Stars, Moon and Consciousness

0:00:00 *Piano music* Thank you. Contemplations Before Chanting The Sangha is invited to come back to our breathing so that the collective energy of mindfulness can bring us together as an organism flowing as a river with no more separation.

0:01:25 Let the whole Sangha breathe as one body Listen as one body Chant as one body Transcending the boundaries of a delusive self Liberating us from the superiority complex The inferiority complex And the equality complex The Buddha Jew shines infinitely Enlightened for countless lifetimes The beauty and stability of Buddha sitting is seen in mountains and rivers Outland And it is the vulture peak Of the ill-de-folder light That shines forth from Buddha's crown Illuminate the six-star paths To the Nagapusha Assembly We will go To continue the true teachings and practices We take refuge in the Buddha ever-present The Dharma Jew is infinitely lovely The precious words of Buddha Like raven flowers floating down From the heavens The wonderful Dhamma Is claimed to see It is recorded luminously It triggers heron flaskets From generation to generation Handed down in ten directions So that today we can see our way We bow to learn with all our hearts We take refuge in the Dhamma ever-present The Sangha Jew is infinitely precious A field of merit and good deeds The three roles and begging bowl Are signals of freedom The mindfulness trainings Concentration and insight Support each other In mindfulness day and night The sound of girls' hand is the foundation For us to realize The fruit of meditation With one heart we come home And take refuge in the Sangha and the present Oh, my God.

0:05:34 Cảm ơn các bạn đã theo dõi. Nam-mô-mô-táng hân-lâng-gé Nam-mô-mô-táng hân-lâng-gé Nam Mô Bồ Tát Thanh Lương Địa Trí tuệ bưng lên, đoá viên tay Đứng yên trên sóng, chân chân ngay Nam mô hô tâm, quán thê âm.

0:08:10 Nam mô hô tâm, quán thê âm. Nam-moh-kotam kwan-team. Nam-moh-kotam kwan-team. Nam-moh-kotam kwan-team. NAM MO GOTANG WANTEAM NAM MO GOTANG WANTEAM NAM MO GOTANG WANTEAM I'm sorry.

0:09:50 Thank you. Thank you. We are in the Still Water Meditation Hall of the Upper Hamlet in the Winter Retreat 2013-2014.

0:11:06 Can you hear clearly? You do, you do with that. We know that after the Buddha became enlightened, he continued to practice. He said he practiced sitting meditation every day, practiced walking meditation every day. And now and then, he wanted to have a few weeks to be in solo retreat. Sometimes he's in solo retreat for three months.

0:11:59 And we ask the question, why did he already become enlightened but continue to practice? Why is he already become a Buddha and continue to practice walking, sitting, looking deeply, being in Sulu retreat, or eating inside, eating, practice eating. And the answer, our answer, Plum Village answer, is very simple. You have wisdom, you have happiness, but if you don't know how to nourish them, then you will lose that insight, that happiness.

0:12:47 Because everything is impermanent. So even though we can generate happiness, we have already generated insight. But we have to continue to nourish this insight and this happiness, continue to use this insight. It's called conditioning. So that's why the Buddha continues to practice so that he doesn't fall into the state of lacking, shortage of happiness and insight.

0:13:37 There's a father, he's almost 100 years old, lives in New York, he's very famous. This father, a priest, a priest, his name is Daniel Berrigan, very famous poet. I met this Daniel, Father Daniel, in 1968, when Thay went to the U.S. to call for the cessation of the war in Vietnam. And Father Berrigan is one of those active people for peace.

0:14:32 And the two have become good friends. They have sat together and shared on the topic of war and peace. And Father Berrigan went to France and practiced with Thai for three months. Practiced sitting meditation, walking meditation, and looking deeply. And the two have sat together every day to exchange their experiences of the practice. And Fr. Berrigan brought a recorder.

0:15:25 He recorded all the conversations between the two of us. And when he came back to the U.S., he wrote a book from the conversation. and the raft is not shore is the name of the book and it's written, he put down the title of both of them and that the raft is only used to go to the other shore but the raft is not the shore and that this book is still in circulation and Thay doesn't know if it has been translated into other languages and the first time Thay met Father Berrigan he didn't, Father Berrigan did no walking meditation and one day Thay invited Father Berrigan to go to Central Park for walking meditation and Thay told him no walking, no talking, just walking and Father Berrigan is very tall much taller than Thay his two legs are very high and that one of his steps is like two of Thais.

0:16:39 And that a few steps, they start out together, but a few steps, he's like way in front of Thais. And then when he turns around, he doesn't see Thais next to him, so he stops and waits for Thais. And Thais does not rush, didn't rush. Thais walked slowly, but in his pace, He was determined to walk slowly and mindfully because Thay knows that if he does not know, if it is in his practice, he can get lost and carried away in a society that everything is very fast and very rushed. So Thay is very determined to use his steps and breath.

0:17:26 Otherwise, Thay will lose himself in the society and get carried away by the society. So Thay was just walking in his own place. He didn't try to comply with Father Berrigan. And so Father Berrigan would walk seven or eight meters in front of him and would wait for him until Thay catched up. And then they continued to walk together again, but then he's always in front of Thay again. But when he came to Plum Village, he learned the practice of walking meditation, and he was able to walk slower. In one year, Father Berrigan created a piece of work called the Psalms.

0:18:31 So it's a book called Understanding the Psalms. And he wanted I to write a preface for that book. A foreword for that book. and when Thay read this book Thay sees that his thinking still carries a dualistic view that wholesome and the unwholesome are fighting each other and that he didn't see the relationship, an intimate relationship between the wholesome and the unwholesome that he doesn't see that the wholesome and the unwholesome rely on each other to manifest and that the wholesome is the enemy of the unwholesome and the unwholesome is the enemy of the wholesome just like the suffering is the enemy of the happiness and Thay saw that in the writing in the book but Thay cannot criticize the book So Thay wrote a story about the Buddha and Mara in the foreword.

0:19:59 Because in our usually thinking, we think that Mara and Buddha are the two aspects, two different things. One side is a destroyer, Mara the destroyer. One side is a Buddha, is a compassionate one. And Mara is like a satan, and that Buddha is a god. And so Thayipra told a story that the Buddha was in a solo retreat, and it was... So the Buddha asked the Sangha to be in a solo retreat for three months, and the Sangha said, Okay, Venerable Ananda will be the Buddha's attendant.

0:20:47 And so the Buddha found a cave and practiced in that cave. And every day, the Venerable Ananda would go begging for alms and would divide his portion into two, one for him and one for the Buddha. And apart from time for sitting and reflection, They walked together, they practiced walking together around the cave. And one morning the Buddha was in meditation and the Venerable Ananda was outside of the cave and he saw someone walking toward the cave. And with Ananda's intuition, he felt this is someone very familiar.

0:21:43 And when he looked again, he realized it was Mara that was approaching. And so he wanted to hide. He wanted to hide somewhere so that Mara would not see anyone and would not approach the cave to disturb the Buddha. But it was too late, too late. So it was too late because wherever the Buddha is there, the attendant is. And so Mara came, approached, approached. And Mara asked, Venervo Ananda, is your teacher there?

0:22:36 And Buddha, Ananda didn't want Mara to see the Buddha. Because he still has, he has discriminative mind, a dualistic view between Buddha and Mara. He wanted to lie. He wanted to say, no, the Buddha is not there. The Buddha went to some kind of meeting, conference or something. But line is not appropriate for a big shoe. And then he said, why do you ask? And Mara said, I wanted to visit the Buddha.

0:23:22 And Ananda said, go away, don't see the Buddha, don't visit the Buddha. You're not a friend of the Buddha, you're the enemy of the Buddha. Do you remember the time you tried to discourage the Buddha under the Bodhi tree and the Buddha defeated you terribly? Do you remember? You're the enemy of the Buddha. The Buddha would not see you go away. He said that. And Ananda has not seen the non-duality nature. of the two, of the Buddha and Mara.

0:24:14 And then when Mara said that, he was laughing, ha-ha, really? Your teacher said he has an enemy? I thought he said he doesn't have any enemy. Why is it that he has an enemy now? And Ananda felt caught. because if he said if his teacher has enemy then he's really caught so Ananda gave up but before he let Mara in he said Ananda was hoping that when he goes into that he goes into the cave to see the Buddha, to ask if the Buddha wants to see Mara, then the Buddha may not accept him.

0:25:14 But then when he came in, he said to the Buddha that Mara wants to see the Buddha. And the Buddha said, Mara, let him in. And Ananda was really disappointed. because he was hoping that the Buddha said, oh, ask him to go away. But the Buddha has a very bright mind. Mara is also a person, and that he also wants to invite the Mara in. So Ananda was forced to go out there and invite Mara to come in, even though he was really unhappy about that. When Mara comes in, the Buddha stood up and welcomed Mara as if he was like a distinguished guest and asked Mara to sit down in a distinguished place and asked Ananda to go and get tea and water for Mara to drink.

0:26:20 And Ananda was really unhappy about it. That to get tea for the Buddha, he can do it 200 times a day, But for Mara, he didn't want to do it at all. He didn't want to get tea. But he cannot refuse because he's the attendant of the Buddha. So he had to comply with the Buddha to get tea for Mara. And he was hoping that they would have a short conversation. But then it turned out to be a really long conversation. But while the two were having a conversation, Ananda was standing behind the Buddha. And he was really surprised because he found out they were like best friends.

0:27:10 And Buddha said, Mara, how has it been for you? How do you do? And Mara said, not very well. What happened? The Buddha said. And Mara said, nowadays, my disciples, they're not listening to me anymore. They want to rebel. Before, they complied to everything I said, but now they want to rebel.

0:27:56 And nowadays, all my generals, all my soldiers, all my disciples, they want to practice sitting meditation, they want to practice mindfulness, they want to practice walking meditation, they want to practice eating in silence. They want to protect the environment, they want to protect the earth. I'm crazy about this because mara is not supposed to do all these things. I don't know who they got influenced by. Dear Buddha, I'm just so tired to be a mara.

0:28:47 I want to be someone else. I don't think that being Mara is lucky to be the head of... And the Buddha laughed. The Buddha said, Do you think being a Buddha is good? Do you think being a Buddha is good? Do you know? that people said things that I have never said and they said, it's me who said them.

0:29:31 They do things that I have never done or encouraged them to do, but they say that I encouraged them to do. For example, in the past, things such as fame, position, sensual pleasure, I have let go of all of them. my position as throne, my throne, my beautiful wife, children, all the wealth, I let them all go so that I can find liberation. But now they come to the temple and they ask me for all those things. They don't ask for peace or joy, but they just ask for lots of wealth, position, that their children would have good grades in examination.

0:30:22 and they ask for things that I have already renounced. But things like I teach them, like liberation, peace, joy, they don't ask for those things. They built a big house, and they said, it's my house. But it's only a place where people come and just offer food, banana, sweet rice, money, so that they can have those money to use themselves. And they make a lot of statues, statues of the Buddha. And people come to the temple and they stick all their money on my body. And during Buddha's birthday, they put my statue on a car and they just go through the city and my body would rock side to side.

0:31:21 You don't know those kind of things. I didn't even want to be on a car. So don't think that becoming a Buddha is good. Being a Buddha is good. You want to exchange my position, my place? And Ananda was so scared. Can you just imagine if the Buddha exchanged place with Mara and he had to be the attendant of Mara? He would die. So he was really sad. But luckily the Buddha said, Mara, you do your job.

0:32:05 You have to do the best of your job. And I do my job. And I'm trying to do the best of my job. Nothing is easy. I know being a Mara is very difficult, but being a Buddha has difficulty too. But each one of us have to play our role to the best that we can, so that we can realize our deep aspiration. And after that, the Buddha, the Buddha recites a gatha for Mara to hear. So if you want to know this gatha, you have to look for this book.

0:32:55 And this gatha is to try to share with the Father Berrigan that we have to transcend the duality and that we have to transcend the duality between wholesome and unwholesome, good and evil. Just like in a play, there is always the antagonist and protagonist. And that the antagonist does always play his role. Or the protagonist also needs to play his role because without one of these roles, there would not be a story, there would not be a play.

0:33:41 And so we have to play our role and that we're not enemies. We are partners, we're not enemies. And this is the non-dualistic view between good and evil, wholesome and unwholesome, suffering and happiness. The purity and the impurity. And in Vietnam, people have created a story that Mara is the subject of this earth. And that under the reign of Mara, there's a lot of war, there's a lot of violence, there's a lot of craving, and people suffer enormously.

0:34:33 And people said, if there's Mara, then there is the Buddha. And if there's Mara, the Buddha will come and support us and help us. And so there are people who have this insight of non-duality that if there's Mara, there's this Buddha, and that we should not be worried. And the Buddha will eventually appear. And that's the truth. One day the Buddha came, after he became enlightened, He came, he sat down quietly, and Mara said, who is this guy who sat really quietly? And he didn't disturb the Buddha, he just allowed the Buddha to sit. And then after the Buddha practiced sitting meditation, he stood up and walked mindfully, freely.

0:35:29 And he's not harmful. And after he practiced walking meditation, he sat down and Mara asked, Who are you? Why are you here? And the Buddha said, I see that this is a beautiful place, beautiful scenery. The morning, the early morning is beautiful. The afternoon, the evening is beautiful. And I sit down and I calm myself and I see these beauties. And it makes me so happy. I don't really need anything. I don't need to have any possession I don't need to have possession of wealth or anything I just want to ask you if all I need is to have the opportunity to sit still and to be able to walk on this beautiful planet and Mara thought this is not very bad, not too bad not a bad request okay, you can sit as long as you want walk as much as you want and then a few days later the Buddha asked I have a few friends I have a thousand, two hundred and fifty friends and they all want to sit and they all want to walk can we sit and walk on your territory and Mara said sure anything, but if you sit and walk, that's fine and that day it was sunny just like today and Mara Mara said how much land do you want how much acres of land do you want for practice sitting meditation and walking meditation and back then they didn't have any measurement sticks and then and then the Buddha said if you agree I take off my sanghati rope I have three sanghati ropes I will take out the outer Sangati rope and I throw it up in the sky.

0:37:58 I will throw up as high as I can. And if the shadow cast on the planet, on the earth by my Sangati rope, then that will be the land that I want to use for sitting and walking meditation. And Mara said, well, if it's a lot, it will be just a few miles. And then the Buddha rolled up his Sankati rope and threw up in the sky. And the Sankati rope went up high and high and high up. And then it opens up.

0:38:40 And when it opens up, the shadow of the Sankati rope covers the whole planet. And so the Buddha and his disciples had the right to use the whole planet and practice walking and sitting meditation on the whole planet. In the past, they think that the planet is flat and in a rectangular shape, a square shape. and that when the Sangati comes up in the sky, it covered up the whole place, the whole planet. And from then on, the Buddha and his disciples have the right to practice walking and sitting meditation in the territory of Mara.

0:39:34 And this is not in the sutra. It's created by folks, by people. And from then on, whenever the new year arrives, the lunar new year arrives, people in those countries would put up a pool. And on top of the pool is a piece of the Buddha's Sangati rope. And it's a reminder to say that this is not just the territory of Mara, but it's also the territory of the Buddha, and that we have the permission to practice sitting meditation, practice walking meditation.

0:40:20 And that if we can do that, we can lessen the suffering on the planet and help to increase the happiness. And from then on, the Buddha and his disciples can use all the places to practice walking meditation, dharma sharing. And this practice had helped people to calm down, to understand and to love one another, and to reconcile with one another. And so from then on with this practice, the world had lessened the suffering enormously, and that this is not just the territory of Mara, but also the territory of the Buddha.

0:41:07 And so when the New Year, before the New Year, everyone put up a pole with a little piece of Sangati rope on the 23rd, a week before the New Year, in every family. So in Vietnam, every family put up this pole with a little Sangati rope on it, It's a reminder for everyone to practice, to generate happiness and joy and to deal with their suffering, to transform their suffering. Because without this reminder, we will forget to practice, to eat mindfully, to walk mindfully, to practice the trainings, and it becomes the territory of Mara.

0:42:03 Even if Mara agrees for us to practice, but if we don't practice, then it is still the territory of Mara. And so for that week, from the week before the New Year, it's time to reflect and to remind ourselves to practice. And even the Buddha, after he's enlightened, he still needs to practice. So we still need to practice. And so in principle, a week before the New Year, that we have to remind ourselves to practice and to turn this place into the territory of the Buddha.

0:42:50 But in Vietnam, also in China, people celebrate New Year for ten days. not like in the West when they just have one or two days to celebrate it. In Asia, we celebrate until the 10th of the New Year. This is pretty good because we have time to be with one another, to play with one another. But now in our society, people are very busy. And they're forced to lessen these days from ten to three days. And in Plum Village, we will practice three days of celebration, the first, the second, and the third.

0:43:42 Four days, four days, someone said four days. Four days. So four hamlets, four days, so we have one extra day. So we will celebrate four days of Lunar New Year. And so the pole is the practice of reminding us to practice mindfulness. That we have to know that if we don't practice, we don't practice the trainings, the precepts. If we don't practice sitting meditation, walking meditation, or loving speech, or deep listening, then our anger our sadness our anxiety, our fear our revenge will grow and the territory of the Buddha becomes the territory of Mara so the pole with the flag has the function of reminding everybody that this coming new year we have to practice to lessen our suffering and to generate more happiness.

0:45:00 And that's the meaning of the pool. And in Vietnam, the 23rd, which is today, they all put up a pool in front of their yard to let everybody know that this is the territory of the Buddha and that we need to practice so that it really becomes a territory of the Buddha. So after the Dharma talk, we will have a ceremony to put up the pole, and we will chant Namu Balakiteshvara. And we will put up the pole, and you will see a piece of the Sankati rope on the pole to remind us that we have to practice so that this place becomes the territory of happiness, of compassion, of insight.

0:45:53 Thank you. This morning we will not practice walking meditation. So instead of walking meditation, we will have the ceremony to put up the pool. And then after that we will have a flower market. We can visit the flower market.

0:46:37 And this flower market, the purpose is to remind us that Mother Earth is very beautiful. And her beauty is the bell of mindfulness to remind us not to worry, to despair, to chase after an idea of happiness that we have to learn to come in touch with the wonders in the present moment. Mother Earth is beautiful even in the more early morning with the fog or without the sun or without the sunshine or with the moon or without the moon. Mother Earth is beautiful.

0:47:19 Every time we open the earth at the door, we see the beauties of Mother Earth. And that the beauties of Mother Earth invite us to come back to ourselves to the present moment, to live deeply the present moment. And so the beauties of Mother Earth is the bell of mindfulness. And that the expression, The beauties of Mother Earth is expressed through the flowers. It's creation of Mother Earth. And today, we will learn how to make earth cakes. Earth cakes are the food for Asian people during the New Year.

0:48:10 And the banh cheng, the earth cake, has a very, very good history. And it dated back to the time of the King Hong Vương II. And Hong Vương, the first king of Hong Vương, came from a very wealth of poor family. and there are 18 kings together in this dynasty. And the first king had 22 sons. And one of the 22 sons will become the second king. And the second king, he was very poor, even though he's the son of the king, but he's very poor.

0:49:10 He didn't live in the palace. He had to live outside. Because after he was born, his mother passed away. And the title for his sons were Guang Lang. And now and then the king will gather all his sons and teach them how to live in order to continue the beauties of their culture. And one day before that, the king gathered all his 22 sons and he said, for this new year, I want each one of my sons to prepare to offer a dish to offer to our ancestors to the ancestors and on the day when they offer food to the ancestors you have to bring that dish you're offering the offering that you have to make it with your hands to express your gratitude, your love towards the ancestors.

0:50:35 And then we will sit down together and eat. We sit together to see one's and other's presents. In short, in brief, The New Year is an occasion for us to come in touch with our ancestors, to offer to our ancestors our gratitude. Because if trees have their roots, if rivers have its source, then people, two people, we have our source and that the new year is the occasion for us to come in touch with our ancestors and the best way to come in touch with our ancestors is to come together and to offer our ancestors a dish of food that we made with our own heart and hands and I will look at your dish, and I will see your mind in it.

0:51:50 And I will choose one among you to continue me as the king. And when the sons, this son, he heard this news, he was very sad, because he said his older brothers are very wealthy, they can they can make really delicacies very precious dishes and offerings, but for me, I am very poor and he wanted to give up, he didn't want to be part of this he is very poor he only has enough for his daily survival and he does not have much to make a precious offering a delicious offering so he had the idea of withdrawing from this contest but that night in his dream, he saw his mother.

0:53:17 And his mother said, Don't give up. Look up in the sky. The sky is round. Look down in the earth. The earth is square. And that in the sky, in the earth, you can find the gift that you can offer to the ancestors. If you look deeply at the round sky and at the square earth, you can find this, and you can use the sky and the earth to make an offering to your ancestors, and it will express your filial piety.

0:54:02 But if you don't do this, then you will not be able to offer and express your gratitude to your ancestors. And then he woke up, he went out, he looked up in the sky and he looked down on the earth. And then he had an idea that he would make two different kinds of cakes to offer to the ancestors. One cake is a round shape made with sticky rice. And the other one is a square shape made with mung beans and sticky rice.

0:54:53 And the good thing And the good thing is that these materials are easy, you can easily find that not only the wealthy people can find them, but no matter how poor you are, you can find these materials. The sticky rice and the mung beans. Sticky rice, they can be used to make the round cake represents the sky and it can be used to make a square shaped cake representing the earth with mung beans inside and so the son he already he had an idea and capacity to make these two cakes he cooks the sweet rice and he makes it into a brown cake representing the sky and the other one he soaked the sweet rice and the mung bean and he used them and made it into a square shape representing the earth and so he's offering his heart his wisdom offering the sky and the earth and that these are things made from sky and earth and that not just the well people are able to use, make this, but also anyone, even the poor people has the opportunity to make an offering. And so these are really good. One is representing the earth, the other representing the earth, the sky, and also the other is to express the gratitude for everyone can do this, not just the wealthy people.

0:56:59 And so that day he was able to realize those cakes. And that night he had a dream, and he saw his mother, and his mother was smiling at him, and he said, You have done well. And on that, on the New Year, he carried the cakes to the king to present to the ancestors. And he had no complex about his being poor, even though he doesn't wear beautiful clothes. He's not wealthy, but he has his heart and his wisdom. And when the King Hong, the first, inspects all the dishes, the food offered by his sons, when he came to his son, he was very impressed.

0:58:07 He saw the cake, a round-shaped cake and a square shape. And he asked to be sure he understood what it is. He asked who made this cake. And the son came in and said, I made this. And the king said, why do you make it into a square and a round ship? And he said, one is for the sky and the other one is for the earth. And he said, why do you use all this very simple material? And he said, there are things that are easily found on the earth and sky. And when the king heard that, he was very moved. And a month after the new year, he gave his throne, he transferred his throne to the sun that made the earth cakes.

0:59:07 One represents the sky, one represents the earth. And from then on, the king gave an order to all his sons that a week before the New Year, they all had to come to make cakes, to make food to offer to the ancestors. So today, after we put up the pool, and after we go to the market, we will have lunch. And after lunch, we will gather together to make earth cakes. And those who are good at making earth cakes will show us who are not so good yet. We will create the atmosphere of the king in the past, an atmosphere of the family, of a family.

1:00:06 And we will learn how to make cakes if we don't know how to make cakes yet. And we will create brotherhood and sisterhood. And we will also express our gratitude to our ancestors. So the earth cake is made of sticky rice and mung bean, and it will be wrapped. It's all organic. It will be wrapped in banana leaves. And this tradition is that when we cook the cakes, it will take about 10 hours for them to be cooked. And then we cooked before, we cooked on the eve of New Year.

1:00:57 And everyone in the family would gather around the fire to sing, to talk, to build brotherhood and sisterhood to see that we are one family. And this is how they celebrate New Year in Vietnam, in the East. We were making earth cakes, cooking earth cakes, staying all night around the pots of earth cakes and to put more fruits every night throughout the night to keep the earth cakes cooking. And after the earth cakes are cooked, we take them out.

1:01:42 And the first earth cakes, we offer it to the ancestors and everyone will touch the earth before the ancestors as an expression of gratitude. And that's the way the Vietnamese people celebrate death for more than 4,000 years. And we will do that today. Thank you. Yes, sir.

1:03:02 Now we will take out the 30 verses, the sutras. 10.30. I said it's 10.30 already. When we look up in the sky, we see stars and moons. We also know that the stars and moon are the consciousness, a store consciousness. First of all, they are the object of consciousness.

1:03:51 Because thanks to our consciousness that we are aware of the moons, the moon and the stars, they're species like oysters. that are in the depths of the sea. They don't see the moon and the stars. Because these oysters, they do not have eyes. They don't have ears.

1:04:42 No eyes, there's no eye consciousness, no ears, and they cannot hear. There's no ear consciousness. And the universe of the oyster is very small, much smaller than ours. We, thanks to our eyes and ears, that our universe are much bigger. The eyes and the ears are the organs. sense organs. that oysters do not see, just like we see the stars and moon, like the surface of the water with the beautiful waves, the oyster cannot see that.

1:05:56 The sound of the rising tide, the oyster cannot hear because they do not have eyes and ears to hear and to see. So organs, sense organs, are conditions, are one condition to give birth to consciousness. can object. The object gives right to consciousness. And we know that in manifestation-only teachings, both the organs, sense organs and the object are both manifested from seeds.

1:07:12 And store consciousness, it maintains all the seeds, it holds all the seeds. and these seeds are manifested into organs, into organs, into objects. And when organs and objects come in touch with one another, so from the seeds up to the organs and objects, It's the relationship between seeds and formation, the subject of manifestation and object of manifestation.

1:08:11 And the sense organ and the object rely on each other to create consciousness. Consciousness. And this consciousness has object and subject. This consciousness has the seen and the seen, and the hearing and the heard. And so it's divided. Sto-consciousness is divided into two. there's the subject, yin feng, the subject, and the object, the object of consciousness.

1:09:03 It's divided into two parts. They're divided into two parts, so it's easy for us to understand, but it's incorrect. Just like this piece of paper, we distinguish that there is the left and the right. And we say that the left is not the right. There are two opposite. The truth is, there is no right, then there is no left. There is no left, then there is no right. And so the truth is that we cannot take one out of the other.

1:09:53 Even though there are two things, but they're not two separate things. That's called interbeing, that's called mutuality or symmetrical. Deong Dai, mutuality, means that they're waiting for each other to manifest. Waiting, waiting to manifest together. That if they exist, they exist together. If they don't exist, that they don't exist together. Just like the good and the evil. Just like Mara, Buddha and Mara, Mara are the same.

1:10:42 Without Mara, there's no Buddha. The truth is that there's no Mara, there's no Buddha. And no Buddha, there's no Mara. If there's no goodness, there's no evil. And if there's no evil, there's no goodness. This is the truth that we have to be courageous enough to embrace. That if there's no lotus, there's no flower. I mean, there's no mud, there's no lotus. We cannot just want lotus without the mud. And if there's no afflictions, there's no enlightenment. And when we look deeply like that, then we transcend the notion of dualistic view.

1:11:34 This is what we need to train ourselves to do. suffering and happiness are the same thing. No one imagined that if there's no suffering, then there's no happiness. And that's thanks to the suffering that we can create happiness. Thanks to the mud that we can make lotuses, that we can grow lotuses. And so Dung Dai waiting for each other. That if they exist, they exist together. If they don't exist, they don't exist together. So there cannot be one thing existing. Just like the up and the bottom, top and bottom, the long and short, there are pairs.

1:12:34 This is called waiting for each other. Interbeing are, they are each other. At the beginning we said the left is not the right. How can the left be the right? but if there is no left, there is no right. We cannot take one out of the other, even though they are not each other, but they are each other.

1:13:28 The interbeam means that they are each other. Just like Buddha and Mara, at the beginning we think they are two different things, they are enemies. But without Mara, there's no Buddha, and without Buddha, there's no Mara. And so Mara and Buddha are, inter-are. It's very difficult to accept. Just like the good and the evil, there are pairs of opposite. They are each other. and they inter-are, inter-being, to be and inter-being.

1:14:24 And waiting, Dương Đại is waiting for each other to inter-being. This is we need to train to accept. The left and the right inter are, at first there are two separate things. There are enemies, there are opposites. They are asymmetrical. But the truth is that if there's no one, then there's no other. So we divide consciousness into the object and the subject, but the truth is that they cannot be separated from each other. And we have learned from the last talks that many scientists are still caught in this dualistic view that they think that there is consciousness, subjective consciousness, independent of the world out there.

1:15:34 One is inside and the other is outside. They're subjective. One is subjective and the other one is subjective out there. And at the beginning, this inside, this is that there's a world with, there's a universe that is objective. Whether our mind is there or not, it's there. Many of us are caught in that view. The world outside, the universe outside, is subjective. Whether we look at it or not look at it, whether we have consciousness or not consciousness, they are still there. And then there's the consciousness, that the world, the objective world out there, whether they're there or not, the consciousness is still there, it's there.

1:16:31 This is a dualistic view. And many scientists say that there is the subjective consciousness inside that goes outside and grasps on the objective world outside. And this is called double grasping. And so when we look up in the sky, we see the moon and the stars and the Milky Way. We have to learn and train to see that that thing up there is not impending from our consciousness. It is consciousness. It is the object of our consciousness.

1:17:17 And the object of consciousness and the subject of consciousness, even though there are two things, but they cannot be taken apart. Just like the left and the right. This is the most important teachings in the manifestation-only teachings, that we cannot take the object of consciousness out. We cannot take the subject out of consciousness. And that the universe, the moon, the stars are consciousness. And so when we look at the object, we have to see the subject in it.

1:18:05 And when we look at the subject, we have to see the object in it. When we look at the left, we have to see the right. Because things are waiting for each other to manifest. They enter art. and we are learning store consciousness store consciousness stores all seeds and we know that store consciousness is uncovered unobstructed and undetermined Vofu means that they're not covered up They're shining It's not obstructed And Vokhi means It does not They're not either wholesome or unwholesome They're neither wholesome or unwholesome.

1:19:28 They're neither good or bad. They're neither pure nor impure. They're neither leaking nor non-licking. Etc.

1:20:24 In other words, TANG, store consciousness, cannot be described with ideas of goodness or evil, wholesome or unwholesome, being or non-being. because store consciousness is the ground, it's the foundation of our consciousness. When we look up in the sea, the moon, and the stars, it's our store consciousness.

1:21:14 The stars and the moon transcends ideas, our ideas. Among them are ideas of goodness and evil, pure and impure, being and non-being. Being and non-being, go home. Therefore, in principle, the seeds that store consciousness holds and maintains also have the same nature, that they are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, neither pure nor impure, neither being nor non-being, neither leaking nor non-leaking.

1:22:06 This is the specialty of special teachings, of manifestation-only teachings. When we compare it to the teachings of the Creator and our idea of God, it's not the idea of everybody but of many people, collective idea of many people, that God is being. Because up until the 20th century, there are many theologians who say that God is the foundations of being. God is the ground of being.

1:23:01 And therefore, we put God in the side of being that is opposing the side of non-being. And there is a territory that does not belong to God. And that territory is the non-being, territory of non-being. Because if God is on the side of being, then God has no reign in the side of non-being. And a collective view is that God is on the side of goodness.

1:23:49 God is goodness. So therefore, God reigns over the territory of goodness. But in the evil, someone else is reigning over it. And Satan, which is equivalent to Mara in Buddhism. Because of the idea that God belongs to the territory of being and goodness, because there are just so many problems in theology.

1:24:58 People asked, "If God is the ground of being, then who is the ground of non-being?" we put God down, put God down, we lower God's position or status. If God is goodness, then who belongs to the evil? If God is the ultimate reality, then And God has to transcend both idea of being and non-being, goodness and evil.

1:25:52 But if we say God is goodness, then we lower, we put God down to a lower status, lower position. And in Christianity, there are practitioners who can see this insight. They can see that, they say that, they transcend the idea of being, non-being, goodness and evil. Now, while soul consciousness, in the meanwhile, soul consciousness holds everything.

1:26:52 In it are so stars and moon. Now we say, are the moon, stars, good or evil? Moon and stars, are they on the side of goodness or evil? Are they on the side of being or non-being? We can say that, yes, we see that the stars are there, the moons are there. So the stars and moon belong to being. But the truth is, in Buddhism, it's very clear that the ultimate reality transcends the view of being and non-being, good and evil.

1:27:49 The ultimate reality transcends notions of being non-being, wholesome, unwholesome, good and evil. And in the sutra, the Venerable Kachyana, Kachyana, Kachyana. Ask the Buddha, Dear Buddha, you talk about right view. What is right view? What is exactly right view?

1:28:33 We know right view is one of the eight noble paths that brings happiness. And it starts with right view and then right thinking. And that day, the Buddha gave a very brief answer. The Buddha said, Dear Gajjana, right view is a view that transcends the idea of being and non-being. And so if we say the moon and the stars are being, it's incorrect. If you say the moon and the stars are non-being, then it's incorrect.

1:29:18 If you say the moon and the stars are wholesome, are good, that's incorrect. If you say they're evil, that's incorrect either. Because they transcend the idea of being a non-being, good or evil. And in manifestation, only teachings, we see very clearly that the nature of store consciousness is neither wholesome nor unwholesome. And our five skandhas form feelings, perceptions, mental formations, Their nature are neither wholesome or unwholesome, being or non-being, just like the stars and moon.

1:30:27 And so the thing that we need to do right now is that when we look at the nature, the characteristics of the seeds, it has to go, it has to be the same nature, characteristics of consciousness, store consciousness. Store consciousness is shining bright, just like the stars and moon. And we have to practice or look deeply so that this light can help us to see the way out of ideas and notions. And in manifestation-only teaching, we say that seeds, one of the characteristics of seeds is that it's impermanent in a millisecond, that it's changing in milliseconds.

1:31:24 That seeds, in science, they called it the fabric of reality, which are the material that makes the universe. And in manifestational teachings, we say seeds. We can say that they are subatomic particles. We can say that they are fields of forces. We can say that they are strings, as in the string theory.

1:32:14 They're substance that makes the universe, they're fabric of the universe. And in manifestation, only teachings, we call them seeds. They are the latent energy that manifests, that creates stars and moons and everything. And seeds are in store consciousness. They have the same characteristics of dual consciousness. They are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, neither pure nor impure. And shaknai yiv means that they are changing in a millisecond. Shaknai is the smallest measurement of time.

1:33:03 It's smaller than a millisecond. Because dual consciousness is described as continuously changing. Juyin is changing. They're not static. They're changing. They're being born and died in every millisecond. They're there, but they're changing all the time. So the seeds are like that. They're changing all the time in milliseconds.

1:33:49 But this word yig, which means death, can create misunderstanding. We have to help people to break through this misunderstanding. And so instead of saying yiak, which means death, we say fo thương, which is impermanent, which is the changing in milliseconds. Why is it like that? Sakna-yuk, because when we say that there is death, then there is birth. But the nature of still consciousness is neither birth or death.

1:34:39 So we can say sakna-yuk, which is dying in every millisecond, but... for example our body in every second there's always changing it's always changing There are cells that are dying.

1:35:27 There are cells that are being born in every second. Even though there's birth and death, but it's just a process of changing, a series of changes. Just like the cloud. When we look at the cloud, we think that the cloud is just there, static, but it's actually changing in milliseconds. The clouds are made of very small drops of water, very, very small drops of water. So small, and it's so small that it's light, that it floats up, and that it's very dynamic.

1:36:14 It's moving dynamically. And when several drops come together, that becomes a big, bigger, bigger drops. And with the cold, it comes down. It falls down. It falls down, but when it reaches to a warmer atmosphere, it evaporates again. It comes up as clouds again. And so Sita like that, that is changing in millisecond. We think that the cloud is static, is unchanging, but it's changing only when many seeds come together that becomes heavy enough that it falls down as rain.

1:37:01 But just two drops, when they come together, they come down, but then they can be evaporated again with the heat. Just like in many of them can come together and they can be so powerful, their energy can be so powerful that it can become like thunder, lightning. And so if slow consciousness is continuously changing as a series, then the seeds are also changing in milliseconds. And the second thing is the fruit and the cause and the effect are born together, are manifesting together.

1:37:58 So the seed and its manifestation are happening together. For example, the H2O, it becomes clouds, rain, or snow. But the H2O represents the seeds. And these things are formations, rain, clouds, snow, formations. And so when H2O manifests as cloud, H2O continues in the cloud.

1:38:54 So the cause always goes together with the effect. That's what it means, guaggo. that co-existence, co-existence between cause and effect. That's what it means. When H2O becomes rain, in rain there is H2O. You cannot take the cause out of the effect. And this is the second characteristic of seed. So the idea that cause and effect can exist separately, and this is not very scientific, that cause and effect cannot exist without one another.

1:39:44 In the cause there is the effect, in the effect there is the cause. Just like when the clouds become the rain, then the rain also carries its tools just as the cloud. That's called co-existence between cause and effect. The third is Hang Tui Chu Ying, continuously changing in series, which is a characteristic of Stual Consciousness. it always continues as a series.

1:40:33 That it can continue as a series. Even though it's changing in every millisecond, but the changing is not... It goes along with the law of cause and effect. And so there's no self, But there is a series, a continuous series. Saknavotu, them changing in millisecond means that there is no self, no separate self, no separate identity, no absolute identity. because it changes every millisecond, so it does not keep its identity.

1:41:30 Just like Katya Ayana said, oh, just like this, just like that we cannot swim in the ocean twice in the river, because we think it's the same river, but it's no longer the same river, because that river has no identity. It has a name, it has a name like the Mag River or Seen, but it's only a name. But the water in it is not the same water anymore. It's called Hang Tui Chuyung, changing continuously in a series. Even though it's changing in milliseconds, but it's continued as a series.

1:42:26 Because it changes in a series, we think that there's a separate self, but really there's no separate self. There's a name for it. It means tương tộc men, continue, continue, samtati. This millisecond impermanence in Buddhism In Buddhism, there are two kinds of impermanence One is called impermanent millisecond, millisecond impermanent And the other one is called one instant millisecond One instant impermanence For example, here is the life, a lifespan of a person, a place where the person is born, a place where the person dies.

1:43:36 And this impermanence does not wait until the death of the person to see the impermanence. It's called nyuki, one-time impermanence. But every second, every millisecond along the way, until that one-time impermanence, it's called shakna-bu-thu, that means impermanence in milliseconds. Periodic, periodic, a periodic impermanence. And this one is momentary impermanence. So, two kinds of impermanence. But if we use the example of a life span where a child is born, and when she becomes a teenager, When she becomes a teen, she reaches puberty.

1:44:58 And so when we see this teen, we see that it's very different from the infant, from the baby. It's as if the baby had died, so that the teen can manifest. So the time between she's born until she becomes a teen It's a periodic impermanence It's one period When we look at her, the form, her form We see that the child, this teen is very different from when she was a baby.

1:45:48 So apart from the momentary impermanence, there is periodic impermanence. And store consciousness is also known as yi-thok, that means maturation. It matures. that is, it's changing from a child to a teen, and from a teen to a young adult, from a young adult to an adult until she becomes an old, old person.

1:46:48 These are called periodic impermanence, period, period, different periods. And so in the 19 verses of the 30 verses, we say that if one maturation ends, then another maturation is born or continues. Usually, in popular Buddhism, we think that we live this whole life until we die, and then we will be reborn into a different life.

1:47:59 We reincarnate into a different life. But the truth is that we can see that this reincarnation, reborn, is taking place in every millisecond. That a baby is reborn as a teen. A teen is reborn as a young adult. The young adult is born into an adult, and the adult is born into a grown-up. This is called reborn, being reborn in milliseconds, ripening in milliseconds. For example, the cloud in the sky, it can become rain, the tenth part of it, the tenth, one-tenth of it.

1:48:57 But nine-tenths of it is still a cloud. So therefore, the cloud does not wait when it's no longer cloud, that it's reborn as rain. That a part of the cloud has already become rain or snow already. So for us, it's the same thing. We don't wait until our bodies disintegrate that we are reborn or reincarnate, that we are being reborn in every millisecond.

1:49:40 And the cloud looks down and she sees that part of her is becoming rain. And it looks down and it sees her continuation in the cloud while she is still a cloud. So we have to look deeply, not to be afraid that only when we come, that we only are reborn, continue when our body is disintegrated, but our body is reborn in milliseconds, that we are being reborn in milliseconds, just like a tree. There are fruits that are arrived before others, and we can, for example, the kiwi or orange or apple, there's some fruits that are ripen before the others, and we can pick the ripe one to eat.

1:50:38 And there's some that are still green, there's some that are just turning color, becoming ripe. And so when we said maturation, it means the seeds are they are maturing at a different time. They are maturing at a different time. And that different kinds, different varieties are ripened at different times. Yitok maturation is a store consciousness. It's the consciousness that continues. So as a practitioner, we have to see clearly that we are continuing.

1:51:30 Our words, our thinking, our actions that we create every day, that we think every day, they are on its way of continuing. That it's continuing us, that we are not just this body. We are the things that we created, our actions. We are our karma. And we have to look deeply and not to get caught in the idea that we are just these five secundas. We have to look in front of us and we see us. We look back, we can see us. We can have to see our continuation, our thinking that we regenerate, speech that we say, actions that we create are our karma.

1:52:22 They have already ripened. They have already continued around us. And so, the sentence in the verse 19, that when one maturation ends, then another maturation continues. And this verse, this can create misunderstanding that there is a self. There's a self that exists from birth until death.

1:53:16 We have to readjust, we have to adjust this verse. Okay, so this verse says that the first maturation ends, then the second maturation continues. We have to adjust that line, that it matures in every millisecond. In our 50 verses of Manifestation Only teachings, it adjusts this understanding. In the 35th verse, in the 50 verses of Manifestation Only teachings.

1:54:11 This is enough for today. . . .