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Buddhist Understanding of Reality – 21 Days Retreat “The Path of the Buddha”

Some notes from the dharma talk:

Engage Buddhism was born during the midst of the war.  Engage Buddhism is not true if you are only engage in social acts, it has to be while you are alone also.  To be able to take care of yourself is to take care of others.  Now we use the word “Applied Buddhism”.
-    to be able to shed light, understand our feelings.

What can Buddhism do to reduce tension?
Using applied buddhism, relaxing the body, loving speech, the sutra of mindful breathing.

Buddhism is not only for Buddhists, Buddhism is made of non-buddhism alements.

Both subject & object manifests from consciousness.

We need to transcend “double grasping”.

The so called object of reality, we think its something distant of our consciousness.

“In Winnie the Pooh, he thinks that the foot print is some hostile foot print in the snow, and he got scared.  With Christopher help, he soon realized it is just his own foot print.”

True reality of nature is non-local.  Left and right manifests at the same time.  Consciousness only lasts for a milli of a second, “cinemanographical nature”.  Moment of consciousness that succeed each other, therefore we see it long lasting (just like a video frame).  It is also true with our own mind, our cell dies and give place to a new one.  “You cannot swim in the same river twice”.  Permanence is an optical illusion just like when you hold a torch at night and draw a circle, the other person will see a circle of flames. 

Samadhi - đẳng trì: To keep the insight long & lasting (to maintain a steady insight).

Wrong view:
Eternalism – to believe that after death, our body dissappear but our soul continue.
Anihilationism – to believe that everything dissapear.

Source URL: http://vimeo.com/6530501
Video Author: Thich Nhat Hanh