2019 05 31 UK Tour DT Sr Chân Đức

And we've come back to Stourbridge.

And I think many of us have been here
several times already,

And feel very at home here.

So as we said yesterday, there are a couple
of questions that got hidden in the bell.

We didn't have a chance to look at.

So maybe we can begin today by looking at
those two questions.

So one is about getting lost in our thoughts
during our sitting meditation.

Actually we get lost in our thoughts
at other times, too.

Not just when we're doing sitting meditation.

When we're sitting on the bus or the train,
we may also be lost in our thoughts.

And in Buddhism...Yesterday you looked at
the Noble Eightfold Path,

and you saw that one of the factors of the
Path is Right Thinking.

So we have Right Thinking, and we have
Wrong Thinking.

And meditative concentration is fine with
thinking.

It always says that the first level of
meditation, meditative concentration,

it has thinking in it.

So we don't have to throw thinking out
altogether.

And as you can see in our guided mediations,

we've also been using Right Thinking.

And Right Thinking goes along with Right
View.

And we know that, as we heard this morning

in the Precept Transmission,
the Mindfulness Trainings Transmission,

that the view Interbeing, the understanding
of Interbeing, is Right View.

So, the thinking that goes in the direction
of Interbeing, we can call Right Thinking.

And we can use that a great deal
in our sitting meditation.

So if possible, in your sitting meditation,

make use of the guided meditations

in order to keep the Right Thinking there

and not get lost in the non-stop Thinking,

which we could also call the Wrong Thinking.

And we've had a guided meditation on seeing

that we inter-are with our mother and
our father.

We can also do a guided meditation to see

that we inter-are with the leaf on the tree

or with the tree.

There are things that we can do like this.

And then we go..Right Thinking is like

in the conventional realm of thought.

But if it's Right Thinking, it can take us

from the conventional, from the historical,

into the ultimate dimension.

That is the dimension that goes
beyond words.

So the thinking has a role to play.

Thank you.

It's also helpful, before you begin to

meditate, to decide what you're going to
meditate on.

When I sit down to meditate, the first thing
I do is like bring my body and mind

back together, and calm my body and mind.

That is "Breathing in, I calm my body."

"Breathing out, I smile."

I do exercises like that.

But when I feel peaceful enough,

I ask my Store Consciousness,
the deep level of my consciousness,

"What do you need today?"

"Which meditation do you need today?"

And then I allow Store Consciousness to

tell me what I need.

And it may say that I need to do the

Loving Kindness meditation, which now

I'm going to talk about.

Or it may tell me that now I need to do

the meditation on interbeing with my
parents, or something like that.

So there's a book, it's called

Blooming of the Lotus,

that I am indebted to for my meditation
practice.

And that book has, I don't know how many,

more than thirty, guided meditations.

And I translated them into English,

and then, now they're in English.

And then I learnt them.

And so they are all in
my Store Consciousness,

and I can call them up when I want to.

And I think you also, before your meditation,

you can read the book, and

then you see one that is suitable for

your situation at the moment.

And then you try to remember it,

and you use it in your sitting meditation.

And there are wonderful meditations on

no birth and no death, like the meditation

on the wave and the water.

The wave going back, the wave breaking

on the shore and then going back to the
water.

Which, when we are dying, can be very helpful.

And the meditation on the no birth and

no death of our in-breath is also

very helpful.

And the no birth and no death

of our body.

These kind of meditations are very deep

and in the book we are led into them slowly.

And they can be very helpful to us.

So now we come to the loving kindness
meditation.

This morning in our Mindfulness Training

Transmission, in the Third Mindfulness Training

we heard about True Love.

True Love and the four elements of True Love.

Loving kindness, compassion, joy and
equanimity.

And these four elements are also called
limitless minds.

Infinite -- they don't have any limit.

When you meditate on loving kindness,

you feel that you have limitless space

and that your loving kindness is not limited.

It's not something, "Oh, I can have
loving kindness for this person,

but I don't think I can have loving

kindness for the other person."

Our loving kindness can embrace everything.

So these four limitless minds belong to

every tradition of Buddhism.

And they also belong to the Plum Village
tradition of Buddhism.

And some time ago, Thay developed

loving kindness meditation -

that's one of the limitless minds -

into nine parts.

And the first thing we recognize is what

was pointed out by Buddhaghosa is that

we must have loving kindness for oneself.

And if you get not yet enough loving
kindness for me, what you consider me,

then you can't go on to have loving
kindness for you, or for someone else.

Buddhaghosa in the Visuddhimagga, a
book of commentary on the Abhidhamma,

say that if you want to start a fire,

you have to have dry wood.

And then when the fire is going well,

you can put the wet wood on top.

So the dry wood is you yourself.

The loving kindness for you.

because you yourself is closest to you.

Sometimes we say, "Nobody understands me!"

But you have to ask yourself,

"Do I understand me?"

"Do I understand myself?"

And you might say, "No, I don't either."

So why do we expect other people to

understand us, when we don't understand
ourselves.

The first step is to understand ourself.

And then when we understand ourself,

we understand the happiness that we need,

we shall be able to offer ourself happiness.

And that is what loving kindness meditation

is about -- it's about offering happiness.

But the first person I need to offer

happiness is to me.

And some people when they are on
their death bed, and you ask

"What do you regret?"

They will say, "I did not allow
myself to be happy.

I could have been happy.

I see now there were many times

I could have been happy.

But somehow, I thought I didn't deserve it.

I didn't deserve to be happy.

So I didn't allow myself.

And the loving kindness meditation

is meditation when you allow yourself

to be happy.

I don't know if you want me to read it,

if I can remember it, and then I can tell

you what the different elements are.

But you will be able to find it in the

Plum Village Chanting book or

on the Plum Village app.

Brother Phap Lai is not sure.

But, anyway, never mind, I'm going
to tell you now.

"May I be happy, peaceful and light
in body and in spirit."

So, I want to be happy.

Not just my body, but also my spirit.

I want to be peaceful.

How can I be happy if I'm not peaceful?

It's another thing that Buddhaghosa said.

He said when the mind is agitated,

no other positive mental formations
can be present.

So we need a mind that is peaceful.

And when the mind is peaceful,

then other positive things,

like happiness and understanding,
will come up.

So, "may I be happy, peaceful and light
in my body and my spirit."

And you have to really want it for yourself.

And when you feel strongly that you want,

that's what you really want for yourself,

then you can offer yourself happiness by

the second part:

"May I be safe and free from accident."

We know that life is insecure.

We don't know what is going to happen to us.

But deep down, we all have a desire to be safe.

There is no one who doesn't have that desire.

And sometimes we feel, we feel safe.

Sometimes when we can, when we have that
peacefulness....

We have that understanding.

We feel completely safe.

But it's not all the time.

And I think Wittgenstein is not a Buddhist
practitioner, but he also mentions

somewhere, in the tractatus or somewhere,
I think

There are times when I feel absolutely safe.

So on the one hand,

we spend a lot of our time feeling

insecure and unsafe,

but on the other hand,

the seed of feeling safe is in us.

And we deeply want that.

We need that.

So, we have to wish that for ourselves.

The most important thing maybe is not to

wish it for yourself but to see how much

you want it, how much you need it.

And then you will see that other people,

that's what they want, too.

That's what they need, too.

And sometimes they do things trying to

get that safety and security,

like controlling or having power,

where they feel they can be secure

if they are in control or they have power,
outside power.

But that isn't the real safety.

The real safety is a seed that is deep
in our consciousness.

So the third thing is:

"May I be free from anger, anxiety and worry."

So, anxiety and fear, sorry.

And I think that anxiety, we could say, is

one of the sicknesses of our time, of our era.

Many people suffer from anxiety and fear.

And none of us want to be angry.

Even though we sometimes get angry,

we express our anger,

I don't think there's anybody who has

a desire to be angry.

We all want to be free from anger.

So we have that deep desire that

when we are put in a situation

which waters our seed of anger,

we will be able to come back to ourself

and take care, so that we don't express
our anger in a harmful way,

towards others and towards ourselves.

So that the first triad, those three.

And then the second triad is:

"May I learn to look at myself with eyes
of understanding."

So we already mentioned that often

we don't understand ourselves.

Ourselves is really a non-self,

changing at every moment,

different one moment to the next,

so it's not particularly easy

to understand oneself.

But we can get closer.

We can get closer to understanding ourselves.

And often in a retreat,

it's what people manage to do.

To come back to themselves,

and understand a little bit more

about themselves.

Understand about their feelings more,

about their mental formations,

about their perceptions.

So understanding oneself

is something we long for.

And it's not just something Buddhist.

We know that Socrates,

over the place where Socrates taught,

he wrote "gnōthi seauton",

"Know yourself"

And when we know ourself,

then we suffer much less.

We know our own mind,

we can control our own mind.

So, know yourself.

And may I recognize --

this is a little bit like the Right Effort,

that you probably heard about yesterday,

the Four Diligences.

"May I recognize the wholesome seeds
in myself."

And if you don't recognize

any wholesome seeds in yourself,

what should you do?

Go to your good friends,

your Sangha friend, your Dharma friend,

and say to them:

"I don't recognize, I haven't recognized,

any wholesome seeds in me.

Could you please tell me what wholesome

seeds you see in me?"

Because often we the things that

are not wholesome in ourselves,

but we forget about what is wholesome.

So that is a real exercise, to be able

to recognize what is wholesome.

The peacefulness you have,

the loving kindness you have,

the way you care for your children,

your grandchildren.

That is a wholesome seed.

And I've heard many stories in the

Dharma sharing about how

grandparents and parents,

they take care of their children.

So many of us have that wholesome seed.

And we are also developing the wholesome

seed of mindfulness, concentration and insight.

And the third part of the second triad is:

"May I identify the unwholesome seeds in
myself."

This is a very important practice for me.

I don't know about for you!

I know certain unwholesome seeds I have.

And one of them is my ego.

And one of them is my pride.

And often before I give a Dharma talk,

I talk to Thay.

I don't really talk to Thay there,

but I talk to Thay in me.

That is my teacher, Thay.

And I also talk to my mother and father.

Sometimes before I give a Dharma talk,

I feel a bit nervous.

I don't know if I have anything to offer.

So I ask my mother and my father

to support me, and Thay to support me.

And when I talk to Thay,

I usually say that I want

to remain humble,

that it's very important that

I remain humble.

And if people after the Dharma talk,

they come up and praise me,

I want to recognize:

"You are partly right."

because those words of praise,

they are not really praising me,

there's no separate self that is me.

So I say to Thay please - because Thay

really helped me to develop humility

and not so much pride --

So I ask Thay please -- I know that

when I give this Dharma talk it's not me

who gives the talk.

That everything I can teach,

it's what Thay has handed on to me.

So, I ask Thay to keep me humble.

So I recognize that seed of pride,

that seed of ego, in me.

And I identify it.

And that means it's good that I know it's there.

Because if I don't identify the unwholesome

things in me, it means that I don't have

a chance to transform them.

They will just stay there like they are.

So we need to identify the unwholesome things.

And then the last triad is

"May I nourish myself with happiness
every day."

And you may think,

"Oh, that's very selfish, wanting to
nourish yourself."

But actually it's not.

Because the world really needs people

who have the capacity to be happy.

And if I can be happy,

I can offer happiness to others.

And of course, the kind of happiness

that I want is the happiness that

we talk about in True Happiness,

in the second Mindfulness Training today.

The happiness that is not dependent

on outer conditions,

but the happiness I can:

"Oh, I'm so happy I can still walk!"

"I'm so happy that I have eyes to look at
the trees!"

That kind of happiness in our daily lives.

So, may I nourish happiness in myself
every day.

And then the next one is

"May I live fresh, solid and free."

Though we, sometimes we meditate on

being a flower, being a mountain,

being space,

and during the meditation, we might

do it quite well.

But some other time, we may forget it.

And sometimes when you come home from work,

you don't feel very fresh,

and Thay suggests that before you open

the front door to your house,

you just stop a moment,

and you breathe in:

breathing in, I am a flower.

breathing out, I feel fresh.

Because I want to be fresh for my family

when I walk in the door.

And the last one is:

"May I be free from attachment and aversion,
but not be indifferent."

So, we know how we suffer when

we're attached to something

or to someone.

And cannot be free when we are attached.

So we want that freedom for ourselves.

And after that, we -- the opposite to

attachment is aversion -- we want to

be free from that, because

when we have aversion for someone

or for something, we also lose our freedom.

But we don't want to be indifferent.

Because we are going to practice

loving kindness and compassion.

Equanimity, inclusiveness, doesn't mean
indifference.

It means the capacity to embrace

and to hold.

Other people, other species.

So this is the way that we practice

loving kindness meditation.

And as I said, we practice it for ourselves.

And then, when we feel that we've

nourished ourselves and our fire is burning,

our fire of loving kindness is burning,

we can practice it for someone else.

We can practice it for "you".

Maybe we can practice it for somebody

who makes our life difficult.

And in that way we can look at that person

differently.

And the way that we look at another person

is important.

Sometimes we think when we have

a difficulty with someone else,

that it just comes from the other person.

It's nothing to do with us.

They are a difficult person.

But actually, it also comes from the way

that we look at that person.

And people that recognize very quickly

when we look at them,

they recognize the kind of eyes we look
at them.

And if we have some aversion for somebody.

And even though we may smile and say

good morning, how are you and so on,

the aversion, it may come through our eyes.

And that person unconsciously,

maybe not consciously bu subconsciously,

will pick up that aversion.

And then that makes our relationship

more difficult.

So we need to be able to

develop our loving kindness for

the person who is difficult

so that when we look at them,

there is real love in our eyes,

not just a smile to show that we like them.

[The bell is awoken.]

[The bell is invited to sound.]

So sometimes, I'm not afraid of death at all.

But other times, I feel fear of death.

So that is a seed in us.

We have those two seeds.

We have the seed of fearlessness,

and we have the seed of fear,

as far as death is concerned.

And we need to be a little bit

afraid of death, because if we're not,

we might fall off a cliff very easily.

So, we need to know there's the edge

of the cliff and we better stop.

And we feel a bit afraid when

we get too near.

So that fear is something very, is

necessary maybe for our survival.

But also that fear, it kind of stretches

out a bit too wide, and then

takes over territory that we don't really

need it to be there.

So, in then those areas,

we need to develop the fearlessness,

as far as death is concerned.

And so the Buddhist teachers in the past,

they have said that the great work of a

meditator is the realization of

no birth and no death.

So it's a great work.

And it's not just an intellectual realization.

It's a deep realization in our unconscious,

in our subconscious mind,

I don't know what you call it,

in the deeper levels of our consciousness,

that are usually subconscious.

That non-fear.

The intellect is not enough.

So when we give a Dharma talk,

we're usually on the intellectual level.

We use words.

We use concepts.

The first Dharma talk I heard about

no birth and no death was the first

retreat I went to in Cumbria with Thay.

I organized the retreat for Thay.

And during that retreat, Thay was talking

about the Heart Sutra,

and Thay held up a piece of paper,

and Thay asked, when is the birthday

of this piece of paper?

When was it born?

And then Thay asked,

and when is the death day of this piece

of paper?

And Thay said, maybe when the paper came

off the, off the machine in the factory,

and rolled off as a sheet of paper,

then that was its birthday.

And if we are to take a match,

and burn it,

and it turns into ashes,

that will be its deathday.

So that is our normal way of thinking

about birth and death.

But if we look more deeply,

we will see that the paper

is there in many things that

are not the paper.

The paper inter is,

inter is with the cloud, with the sunshine.

Because in the paper there is water.

And in the paper there is some tree

or some plant or something that made

the paper.

So we can see that the paper is not

something that has a real birthday

or a real death day either.

Because when you burn the paper,

energy is produced, the smoke is produced,

the ash is produced, the heat is produced.

So paper doesn't become nothing.

And the paper doesn't come from nothing.

And normally when we think about death,

we think we become nothing.

So yesterday, my friend said my self will

become nothing. This is what I heard.

My self will become nothing.

My separate self will become nothing

when I die.

And this can be something that

we are afraid of,

losing our separate self.

But the fact is that our separate self

doesn't exist when we are alive.

It's not there now, while we're breathing.

There is no separate self.

So in a way it can't die, because

it doesn't really, it's not really alive

There is no separate self.

So of course, the ash will go

back to the earth.

And maybe it will be fertilizer

for the earth, and the earth

will give rise to a flower.

The heat and the smoke will go

into the universe.

So one person told me that when

his wife died, he took her ashes, and

he put them at the foot of a magnolia

tree in their garden.

And every year, the magnolia tree

blossoms on her birthday.

So when we say that the ashes

go back to the earth,

it's not just the ashes.

There's also some other energy that

goes with the ashes that goes back

to the earth.

And we also, in Plum Village, we also

had a young meditation student

of 8 years old, who died,

of meningitis or something.

It's very sad.

And we put his ashes at the foot of

a plum tree, a plum tree he had saved up

his pocket money in order to be able

to buy that plum tree for Plum Village.

so that we can sell the plums and send

the money to hungry children in Vietnam.

So he saved up his pocket money to

buy a plum tree.

And when he died, we put his ashes at

the foot of that tree.

And that tree is always the first tree

to blossom, and the last tree for the

blossom to fade.

So we can see that in the matter,

what we call matter,

there is also spirit.

We have these two energies.

Matter is a kind of energy,

condensed energy, and then

there is the energy we send out

with our loving kindness, or

with our anger, or whatever.

So we usually distinguish between

matter and spirit,

but in fact, matter and spirit are,

you can't really take them out of each other.

You can't really separate

one from the other.

So we have an idea of ourselves as

five skandas, we call the five skandas.

The body, is, the body we think of

as being matter.

The feelings, and then the perceptions,

and then the mental formations,

and finally the consciousness.

So we think that is what my person is

made up of, these five things.

And one of them has to do with

material -- our body,

and the other four have to do with

our mind, our spirit.

But actually, we make that division,

even the Buddha, when the Buddha was

teaching, he made that division,

but in fact, you can't divide things like that.

They always inter-are.

So in the ashes left from the body,

there is also some mental formations,

some feelings, and so on.

When Anathapindika was dying.

Anathapindika was a lay disciple of the

Buddha, who donated the Jeta Grove

Monastery in Savatthi.

So Anathapindika was a very diligent
practitioner.

He was sometimes successful, and

sometimes unsuccessful businessman.

He went bankrupt at one point.

But because he was such a good friend

to so many people,

they helped him, and then

he became a successful business man again.

And he used to bring his businessman friends

to listen to the Buddha's teaching.

And then he was dying.

At first the Buddha went to visit him.

And after that, he said Sariputra, one of

the disciples of the Buddha,

should take care of going to visit

Anathapindika, because Sariputra was

the best friend of Anathapindika.

And so Sariputra went with Ananda -

- at that time, Anathapindika was on

his death bed -

to give final teachings to Anathapindika.

And the first thing they wanted to do

was to take care of the feelings,

the perceptions, the mental formations

and the consciousness.

Of course, when someone is dying,

we can also take care of the body.

We can massage while we are talking

to the person, we can massage

their or their hands, in order to help

them feel that we are really there for them

and they are not alone.

So Thay often tells us how when one of his

lay friends was dying, Thay massaged their

feet. Alfred Hassler.

Sister Chan Khong said, "Alfred, you know

it's Thay massaging your feet."

So, but anyway, in this case,

Sariputra wanted to concentrate more on

the feelings, perceptions and consciousness.

So Sariputra said to Anathapindika,

"Anathapindika, remember the Buddha."

"Remember the happy times that you

have had with the Buddha."

And then, "Remember the Dharma."

"Remember all the happiness that

listening to the Dharma has brought you."

And then, "Remember the Sangha, the

happiness that you have received

from the Sangha."

And so giving these teachings is to take

care of the feelings and the perceptions

of the person who is dying, to send the

feelings and the perceptions

in a certain direction.

Because they have to continue.

Those feelings, those perceptions,

they continue

even though they become,

usually at death we say that the body

becomes separate from the feelings and

the perceptions, we also saw that that

is not completely correct, but in a sense

they also have their own way to go,

have their own energy to go, to give.

So we want that energy to continue as a

beautiful, peaceful energy.

And that by giving our attention

to the happiness we receive from being

in touch with the Buddha, the Dharma and

the Sangha, those feelings can go in

a good direction, a good energy.

And so when we are taking care of

someone who is dying, it's important

to know about the happiness of that person.

If somebody was not a Buddhist, to talk

about the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha

it might not be helpful.

So you would need to talk about something else.

And sometimes remembering wholesome

things that that person had done

during their life time.

When I was with my father,

I reminded him of the beautiful things

that he had done in his lifetime,

and also the happy things that he had done.

At one and the same time, we remind about

things that had a lot of happiness in, but

at the same time, those things that were

done that were very beneficial, that

brought happiness to others as well.

So we need to know about that person.

And then we can nourish that person with

happiness, help that person be nourished

by feelings of happiness, so that he or she

is able to look deeply into non-self.

That is our true nature.

[Singing:] "Nothing whatsoever to remove

from this. Not a single thing thereon to

add. Properly regarding the true nature.

When truly seeing, complete liberation."

Sorry, I don't have enough qi, eh?

Nothing whatsoever to remove from this.

Not a single thing thereon to add.

Properly regarding the true nature.

When truly seeing, complete liberation.

So this meditation that was offered to

Anathapindika was for Anathapindika to

be able to see the true nature and

therefore be liberated from the sense of

self and to be free at the moment of death.

So this meditation goes something like this.

You begin by meditating on your eyes.

Now, normally we think these eyse are

part of me, they're part of my body.

And Sariputra when guiding the meditation

for Anathapindika, he said that

"These eyes are not me. I am not

caught in these eyes."

So this is something we can prepare

ourselves before we lie on our deathbed.

It's better, because Sariputra may not be

there for us when we are on our deathbed.

So we can prepare. It's good.

And we have to look deeply at the nature

of our eyes. When were our eyes born?

And we see that our eyes are just the

continuation of our mother's eyes,

our father's eyes.

And they are not really mine.

Our eyes have been nourished by the food

that we have eaten, that we've been given.

They inter-are with everything that

we eat every day.

Our eyes, in fact, inter-are with the

dust of the stars.

If there weren't the stars, the dust of

the stars, our eyes would not be there.

If we look into the elements that make

our fleshly eyes, we will see the

different chemical elements that are

there, they come from the stars.

And so, we have to learn to meditate on

our eyes, to see that they are not me.

The same with our ears.

But not only that, we need to meditate

on the object of our eyes,

the object of our vision.

Whatever we see and we consider to be

outside of ourselves, we also consider

that to be me.

When somebody was dying, they were once

asked, "Is there anything that you regret?"

And that person said, "Yes, I regret that

I will no longer be able to be in touch

with the beauties of spring, the beauties

of autumn, when I die, I won't be in touch

with those things.

But in fact, that is because we think that

those things are there for me, but when

I die, the beauty of spring and the

beauty of autumn, it doesn't die as well.

There will be other eyes which will be

in touch with those things.

So, and I inter-am with those other eyes

that will be in touch.

So we have to let go of the idea that the

outside world is something that belongs

to me.

And then of course, in our vision, it's

not just eyes and the light waves, and

the so-called objects out there that make

possible our vision. We need something else.

And that is, we need our consciousness.

Without consciousness, we wouldn't see

anything, even though our eyes are

perfectly good, our optic nerve is

perfectly good, but without

consciousness, we don't see anything.

Because the light waves that our retina

is able to pick up, the nerves are able

to pick up and send a message to our

primary visual cortex and our secondary

visual cortex, those light waves, they have

to be interpreted.

So we have to see that also this
consciousness, this visual cortex,

is not me, it's not mine,

it's not myself.

So in this way we are liberated.

We don't identify ourselves with any of

the things that we normally in our lifetime

identify ourselves with.

In Plum Village, we often use the meditation

on the water and the wave.

We visualize ourself as a wave,

and there is a time when the wave is born,

and then it exists for a while, and then,

it crashes on the shore or

it goes back into the sea.

And at that time when it crashes on the

shore, the water, it goes back into the sea.

And also there's the energy from the wave,

that you can hear on the shore,

you can feel on the sand on the shore,

you can feel the energy from the wave.

So it's true, that the wave has lost

its separate self.

Its separate self has gone back into

energy on the shore and water in the sea.

But nothing is lost.

It's something very scientific.

It's not metaphysics.

And as our friend said yesterday,

the Buddha didn't like metaphysics.

Not he didn't like it, but he thought it

was a bit of a waste of time.

When the Buddha was asked:

"After death, do you continue to exist?

Or after death, do you cease to exist?"

The Buddha's reply was that the Buddha

only teaches two things,

suffering and the end of suffering.

I can't answer that question.

So the wave you can see that you can't

say that the wave continues to exist,

because it's not that wave that we saw

that was there before.

But you can't say it ceases to exist,

because the energy is still there,

the water is still there.

And this is something very scientific.

The scientist Lavoisier,

the chemist Lavoisier.

"Rien ne se créé, rien ne se perd."

Nothing is created, nothing is lost.

Everything is in transformation.

And that is something that was seen by

scientists when they do experiments in

their laboratory, chemists and physicists.

And we know that the first law of

thermodynamics is that energy is not lost.

So, when we look at this matter of

no birth and no death, we have to take

in consideration what scientists say as well.

It's not just something metaphysical.

So the occasion when the Buddha said that

he only taught about suffering and

not suffering was when one of his

young disciples, a young monk, of the

name of Anuruddha. He went out on the

alms round in the early morning.

And then after the alms round, he thought

why don't I go and visit the pavilion where

all the monks of all the different

traditions are sitting having some kind

of Dharma discussion.

So there were many kinds of spiritual

traditions in India at that time,

not just Buddhism.

So, Anuruddha walked into the pavilion,

and they said, "Oh, look, there's one of

the disciples of Gautama Buddha!"

Why don't we ask him about what

happens to us after we die.

He must have heard from the Buddha

what happens.

So they said, "Anuruddha, you're a disciple

of Guatama Buddha. So please tell us:

after death, will the Buddha continue to

exist? After his death, will the Buddha

cease to exist? After death, will he both

continue and cease to exist? After death,

will he neither continue nor cease

to exist?" This is Indian logic, at that time.

And Anuruddha was completely befuddled.

He didn't know what to say. He felt

very bad. "Here I am representing the

Buddha. But I'm a young monk, and

I never heard the Buddha talk about

any of these things."

So he couldn't answer. And he said,

"Friends, I'm sorry, but I've never heard

the Buddha talk about any of these things."

And then they said, "This monk either

just became ordained, or he is stupid."

And he didn't feel very good about that.

But anyway, he went back to the Buddha

and said "Lord Buddha, this morning I

went to the pavilion and I was asked

this question, and I couldn't answer.

Please sir, can you teach me, so the next

they ask me this question, they won't say

that I am stupid. I will be able to answer."

And so the Buddha taught Anuruddha.

And the Buddha said to Anuruddha,

"Here is the Buddha sitting here."

"So first of all, is the Buddha the body?"

And Anuruddha said "No, the Buddha

is not the body."

"Is the Buddha feelings?"

Anuruddha said,

"No, the Buddha is not feelings."

"Is the Buddha perceptions, mental
formations, consciousness?"

And Anuruddha said, "No."

And then the Buddha asked,

"Is the Buddha possible without the body?"

And Anuruddha said, "No."

"Is the Buddha possible without feelings?"

"No."

"Without perceptions, mental formations...."

And so in the end, Anuruddha

could not find the Buddha.

And the Buddha said,

"Anuruddha, if you cannot find the Buddha

while he is alive, how to you hope to be

able to find him after he's died?"

And Anuruddha said "You're right."

And then the Buddha said,

"Yes, the Buddha has only taught

two things, suffering and the end of suffering."

[The bell is awoken.]

[The bell is invited to sound.]

And sometimes after a young couple have

been married, Thay will ask them to do

this kind of exercise.

So you ask your loved one questions

like that: am I this body?

And then the other person says no.

Am I my feelings? No.

And then you recognize that person you love

is not somebody you can find.

It's not something you can grasp onto.

It escapes all definitions.

And then when that person dies,

you won't feel that it's only after

they've died that you can't find them.

You also see that when they were alive,

you could not find them.

Because when they are alive,

they aren't. They inter-are.

And when they are dead, they aren't.

They inter-are.

This morning when we chanted the

Insight the brings us to the Other Shore,

we said "no being, no non-being."

And that is a new addition to that sutra,

but Thay saw that it's very important.

We believe that things really are,

or that things really are not,

because we are caught in our perception

of a sign.

We identify someone with a sign.

And we say that person is.

And when that sign is not there for us to

identify, we say that person is not.

This line is infinity, it's not begin and end.

And on this line there's a sign that we

call "B", and that sign is the sign "birth".

And there's another sign that we call "D".

And that's the sign "death".

Birth is a sign.

It's not an absolute reality.

We say where there is a sign,

there is a deception.

But we need signs in order to be able to

recognize things.

Like you need a birth certificate

in order to be able, I don't know

sometimes you need a birth certificate

I don't know when you need it,

but you do, eh? [laughter]

And you also need a death certificate

sometimes. Well, you don't need it, but...

[laughter] somebody else does.

So anyway. Birth and death are signs.

And we saw that when we looked at the paper,

it's very difficult to find the birthday

of a piece of paper, if you look deeply.

But, you can establish a sign, and say

that was the birthday when it came off the

tread, or whatever it came off, I don't know.

And also for your own birth.

When they say "Oh, there's that new baby,

what it looks like, we can see with our eyes."

Then that is a sign, and we call it

the birthday.

But some people call the birthday

the conception day, the day when

conception took place.

But that is also another sign.

Because before the conception there was

also mother's egg, father's seed.

So it's not exactly a birthday.

So death is also a sign.

If you look outside, there are some poppies.

Yesterday there were two, and today

there are three. Or maybe the day before.

Anyway, there are now three.

And the two older ones, they're beginning,

the petals are getting a little bit faded

on the edges. And then along side of them,

there are some seed pods,

two flowers already changed into seedpods.

So you can say that two flowers have died.

But in fact, they've changed their sign.

Before they were red flowers, but now

they are seedpods. And then the seed

will at some time fall back to the earth,

and then they'll be another sign of

another flower coming up.

So it's not really a matter of death.

Normally we say that death is non-being.

But the flower hasn't become non-being.

The petals have gone back down into

the earth and the seedpod is continuing

the flower.

And then you say here, after the flower

has opened, it became being.

But that is just a sign.

Before that, when it was a bud..

we say before that, it was non-being.

So the idea of birth and death is connected

to the idea of being and non-being.

If you don't have an idea of being and

non-being, you won't have an idea

of birth and death.

Because birth coming into being from

non-being, and death is going out of being

into non-being.

So we've all witnessed people who have died.

We've all. They are people in our family who

have died, or we know people who have died.

And we have to ask ourselves,

"After that person died, did they become

non-being?"

While they were alive, were they being?

Or while they were alive, were they non-being?

So now we look at ourself when

we were a child.

And if somebody took a photograph of us.

And sometimes we will open the

photograph album, and we will say to

our friend, "Do you know what, that's me!

when I was 6 years old or something."

And the friend will say, "Oh really,

I would never have guessed it?"

So that child in the photograph,

it looks very different from how you look

when you are 30 or 40, or 80 or 90

or whatever.

And not only the body of the child is different.

But also the feelings are different.

If you ask yourself when I was that age,

what were my feelings like?

What were my perceptions like?

You will see that they are quite different,

although you can remember what they

were like, from what they are now.

So we have to say that that child is not

really me, no really the same me as the

me now. But on the other hand, we

can't say that that child is different,

because that child hadn't been there,

there's no way that this thing I call me

now would be here.

So this is some time, in this way of looking

we have to go beyond our normal

concepts and categories.

Normally we say it has to be in a box

called "same", or we have to put it in a

box called "different".

So either I am the same as that child, or

I am different from that child.

And Thay, when I first came to Plum Village,

this was one thing that Thay was always

asking his students,

"Is Thay the same as Thay was last year?"

And I would always say,

"Yes, Thay is the same as last year."

And then somebody else in the room would

say "No, Thay is different."

And Thay would say, "You cannot put Thay

in a box "same", you cannot put Thay in a

box "different". Thay is outside

those two boxes.

It's the same when people want to make

a stupa for Thay.

When Thay dies, they want to have a

little bit of Thay's ashes that they can

put in that stupa. I think Thay doesn't

terribly want to have a stupa, I'm not sure.

Anyway, he said to the people.

"Ok, you can make a stupa for me, but

you have to put a notice on it, that says

'Thay is not in here.'" And then you also

have to say 'Thay is not outside of here'

either, because inside and outside of here

are also two boxes.

So, it gets deeper and deeper.

So if you have someone you love,

be careful not to put them in a box.

If you have someone you don't love,

be careful , don't put them in a box.

That box is made out of signs.

One sister I know practised very well.

Her father and mother died when she was

quite young. And she said now I see that

I am much closer to my mother and father

than when they were alive.

So this means that mother and father

continue in you, and they continue in

your siblings, they continue in their

children, in their grandchildren.

And when Mother and Father were alive,

maybe you put them in boxes.

So you weren't able to be in touch with

them as a whole, as part of everything,

as part of interbeing.

So in order to free ourselves from ideas

of being and non-being, we have to have

another concept which, with any luck,

will take us into the non-conceptual.

So, before someone dies, they inter-are.

And after they die, they continue

to inter-be.

Sometimes, after someone has died,

you see them much more clearly

in their children and their grandchildren

than before, because before they died,

you looked at them as separate from

their children. But after they die, you

don't have anywhere else to look, so

you see them in their children.

So we've been practising to walk on

Mother Earth, to place footsteps of love,

and to caress the Earth as we walk, to

see that the Earth is not just matter,

but also spirit. And we've talked about

Mother Earth as we are born from the Earth

and we go back to the Earth.

And I think that this can remove a lot of

our fear also. Whenever we walk on the

Earth, we see, yes, this is where I will

go back to. A large part of me will

go back to the Earth.

And the Earth is always ready to receive

and embrace me.

So an important part of developing

fearlessness about death is to be able to

see the Earth as your loving Mother who

will receive you when you die.

And we talked a bit about the teaching of

no same, no different, not in those boxes.

We also have boxes which are

no coming, no going.

No, sorry, we also have boxes which are

"coming" and "going".

And often when people die, people ask,

"Oh, can you tell me where he has gone?"

"Where can I find him now?"

And Thay used to light a match.

Do you remember Thay's box of matches?

We forgot the matches today.

Nevermind, you can remember.

So you have a box of matches, and then you

take out one match and you ask,

"Dear little match, will you produce a

flame for us?"

Thank you.

So first of all, we have to ask,

"Where is the flame now?"

We don't see a flame;

we don't have the sign of a flame.

But on the other hand, we know that all

the elements to make the flame are present

inside this box and also outside, because

you also need the oxygen, so inside and

outside.

So now we have the match, we have the box,

we have the oxygen. We only need one

more condition for the flame to manifest.

And that is we have to do something with

our fingers. "So, dear flame, please manifest.

Dear match, please help manifest the flame

for the Sangha.

And now the flame is manifesting.

You allow it to manifest.

And while it's manifesting it's giving

off light and heat.

And now it's giving off smoke.

So then we ask the flame,

"Oh, dear little flame, where have you gone?"

And the flame says it hasn't gone anywhere.

Dear Sangha, I haven't gone anywhere.

I haven't gone North, South, East or West.

It's just the conditions were not there

for me to manifest anymore,

so I ceased to manifest.

And similarly, I didn't come from anywhere.

I didn't come from the North, the South,

the East or the West, but the conditions

were all there for me to manifest

so I manifested.

So when somebody dies, and we ask them

"Where have you gone?" then the answer

will also be "I haven't gone anywhere."

And if you look, you can be in touch

with them.

Somebody will say [singing]

This body is not me;

I am not caught in this body.

I am life without limit.

I've never been born, and I've never died.

Over there the wide ocean and

millions of galaxies,

all arise from the depth of consciousness.

So smile to me and take my hand,

and wave good-bye.

Tomorrow we shall meet again,

or even before.

We shall always be meeting again

on the millions walks of life.

We shall meet in every moment,

on the million walks of life. [end of singing]

Did I leave out a line? I think I did:

Birth and death are only a game

of hide and seek.

Birth and death are only a threshold,

a door through which we go in and out.

Birth and death are only a game

of hide and seek.

So we use our understanding of interbeing

in order to be able find the person who

has died, to find they haven't gone

anywhere, they didn't come from anywhere,

they haven't gone anywhere.

When the conditions were right, they manifest.

Conditions not right, they cease to manifest.

And the first place to look is in yourself,

to find that person.

To find the feeling they transmitted to you,

the perception that they left to you.

So dear friends, our retreat is coming

to an end. And thank you for being here.

And we will have a kind of closing, I think,

by singing together.

And we may have a little time

to say thank you. A few people

will say thank you to each other.

So, we will listen to three

sounds of the bell.

And the three sounds of the bell are

our good wish for you.

Firstly, to have a good journey home.

And secondly, to be able to continue

whatever part of the practice that is

most helpful for you.

And thirdly, to come back again,

when we next have a retreat.

[a lotus for you]

[The bell is awoken.]

[The bell is invited to sound.]

[The bell is invited to sound.]

[The bell is invited to sound.]

[The small bell is invited to sound.]