the Buddha is trying
to point those out.

What is the source
of those wrong perceptions?

What are those ideas which separate us
from our connection to the Earth?

(Bell)

(Bell)

"We must lead all these beings
to the ultimate nirvana

so that they can be liberated."

This is a very radical statement.

The early Buddhist community

was mainly concerned with its,

with its own attainment of nirvana.

You became a monk or a nun

because you wanted to become
an arhat, a perfected one.

You wanted to attain the nirvana
that the Buddha taught.

And that led to attachment
to these kind of ideas,

the idea about a self, even though
the teaching of non-self was there,

but ¡wow!, the monks
tend to have a very big self.

A very big non-self.

And they can have a very
strong idea that

they are sattvas, they are living beings,

but the stones, the minerals,

those things that are not living,
those things we don't need to care about.

What we need to take care of
is only the living beings.

Or they have an idea,
'I'm an important person.

These animals, these plants,
they are not

they are not so important.

What is important is
my own attainment of nirvana.'

So when we look deeply into this statement

we see we break through
these very limited concepts of nirvana.

And we see that

awakening is something
that can be experienced by all.

That is possible for -

When we no longer see the separation
between me and not me,

we see that the wood that I'm sitting on
is not separate from me,

when I see that the stones
are not separate from me,

they become part of my path to awakening.

They are not separate.

And so,

taking care of the stones
is taking care of myself.

Taking care of the trees
is taking care of myself.

Taking care of the cows, the sheep,

taking care of, even of the mosquitoes,

is taking care of myself.

The brothers we become very expert
at capturing mosquitoes

and putting them back outside
so they can be free.

And the Buddha, one of the reasons he had
us wear a robe and not walk around naked

was to protect us from mosquitoes.

Also, you know, is a little bit -

Even in the Buddha's time,
to walk around naked

was a little bit extreme.

(Laughter)

So we don't have to kill the mosquitoes,
but we can be protected,

we take care of ourselves but in a way
that is not harming other living beings,

or even the stones themselves.

We know that if we've ever thrown
something at a stone, or you throw a stone

at another stone or something hard,
and then you look at it.

What do you see?

A kind of like white, powdery bit
at the impact.

That is a kind of suffering.

We tend to think of suffering only
in terms of the human nervous system.

That is a very limited view.

But now we start to extend that
to include

the suffering of animals.

Even as short as the past few fifty years,

people have believed, many scientists
believed that animals did not suffer pain

in a way that can be compared
to human beings.

That is a way of justifying
doing studies on animals.

You can treat them however you want
as long as they don't suffer

in the way that human beings suffer.

So we have to be careful when our mind
is caught in these perceptions

we can use it to justify hurting.

We can use it to justify
creating suffering.

And it doesn't take much deep looking
to then go and extend that understanding

to the stones, to the minerals.

Then, when we look in -
We hear about climate change,

or we experience this pretty warm
December right now,

then we know that maybe
we haven't been taking good care

of our mineral brothers and sisters.

Maybe in our greed to

have electricity, to have power,

to produce,

we extract minerals from the Earth,

and then release the remains
into the atmosphere.

So this is all connected.
This is coming from human desire.

So in early teachings, we have

the teachings on

too much craving leads to suffering.

And so here, in the Diamond Sutra
we're going into what is it that we crave?

What is it that leads us to have a kind of
wrong perceptions

that bring about the suffering?

And so the insight of the Diamond Sutra
is that these four -

That when we look deeply into
our perceptions, we can find these four

somewhere there at the bottom.

Our ideas about ourselves.

Our ideas about living beings
separated from

non living beings.

One of our long term lay practitioners,
in Upper Hamlet,

he has dedicated his life
to building sanghas that

live near fracking operations
in the United Kingdom,

so that they can put their bodies there
in a non-violent way

to shine light on what we are doing
to Mother Earth

when we get caught
in this kind of perception.

The Earth, that is not a living being.

So if we inject chemicals into the earth
in order to produce more oil, produce more

other products that we have
a lot of craving for, that is no problem.

And then we don't look at the suffering,
we don't look at the water

that comes out of the tap
that you can light on fire.

So sometimes, when we are
on the bodhisattva path

we need to put our own body

in the way, in order to help people
to look deeply into -

Encourage others
to practice looking deeply.

Sometimes, that is why some of us
become monks and nuns.

We want to deal with our own suffering,
but we also have an aspiration,

we know sometimes we need to be,
go a little bit outside of the norm

in order to help each other to look
deeply into what is really going on.

We are attached to
the idea of a life span, jīva.

We have the kind of thinking, 'Ah! Now it
is this time in my life for me to do this.

And when I get old, I will be like that.

When I get old, I will travel.
I will have a bucket list

and I will go to all those countries
and do all those things.'

Thay often told the story

of Frederic, a business man,

whose wife came to Plum Village.

He told his son,

'Son, what do you want for Christmas?'

And the son was not sure what he
really wanted for Christmas.

He had to think about it.
And when he thought,

he shared with his father,
'Daddy, I want to be with you.

I want to be with you.'

Because Frederic was head
of a large company, and he was so busy!

He could buy his son
anything that he wants.

Anything that he imagines. But all his son
wanted was just to spend more time

with his father.

And even when his wife

was sick,

then he could not- I'm sorry, not his wife
it was his son, his son got sick,

and he could not

he could not be there, he could not leave
work to go to the hospital to be there

with him. He had to ask his wife
to represent him, to be present for him.

And he told his wife, 'Very soon I will be
able to transmit all my responsibilities

in the company to someone else.
So just in few years,

we will have so much free time!
Just bear with me for this moment.'

And then, very soon after
he told his wife that,

he was killed in a car accident.

And so all his hopes, his dreams
to spend more time with his son,

to spend more time with his family,

they never had a chance to be realized.

And we all live that reality.

We live our life, we think, 'Oh! After I'm
in Plum Village, I will go there,

I will do that'. But we don't know
what will happen even in the next moment.

And so, when we learn to live happily,
to dwell happily in the present moment,

without basing our thinking
on these perceptions,

we no longer have fear.

We no longer

place our hopes and our dreams
in some future time

when we will do this,
or we will do that.

'I promise you! Just next year
I will do that!

We will have enough time to do it.'

We learn to come back to ourselves,
come back to the present moment,

and to really enjoy all the wonders
of life that are here and now,

fully present for us.

Within us and around us.

So, mastering our thinking is learning how
to dwell happily in the present moment.

Remembering all the good conditions
for happiness that are already here.

That is how a bodhisattva
masters her thinking.

And even though we have that teaching,

oftentimes we forget.

And we still hope, and we plan,

and it is not that planning is bad,

but we do it in a joyful way
in the present moment.

And we are happy to let go of our plan.

We are happy to let go of it,

because we know that our happiness
doesn't depend on that.

Our happiness doesn't depend on going
to see that person for Christmas,

or being with our family for Christmas.

Or doing that thing, or getting that job,
or getting that promotion.

But it is realized right here
and right now with our mindful breathing,

with our mindful step,
with the community of practice around us.

And we don't have to

become some important person

who is respected, who is respectable.

Sometimes our greatest teacher can be
a homeless person in the street.

They can give us a wisdom that we need.

And that was the insight that the Buddha
was trying to

give to people by living humbly himself,
by begging for his food,

putting himself as the lowest
in society.

Not riding around in fancy,
on fancy elephants.

Some of his disciples,
when they became monks,

they thought, 'Well, I'm a monk. But I can
continue to ride around on an elephant

like I did before.'

That is why we have the precept about
not riding in luxurious vehicles.

(Laughter)

Most of us don't think about
riding an elephant as a luxurious vehicle,

but at that time, it was
a sign of royalty.

So how can we learn to recognize these,

when our thinking is based
on these perceptions?

When we look for approval from others,

how much of it is based
on an idea of a self? Of a person?

We want to be appreciated,
we want to be recognized.

We treat human beings well but we don't
treat Mother Earth in a respectful way.

In Thay's commentary, we can read

that he loved to get out of the city
and to go into the countryside.

And Thay said, because in the city,
you have to, when you go to pee

you have to go into
very smelly bathrooms, very

dirty, very unpleasant.

But in the countryside, you can go
and you can pee anywhere you want.

But then, after a while,
when Thay started to look deeply,

he felt very ashamed when he would go
and pee behind a tree.

Because the tree was
such a beautiful, sacred thing,

how could you pee on it?

(Laughter)

But then he - So he tried to go
somewhere else,

but there would always be a bush or a tree
somewhere, everywhere,

and then he realized, what would he do?
He has to pee somewhere!

And then, one day he had the insight
which is that peeing is also sacred.

(Laughter)

That he was caught in the idea
that peeing

is something profane.

That by peeing on it
he is disrespecting Mother Earth.

But we know when we pee we are returning
our nutrients back to the earth.

So we can see that the tree is sacred,

and when we pee next to it
it is also a sacred act.

That is the insight we get from freeing
ourselves from this kind of perception.

We see we are not damaging the tree,
we are not causing suffering to the tree.

So we pee in such a way, that
we can bring happiness and joy

to us and to the tree.

We have to learn to recognize suffering.
That is why it is the first noble truth.

And that suffering
is not only in ourselves,

we need to recognize
the suffering of fracking.

The suffering of not taking care of

the animals.

That is why in Plum Village
we eat vegetarian, it's very easy for us,

because we know, we know how animals
are treated when they are used for meat,

or to produce dairy products.

Now with the Internet, if you don't know,
you can find out very quickly.

It is not difficult.

And so when we get in touch
with that suffering,

and we really practice deeply
the teaching of the Diamond Sutra,

we want to lead all beings to nirvana.

Then we become free from the idea
that that cow, that that chicken

is separate from me.

That the tree is separate from me,

that the oil deep in the earth
is separate from me.

That we are all part of one organism,
Mother Earth.

And Mother Earth is also part of
a beautiful family of brothers and sisters

going around our Sun.

And that the Sun is also part of
a beautiful Cosmos, the Milky Way,

universe, galaxy,
and that beyond that,

the whole universe of many hundreds
of millions of galaxies.

And when we look in that way,
we see that we are not alone.

So that teaching

that we see that no one single being
has been saved

is another way of saying we are not alone.

We break through
the barrier of loneliness.

And we see that this body,
these feelings, these perceptions,

these mental formations,
and this consciousness

are not me. They are not mine.

They are not a separate self.

We become free from all those concepts.

And then we can begin the true work

of liberation

knowing that not any single being
has been liberated.

That is how we master our thinking.

That is how we set our mind.

(Bell)

(Bell)

So,

so we didn't get very far today

in the sutra, but I think that

we get to touch the essence.

We cannot be caught in words.

Many times in the Diamond Sutra
we will hear something like,

'When the Tathagata speaks of signs,
there are no signs being talked about.

Subhuti, what is called Buddhadharma
is everything that is not Buddhadharma."

When the Buddha talks about the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind,

there is nothing that can be called
the highest, most fulfilled awakened mind.

That is why it is called the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind.

That is the refrain that we see often
in the Diamond Sutra.

And it seems like, 'What sense
do we make of that?'

And that is also to help us
break through this barrier

of perception.

Of getting caught in a perception.

Thay talked about one Zen master

that when he -
Because everyone keeps saying,

Buddha, Buddha, so much,
Buddha this and Buddha that

that he got so sick and he said,
'I have to go to the stream outside

and wash my mouth out,
it's like saying a filthy word.

If you say the Buddha one more time.'

And he is trying to point out
that tendency we have

to idolize, whether it is the word,
whether it's a person,

whether it's a concept.

And so when we talk about the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind,

we can start repeating it and
it loses all of its meaning.

And so when the Buddha says,

'What I call the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind,

that is not the highest,
most fulfilled awakened mind.'

It means that it is not the word,
highest, most fulfilled awakened mind,

it is not that phrase.

It is much more than that.
It can only be realized.

That is why I just call it
highest, most fulfilled awakened mind.

But you need to realize it yourself.
You need to touch it by breaking through

and freeing yourself from these
wrong perceptions.

So I invite you to continue your study
of the Diamond Sutra.

And as you go out, and be back
to your family, back to your friends,

you can really have a chance to sit
and look deeply at them in that way.

You think, 'That is my mother,
that is my father.

That is my son, that is my daughter,
that is my husband.'

And because your ideas of husband, and
father, and mother, and son and daughter

have become a view,

a perception,

maybe you don't really see them
as they are,

as this wondrous manifestation

of beauty, of understanding,
as well as of suffering,

of pain, of ignorance.

But with the help of this teaching,

you can sit and look at them,
and really look at them.

Look them in the eye.
You don't have to say anything.

You can smile.

That is a smile of a bodhisattva.

So I wish you well
on your path of practice,

and thank you for being together
on the bodhisattva path.

(Bell)

(Bell)

(Bell)

(Bell)

(Small bell)