ShareIn the spring of 2000, practitioners came from across the world to Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Eye of the Buddha” retreat at Plum Village. If you have not had the pleasure of being on retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh (or if you have), here is an opportunity to read in succession each Dharma talk he gave at the 21-day retreat. We will be posting them week by week. Enjoy your reading the third talk...


The Eye of the Buddha Retreat
A 21-day retreat in Plum Village
June 2nd - 22, 2000

Teachings from Thich Nhat Hanh
Tape 3, June 4th , 2000

Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Edited by: David Haskin & Susan O’Leary

Side A

Chanting

Good morning dear Sangha. Today is June 4th, 2000 and we are in the Upper Hamlet; the name of the place is Dharma Cloud Temple.

If we observe our body we may see that the cells in our body function like a Sangha, and not only the cells of our body, but different parts of our body like our hands, our feet, our eyes, our ears and so on.  When I look at my right hand, even if I call it "my right hand," I don't see my right hand as a separate entity from my left hand.  Even if you can situate it in time and in space, it is still part of an organism.  We know that my right hand is able to do calligraphy, (but) you cannot see it unless my hand picks up a brush and performs.  It is with my right hand that I wrote all my poems.  It is with my right hand that I invite the bell for you, but my right hand never gets caught in the thought that it is the right hand and it is doing all these things.  My right hand never addresses my left hand with such a mentality: "You know, all the poems that have been published or not published have been written by me. (laughter)  You don't seem to be doing anything at all!" (laughter)  Therefore, my right hand never suffers because it is inhabited by the wisdom of non-discrimination.  My right hand is free.  You want to hang a painting on the wall, your left hand picks up a nail and your right hand picks up the hammer and you try to drive the nail into the wall.  Maybe you are not skillful enough and instead of hitting the nail you hit your finger.  The pain of the left hand is the pain of the right hand.  Without thinking, my right hand puts down the hammer, holds the finger that is hurt and tries to do whatever it has to do in order to bring relief. This is done with the wisdom of non-discrimination. The Sansrit word is Nirvikalpa Jnana.

The Buddha is someone who can operate on the ground of non-discrimination.  Whether you see the white color or the black color there is no discrimination.  Whether you see a person with a Ph.D. degree or a person who has never been able to go to school, there is no discrimination at all.  Inhabited by the wisdom of non-discrimination you do not suffer and you do not make the other person suffer.  And that is the wisdom of non-discrimination; it is not an idea, it is not a notion it is a reality that you can observe.  Just look at every cell of your body, just look at your right hand and left and you see that the wisdom of non-discrimination is acting, it is operating.  It is a reality. It is not a hope, it is not a notion, an idea.  

When we observe a beehive, we can see that.  Every bee, while living the life of an individual bee, lives also the life of a cell, of a tissue of the organism of beehive.  The ant in the hill behaves just like that.  You can see the wisdom of non-discrimination in every bee, in every ant.  When the bee is out of the hive retrieving sugar, although she is one kilometer away from the hive she is still very much the beehive, as if she is attached to the beehive with some kind of filament.  She is doing everything as an organism, as a community, as a Sangha and not as an individual and that is the strength that you can observe in her.  When you send someone to the market to shop for the Sangha, that someone is the Sangha.  She is doing everything as a Sangha; she has a lost of strength within her.  When you send a brother to another city to organize a day of mindfulness, that brother is equipped with the whole Sangha, the energy of the whole Sangha that is why you can see the tremendous energy of that brother because he is not operating on the ground of self, he is operating on the ground of community, of Sangha. In him there is the wisdom of equanimity, the wisdom of non-discrimination.  If he happened to give an excellent Dharma talk he would not say, "It is me who has given the Dharma talk!  Only I can give such a good Dharma talk!"  Because in that brother there is the wisdom of non-discrimination, so that the Dharma talk is a collective product of the whole Sangha and of the audience.  If you enjoy the Dharma talk you may know that the Dharma talk is not the product of Thay.  It is the collective product.  If you look into Thay you can see his Teacher, you can see many generations of teachers, you can see the Buddha and the teachers of the Buddha.  You can see yourself.  You can see your happiness, your suffering in the Dharma talk.  The Dharma talk is not something you can pre-fabricate. The Dharma talk is a flower that blooms in the garden of communication.  There is suffering, there is a teaching, there is practice capable of transforming the suffering and when the suffering is understood, the talk reveals itself and that is the essence of the Dharma talk.

When you cook for the Sangha and you chop for vegetables for the cooking team it is possible that you do that with the wisdom of non-discrimination.  You can do that with the hand of the Sangha instead of your individual hand, and then you see the difference.  It will bring you a lot of energy, a lot of joy if you can cut the vegetable on the ground of non-discrimination, if you can chop the vegetable with the hand, with the arm of the Sangha.  That is a big difference.  And if you know how to do it as a Sangha you will not suffer at all and you get a lot of joy, like that bee out there, far from the beehive, retrieving sugar.  She is doing that for the Sangha; she does not suffer because she is not operating on the ground of self.  It looks like difficult, but it is being done everywhere, in our body, around us.  Just observe, just smile, just do it and then happiness will be yours right away.  You have had a chance to observe the monastics in Plum Village operating, the lay people in Plum Village operating.  You know that no one of us here has a salary.  We are all bees of the same beehive, no one has a salary.  And the strength that we got does not come from the salary because there is no salary. The strength that we got is the Sangha, the motivation of the Sangha because the Sangha is the refuge for so many.  You are performing a very noble task and your well-being depends on that understanding, on that action, on your practice on your daily life.  

When a sister cook, she  trained herself to do it like a bee retrieving sugar; she knows that she does that for the whole Sangha, so the Sangha has something healthy to eat, the Sangha gets enough energy to practice, and that is her joy, her happiness.  Only by working that way that she can be a happy member of the Sangha.  Other ways of working would not give her the same sort of satisfaction.  That monastic, that sister may already be a Dharma teacher, may already have received the transmission of the lamp to teach but she is very happy working for the Sangha.  She is very happy cleaning the toilet for the Sangha and anything she does can bring her a lot of happiness and you can observe her, you can see her face glowing.  You can see her eyes looking with love.  Happiness is in your mind, it is born from your heart, not born from the environment.  The way you look, the way you sit, the way you act makes your happy.  If we look for conditions of happiness outside of ourselves, we don't know that happiness depends on our way of looking at things and conditions for your happiness are already there, more than enough for you to be happy.  If you are equipped with understanding about Sangha, if you are equipped with the spirit of community life, if you are equipped with the wisdom of non-discrimination happiness is a matter of the present moment and not something in the future. You can be happy right now.

In the Sangha there are monks and nuns who have a Ph.D. degree and there are monks and nuns who have never had a chance to go to school.  If you stay long with us you will find out, but they are the same.  They look on each other as brothers and sisters, there is no discrimination at all, there is no complex at all, complex of superiority, complex of inferiority or complex of being equal to the other person, three kinds of complexes.  In psychotherapy when you have low self-esteem you get sick, but in the teaching of the Buddha, when you have a high self-esteem you are sick also.  And if you think you are equal to him or to her you are sick also, because you are one with him, you are one with her.  The complex of being equal, the complex of being better or worse, or the three complexes are based on the notion of self.  The wisdom of non-discrimination has not been attained and that is why you still live with the three kinds of complexes.  A really happy person is free from the three kinds of complexes:  to be better, to be equal, to be worse than.

Bell

Next time when you do something for the Sangha…. we are always doing something for the Sangha…. learn to do it that way.  Learn to behave like a bee or an ant and learn to do it like your right hand or your left hand, without discrimination.  You will be able to get the taste of happiness that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas always have, a taste of joy and freedom.  It is so simple!  It is possible in the here and the now.  When you take a step and, breathing in, say, "I have arrived," learn to do it, as a Sangha.  In the beginning you think that it is you that is making the step and it is true, but if the practice deepens then you do not see it that way any more. You are making the step for every one because, if you are capable of making such a peaceful and solid step, the whole Sangha benefits.  Whether we see you, walking or not, the whole Sangha benefits.

If you are capable of smiling a smile of awareness, when you encounter the wonders of life the smile will profit everyone in the Sangha, not only now, not only here but everywhere, at all times.  Do you know that when you are able to smile all your ancestors are smiling at the same time with you?  When you encounter a wonder of life and you are really there, mindful, and you smile, then countless ancestors of yours will be smiling within every cell of your body. That is the way the Buddha sees it, so you smile, not only for yourself but you smile for the whole Sangha, you smile for all your ancestors and you smile for your children and their children at the same time.  In the historical dimension it does not seem that your children have been born yet, but out of that dimension they are already there in you, the whole of the past, the whole of the future is there in the present moment.  That is the way the Buddha looks and sees.

Maybe one of your ancestors was not able to enjoy making steps during the whole of his or her life, always in a hurry, always afraid of the future.  Maybe that ancestor was not capable of making peaceful and solid steps during the whole of his or her life, but now we are capable of doing so.  You are capable of stopping, of establishing yourself in the present moment.  You are capable of breathing in mindfully and making a step and arriving in the here and the now, and when you do that you do it for that ancestor of yours who did not have a chance to encounter the Dharma.  If you walk like that you get a lot of freedom, a lot of happiness, you are doing that for the Sangha, not only in the immediate here and now but in the eternal here and now.

When you make a step, visualize all of your ancestors together at the same time making a step with you and this is really what is happening because you know that you are a continuation of your ancestors and you are your ancestors.  In the beginning, there is the thought that your ancestors are no longer there, they are dead and only you are alive. But practicing deeply you see it differently, you see that in this very moment all  your ancestors are still alive in you in every cell of your body and when you smile all the cells in your body smile at the same time and all generations of ancestors smile at the same time.  We are given a chance to do that all day long.  When you breathe, you breathe for all your ancestors and your children, and if you can maintain that insight alive, it is wonderful, it is very healing, it is very transforming, it is very nourishing.

The Buddha, teacher of many gods and men, also stood there and washed his bowl after lunch.  Visualize Shakyamuni Buddha washing his bowl.  His bowl looks very much like the bowl you see the monks and the nuns handle here.  And the water with which he washed his bowl is very much like the water that you use today.  Observe the Buddha standing there washing his bowl with liberty, with freedom, with joy, and when the Buddha washed his bowl like that all the Buddhas in the cosmos are washing their bowls like that with joy and happiness.  Are you capable of washing your dishes like that after your breakfast?  That time of washing your dish is the time of practice.  It is not work.  It is work all right, but it is not just work, it is the practice so, in our twenty-one-day retreat, everything you do, whether walking, breathing, or cleaning, or eating, or drinking, or putting your robe on, everything can be the practice.

Do it like a Buddha, do it like an enlightened one because you have the seed of enlightenment within yourself.  You have the seed of awakening within yourself.  You can do it just like him; you need only to have that desire, that motivation.  It is not impossible to be a Buddha.  If you want to be a Buddha then you can be a Buddha.  Mindfulness is the kind of energy that helps us to be aware of what goes on and the seed of mindfulness is within us.  We are all capable of drinking our water in mindfulness.  We are all capable of making steps in mindfulness, we are all capable of washing our bowl in mindfulness.  You know that the problem is whether you want to do it, and you do it not only for yourself, you do it for the Sangha, for your ancestors and your children and their children.  If you do it you get a lot of happiness and you will transcend birth and death by that practice.  And birth and death are first of all notions that are in your head.

Bell

Before speaking of the Buddha eyes let us speak about the Buddha body.  The Buddha has so many bodies but first of all he has his Dharma body, Dharmakaya and you also you have your Dharma body.  In your daily life try to recognize the presence of your Dharma body.  Practice so that your Dharma body grows and manifests itself for the greater happiness of the Sangha and of the world.  Your Dharma body is a reality and not just a thought.

Kaya means body. The Buddha had many disciples, monastics and lay, and among the monastics there was a man called Vaccali.  The young man came to the Buddha because he was attracted by the beauty of the Buddha, the physical beauty of the Buddha.  He was a man but he was attracted by the body of a man and became a disciple of the Buddha.  He took a great pleasure sitting there and contemplating the Buddha as a body.  You may be surprised but things like that do happen (laughter).  He did not come for the Dharma talk (laughter) he just wanted to sit there and enjoy the presence of the Buddha, he was attached to the Buddha as a physical body.  He tried to be close to the Buddha and at the time he was allowed to be the attendant of the Buddha but very soon the Buddha realized that attachment in him and the Buddha did not allow Vaccali to follow him any more as an attendant.  

One day he thought that the Buddha rejected him, his love for the Buddha was very deep but he felt rejected by the Buddha because the Buddha did not allow him to go on that trip to the city of Vaisali, so out of despair he wanted to kill himself.  You know, there are crazy people like that (laughter) attracted to the Buddha not for spiritual purposes but attracted by the physical beauty of the Buddha.  The Buddha had a lot of problems in that aspect.  There were beautiful women who followed the Buddha and wanted the Buddha to love them and to be theirs and when their desire was not satisfied they created a lot of difficulties for the Buddha.  So Vaccali wanted to commit suicide out of despair and he wanted to jump from the mountain into an abyss but the Buddha had suspected that before so he went to save the man and to give him teaching that he should not be too attached to the physical body of the Buddha, that he should learn in order to see the spiritual body of the Buddha.  So the story of the monk Vaccali can be described as a love story.  

When Vaccali was dying the Buddha went to see him.  He was very sick.  The Buddha said:  "Vaccali, how do you feel in your body?"  "I feel very painful in my body, Lord."  "Did you practice well mindful breathing and looking deeply into your five elements:  form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness?" "Yes, Lord, I practiced mindful breathing, I looked deeply into the five elements of my person."  "Do you have anything to regret?" "No, Lord, except (laughter) that I am so sick that I cannot go to the mountain and listen to your Dharma talks and to see you." And the Buddha said, "This physical body is not important, it is my Dharma body that is more important and if you know the Dharma and live with the Dharma 24 hours a day you are with me all the time." From that teaching we know that the Dharma body of the Buddha is more important than his physical body and the Dharma body of the Buddha is available to you, to everyone, and the Dharma body of the Buddha can be described as one of the living bodies of the Buddha and you can help that body to continue existing and operating for the good of many living beings.

When you practice walking in mindfulness, enjoying every step you make, cultivating solidity and freedom you are helping the Dharma body of the Buddha to shine and that is for the happiness of so many people.  When you practice mindful breathing and enjoy your in breath and out breath and realize that you are alive, in touch with the wonders of life, you are helping the Dharma body of the Buddha to manifest and when people look at you they see the Dharmakaya, the Dharma body of the Buddha shining and they will be inspired to do the same, helping the Dharma body of the Buddha to continue.  So the Dharma body is not some abstract idea, it is something real and when you practice well you help the Dharma body of the Buddha to continue and at the same time it becomes your Dharma body and you may say that you share the Dharma body with the Buddha.  Your friends, your disciples, your students will continue to help your Dharma body to last, to be there for a long time for the sake of living beings.  As a practitioner, I have received the Dharma body of the Buddha, I have received the Dharma body of my teacher  and in the process of practicing my Dharma body is born, manifesting itself in many ways.  In every cell of my body the Dharma body of the Buddha is there, and my Dharma body is there in every cell of my body.

The real Dharma, the true Dharma, is something that can answer directly to the present situation.  The Dharma is not a promise for the happiness in the future.  The Dharma, the nature of the Dharma is to be concerned with the here and the now.  The wonders of life that can be nourishing, transforming and healing, the Dharma helps us to be in touch.  The sufferings in the here and the now -- the Dharma helps us to recognize them, embrace them and transform them.  The Dharma is addressing the present moment, the here and the now.  It is not a promise for the future and that is why the first characteristic of the Dharma is Samdristika.

When you are in touch with the true Dharma, you know that the Dharma is for you to be in the here and the now.  The Dharma is addressing the questions of our time, the questions of happiness, sorrow and suffering of our time.  The Dharma helps us to recognize what is there in the here and the now, positive and negative.  We know that the positive is made of the negative and the negative is made of the positive, all these things inter-are, it is like the left and the right.  Without the left there is no right, without the right there is no left so we have to understand the words positive and negative in that way.  Negative is not something you have to throw away because, if you throw the negative away, you don't have the positive, like if you throw the garbage, the compost away you never have the flower.  We only need to take care of the negative and then from the negative you have the positive.  And according to the law of impermanence, the positive is to become a negative but we are there to retransform it into the positive and that is the practice.

When you practice walking you know that the first step you make can already bring something if you are truly mindful, if you are breathing in mindfully, if your mind and your body …..

Side B

If you can produce your true presence in the here and the now, then one step can already bring you some stability, solidity, freedom and joy.  So the Dharma is not a question of time. The Dharma does not say, "if you practice ten years, then you begin to see something." The Dharma is lovely in the beginning, in the middle and at the end. The Dharma is not a matter of time. Timeless.  That is the second characteristic of the Dharma:  Akalika.    Akalika means transcending time.  The Dharma…. you don't need someone to serve as a mediator, the Dharma is for you to come and see by yourself.   The Dharma is much more than the Dharma talk, the Dharma can be seen, the Dharma can be touched, the Dharma can be felt, it is the living Dharma and you can produce the living Dharma when you walk.  You can produce the living Dharma when you breathe, you can produce the living Dharma when you shop for vegetables.  This happiness radiates from yourself in the moment you practice the Dharma and that is why it is said that the Dharma is to come and see by yourself. ( Ahipassika).

The moment when you embrace the Dharma and practice your Dharma body is born.  Not only a Buddha has his Dharma body but all of us have our own Dharma body.  We should have confidence in our Dharma body.  Our Dharma body is the ground, the foundation of our peace, our joy, our happiness.  Our Dharma body is the ground of the peace, happiness and joy of so many people, including the ones we love.  Taking good care of our body, of our Dharma body, is very important and you can help your Dharma body to shine in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening by your practice of living deeply every moment of your daily life, and you know that the Dharma body of the Buddha and your Dharma body are very much linked to each other.

Bell

And the Buddha has his Sangha body, Sanghakaya.  Shakyamuni recognized that the four-fold Sangha is his body.  Shakyamuni Buddha was an excellent Sangha builder.  At the end of the first year of his ministry, Shakyamuni already had a community of 1,250 monks.  I wonder how he could do that!  (laughter).  I know 120 monks is already difficult (laughter).  The Sangha body of the Buddha has given so much joy and happiness to so many people.  We have knowledge that there are excellent Sangha builders in the Sangha of the Buddha, people like Sariputra, Mahakasyapa, Ananda and so on…. We could imagine how difficult it is to build a Sangha like that, from the very first year of his teaching career, we are told that when Shakyamuni Buddha and 1,250 monks came into the city of Rajagrha for the first time it made a deep impression on the population.  

During the time the Buddha was practicing as a monk, the king of Magada, Bimbisara had already a chance to meet the Buddha and he was too attracted by the appearance of the Buddha and he wanted to invite the Buddha, at the time not the Buddha yet, and he wanted to invite Siddhartha to come to his palace and become the teacher of the nation and Siddhartha said, "No, I have not yet got the enlightenment I want, I cannot be your teacher, I cannot be the teacher of your country. Please allow me to continue my practice and I promise that when I have realized awakening then I will  come back and help you." So, when he came back to the city of Rajagrha he was not alone. He had his Sangha body.

And they trained themselves on the mountain of Rajaghisha and when they arrived they were divided into several groups, holding their bowls and walking into the city in a very serene beautiful way with all their mindfulness  in it. They made a good impression on the population and only a few days later King Bimbisara realized that the old friend had come back and he organized a visit.  At the time in the suburb of Rajagrha there a young palm grove.  The Buddha and his Sangha body resided in there and it was there that the king and his retinue came to visit the Buddha and you know they really saw the Sangha as his body.  He did everything in order to take care of his body and the value of a teacher can be seen in the Sangha.  

You are all a Sangha builder, when I look at the Sangha I see you.  This is not a statement that I just made.  This is a statement made by King Prasenajit of the Kosala kingdom where the Buddha had a friend who was a king, that is the king of Kosala residing in the capital of Sravasti.  They were of the same age.  In the beginning the king was not a fan of the Buddha, but they finally came to understand each other and they became a very close couple.  At the age of 80 they met for the last time in a small city very far from the capital and he stopped to see the Buddha and he made a few declarations that have been recorded by the Buddha.  He said, "Lord, when I see your Sangha, when I look at your Sangha I have a lot of confidence in the Lord," because peace, gentleness, compassion, mindfulness was radiating from the Sangha and, if the king did not look at the body of the Buddha, he would not have seen the Buddha very deeply.  So looking at your Sangha body very deeply, you see yourself.

Those of you who are concerned about building a Sangha, you may like to observe in that way.  Look at your Sangha; the Sangha is a complete expression of your practice, of yourself.  You have to spend a lot of your time, not to say all your time, building the Sangha because that is the refuge for society, for everyone not only humans, but animals, plants and minerals.  The Sangha is our escape.  The Sangha is our way out and, with the Dharma body, you will be able to build your Sangha body.  You are motivated by a very strong desire to build your Sangha body and you are just the continuation of the Buddha.  The Buddha is acting in you.  The Buddha is still practicing through you and if you are aware of that you see your mission is Sangha building for the enlightenment of many living beings around you and, as a practitioner, you learn to look at things through your Sangha eyes. It is wonderful to live with your Sangha eyes.  If you are a member of your Sangha your practice is to learn to live with your Sangha eyes.  Don't just look with your private, individual eyes. Learn to look with your Sangha eyes and then you will suffer much less and you will be very happy if you know how to make use of your Sangha eyes.  Those of you who are building a Sangha please listen to me:  Do learn to look with your Sangha eyes.  It may be a little bit difficult in the beginning but it is very rewarding because the Sangha eyes are closer to the Buddha eyes than your private eyes.  The Sangha is an organism that lives according to the Six Togethernesses and therefore the Sangha eyes are much brighter than your eyes.  It is wonderful to use the Sangha eyes in order to understand the Buddha eyes.

The Buddha also has his Transformation body, Nirmanakaya.  Shakyamuni is only one of the Transformation bodies of the Buddha and we are supposed not to get caught in that body.  We should be able to recognize Shakyamuni in his many Transformation bodies. There is a very wonderful chapter in the Lotus Sutra.  The Buddha was teaching in the  Gridhrakuta mountains. He was giving his disciple a teaching of  saddharma-pundarika, the Lotus of the wonderful law.  Suddenly a pagoda, a stupa, appeared in the sky.  You can see the beauty of the stupa, you can see the stupa is richly decorated, you can see the music, the heavenly music coming out of the stupa and suddenly there is a very beautiful voice coming out of the stupa, in the air, uttering these words:  "It is wonderful, it is wonderful, Shakyamuni Buddha you are teaching the Lotus Sutra, it is wonderful," and everyone stopped and marveled at that manifestation and everyone turned to Shakyamuni Buddha. "Dear Teacher, why in the midst of a teaching such a stupa appeared in the air and whose voice is that?"   The Buddha said, that is the voice of a Buddha, his name is Prabhutharatna Đa Bảo(Vietnamese).  He got his enlightenment a long, long time ago, you cannot calculate and know how long ago he has got his enlightenment, but he made a vow that wherever there is a Buddha preaching the Lotus Sutra he will appear in order to congratulate. That is why he is here today in order to utter the words of congratulations:  "Wonderful, wonderful, Shakyamuni Buddha, you are teaching the Lotus Sutra!"

And everyone sitting in the audience wanted to see the Buddha called Prabhutharatna, they wanted to see the other Buddha and they turned to their Teacher. "Dear Teacher, you are powerful. Can you help us to see that Buddha?  Can you do something in order for the stupa to be opened so that we can look into it and see the Buddha who has uttered these wonderful words?"  Shakyamuni smiled and said, "It is a little bit difficult, my dears but I will try my best!"  And then he told his disciples sitting with him, "You know, in order to open the door of the stupa I have to call back all my Transformation bodies from the cosmos."  His disciples did not know that the Buddha had so many bodies… they are caught in that image of a person sitting on the  Gridhrakuta mountain, they are caught, just by one image of one body.  They could not see the Buddha in other directions, in other forms. They could only identify the Buddha in this form and yet in the Diamond Sutra the Buddha was very clear: "If you want to see my true form, if you want to hear my true sound and you cannot really see me and hear me, you are in the wrong Path." Nhược dĩ sắc kiến ngã, Dĩ âm thanh cầu ngã, Thị nhân hành tà đạo, Bất năng kiến Như Lai. "If you try to see my true form, if you try to see my true sound you are on the wrong Path and you can never see the Tathagata, the one who has come from Suchness."

It is clear, but most of his disciples were still caught in that image and that is that is of a wonderful kind of teaching in order to show the disciples that, "This is not my body, this is only a sparkle of my body." And the Buddha was using his concentration as a beam and he was touching all the planets in the cosmos in a very far galaxies and asking all his Transformation bodies to come back to be present in the here and the now so that the door of the stupa be opened.  Then all the disciples of the Buddha at that time witnessed to the coming from every corner of the universe many, many Buddhas and they are all manifestation bodies of Shakyamuni. The first time they get free, they did not imagine, they could not imagine that their teacher is of that  greatness because they are caught in just one image, one sound.

All of you have your Sangha body to take care of.  You may like to do like the Buddha, spending all of your time taking care of your Sangha body for the happiness and protection of everyone.  All of you have your Transformation body.  You have to identify your Transformation body otherwise you are caught in the idea that this body is the only body you have.  

Bell

You may be caught in the idea that you were born on such and such a day, in such and such hospital and that your body is limited by this skin and that you die on such and such a day and you disappear… you might be caught in that idea.  In that case you have not really seen your body yet.  You have to practice to look deeply in order to realize, to recognize your manifestation body everywhere, in your son, in your daughter, in your friends, in your students… everywhere.

When the manifestation bodies of Shakyamuni were there, then the Buddha just made a gesture like that and suddenly the door of the stupa is opened.  But still people could not see because the stupa is up high, there, and people are sitting very low, very close to the earth, and rely everything on their teacher, "Teacher, how can we see?" because only the gods in the air could see really, clearly, the Buddha Prabhutharatna that,  "we are sitting very low like this, how can we see the Buddha? So please, help." You know that we rely on the Teacher too much.  You want your Teacher to do everything for you, it is only very human.  So, this is the same and Shakyamuni had to use his magic strength in order to lift the whole congregation up to the level of the stupa and then they saw Prabhutharatna Buddha smiling.  The lion seat is large, Prabhutharatna made room and invited Shakyamuni to come and sit with him together.  It is a very charming spectacle.  The Buddha said, "Yes," and then he sat close to the other Buddha and the two Buddhas were sitting together in the same throne.  It is very beautiful as a teaching, teaching by images, by poetry. The Buddha of the outer dimension is sitting with the Buddha of the historical dimension.  Are they one or two?  Please read and study the Lotus Sutra again.

In the Tibetan tradition, when your teacher dies you hope that he will be reborn very soon and that in about three or five years you will go look for him in the form of a little boy or a little girl.  You believe that he will be reborn for you, you are too attached to him or to her.  You go searching for him, for the rinpoche, and you bring a few items that your teacher used to like during his lifetime and you put together with the other things,and when you are in front of the child and you expose all these things and then the child picks up the right things, then you know it is really your teacher and you invite him back to your temple and make him your teacher again.   There is something very poetic, very charming about that tradition and you may be tempted to do the same with your teacher.  Maybe after Thay dies you may go and look around Europe and America to see a little boy that looks a little bit like Thay (laughter) and then you present him with tea and if he picks up the right thing you say, "This is my Thay."  That is attachment, attachment to views, to images, to form and it is true that if you are attached like that, and if you try to see Thay's true form and true sound, you cannot see your real Thay, your true Thay.  It is the same.  

Now we can do better.  I don't think that Thay will be reborn only after his passing away.  To me, he has already been reborn and he has so many manifestation bodies available in the here and the now. If you are attentive enough now you recognize them already.  Thay is everywhere.  

Last year Thay went to give a Dharma talk in a prison in a state of Maryland.  And the number of prisoners who gathered to hear me was just 120.  Physically I was there to share a meal with the prisoners.  We tried to eat in mindfulness, we tried to enjoy the present moment and we gave the prisoners the kind of practice that they can enjoy in prison and the talk has been reprinted with the title, "Be Free Where You Are."   I told my friends that the air inside the compound of the prison is the same as the air outside.  The sky also has the same quality and if they know how to enjoy the practice of sitting, and walking and breathing they will be free, they get a lot of happiness and prison will be a positive element. You have no alternative, you just practice.  Conditions are favorable for your practice if you are in prison.  If you are outside you may be tempted to do other things that are not very good for your health, mental and physical.  Nowadays, that talk has penetrated into many prisons and when you see that talk you see Thay in person.  It is Thay's manifestation body in a different kind of form.  There are many Catholic nuns or monks living in cloisters very, very far away, like in Malaysia, the Philippines. You don't know how books like "Living Buddha, Living Christ" have penetrated into these spaces and when they read it they got the transformation, enlightenment, they even wrote to usSo don't get caught in this appearance of Thay and consider this is Thay.  The real Thay is free of birth and death, like the Buddha.  The Buddha is free of birth and death.  If you are not caught by form then you can begin to see.

If you have received the Five Mindfulness Trainings from Thay and if you have practiced the mindfulness in the form of Five Trainings, you see that Thay is in you and you are somehow a manifestation body of Thay because your practice radiates peace, security and joy. Many people around you profit from it and then your manifestation body you can recognize also around you, even before you were born.  In the Zen circle we have a koan, "Tell me, dear friend, how did you look before the birth of your grandma?"  It is very nice, a very kind invitation for you to go looking for yourself in several manifestation bodies.

If you think of Shakyamuni Buddha as one who was born in Sravasti and practiced in the state of Bengal and died in Kusinagara, you have not seen the true Buddha.  The Buddha is not something belonging to the past, the Buddha is alive right here and right now.  We have to recognize him in the here and the now. The Buddha is available in every moment of your daily life you can take his hand and do walking meditation at any time we want.  We are very much behind the event when we contemplate a beautiful cloud.  You may like the form and the color of the cloud but when a cloud becomes rain you may cry.  We are not capable of seeing the cloud in the rain.  We are still caught in the form of the cloud and think that the cloud is no longer there and cry for it while the cloud is singing in the form of the rain.  If you have lost someone who is dear to you, reconsider.  If grief is still inside of you, if you are still not able to forget, if you still carry that sorrow that lives in you because you are too much attached to one form…. your beloved one is there, very close to you, you need only to look deeply to recognize his new Manifestation body.  As I have said, we are much behind.  Therefore, the Buddha is always available in the here and the now in many, many of his Manifestation body.  And you should not complain that the Buddha was born 2,600 years ago… I am born too late….(laughter).   You should see that the Buddha is available in his Dharma body, in his Sangha body and in his Manifestation body.   

And the Buddha also has his Enjoyment body.  Sambhogakaya (Báo Thân)  Reward.  Thọ Dụng Thân To receive, to make good use of it, to enjoy it.  I think we continue tomorrow (laughter)

End of tape