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The Four Noble Truths - Vulture Peak Gathering - 2016-06-04 Lower Hamlet - Sr. Dinh Nghiem

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    (Bell)
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    Dear respected Thay,
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    dear beloved sangha,
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    This morning
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    we will share about our practice
    of the Four Noble Truths
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    and I though of a --
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    When we talk about the Four Noble Truths
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    immediately we think of the Buddha,
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    because it is the first Dharma talk
    the Buddha gave,
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    and the last one.
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    And I also think of Thay
    because his whole life,
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    what he has been doing is
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    to show us the way to end suffering.
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    Or we can say, the way to build
    peace and happiness.
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    I have written down the Four
    Noble Truths on the board.
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    And I thought while writing on the board,
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    I thought: If I write only one truth,
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    talk about one by one.
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    And then I said to myself:
    No, I need to write all four.
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    I need to write everything.
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    Because they interare,
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    and it would be too difficult for me
    to talk about one truth,
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    like the first one, suffering,
    without talking about the others.
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    The Buddha said:
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    'I teach about suffering,
    and the way to end suffering.'
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    Two things together.
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    And they are together,
    we cannot separate them.
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    Somebody asked,
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    somebody asked this question:
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    'The Buddha already taught
    that life is suffering.
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    Why Thay always teaches about
    living happily in the present moment?
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    But the Buddha always taught
    two things together,
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    suffering and the way to end suffering.
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    I don't think that the Buddha,
    compassionate as he is,
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    he only talks about suffering.
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    I'm sure that the Buddha did not want
    to make us depressed.
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    (Laughter)
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    The Buddha didn't want us
    to be pessimistic.
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    When there is suffering,
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    there is always a way, a path,
    to end suffering, or to lead,
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    we can say, a path leading to happiness.
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    But in our daily life, in our family
    or among our friends
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    from time time we see
    somebody or some people
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    who suffer, but they don't see
    that they suffer.
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    And they don't want
    to get out of their suffering.
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    It is like someone who is angry
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    and you say: 'Oh, you are angry!'
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    'No, I am not angry!'
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    (Laughter)
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    'I am not, you are! I' m not angry.'
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    And the same thing,
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    someone suffers
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    and he or she denies:
    'No, I don't suffer, I'm okay!'
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    But when we suffer and we deny it,
    we don't see that we are suffering
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    and then there is no way for us
    to get out of our suffering.
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    So in the Four Noble Truths,
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    there must be awareness.
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    Suffering is awareness of suffering.
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    If we want the way out,
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    we need to be aware of our suffering.
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    Without the awareness,
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    it is impossible to get out of suffering.
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    And awareness is Right Mindfulness,
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    it is already in the Noble Eightfold Path.
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    It is already in the way to end suffering.
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    So in the suffering we already see
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    the way to end suffering.
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    Without the awareness, it is not --
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    that suffering is not
    the noble truth yet,
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    it is not the First Noble Truth
    that the Buddha taught about.
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    So if we deny our suffering,
    we are not aware of our suffering,
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    it is like someone who is sick
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    and who thinks that 'I'm okay,
    I don't need to see the doctor,
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    I don't need to take medicine,
    I don't need to do anything,
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    because I'm okay.'
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    So suffering here, as a Noble Truth,
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    means awareness of suffering.
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    So that is already the path
    to end suffering.
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    I imagine there is a path,
    a beautiful path.
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    But there is no suffering.
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    Is it possible?
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    I remember when I was a teen,
    the first time I came to Plum Village.
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    It was in 1985,
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    the year when that brother
    received the lamp.
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    I was a teen.
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    My parents brought me to Plum Village.
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    I often heard they talked about Thay's
    books, Thay's Dharma talks, Plum Village,
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    and when Thay went to Paris,
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    when we had the practice center
    Fleur de Cactus in Noisy le Grand,
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    near Paris,
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    when Thay went there
    and gave Dharma talks,
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    my parents also went
    and brought me with them.
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    So I often heard about Thay,
    about Thay's teachings,
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    about Thay's books.
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    I saw how my parents admired Thay.
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    And every time, I noticed that,
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    every time when they came back
    from a Dharma talk,
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    they were much happier.
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    They were much more in harmony.
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    They stopped quarreling for a while.
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    (Laughter)
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    For a certain time.
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    So I knew, I knew
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    that there is a great teacher,
    there is a beautiful path,
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    but I felt that it was not for me.
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    So I went to Plum Village to have fun,
    to play, to run around with the other kids
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    but I didn't practice at all.
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    Until the day when my father
    suddenly passed away.
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    It was the first time in my life
    I experienced deep grief.
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    And deep suffering.
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    I remember, at that moment
    right away I thought of Thay.
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    Because I remembered he taught:
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    'When you look at your hand,
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    you see your father's hand.
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    You see your father in your hand.'
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    So I did as I remembered
    but still I suffered.
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    And I wrote Thay a letter:
    'I did like you say but I still suffer!'
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    (Laughter)
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    Then, with my family,
    I came back to Plum Village.
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    And that time I started to practice.
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    And the more I practiced,
    the more I appreciated the practice.
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    For me, suffering is really precious.
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    It is really a noble truth.
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    Without the suffering
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    I would never make good use
    of the Noble Path.
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    I only use it when I need.
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    And what makes me need it is my suffering.
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    Before, I heard about Thay's teachings
    but it was just ideas.
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    This noble path was only ideas, concept.
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    It was not really a Noble Path.
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    Until I practiced, until I really wanted
    to get out of my suffering
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    and I practiced.
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    That is why I cannot write down
    just suffering, number 1,
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    suffering and then talk
    about suffering. No.
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    I had to write down everything,
    because they are together,
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    they mingle, they interare.
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    We cannot separate them.
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    So there is no Noble Path separated
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    without suffering.
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    There is no path leading
    to happiness without suffering.
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    For me, it is my own experience.
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    If I do not need it, I don't --
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    Until I suffer, then I feel the need
    and then I find that path.
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    It becomes a path for me.
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    Maybe the path is for other people
    but is not for me
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    until I really experience
    the pain, the suffering,
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    and then I really feel the need.
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    But when I look around, in my family,
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    I also see people who suffer a lot,
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    but who cannot make good use of the path
    the way out of suffering.
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    Even though we show them:
    'There is a path.'
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    They cannot make good use,
    they cannot get profit from it.
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    And why?
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    Because this person is totally desperate.
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    When the suffering
    is so deep and overwhelming,
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    we lose all our energy,
    we don't have energy,
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    we can fall into depression
    and we don't believe in anything else.
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    We lose faith, we lose trust,
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    and we don't believe in the fact
    that there is an end of suffering.
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    I was very lucky
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    because I received many beautiful seeds
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    and I saw people, I saw models in my life,
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    I saw people, how they lived
    their daily life,
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    how they helped other people suffer less.
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    How they helped people
    generate happiness and joy.
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    How they can make people happy,
    how they can make people stop crying.
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    Because I see it, I experience it,
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    because I see it, I know that it is true.
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    It is something real, it is true,
    so I have trust, I have faith,
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    and when I suffer I know that
    there is a way out.
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    There are many people in the world
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    who need to see environments
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    like I did in the past,
    to have faith, to trust.
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    The first day when we gathered together,
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    when I came in this hall
    I was so touched, I was so moved,
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    because I see that
    we all are the continuation of Thay.
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    Thay has spent his whole life
    building something.
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    Even though there are many people
    who don't know Plum Village,
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    who do not come here,
    who are not here yet,
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    but just the fact that we maintain such
    an environment, we maintain this place,
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    we maintain the practice,
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    I am sure that in the future
    there will be people,
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    people who suffer deeply,
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    they have a place to go, to return.
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    They have something to grasp
    not to get drowned in suffering.
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    Just the fact that you come here,
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    I don't talk about your practice,
    you just come here,
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    and you are participating in Thay's work.
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    You are continuing Thay's work,
    Thay's life, Thay's teachings,
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    Thay's practice.
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    There are people who suffer,
    who know the path,
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    who have listened to Dharma talks,
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    who know about the Eightfold Path,
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    but when they suffer so much,
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    they don't have enough energy
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    to practice.
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    And they need friends,
    they need a sangha
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    who can help them.
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    It is very easy for us
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    just to flow with our habits.
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    It is much more difficult
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    to do something different
    from our habits.
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    Thay often talks about habit energies.
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    When we do something
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    or when we think in a certain way,
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    in our brain the neurons fire together
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    and wire together
    and they make a neural path.
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    Neuropathways.
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    And the more we repeat
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    this neuropathways become
    deep, and clear, and deep,
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    and that is why it is so easy
    just to follow these patterns.
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    When we practice, we have to --
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    Sometimes, we do something
    very different from our habit,
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    we have to create new neuropathways.
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    That is why it is more difficult,
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    and we need friends, we need sangha,
    we need the energy of the sangha
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    to have more energy,
    to have more strength to do it.
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    In our daily life,
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    some sufferings we think
    that they are unnecessary.
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    Because they are just misunderstandings.
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    We just need to go
    and check with that person
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    or communicate with that person
    and we can solve the problem right away.
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    And if we don't communicate,
    if we are not open enough to check,
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    to talk, to clear that misunderstanding,
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    then our friend will say:
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    'You! Why you let unnecessary suffering
    invade you like that?
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    It is unnecessary.'
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    It is so easy to transform
    those wrong perceptions.
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    Then there are other sufferings
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    when we see other people suffer,
    we understand: Yes, of course.
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    When their lose their parents or
    their beloved ones they suffer, yes.
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    It's normal. And we have lot of sympathy.
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    We share their suffering.
    They have the right to suffer.
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    It is one of the deepest sufferings,
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    when we lose someone we love.
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    We have the feeling that some suffering
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    we can control.
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    Other sufferings we cannot.
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    They are out of our hands.
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    If somebody passes away,
    it is out of our control.
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    But still the Buddha shows us
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    the way to end that suffering,
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    It is Right View.
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    Because we are so used
    to a certain way of thinking,
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    we think of birth and death,
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    so we suffer.
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    But when we have Right View,
    there is no birth, no death.
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    It is just a current,
    a continuation of all phenomena.
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    After my father passed away,
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    one year later I became a nun.
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    A few months later
    I came back to Plum Village
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    and learned to practice.
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    Then, months after months,
    I asked a question:
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    'Oh! The practice is wonderful.
    Why don't I devote my whole life in it?'
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    Because I am the second youngest
    member in my family
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    and I knew that -I thought-
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    I would see my older brothers,
    my older sisters, my mum,
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    they would pass away and I would be
    second last one who bore all this grief,
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    this losses.
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    (Laughter)
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    Too much for me.
    Just one person
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    and I thought that I couldn't survive.
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    Now I had to go through
    6 more times. Too much.
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    Then I know that on this path
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    I will know how to handle.
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    Then a year and a half ago,
    Thay tested me.
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    Thay tested me.
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    When Thay was in the coma,
    in his bed and the neurologist said:
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    'He has a few more days.'
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    And Thay really tested me how I faced --
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    I didn't face my father's death.
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    It was afterwards.
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    Afterwards, after his death,
    I practiced to overcome the grief.
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    Then, a year and a half ago, Thay wanted
    to see me how I deal, I face death.
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    And one more time,
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    one more time I saw
    how the practice saved me.
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    With the Right View.
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    When my father passed away
    I looked at my hand, I thought
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    as Thay taught.
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    But I didn't really see my father's hand.
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    I couldn't really see
    my father in this hand.
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    I still suffered.
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    There were still ideas, I had to practice
    day after day, months after months
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    years after years,
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    in order to really experience, to feel it.
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    Ideas didn't help me.
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    A year and a half ago,
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    when I heard that neurologist say it,
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    what really helped me
    was the Right View.
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    I thought: Ok, I am Thay's continuation.
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    And right away,
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    I didn't fall into sadness and depression
    like the time when my father passed away.
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    But when I remembered
    that I am Thay's continuation,
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    I was full of energy.
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    I saw that there are so many things
    I need to do for Thay.
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    To realize Thay's aspiration,
    Thay's dream.
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    And I see that the rest of my life,
    I have so many things to do.
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    I was full of energy.
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    And the sadness transformed right away
    into strong energy, action.
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    I have the sangha,
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    I have Plum Village,
    the sangha of Plum Village
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    and the fourfold sangha
    everywhere in the world.
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    And together, hands in hands,
    we still have many things to do.
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    We are Thay's continuation.
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    And I was so grateful,
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    so grateful for the teachings,
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    Thay's teachings, the Buddha teachings,
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    handed down to us
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    after so many centuries.
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    And we are so fortunate today,
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    we have all these tools
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    to help us get out of our suffering.
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    (Bell)
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    (Bell)
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    We, as human, we have the capacity
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    to bear,
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    to bear suffering.
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    Sometimes suffering becomes a routine
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    and we are able to bear it.
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    Then it becomes something normal.
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    And we feel that
    we don't need to get out of it.
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    We don't need to go on the path
    to get out of it.
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    And the same thing with happiness.
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    We get used to happiness.
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    After we
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    After we learn something,
    we learn the path, it is so wonderful
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    and we, I could solve
    some problems in my daily life
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    and I am so happy.
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    But after a while,
  • 29:26 - 29:28
    I get used to that happiness
  • 29:29 - 29:32
    and then I go back to my habits.
  • 29:34 - 29:36
    I am not happy anymore.
  • 29:38 - 29:45
    Or I do not appreciate anymore
    what I have.
  • 29:48 - 29:51
    And slowly, I lose my happiness.
  • 29:55 - 29:58
    When I became a nun,
  • 30:01 - 30:03
    the first few years I was so happy,
  • 30:04 - 30:10
    because I was bathed in the beautiful
    teachings, in the beautiful practice.
  • 30:12 - 30:14
    Then, after a few years,
  • 30:17 - 30:22
    this environment became a routine,
    became something normal to me.
  • 30:25 - 30:32
    But fortunately, Thay kept reminding us
    to cultivate our beginner's mind
  • 30:32 - 30:37
    and not to get used to our happiness.
  • 30:39 - 30:41
    Not to get used to our comfort,
  • 30:42 - 30:46
    spiritual comfort, for example.
  • 30:49 - 30:53
    We need to look back
    at our own suffering to remember
  • 30:54 - 31:00
    that in the past there were moments
    when we suffered so much
  • 31:01 - 31:04
    because of this, because of that,
  • 31:04 - 31:07
    to remember that today
  • 31:09 - 31:12
    we are in a different situation.
  • 31:13 - 31:16
    We don't suffer anymore.
  • 31:18 - 31:23
    When we remember it we can wake up
  • 31:24 - 31:27
    and appreciate what we have
  • 31:27 - 31:30
    and appreciate our situation now.
  • 31:30 - 31:32
    Otherwise,
  • 31:32 - 31:35
    we can get used to our own happiness
  • 31:36 - 31:37
    and lose it.
  • 31:43 - 31:45
    It is the same thing with suffering,
  • 31:45 - 31:47
    When get used to suffering,
  • 31:48 - 31:50
    we see that it is normal.
  • 31:50 - 31:54
    We continue to make ourselves suffer
    we continue to make the others suffer
  • 31:54 - 31:59
    and then we don't feel
    the need to get out of it.
  • 32:02 - 32:04
    Until one day,
  • 32:04 - 32:06
    somebody yells at us:
  • 32:06 - 32:10
    'Stop making me suffer, please!'
  • 32:11 - 32:15
    And then we wake up.
    'Oh! Really?
  • 32:16 - 32:19
    I didn't know that I make people suffer.'
  • 32:20 - 32:24
    So we need the sangha
    we need friends,
  • 32:27 - 32:29
    we need spiritual friends.
  • 32:47 - 32:51
    When we look deeply into our suffering,
  • 32:51 - 32:53
    to see the cause,
  • 32:54 - 32:56
    the cause of it,
  • 33:00 - 33:03
    what is the cause of my suffering?
  • 33:03 - 33:04
    Is it --
  • 33:07 - 33:13
    I suffer because I don't know
    how to appreciate what I have?
  • 33:13 - 33:20
    I don't know how to really, to live fully
  • 33:20 - 33:24
    what is happening
    in the here and the now?
  • 33:26 - 33:33
    Is it because I always run towards
    the future looking for some happiness?
  • 33:35 - 33:39
    When we stop
    and we look deeply at our ill-being,
  • 33:42 - 33:46
    we have Right Mindfulness,
    we have Right Concentration,
  • 33:48 - 33:53
    and we are already
    on the path to end suffering.
  • 34:05 - 34:09
    [The Plum Village Online Monastery]
  • 34:09 - 34:17
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  • 34:17 - 34:25
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Title:
The Four Noble Truths - Vulture Peak Gathering - 2016-06-04 Lower Hamlet - Sr. Dinh Nghiem
Description:

Sr. Đinh Nghiem offers a teaching on the Four Noble Truths from Lower Hamlet, Plum Village. This is Part 1 of the dharma talk during the 21 Day Retreat.

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
34:26

English subtitles

Revisions