Transcript
[0:59] Good morning, dear sangha,
[1:03] today is the 17th of April, 2014,
[1:11] and we are in the Full Moon meditation hall
[1:15] of the New Hamlet,
[1:17] starting our spring retreat.
[1:23] A few months ago, Thay said
[1:25] that the beauty of Mother Earth
[1:28] is a bell of mindfulness.
[1:39] It's spring time now and you can see
[1:43] how beautiful Mother Earth is.
[1:50] If you don't see it,
[1:57] why?
[2:03] If you can see the beauty of spring,
[2:05] of the earth, of Mother Earth,
[2:08] then happiness will be there right away.
[2:14] But maybe something is blocking the way
[2:19] preventing you to see the beauty
[2:22] of Mother Earth.
[2:26] Maybe you are lacking for something else
[2:35] and you do not hear the call
[2:38] of Mother Earth.
[2:41] Mother Earth is calling you, saying
[2:45] "My child, I am here for you.
[2:49] Everything is for you."
[2:52] And that is true. The sunshine,
[2:55] the flowers, the birds,
[2:59] the clear streams, water,
[3:04] the cherry blossoms,
[3:07] everything is for you, my child.
[3:12] If you don't hear that,
[3:14] it's because your mind is full of things
[3:20] preventing you from hearing
[3:23] the call of Mother Earth.
[3:35] Not only is Mother Earth beautiful in spring time
[3:39] she is also beautiful in summer,
[3:48] and in autumn she is also very beautiful,
[3:54] and in winter she is also very beautiful.
[3:58] The beauty of Mother Earth
[4:00] is always there for us.
[4:03] And she is telling you that she is there
[4:07] and she loves you.
[4:11] When you hold in your hand a fruit
[4:20] like an orange or a kiwi, you see
[4:23] that this is an offering, a gift
[4:31] of mother Earth.
[4:38] Every flower is a smile of Mother Earth.
[4:43] She is smiling to you,
[4:45] and you don't want to smile back.
[4:48] Every fruit is a gift
[4:51] to you by Mother Earth,
[4:53] but you do not feel thankful,
[4:59] because you are not there...
[5:08] for her, you are not there for life,
[5:12] because Mother Earth is life,
[5:14] and you are part of Mother Earth.
[5:19] So if you hear the bell of mindfulness,
[5:24] the beauty of the earth, you will respond
[5:28] "I am here, Mother Earth."
[5:40] The basic condition for you to hear
[5:44] the call of Mother Earth
[5:46] and to respond to her
[5:48] is silence.
[5:51] If you do not have silence in yourself,
[5:55] if your mind, your body is full of noises,
[6:00] then you cannot hear her call.
[6:06] There is a radio going on in your head,
[6:10] Non-Stop-Thinking Radio.
[6:15] You are full of noises in your heart,
[6:18] in your mind, and that is why you cannot
[6:23] hear the call of Mother Earth -
[6:27] the call of life, the call of love.
[6:32] Your heart is calling you,
[6:39] but you don't hear.
[6:47] You do not have the time
[6:49] to listen to your heart.
[6:58] But with the practice of mindfulness,
[7:01] you'll be able to stop the noise in you.
[7:09] And it is easy enough.
[7:20] A person who does not practice
[7:24] can be pulled away by many things.
[7:34] She can be pulled away by the past,
[7:37] the regret, the sorrow concerning the past,
[7:42] she wants to always go back to the past
[7:44] in order to suffer again and again
[7:47] the suffering of the past.
[7:50] She is caught in the prison of the past.
[7:56] And a person who is anxious,
[8:01] fearful about the future,
[8:04] she's pulled away by the future.
[8:14] Anxiety, fear, uncertainty
[8:20] prevent her to be there in order
[8:23] to hear the call of Mother Earth.
[8:31] So the future becomes a kind of prison.
[8:38] And even in the present moment,
[8:41] you are distracted,
[8:43] you feel you are empty,
[8:50] you have a feeling of vaccum,
[8:54] emptiness in yourself.
[8:58] You long for something,
[9:00] you expect something,
[9:02] you wait for something to arrive
[9:05] to make your life
[9:06] a little bit more excited.
[9:11] You expect something to arrive
[9:12] in order to change the situation
[9:15] because the situation in the present moment
[9:18] is very boring for you...
[9:20] nothing special, nothing interesting.
[9:27] But in fact,
[9:32] if you are really there,
[9:36] having the capacity to listen and to look,
[9:41] you see that life is full of wonders,
[9:45] it's not boring at all,
[9:47] and you can enjoy everything,
[9:49] every moment of life.
[9:58] So the practitioner, every time she hears
[10:03] the sound of the bell, she stops.
[10:10] She listens to the bell of mindfulness
[10:15] and she follows her inbreath:
[10:19] Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
[10:24] She focuses all her attention on her inbreath,
[10:28] and she breathes in mindfully.
[10:35] And while breathing in mindfully,
[10:39] paying attention only to the inbreath,
[10:41] she releases everything,
[10:44] the past, the future,
[10:46] the longing for something.
[10:51] She stops the thinking
[10:53] and she may enjoy the inbreath.
[11:00] And in 2, 3 seconds, she may awaken
[11:04] to the fact that she is alive,
[11:09] she is breathing in,
[11:12] she IS there. She exists.
[11:21] She touches the wonders of life.
[11:24] "Ah, I'm here, alive."
[11:29] So stopping thinking about the past,
[11:32] the future, the projects,
[11:34] stopping longing for something,
[11:38] she focuses her attention on her inbreath,
[11:42] she enjoys the fact that she is breathing,
[11:45] that she is alive.
[11:49] And then the noises within just disappear.
[11:55] And there is emptiness -
[11:59] the emptiness of sound.
[12:03] Very powerful, very eloquent.
[12:08] And she can answer to Mother Earth:
[12:11] "Mother, I'm here! I am free!
[12:18] And you can count on me."
[12:29] "I'm here" - What does it mean?
[12:34] It means "I exist."
[12:39] I am not "non-existent." I'm really here
[12:48] because I'm not lost in the past,
[12:52] in the future, in my thinking,
[12:54] in the noises inside
[12:56] and the noises outside.
[12:59] I'm here. And thanks to the practice
[13:04] of mindful breathing, she gets freedom
[13:09] for all the kinds of tendencies and noises
[13:12] and suddenly she feels free
[13:17] to be. In order to be,
[13:20] you have to be free.
[13:22] And free from what?
[13:25] Free from the thinking,
[13:27] free from the anxieties,
[13:29] from the fear, free from longing.
[13:36] And so you can hear the call of Mother Earth
[13:40] and you say: "Mother, I am here.
[13:49] As a child of yours,
[13:53] as part of the wonder,
[13:57] I am free. I am free from all these things
[14:01] that prevent me to be, and to enjoy myself
[14:06] and to enjoy the world."
[14:09] "I am free" is a strong statement,
[14:15] because many of us are not free.
[14:17] We do not have the freedom
[14:20] that allows us to hear and to see.
[14:28] In Plum Village, we speak of...
[14:32] we practice a kind of silence,
[14:36] called "noble silence".
[14:48] The practice is easy, because if you
[14:53] have the silence, the noble silence in us,
[14:56] we are free. We are free to...
[15:03] to hear the deepest call of our heart.
[15:17] We just finished a very wonderful
[15:19] french retreat.
[15:24] I remember that day in Upper Hamlet,
[15:28] we had lunch together outside,
[15:33] sitting on the grass.
[15:38] We sat in a circle
[15:43] one small circle,
[15:46] and then another circle around.
[15:55] Everyone went and served
[16:00] and came and sat down
[16:02] and we didn't say anything,
[16:04] we practiced noble silence.
[16:07] No one was talking
[16:12] Thay was the first one who sat down
[16:15] in the inner circle. He practiced
[16:18] mindful breathing
[16:22] to establish silence in him
[16:26] and he listened to the birds,
[16:29] to the wind, and he enjoyed
[16:32] the beauty of spring in the Upper Hamlet.
[16:40] He was not waiting, he was not exactly
[16:43] waiting for others to come and sit down
[16:46] in order to begin eating.
[16:48] He did not spend his time waiting.
[16:55] He sat about 20 or more minutes
[17:01] while other people served
[17:04] and came to join him and sit.
[17:10] There was silence.
[17:16] No one was talking.
[17:23] But that silence is not deep enough,
[17:28] because there may be thinking going on -
[17:31] while you serve, while you walk,
[17:35] you hold your plate and you walk...
[17:41] and Thay was sitting there, with silence,
[17:45] and he observed. There was silence,
[17:50] but not the best, because there was
[17:55] some thinking going on in people
[17:59] who were serving, walking,
[18:01] and sitting down.
[18:06] And then, when everyone was seated,
[18:09] Thay began to invite the bell of mindfulness
[18:16] and since we have spent one week together
[18:19] practicing listening to the bell
[18:22] and breathing in and out mindfully,
[18:26] everyone practiced very well.
[18:30] Right after the first sound
[18:32] of the bell of mindfulness,
[18:34] the silence is quite different.
[18:37] It's the real silence.
[18:40] Because everyone stopped thinking,
[18:42] just focused the attention on the inbreath
[18:45] and breathing in. We breathed together!
[18:48] And no one was thinking anymore.
[18:52] And that kind of silence
[18:55] is a noble silence,
[18:58] and it is a collective silence.
[19:02] It's very powerful!
[19:07] And you can call it "thundering silence."
[19:10] Because it is very eloquent, very powerful.
[19:17] Silence, but powerful like a thunder.
[19:21] And suddenly, you hear
[19:25] the wind, and the birds, very very clearly.
[19:31] Against that background of silence,
[19:37] you hear.
[19:41] Before that, you could hear the birds
[19:44] and the wind, but not in the same way,
[19:47] because you did not have
[19:52] the deepest kind of silence.
[19:57] And many of us who are here today
[20:02] you remember that moment.
[20:04] It's so wonderful.
[20:07] We were all capable of touching
[20:10] the beauty of spring.
[20:13] And the voice of Mother Earth calling
[20:16] and saying "I love you."
[20:22] So the practice of silence
[20:25] in order to empty all kinds of sounds
[20:28] within yourself, is not a difficult practice.
[20:32] With some training, you can do it,
[20:35] and when you can do it together,
[20:37] it's very powerful, very healing.
[20:41] And with the silence, you can walk,
[20:44] you can sit, you can enjoy your meal.
[20:55] And when you have that kind of silence,
[20:58] you have enough freedom
[21:04] to enjoy being alive,
[21:09] to enjoy the wonders of life.
[21:14] With that kind of silence,
[21:16] you are more capable of healing yourself
[21:19] mentally and physically.
[21:24] You have the capacity to be
[21:28] to be alive, to be there alive,
[21:30] so you are responding to Mother Earth
[21:37] "I am here, I am free."
[21:42] Because you are really free -
[21:46] free from your regrets, your suffering
[21:49] concerning the past, free from your fear,
[21:53] uncertainty about the future, free from
[21:55] all kinds of noises,
[22:00] of thinking in your mind.
[22:05] So the practice of noble silence is possible
[22:09] with some training.
[22:11] Especially when you are supported
[22:13] by brothers and sisters in the practice.
[22:25] Silence is not a sound,
[22:30] but it is also a very powerful sound.
[22:38] This winter is not so cold in France,
[22:44] but we hear that it's very cold
[22:46] in North America. Over there
[22:48] they had snow storms,
[22:54] and from time to time it was getting down
[23:00] to -20 degrees centigrade.
[23:07] And Thay saw the picture of Niagara Falls.
[23:15] The falls stopped falling.
[23:18] It's not a fall anymore. It's frozen.
[23:25] Thay saw that image, very impressed -
[23:31] he was very impressed.
[23:36] The fall stopped falling -
[23:41] together with the sound.
[23:46] And whatever tree or bush that stands
[23:53] nearby: for the first time, they hear
[23:55] a new sound: silence.
[24:04] And they ask:
[24:05] "What kind of sound is that!?"
[24:11] Silence.
[24:16] About 50 years ago, Thay was in Chiang Mai
[24:24] in the north of Thailand,
[24:29] in a retreat for young people.
[24:39] It's located in an area called Doi Suthep
[24:45] near a very famous temple called
[24:48] Wat Pha Lat (?)
[24:51] And Thay was staying in a hut,
[24:55] close to a cascade, a big creek
[25:02] and always the sound of water falling.
[25:12] And Thay enjoyed bathing,
[25:17] washing his clothes, and taking a nap
[25:20] on the big stones in the creek.
[25:26] But always there was that sound
[25:28] of water falling - day and night -
[25:32] the same kind of sound!
[25:35] And Thay looked at the bushes
[25:37] the trees around, and Thay said
[25:39] "Well, since their birth,
[25:42] they have heard this sound,
[25:45] so suppose this sounds stops,
[25:47] and then they will be surprised.
[25:51] And if for the first time, they hear
[25:54] the no-sound, silence."
[26:01] And Thay wrote a poem
[26:04] "The sound of no sound"
[26:07] Unfortunately, the poem is lost...
[26:10] and he can not recall.
[26:13] That was in 1960 something... 1975.
[26:27] He cannot recall the poem except the title.
[26:32] "The sound of no sound"
[26:43] So Thay imagined that if suddenly
[26:47] the water stopped running,
[26:50] then all this vegetation
[26:56] that had been hearing
[27:01] from their birth to that time
[27:04] always, day and night, that kind of sound,
[27:09] they would be very surprised,
[27:11] because it would be the first time
[27:14] in their lives, that they would hear
[27:17] the sound of no sound.
[27:19] And they would ask: "What sound is that?"
[27:24] So that is why silence is a kind of sound.
[27:28] Very strange. And it can be very powerful.
[28:30] This morning, we chanted
[28:34] the name of Avalokiteshvara,
[28:39] the Bodhisattva of Deep Listening.
[28:53] There is a chapter
[28:59] in the Lotus Sutra,
[29:00] about bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
[29:14] That is chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra
[29:20] called The Universal Door.
[30:07] Samanta mukha
[30:17] Mukha is "the door, the exit".
[30:20] Samanta is "universal".
[30:31] And the name of the bodhisattva
[30:34] is Avalokitesvara,
[30:45] and translated in Chinese:
[30:47] [Chinese]
[31:01] "the one who observes, who meditates, who
[31:05] listens deeply to the sound of the world."
[31:37] That bodhisattva has the capacity to listen
[31:42] to all kinds of sounds
[31:50] and he can also pronounce a kind of sound
[31:55] that can heal the world.
[32:08] The word [Ung (Chinese)] means "sound"
[32:11] or "voice, sound."
[32:18] In the 25th chapter of the Lotus Sutra,
[32:33] five kinds of sounds are mentioned.
[32:41] [Yu Ung (Chinese)]: wonderful sound
[32:53] We have a sister here called Tang Yu Ung:
[32:59] "Sound of wonders"
[33:02] The wonders of life are calling you.
[33:06] They are a kind of sound.
[33:09] Do you hear? Do you hear them?
[33:13] Do you hear the sound of the birds,
[33:19] of the rain, etc?
[33:31] [Quang te an (Chinese)]:
[33:41] the sound of the one
[33:45] who observes the world.
[33:54] [Pham an (Chinese)]: the brahma sound.
[34:30] The brahma sound has a very long history
[34:34] in Indian buddhist thought.
[34:49] This is brahma - [Pham (Chinese)].
[34:55] That is the transcendental sound,
[34:59] and that is a word,
[35:09] that has the power to create the world.
[35:18] that has a word that has the innate power
[35:22] to convey a particular sense of meaning.
[35:33] In the Upanishads, in the Vedas,
[35:38] the sound is Om,
[35:43] like "Om" in "Om Mani Padme Hum".
[35:49] The cosmos, the world, the universe
[35:54] was created by a sound.
[35:56] That is the brahma sound - Om.
[36:10] You know that in the Christian gospel,
[36:16] the gospel according to...
[36:45] it was the same kind of idea -
[36:52] the beginning of the world is.. the Word.
[36:57] In the beginning, there was the Word.
[37:05] Au commencement, c'était le verbe.
[37:13] And according to the Vedas,
[37:16] that Word, that "verbe" is Om.
[37:23] And that is brahma word.
[37:28] According to many schools
[37:34] in the Indian traditions,
[37:39] they agree on that.
[37:42] And the Purva Mimamsa tradition
[37:50] considers that word "Om"
[37:52] as the cosmic sound.
[37:56] Brahma sound is cosmic sound.
[38:02] And the Vedanta consider it
[38:05] to be the ultimate reality - God.
[38:09] God is a sound.
[38:11] The creator of the cosmos is a sound.
[38:16] Everything begins by the sound.
[38:20] "Au commencement, c'était le verbe."
[38:55] Modern scientists tend to believe
[39:00] the same kind of thing.
[39:05] They have been looking
[39:07] for the beginning of time,
[39:10] the beginning of the cosmos,
[39:13] and they think that the sound that was
[39:17] at the very beginning of the universe
[39:22] is "bang". Big bang!
[39:42] Not only Avalokiteshvara
[39:48] can listen to the wonders of life
[39:54] can listen to the cries,
[39:56] the suffering of the world,
[39:58] but he can listen also
[40:01] to the ultimate reality,
[40:05] the sound of the ultimate reality.
[40:24] [Chinese]
[40:41] "The sound of the rising tide."
[40:51] The sound of the rising tide symbolizes
[40:55] the teaching of the Buddha,
[40:58] the voice of the Buddha.
[41:01] It's very powerful.
[41:34] In Sanskrit, the word for "ocean"
[41:39] is "saghara"
[41:42] but in the Sanskrit version
[41:46] of the Lotus Sutra,
[41:49] we have the expression
[41:51] "jala dhara garita"
[42:08] "Garita" is the sound.
[42:16] Translated in Chinese, it's [Chinese].
[42:41] "Jala dhara" means "the big cloudss in the sky
[42:52] that bring about the rain."
[43:00] [Chinese]: big cloud, big rain.
[43:14] And it means also [Chinese]: great ocean.
[43:23] So: "the sound of the great ocean."
[43:27] And that is [Chinese]: "the sound
[43:30] of the rising tide."
[43:33] It's very powerful.
[43:34] The teaching of the Buddha
[43:36] can destroy a lot of misunderstanding,
[43:40] remove afflictions and transform.
[43:42] It's very powerful.
[43:51] There was a moment of renewing
[43:54] Buddhism in China, in 1918
[44:22] Chinese scholars, including monks
[44:25] and laypeople, they came together
[44:27] and they published a Buddhist magazine
[44:29] called "The Sound of the Rising Tide."
[44:34] A very beautiful title
[44:37] for a Buddhist magazine
[44:41] So Thay was very influenced by that,
[44:43] when he was a novice
[44:48] attending the Buddhist institute
[44:50] he also gathered friends
[44:52] in order to publish a small magazine
[44:54] within [Chinese], and he used the words
[44:57] "The sound of the rising tide."
[45:19] A group of novices who helped Thay
[45:25] publish [Chinese], they have become
[45:30] very old monks. All of them have died,
[45:35] except Thay, and another one
[45:37] still alive in Hue.
[45:42] He has been invited to Plum Village
[45:44] several times - but he said "I'm too old,
[45:47] I cannot come."
[45:48] [Name of monk] at [name of temple]
[46:00] It's him who gave the money
[46:03] in order for us to buy paper and ink
[46:07] in order to make that magazine.
[46:17] But the ideas promoted by that magazine
[46:19] were so advanced, so progressive -
[46:28] that is why we were forbidden to continue.
[47:05] The sound that transcends
[47:07] all the sounds of the world.
[47:10] [Vietnamese]
[47:16] And when you think of Avalokiteshvara,
[47:19] you're going to meditate on him,
[47:22] you have to understand him
[47:24] in terms of 5 kinds of sounds.
[47:28] The sound of wonder,
[47:30] the sound of the one who observes the world,
[47:36] the ultimate sound of brahma,
[47:38] the sound of the rising tide
[47:40] and the sound that transcends
[47:42] all worldly sounds.
[48:12] We know in the Buddhist school of logic,
[48:18] which very closely belongs
[48:22] to the school of manifestation only,
[48:28] many teachers have been trying to say
[48:30] that the sound is something impermanent.
[48:36] It cannot be the ultimate reality,
[48:40] because it is conditioned,
[48:44] a conditioned phenomenon,
[48:47] and not un-conditioned.
[48:54] Because in Buddhism,
[48:55] we speak of two kinds of phenomena:
[49:01] conditioned and un-conditioned.
[49:08] Samskrita and asamskrita
[49:12] hu wi and wo wi
[49:16] All conditioned dharmas are impermanent
[49:27] [Chinese]
[49:46] "All formations are impermanent."
[49:54] [Sanskrit]:
[50:03] "because there are things
[50:14] that have to go through birth and death."
[50:19] So sound is the same.
[50:23] Sound cannot be considered to be ultimate.
[50:31] So according to Buddhist logic,
[50:38] they use also this operation - this
[50:42] logical operation,
[50:44] in order to prove that sound
[50:47] is not something permanent.
[50:51] The premise, the thesis is
[51:02] sound...
[51:07] is...
[51:13] impermanence.
[51:20] This is the [inaudible]:
[51:28] "Sound is something impermanent."
[51:37] Why?
[51:48] "Because its nature is to be created,
[52:00] to be made."
[52:07] "Because its nature is being created,
[52:13] being made."
[52:20] It means that according to our observation
[52:24] anything that is made,
[52:26] anything that is created
[52:28] must be impermanent.
[52:31] So if the word (world?) is created,
[52:32] the word (world?) is impermanent.
[52:40] The sound is something impermanent,
[52:42] because its nature is 'having been created.'
[52:54] Example:
[53:05] A pot
[53:16] A teapot, or a flowerpot.
[53:23] These things, their nature is
[53:26] having been made, created.
[53:30] One day, they will be broken.
[53:36] And because sound is created,
[53:39] that is why sound is also impermanent.
[53:44] So you cannot say that the sound,
[53:47] even Om, is the ultimate reality,
[53:50] is the creator.
[54:04] This logical operation is called
[54:07] the 3-member, the 3-limb operation.
[54:19] But we have to quote the Ratnakuta Sutra.
[54:25] In the Ratnakuta Sutra, which is
[54:28] one of the earliest Mahayana sutras,
[54:39] Ratnakuta, chapter 40
[54:59] speaks about the voice, the word
[55:08] of the Buddha, of the Tathagata.
[55:18] And it is said that the word of the Buddha,
[55:23] the word of Avalokitesvara also,
[55:26] is first of all: "di giai"
[55:48] The word of the Buddha
[55:50] is something easy to understand.
[55:58] It's very important, because many scholars
[56:01] have made the Buddha's teachings
[56:03] very complicated,
[56:06] soooo difficult to understand.
[56:09] And that is why, if something
[56:12] is too complicated,
[56:14] it is not the sound of the Buddha.
[56:25] "di minh thuc":
[56:27] "di" means "easy"...
[56:29] "easy to understand"
[56:33] "di minh thuc":
[56:41] "minh" means "clearly,"
[56:47] "thúc" means "awareness, consciousness"
[56:52] "easy to be recognized... clearly."
[57:16] "bat cao dai am":
[57:18] "Not too loud",
[57:24] "Not big words, not too loud."
[57:33] "Not too noisy, not noisy."
[57:39] "The sound of the Buddha is not noisy,
[57:46] is not too loud."
[58:00] "Pham tien am":
[58:05] "Pham thien" is "brahma" -
[58:10] equivalent to this.
[58:15] "Hai thieu am":
[58:23] "the sound of the rising tide."
[58:26] This is the Ratnakuta Sutra.
[59:11] "Van loi":
[59:18] "the sound of thunder
[59:24] and of the cloud."
[59:34] The cloud can give birth
[59:37] to lightning and thunder
[59:41] and the cloud represents the ocean.
[59:50] So this silence is thunder.
[1:00:39] "Hu Khong" is space,
[1:00:43] "luong" is the capacity:
[1:00:46] "The sound that follows
[1:00:48] the capacity of space."
[1:00:59] It means the sound that can fill
[1:01:03] the totality of space.
[1:01:07] Everywhere you are, you find yourself,
[1:01:09] you hear the sound.
[1:01:16] Even if you are in prison,
[1:01:18] you hear the sound,
[1:01:20] the voice of the Buddha.
[1:01:22] Even if you are in hell,
[1:01:24] you can hear the voice of the Buddha.
[1:01:27] Even if you are in a distant [inaudible],
[1:01:29] you can hear the voice of the Buddha.
[1:02:48] The sound of the realization
[1:02:57] of everything that is marvelous...
[1:03:05] everything that is marvelous
[1:03:09] The sound of the realization
[1:03:14] of everything that is wondrous.
[1:03:19] You can achieve enlightenment,
[1:03:22] you can achieve awakening,
[1:03:24] you can achieve great compassion,
[1:03:28] and so on. So that is
[1:03:32] found in the Ratnakuta Sutra,
[1:03:35] which is one of the earliest
[1:03:37] Mahayana sutras.
[1:03:40] The Lotus Sutra came later.
[1:03:47] And we see that
[1:03:53] the brahma sound
[1:03:55] and the sound of the rising tide
[1:03:58] is already existing in the sutra
[1:04:03] and you find them again
[1:04:05] in the Lotus Sutra.
[1:04:12] When we have been able to still
[1:04:21] all the noises inside of you,
[1:04:26] when you have been able to establish
[1:04:28] silence - the thundering silence in you,
[1:04:33] you begin to hear
[1:04:37] the deepest kind of calling
[1:04:43] from within yourself.
[1:04:48] Your heart is calling you,
[1:04:51] your heart is telling you something
[1:04:56] it's trying to tell you something,
[1:05:00] but you have not been able to hear
[1:05:03] what your heart is trying to tell you,
[1:05:08] because your mind is full of noise.
[1:05:12] You are pulled away always,
[1:05:14] day and night, you are full of thoughts,
[1:05:19] and especially negative thoughts.
[1:05:31] In our daily lives,
[1:05:33] we spend most of the time
[1:05:36] looking for comforts - material comforts
[1:05:44] and affective comforts
[1:05:47] in order to barely survive,
[1:05:52] and that takes all our time.
[1:06:01] These belong to what we call
[1:06:03] the daily concerns.
[1:06:07] We are preoccupied with our daily concerns.
[1:06:10] How to have enough money,
[1:06:13] how to have enough food, shelter,
[1:06:18] salary, material comforts.
[1:06:21] That is our daily concern.
[1:06:25] And beside our concerns
[1:06:29] for material comfort,
[1:06:33] we also need affective concerns.
[1:06:36] Whether he loves you, or she
[1:06:40] still wants to support you, and you worry
[1:06:45] all day because of that kind of question.
[1:06:50] You are looking for someone to rely on,
[1:06:55] you depend on him or her,
[1:06:59] and you are trying to...
[1:07:05] to have a kind of relation that
[1:07:09] is good enough to survive,
[1:07:11] not too difficult,
[1:07:13] not too difficult a relationship,
[1:07:16] and you spend 99.99% of your time
[1:07:20] worrying about these things
[1:07:23] called daily concerns about
[1:07:28] material comforts and affective concerns.
[1:07:33] But the deepest concern in you,
[1:07:36] you have not seen it,
[1:07:39] you have not heard it,
[1:07:42] and that is the ultimate concern.
[1:07:48] Everyone of us has an ultimate concern
[1:07:51] that has nothing to do
[1:07:53] with material concern
[1:07:55] and affective concern.
[1:07:58] What do we want to do with our life?
[1:08:02] That is the question.
[1:08:04] You are there, but why are you there?
[1:08:07] Who are you? What do you want to do
[1:08:12] with your life?
[1:08:15] So all these questions
[1:08:17] you don't have the time to answer.
[1:08:26] Who are you?
[1:08:32] Have you had the time
[1:08:34] to answer that question?
[1:08:37] That is a very big question.
[1:08:42] Where do you come from?
[1:09:06] Why are you there?
[1:09:14] What do you want to do with your life?
[1:09:38] These are not just philosophical questions,
[1:09:43] because if you are not able to answer them,
[1:09:47] you do not have peace, and you do not have
[1:09:54] joy and happiness.
[1:09:56] Because no joy and happiness is possible
[1:09:59] without some peace.
[1:10:03] And many of us are ignorant
[1:10:04] about these kinds of things.
[1:10:08] And many of us say
[1:10:10] that we can never answer these questions.
[1:10:14] But with meditation,
[1:10:16] with mindfulness and concentration,
[1:10:18] you can see.
[1:10:20] You can see with your own eyes,
[1:10:25] you can hear with your own ears,
[1:10:33] provided that you have some silence within,
[1:10:37] provided that you have enough room,
[1:10:39] then you can find out the truth
[1:10:44] about these questions,
[1:10:50] and hear the deepest call of your heart.
[1:10:54] What do you really want?
[1:10:58] Not a comfortable material life,
[1:11:03] not to have a not-too-difficult relationship -
[1:11:07] that's not enough.
[1:11:09] You want something else, deeper,
[1:11:17] you have a deepest desire,
[1:11:19] but you do not know what that desire is.
[1:11:25] Your deepest desire it not
[1:11:27] to have a lot of money,
[1:11:30] not to have fame, big fame,
[1:11:35] or power, or sex.
[1:11:38] These are not your biggest desires.
[1:11:42] Your heart will tell you what is your
[1:11:45] deepest and biggest desire -
[1:11:48] your ultimate concern -
[1:11:50] not your daily concern.
[1:11:58] So when you ask the question
[1:12:00] "Who are you?"
[1:12:04] if you have enough time and concentration,
[1:12:07] then you can see
[1:12:12] that you are a continuation
[1:12:14] of your ancestors.
[1:12:20] Just by simple observation,
[1:12:25] you may obtain the answers.
[1:12:29] It's easy to see
[1:12:32] that you are a continuation
[1:12:33] of your parents.
[1:12:40] Your parents and your ancestors
[1:12:43] are fully present
[1:12:45] in every cell of your body.
[1:12:46] You are their continuation.
[1:12:48] You do not have a separate self.
[1:12:52] If you remove your ancestors
[1:12:55] and your parents outside of you,
[1:12:58] there is no "you" left.
[1:13:06] And you see that you are made of elements
[1:13:09] like water. You are made of water.
[1:13:16] If you remove water from you,
[1:13:19] there is no "you" left.
[1:13:22] You are made of earth.
[1:13:26] If you remove the element of earth
[1:13:29] out of you, there is no "you" left.
[1:13:34] You are made of air.
[1:13:39] And you need air desperately -
[1:13:44] without air, you cannot survive.
[1:13:46] So the element of air within you,
[1:13:50] if you remove it, there is no "you" left.
[1:13:55] And the element of heat,
[1:13:57] the element of light
[1:14:02] in you.
[1:14:06] You know that you are made of light.
[1:14:12] Without light, without the sunshine,
[1:14:18] nothing can grow on earth,
[1:14:23] and you have nothing to eat,
[1:14:27] and you see that Father Sun is a source
[1:14:31] of light. Father Sun is a source of food.
[1:14:37] And you consume Father Sun every moment.
[1:14:44] Without Father Sun, Mother Earth cannot
[1:14:46] be as beautiful as she is.
[1:14:51] And you are a son of the sun,
[1:14:53] you are a daughter of the sun,
[1:14:58] and you find out who you are.
[1:15:03] You know that you are a continuation
[1:15:05] of your ancestors,
[1:15:07] you are a child of the Earth,
[1:15:14] you are a child of the Sun,
[1:15:17] and in you, Mother Earth, Father Sun
[1:15:22] can be found in you. You are Father Sun,
[1:15:25] you are Mother Earth.
[1:15:31] And these things are not speculation,
[1:15:33] because you can touch the truth by yourself
[1:15:37] You are made of elements
[1:15:40] like air, water, earth, and light.
[1:15:51] And consciousness manifests itself
[1:15:56] as the cosmos.
[1:16:00] If you continue to look, you see
[1:16:02] that you are made of the sun - the sun
[1:16:06] is one of the biggest stars in the galaxy,
[1:16:12] and you know that the earth,
[1:16:15] as well as yourself, are made of the stars
[1:16:20] So you are the stars.
[1:16:23] On a clear night, you look up, and
[1:16:27] you can see that you are the stars above
[1:16:31] you are not just this tiny, little
[1:16:34] physical body.
[1:16:39] So meditation is to have the time
[1:16:43] to still yourself, to establish silence
[1:16:46] in order for you to look deeply
[1:16:50] in order to find out who you are,
[1:16:59] and what you want to do with your life.
[1:17:12] In the teaching of the Buddha,
[1:17:14] we speak about 4 kinds of nutriments,
[1:17:17] 4 kinds of food.
[1:17:19] First of all, edible food
[1:17:22] that you eat every day.
[1:17:24] Then, sense impressions,
[1:17:30] sense impressions, and you consume
[1:17:35] with your eyes, ears, nose, tongue,
[1:17:38] body, and mind. You consume all the things:
[1:17:43] internet is one of the things you consume,
[1:17:46] newspapers, movies, conversations,
[1:17:52] all these are not edible foods,
[1:17:54] but you consume every day.
[1:17:57] You consume.
[1:18:04] The second source of nutriments
[1:18:10] is sense impressions.
[1:18:14] The third source of nutriments is volition.
[1:18:20] Volition is your desire, your concern.
[1:18:27] You know that besides the daily concern,
[1:18:30] you have an ultimate concern.
[1:18:38] You have a deep desire,
[1:18:41] you want to realize something
[1:18:44] with your life.
[1:18:49] You don't just try to survive.
[1:18:52] You want to realize something.
[1:18:53] That is the third source of nutriment.
[1:19:07] Maybe your desire is to help people
[1:19:10] to suffer less;
[1:19:13] your desire is to help Mother Earth
[1:19:17] to be preserved;
[1:19:19] your desire is to help people
[1:19:23] to suffer less;
[1:19:26] and many of us have that kind of desire in us,
[1:19:30] spending our time, our life in order to
[1:19:32] help people suffer less.
[1:19:34] And when people suffer less,
[1:19:36] we suffer less.
[1:19:38] When people know how to experience joy,
[1:19:41] and peace, and happiness, you experience
[1:19:43] joy, peace and happiness.
[1:19:49] So if we have the time, we sit down
[1:19:52] and look, and recognize the deepest
[1:19:55] call of our heart.
[1:19:57] Your heart is telling you
[1:19:59] what to do with your life
[1:20:02] so that your life has a meaning,
[1:20:05] so that true joy and happiness are possible,
[1:20:08] and not just trying to survive
[1:20:12] materially and affectively.
[1:20:19] So the silence within the silence of noise
[1:20:22] is within, is the precondition for you
[1:20:27] to recognize your deepest desire,
[1:20:30] your deepest volition, because
[1:20:33] the third source of nutriment is volition:
[1:20:38] your deepest desire, your ultimate concern.
[1:20:43] And the fourth nutriment is consciousness
[1:20:51] because if you have consumed
[1:20:53] a lot of negative...
[1:20:59] negative elements,
[1:21:07] then you will produce negative elements
[1:21:10] for yourself. And you are eating your own
[1:21:14] consciousness. Suppose you are producing
[1:21:20] ideas, thoughts that are negative -
[1:21:32] negative thinking -
[1:21:38] because you have consumed so much
[1:21:40] of these things as consciousness.
[1:21:49] When you are surrounded with people
[1:21:51] who have a lot of sadness, fear, anger
[1:21:58] anxiety, pessimism: you consume.
[1:22:07] And your consciousness is full
[1:22:08] of these negative things.
[1:22:12] And when you produce thoughts and ideas
[1:22:17] that are negative, you are consuming
[1:22:19] your own consciousness, and you are
[1:22:22] consuming the collective consciousness
[1:22:24] of a group of people. If you happen
[1:22:29] to live with a group of people
[1:22:32] who are full of anger and fear
[1:22:36] and pessimism and despair,
[1:22:43] that collective energy you have consumed
[1:22:49] is not very healthy, that is why now
[1:22:53] your thinking is full of negativity.
[1:22:58] And that is
[1:22:59] because of the 4th kind of nutriment.
[1:23:04] But when you hear the voice of the Buddha,
[1:23:07] the voice of a bodhisattva
[1:23:09] full of compassion,
[1:23:11] full of understanding and love,
[1:23:14] when you hear the calling of Mother Earth,
[1:23:18] full of patience, full of love,
[1:23:22] then you consume.
[1:23:25] You consume wholesome elements of life,
[1:23:31] you consume the wonders of life,
[1:23:34] you consume the sound of the rising tide,
[1:23:38] you consume the sound of the ultimate,
[1:23:46] and then one day, you begin to
[1:23:51] to offer positive thinking,
[1:23:54] positive talking
[1:23:58] that will help heal you,
[1:24:00] and heal the world.
[1:24:03] When you produce a thought
[1:24:05] full of pessimism,
[1:24:08] a thought full of anger and fear,
[1:24:13] and hate,
[1:24:17] that thought produced by yourself
[1:24:20] will harm you, destroy your health
[1:24:24] and destroy the health of the world.
[1:24:30] That is called wrong thinking.
[1:24:36] But in the teaching of the Buddha,
[1:24:38] you practice right thinking,
[1:24:41] producing only thoughts
[1:24:43] that can heal you and heal the world.
[1:24:47] The thoughts that have the elements
[1:24:49] of understanding and compassion.
[1:24:57] So you have to learn
[1:24:58] how to nourish yourself
[1:25:00] with compassion and understanding,
[1:25:04] so that you can produce thoughts
[1:25:06] with understanding and compassion.
[1:25:09] When you hear a Dharma talk by the Buddha,
[1:25:12] you consume. You consume understanding,
[1:25:16] you consume compassion. And if
[1:25:19] you consume every day this healthy food,
[1:25:24] then one day you will stop producing
[1:25:26] negative thoughts. You'll produce thoughts
[1:25:29] in the line of understanding and compassion
[1:25:32] called "right thinking". And together with
[1:25:36] right thinking, there is right speech
[1:25:39] and right action.
[1:25:42] These kinds of things have the power
[1:25:44] to heal you, and to heal the world.
[1:25:50] That is why, if it happens
[1:25:52] that you are always pessimistic,
[1:25:56] if you always think and speak
[1:25:58] in terms of anger, or hate, or despair,
[1:26:03] because you have consumed too much
[1:26:06] of these things
[1:26:09] So the 5th Mindfulness Training is about
[1:26:13] mindful consumption.
[1:26:16] You don't hear, you don't look
[1:26:21] you do not consume the things that are
[1:26:26] toxic, full of fear, anger, hate.
[1:26:31] When you go to the internet,
[1:26:34] you know that there are plenty
[1:26:36] of good things in it. And you know that
[1:26:39] there are plenty of toxic things in it.
[1:26:43] So in the internet
[1:26:44] there is a source of nutriment,
[1:26:46] a source of consumption.
[1:26:49] When you read magazines, novels, watch TV,
[1:26:54] you consume, and you know that
[1:26:56] practicing the 5th Mindfulness Training,
[1:26:58] you will not consume things
[1:27:00] that have toxins and poisons.
[1:27:05] So you know that if you have the tendency
[1:27:08] or habit of thinking negatively
[1:27:11] because you have consumed
[1:27:17] in such a way
[1:27:22] that has poisoned your consciousness.
[1:27:29] And that is why,
[1:27:31] practicing the 5th Mindfulness Training,
[1:27:33] you begin to refrain from consuming
[1:27:37] the wrong things. You begin to consume
[1:27:39] only the right things that nourish
[1:27:43] the elements of understanding and
[1:27:46] compassion in you, and you get the healing
[1:27:49] that you need, and you are in a position
[1:27:52] to heal yourself and help heal the world.
[1:27:56] And suddenly, you see that
[1:27:58] your life has a meaning.
[1:28:00] That is about volition.
[1:28:09] If you can hear the voice of Mother Earth
[1:28:13] calling you,
[1:28:18] then you don't want to run anymore.
[1:28:23] You have been running
[1:28:24] and looking for something.
[1:28:29] Because you think that
[1:28:32] that something you are looking for
[1:28:34] is very crucial for your peace
[1:28:36] and your happiness.
[1:28:38] You want to - you demand - to have
[1:28:44] this condition, and that condition
[1:28:46] in order for you to be happy.
[1:28:49] And you believe
[1:28:50] that you do not have enough conditions
[1:28:52] to be happy right now.
[1:28:54] That is the habit energy of running
[1:28:57] that many people have.
[1:29:00] I cannot be peaceful now,
[1:29:02] I cannot be joyful now,
[1:29:06] I cannot enjoy it now,
[1:29:07] because I need more conditions.
[1:29:10] So you are demanding.
[1:29:13] But Mother Earth shows you
[1:29:16] that the present moment
[1:29:18] is full of wonders. The sound of wonders.
[1:29:26] If you can be there and free,
[1:29:28] you can be happy
[1:29:30] right here and right now -
[1:29:32] you don't have to run anymore.
[1:29:36] But you are not capable of listening
[1:29:40] to the call of Mother Earth,
[1:29:43] to the call of your heart,
[1:29:47] because you are full of noises,
[1:29:49] and you are carried away
[1:29:55] by these kinds of noises in you,
[1:29:58] that is why you cannot hear yourself,
[1:30:01] you cannot hear the voice
[1:30:04] of Mother Earth who is calling you.
[1:30:08] That is why the practice of Plum Village
[1:30:11] can be described as very simple.
[1:30:16] The practice of mindful breathing,
[1:30:18] the practice of mindful walking
[1:30:20] help you to enjoy the here and the now
[1:30:23] in every moment.
[1:30:25] All the wonders of life are already there.
[1:30:29] They are calling you
[1:30:32] and if you hear them
[1:30:34] you can stop running,
[1:30:37] and you begin to enjoy
[1:30:39] the wonders of life.
[1:30:45] The sound of wonders.
[1:30:48] Your body is a wonder.
[1:30:51] The tree standing outside is a wonder.
[1:30:54] The sunshine is a wonder.
[1:30:57] Springtime is a wonder.
[1:30:59] And yet you cannot get in touch.
[1:31:04] There is a Vietnamese poet who said:
[1:31:08] "Spring has come. All the flowers
[1:31:15] are trying to open. How about your heart?
[1:31:21] Why don't you let your heart open
[1:31:26] like other flowers, and be happy
[1:31:30] right here and right now?"
[1:31:38] What we need is
[1:31:44] silence.
[1:31:46] Stop the noise
[1:31:50] in your heart
[1:31:53] in order for the wonderful sound of life
[1:31:58] to be heard.
[1:32:00] And we begin to live our lives
[1:32:04] properly and deeply.
