(14) You Can't Find Me In A Stupa | Thich Nhat Hanh, 2014 06 21 (Plum Village, France)

Dear friends, there is a teacher in Hanoi,

North Vietnam, who used to come to Plum Village and practice.

She had cancer.

Her name is Sister Dam Nguyen.

She…originally she came from my root temple,

because a monk from my root temple in Hue went to the North

and set up a temple and she was a great-grandchild of that teacher.

So she found out that she belonged to the Từ Hieu Temple,

so she came to France in order to meet Thay.

After that she found out that she had cancer.

And one day she said that, "I want to go to France and spend three months of practice.

"And after that, I will go back to Hanoi and die."

And she accepted death.

But she wanted to spend her three months in Plum Village,

enjoy walking, sitting with Thay and the Sangha.

And that is why when she came

other sisters advised her to go to Bordeaux and see a doctor.

She said, "No, I don't need to see a doctor.

I have accepted my death.

I only want to spend all my time to be with you in Plum Village."

And during these three months she enjoyed sitting, walking with all of us.

And she felt…we saw her very healthy.

And before she went back to Hanoi to die,

the sisters in the Upper [New] Hamlet urged her to go to a doctor, just to have a look.

And she agreed, and she went to the doctor.

And the doctor found that all the metastasis had returned to one place.

She was healthy after three months of practice, with joy, no fear, acceptance.

So she continued to live for many, many years after that. ("Nineteen!")

Nineteen years, Sr. Chan Khong reminded us. Almost twenty years.

And she is very faithful

she is very eager to share the practice of Plum Village to the people in Hanoi,

in Vietnam, because we are still a Communist country,

it's difficult for us to organize retreats and practice like this.

And when a retreat is organized, many thousand people come, and they don't like that, especially young people.

So during Thay's visit in Vietnam, we were authorized to have some retreats.

And each retreat for young people was attended

by more than 5,000 people.

And the Party and the government didn't like that, they cannot control.

People are so young and.... And Sr. Dam Nguyen, she built a stupa, a pagoda,
a king of memorial in her temple for Thay.

Because in our tradition every teacher should be honored by a pagoda…a stupa.

And when I went to Hanoi for the first time in 2005, the stupa was already built.

And I told her that Thay does not need a stupa,

Thay doesn't like to sit in a stupa; he wants to be everywhere.

"But I have already built one for you, dear
Thay."

And Thay said, "In that case, you have to
make an inscription in the front of the stupa,

and you have to say I am not in here.

I am not here.

And that is a fact.

If you incinerate my body, you make some ashes,

and you put in [there], it's not me.

I don't like to be in there. Outside is so beautiful.

But if people don't understand, you have to add another sentence:

"I'm not out there either."

If you look for me inside, you don't see [me].

And you go and look outside, you cannot see me either.

And if they still don't understand, we have to add a third sentence.

"There is nothing inside. There is nothing outside," and the third is:

"If there is nothing, it must be found in your way of breathing and walking."

If there is anything, that should be found
in your way of breathing and walking.

So dear friends, if you want to be with Thay, if you want to see Thay's continuation, the surest place is in you.

Your way of breathing, your way of walking,

prove that Thay is in you. And you are a real continuation of Thay.

The way Jesus Christ received the bread and

break it and share it, they recognized that it is Jesus, not his body, his feelings, and his perceptions.

So the way the Buddha receives the bread,

breaks the bread, and shares the bread, makes you recognize him as a living reality.

So Thay cares very much about his continuation body.

And if you really want to care for that, then

the surest place to look for Thay is in your way of breathing.

If you breathe in and out and you find peace

and happiness and fulfillment, you know that Thay is always with you.

And when you walk from the parking lot to

your office, and if you feel joy, fulfillment, happiness, Thay is always walking with you.

And you should wish Thay a happy beautiful continuation body.

And you are that body.

This is what we want to remind you, as we

are on our last day of the retreat.

After this, we have the time to walk together

and sit around the lotus pond.

There are already blooming lotus flowers.

And when we go home to our city, to our country, we continue this kind of practice.

We set up a Sangha if we don't have one already, and we are the true continuation of the Buddha.

This is a happy moment.

And we should be able to make that happy moment last.

Thank you very much.