In 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 fourth talk...


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

Teachings from Thich Nhat Hanh
Tape 4, June 6th , 2000

Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Edited by: Mary Michal & Susan O’Leary

Side A

Bell

Chanting:  The Heart Sutra

Bell

Good morning, dear Sangha, today is June 6th, 2000.  We are in the Lower Hamlet, Dharma Nectar Temple, and we are still on the first week of our twenty-one day retreat.

The Sangha of the Buddha is called the four-fold Sangha because it is comprised of four elements.  The first element of the Sangha is the Sangha of fully ordained monks.  In order to be a monk, you should ask to be a novice first.  After a number of months as an apprentice novice, and if the Sangha says yes, you have the opportunity to receive the ten precepts and become a novice monk.  And then you practice as a Buddhist novice monk for three years, and if the Sangha thinks it is time for you to receive full ordination, then you receive the full ordination in a transmission ceremony.  And when you become a fully ordained monk, you are admitted to sessions of decision-making.  Of course decisions concerning the life of the fully ordained monks should be made by fully ordained monks.  But the life is linked to the life of novices; that is why when issues related to novices are discussed, then the novices are allowed to participate in the discussion and in the decision-making also.  And when the activities of lay people are related, then lay people would be consulted and be allowed to make decisions also.  

The second element of the four-fold Sangha is the ordained nuns.  It is exactly the same thing.  In order to be a fully ordained nun, you have to be a novice nun for three years.  After the Sangha says yes, you will be ordained as a nun and you have the right to vote in a Sanghakarman procedure.

The third element is the element of lay men and the fourth is lay women:  upasaka and upasika.  Of course, the basis of the practice of lay people is the Five Mindfulness Trainings. When lay people come together, they know that the Five Mindfulness Trainings are the foundation of the practice, and therefore they always practice the recitation of the Five Mindfulness Trainings; they also can perform the Sanghakarman procedure.  If decisions are to be made, then participants in making decisions should be those who have received the Five Mindfulness Trainings.  Of course, those who have not received the trainings can be consulted so that everyone is happy, but in the Sangha of lay men, the decisions should be made by all those of us who have received and are practicing the Five Mindfulness Trainings.  The same thing is true with the community of lay women:  upasika.  

When we bring the four elements together we practice the four-fold Sangha.  You see that the degree of commitment is different in different levels, and the Order of Interbeing is a kind of bridge that links the monastics with non-monastics, because in the Order of Interbeing there are monastic members and there are also non-monastic members.  So monastic and non-monastic members can come together and make decisions concerning the life of the Order of Interbeing.  But you have noticed that there is a difference in the Fourteen Precepts because the Fourteen Precepts for monastics has an element of celibacy in , while the Fourteen Precepts of lay men and women is different.  As lay people, we belong to a Sangha, the Sangha of upasaka/upasika.  Every time we come together in order to lead a day of mindfulness or a meeting for a retreat, we have our Sangha manifested fully and you get the same kind of energy that monastics get when they live together.  The only difference is that you don't live twenty four hours together as laypeople, but when you come together as a community of lay people, you get the energy of the Sangha, and you get a lot of inspiration.  Therefore, getting together very often is very important.  The weakness that many of us have is that we get together only to organize and we don't look upon the action as an opportunity to practice.  When we organize a retreat, we are very concerned about how to make the retreat a success; therefore, we do everything in order for the retreat to be successful, but we overlook the situation.  We don't remember that getting together and doing things together is an opportunity to practice, and that is exactly what the monastics are trying always to do.  When they do something, that is for the practice.  Suppose they organize a Buddha birthday ceremony; the reason is not only to have a very beautiful Buddha birthday ceremony, it is an opportunity for monastics to work together and get the joy, the happiness, the peace while working together.  This is very important.  

The Buddha would not be very happy if while working together to organize his birthday, you are not very kind to each other.  The Sangha in New York, the Sangha in Geneva, the Sangha in Paris, the Sangha in Rome, the Sangha everywhere, while coming together to organize something, we should remember that the purpose, the ultimate purpose of coming together and doing things is to practice, to transform, to heal, to nourish ourselves; and it is very important to remember that when the Sangha comes together, we have a tremendous opportunity to enjoy our togetherness in the practice.  We practice like bees, termites or ants enjoying our togetherness, and because of that group energy we can realize what we can't realize while we are alone.  Coming together, we get a lot of strength, and things suddenly become much easier.  It is like when you try to sit regularly in your living room, and if you are alone it is more difficult than when you come to a retreat where everyone comes to the sitting at the same time, so sitting becomes very easy.  It is the energy of the group that supports you.  You just join the sitting, you just join the walking, you just join the mindful meal.  You don't have to make any effort at all. You are doing very well in the Sangha and you profit from the energy of the Sangha.  

There are many things here in the Sangha of Plum Village that just happened very naturally, without any effort.  Like eating vegetarian.  We don't think that any of us here has to make any special effort to be vegetarian.  We just follow the vegetarian diet in a very natural and pleasant way.  No one thinks that we are eating only vegetarian, and we enjoy it.  All year round we forget that we are vegetarian, and that is why we are truly called vegetarian, because we don't think, we don't have the concept of vegetarian.  But if you eat vegetarian and you still remember, "I am following a diet," then you are not really a vegetarian.  In Plum Village no one has a credit card.  Thay doesn't have an individual private credit card.  No one here has a credit card.  Fully ordained monks, fully ordained nuns, novices, no one has a credit card.  No one has a private bank account.  In the world you would be scared to death if you don't have some money in the bank.  You need to have a check book.  No one of us here has a check book.  And even Thay doesn't have  Social Security.  Everyone here is the same.  We don't need Social Security, because we are so secure in the Sangha that Sangha takes care of us.

The other day Thay said that no one of us has a salary here.  We don't suffer at all.  In fact we feel wonderful!  There is a sister among us, Sister Thuc Nghiem.  When she was a lay person she handled very important amounts of money, but when she became a novice nun she felt wonderful. She did not have one cent in her pocket and yet she felt wonderful.  And when she was asked to make a list of her daily happiness, she filled up many pages.  Among the pages there is one sentence:  "One of the things that makes me happy the most is that I don't have any money." And she really enjoys that.  But in the world, you may be very scared if you find yourself without any money.  That is one of the virtues of the Sangha.  When you take refuge in the Sangha, when you trust the Sangha, when you are surrounded with the Sangha ,  then you have no fear.  No one of us has a private car.  No one has a private bank account.   Theses things are not difficult at all.  We don't think of it.  We don't make any effort in order to have possessions,, and that is the virtue of the Sangha.  Taking refuge in the Sangha is a wonderful thing.

In the context of a Sangha of lay people, there may be ways in which we enjoy the Sangha and we profit very much from the same advantages.  We have to organize our Sangha in such a way that every member of the Sangha should profit from the Sangha.  Coming together like that is just a wonderful opportunity to practice, to be happy, to feel secure; and there is a lot to do as far as Sangha building is concerned.  We know that Sangha building is the most noble task of our time, because everyone needs the Sangha, especially the younger generations.  They are our refuge, and that is why taking refuge in the Sangha is something all of us need.  

Bell

You cannot afford not to have a Sangha body.  Without a body, how can you survive?  That is why Sangha building, a Sangha body is very important.  You can recognize your Sangha body in a community of monks, in a community of nuns, you can recognize your Sangha body in a community of lay persons.  It is a pity if you do not have a Sangha body and therefore it is very urgent to build a Sangha body, to belong to a Sangha, to have a body, it is very important.  

We know that we must have a Dharma body.  Without a Dharma body we live in the dark; we don't know where to go.  Everyone of us has our Dharma body.  It is as crucial to our survival as the air we breathe.  The Sangha body is the same.  It is very important for our survival, for our security, for our solidity; and that is why we have to guard our Sangha body.  The Buddha has his Dharma body, his Sangha body.  We also should have our Dharma body, our Sangha body.  And if we have our Sangha body, very soon we realize that we have manifestation bodies as well.  Looking around, we can see our continuation in many other bodies.

The other day, Thay began to speak about our Enjoyment body, called  (Thọ Dụng Thân or Báo Thân). Báo thân which means retribution,  retribution or reward  body.  And Thọ Dụng Thân means the body we inherit, we receive; that we make good use of, we enjoy.  As we continue to practice, we receive our Enjoyment body.  And that is something that you can have now and not only in the future, because the practices of mindfulness, of concentration, of insight, the practices of solidity and freedom always have the function to transform us.   The transformation is not only seen in our consciousness, but is seen in our body also.  And not only the Buddha has his Rewarding body, his body of Retribution, but all of us do.  If we have the Dharma body, if we have a Sangha body, then we have our Enjoyment body also.  Suppose you have some grief, some sorrow within yourself.  That grief, that sorrow can be detected in every cell of your body.   That grief, that sorrow may have been transmitted by your parents or by your ancestors, and it is there in your DNA.  But if you practice, if you are capable of bringing  liberation, the understanding that can liberate you, then there is a transformation in your DNA.  Because in the context of Buddhist practice, body and mind form a totality, Namarupa.  The body contains the mind and the mind contains the body.  They inter-contain each other.  Reality sometimes manifests itself as body; reality sometimes expresses itself as mind.  Mind and body are just expressions of the same reality.  It is like the wave and the particle.  Sometimes matter manifests itself as a particle, and sometimes it manifests itself as a wave.  And yet they are the same thing.  You may think that a particle cannot be a wave and a wave cannot be a particle; but in fact, scientists of our time realize that the same realities sometimes manifest as a wave and sometimes manifest as a particle.  They have characteristics of waves and they also have the characteristics of a particle.   So the same thing is true of body and mind.  Reality expresses itself as mind, reality express itself as body.  Body contains mind and mind contains body.  Body and mind inter-are.  

Therefore, any transformation will take place in body and mind at the same time.  When you are capable of understanding, of transforming, the transformation takes place both in body and mind.  The body becomes lighter because every cell in your body gets the transformation.  This transformation is not something abstract; you can witness its manifestation right now.  Suppose you are still bound by the past, some kind of regret concerning the past.  Some kind of worries concerning the future.  You get lost in your thinking, in your worries.  Suddenly you hear the sound of the bell, and you see your brothers and sisters begin to move slowly on the path of walking meditation.  It is so wonderful!  The sound of the bell and the sight of the Sangha brings you back to your true home in the here and the now and you also go back to your breath and you make a step.  Suddenly the whole situation changes.  There is a transformation.  Now you are yourself, fully present.  You are capable of making peaceful and solid steps, and that is something that can be seen in every cell of your body, every cell of your consciousness.   Because consciousness is made of cells also, called mental formations.

We witness a kind of lightness in our body, and we witness the transformation of our environment.  If you are capable of making peaceful, relaxing steps, not only do you see the Pure Land within your body, your consciousness, but you can see the Pure Land around yourself.  It is the same landscape, yes.  But before it was not the Pure Land.  Pure Land or not Pure Land, it depends on you.  Whether this is a place of forbearance, a place of suffering, or whether this is the kingdom of God or the Pure Land, it depends entirely on us, on the way we touch the environment.  We are advised to walk in such a way that each step helps us to touch the Pure Land of the Buddha.  Each step should introduce us into the kingdom of God, that is what we are expected to do while practicing walking meditation.  So when you walk like that, the Pure Land becomes real in yourself and the Pure Land becomes real around you.  And there is your Rewarding body, your body of Enjoyment.  You don't need to become an enlightened Buddha in order to get a Rewarding body, an Enjoyment body.  

There are two kinds of retribution.  The first is the main retribution, (Chánh Báo).  These are our five skandas.  As we continue to practice, we improve the quality of our five skandas.  And this is our retribution.  And with the improvement of our five skandas, there is the improvement of our environment (Y Báo).  Suppose this is the first one, this is the second one.  The five skandas and the "milieu" the environment, and this is our Rewarding body.  Wherever you are, wherever you find yourself, if you know how to bring the practice into your body and your consciousness, there will be a transformation within and also in the environment right away.  And if you continue to practice, you will be able to release hell, to release hardship, and your environment becomes better and better all the time.  

To leave your city and to come to Plum Village;  that begins with an idea, a desire:  a desire  to go back to the Sangha, a desire to spend twenty one days with the Sangha and practice.  And because of that desire, of that awareness, you can do the things that many other people cannot do.  You have come here and you enjoy your Sangha;  that is your Rewarding body.  You can enjoy the beautiful landscape of Plum Village;  that is your Rewarding body.  Plum Village, the Upper Hamlet, the Lower Hamlet, the New Hamlet with their beautiful trees are my Rewarding body and you are my Rewarding body.  Everyone here is lovely, everyone here is inspired with the intention to practice.  Such a lovely group and that is why you are my Rewarding body, part of my Rewarding body.   And if I don't practice, how could I have got such a Rewarding body?  So the Rewarding body is something real.  And as you begin to practice the Dharma, as you begin to take refuge in the Sangha, you begin already to have your Rewarding body, your Enjoyment body.  And the more you enjoy, the easier the transformation will take place; the more easily the transformation and healing will take place.   And that is why we should have our Enjoyment body.  Our Enjoyment body is just the fruit of our practice. And the Buddha, because he practices so well, he has a wonderful Rewarding/Enjoyment body.

To many of us, earth is not paradise, is not the kingdom of God, it is not the Buddha land. Because there are so many things that we have to bear, it is the land of forbearance.  The  Saha world, (sara ta bà) and why a Buddha, a magnificent Buddha like Shakyamuni, would have chosen this planet to be his land?  Because for an enlightened being like Shakyamuni, everywhere is his Pure Land.  If you are transformed, if you get to the highest understanding, if you have a lot of compassion and love within you, then your environment will be transformed.  And to us the earth is a place of suffering, but for Shakyamuni Buddha, it is his Pure land, his Buddha land.  It depends on us.  The kingdom of God is now, is here;  you don't have to go elsewhere to get it.  Whether it is hell or it is the kingdom of God, it depends on our practice, on our mindfulness, our concentration and our insight.  That is why our Rewarding body, our Enjoyment body is what we have to get in order to go far on the path of practice.  You enjoy your body of Retribution and many people enjoy your presence, your body also.  It is so pleasant to sit close to a person who is light, who is free, who is happy!  That is why our Enjoyment body (Thọ dụng thân) is not only for you to enjoy but for others to enjoy.  (thọ) means to receive as a reward.  (Dụng) means to make use of it, to enjoy it and that is why (thọ dụng thân) Enjoyment body are to come from  (Tự thọ dụng) You enjoy it.  (Tha thọ dụng) are for other people enjoy your Enjoyment body too.

When you practice well not only are you happy, but members of your family profit from it.   Not only do you enjoy your Rewarding body, but members of your family also profit from your Enjoyment body.  They also enjoy you because you have that lightness in you, that kind of spaciousness in you.  You have that kind of freedom, of tolerance in you.  You are so pleasant to be with.   That is why your Enjoyment body is not only for you, but for everyone (Tự thọ dụng thân & Tha thọ dụng thân).   

Bell

Already at the time of the Buddha, many people would like very much to sit close to him.  Not doing anything, just sitting with him is a joy.  We know that for many of us, Plum Village is delightful.  While sitting, we don't do much, we just sit.  We enjoy ourselves, we enjoy our Rewarding body, our Enjoyment body.  We are sitting there and offering our presence and enjoying the presence of others.   Each one of us has some degree of peace, of happiness in us, and it is just wonderful to sit there with the Sangha.  You don't have to fight for enlightenment.   That is very nourishing.  Sitting with the Sangha, walking with the Sangha, eating with the Sangha, working with the Sangha, you get the nourishment that is very needed for you.  And later on, people continue to feel that they need the presence, the enjoyment of the Buddha, and the object of their enjoyment becomes the object of worship. They visualize the Buddha as having thirty two marks of a great person.  They visualize the Buddha as having 80 kinds of beauty.  Thirty two marks of a great person and eighty details of beauty, and they visualize that.  And that is the Buddha in their practice, the object of their practice of Buddha recollection.  They visualize the Buddha sitting in his Buddha land, very beautiful, and sitting and visualizing the Buddha like that, they get a lot of happiness.  It is like actually sitting with the Buddha in the Gridhrakuta mountain.  And that is the Sambhogakaya.  Sambhogakaya is the body of Enjoyment.   And the body of Enjoyment of the Buddha is still there.  If you are attentive, you can see him.  You can enjoy his presence.  And every one of us has our own Enjoyment body.  If you practice well and then you enjoy your body and the people around you will enjoy your presence as well and that is why each of us needs our Enjoyment body and our Enjoyment body is there.

Half an hour of practicing walking can give birth to your Enjoyment body, for your joy, for your happiness, and for the happiness of those who live with you.  If you practice smiling, not only do you enjoy your smile, but the people who live with you will enjoy your smile. That is already an Enjoyment body, and the transformation takes place in every cell of your body, every cell of your consciousness.

One aspect of the practice is to use your Sangha eyes, your Dharma eyes, in order to realize that the wonders of life are available in the here and the now.   We are surrounded by the wonders of life.  When the sun is there, shining, you can see the beauty of the trees, of the sky when it begins to rain. You can see the beauty of the rain, the sound of the rain. When snow is falling, it has its own beauty,  You can enjoy everything that is happening in the here and the now.  And sometimes you have the impression that the planet earth has all sorts of beauties and wonders; and if the kingdom of God and the land of Bliss of Amitabha have wonders in them, these wonders can be recognized.  They can be seen right here and right now on our planet earth.   Only when we are imprisoned by our narrow ideas, by our prejudices, by our anger, by our jealousy, we cannot recognize these wonders of life within us and around us.  That is why using the Sangha eyes, using the Dharma eyes, is very important in order to get in touch with the wonders of life for your nourishment and healing.  That makes your Enjoyment body grow and grow every day.

The Sangha eyes and the eyes of our Manifestation bodies have to be omnipresent in order to see what is really happening.   Please remember the scene on the Gridhrakuta mountain:  the Buddha was calling back all his Manifestation bodies who are operating in every corner of the cosmos, and each of the Manifestation bodies of Shakyamuni was looking with mindfulness, was listening with mindfulness and bringing information to the Sangha.  And you do the same as a school teacher, as a politician, as a parent, as a businessman, as a biologist.  You have your Sangha eyes, you have your Buddha eyes and you have to gather information for the Sangha.  It is like the bee out there, far from the bee hive, retrieving sugar, recognizing the presence of a mass of flowers.  Although the bee is out there alone, in the bee the presence of the bee hive is very strong, very real.  Your Manifestation body may be in Switzerland, may be in Canada, may be in Australia. But that Manifestation body of yours is doing his or her best, using Buddha eyes and Buddha ears in order to listen, to observe, in order to understand better the situation, because we need that information in order to succeed.

You know, when the ants are building the nest, at a certain point they need a lot of sticks of a certain size in order to continue to build.  They use the soil and other materials together with sticks in order to enlarge, to build the outer part of the nest, of the hill.  And when the nest needs to be built bigger, they need another kind of sticks that are of a larger size.  As if they are informed by telephone, they go out and only pick up the kind of sticks that have the exact size they need.   Our  Manifestation bodies do the same.  They need the kind of information that helps them to understand the situation better, and the practice of the Sangha is the practice based on the Four Noble Truths.  The first Noble Truth is the truth about ill being, dukkha.

Side B

The Sangha has to operate on the insight of the Four Noble Truths.So, as a school teacher you are a Manifestation body of the Buddha.  You are a cell of the Sangha body and you have to behave like a bee.  You have to get the information that the Sangha needs.  You have to look deeply to see how violence is destroying our society, destroying our children-- violence in school, violence in society.  As a parent, as a school teacher, you should use the Dharma eyes, the Sangha eyes, in order to look deeply into the situation where violence prevails and breaks up everything, including family, including school, including society, including body, including consciousness.  And you have to report to the Sangha like the bee going out there collecting the pollen, retrieving the sugar and bringing it back to the hive, because we need to understand the truth of suffering.   As a practitioner, you have to do that.   As a biologist (I know that a number of us here are biologists), you know the danger of the present moment because we are tempted to play the role of God.  We want to intervene into the chemistry of life, we want to mold ourselves the way we want, we want to create babies “a la carte.”   (laughter).   We want to manipulate the genes and this is a very, very strong temptation, and there is a lot of danger in that.  As a biologist, you have to report to the Sangha, to your bee hive about the real situation.  You have to practice looking deeply, listening deeply and reflecting deeply, and offer your Sangha the kind of information the Sangha needs in order for the Sangha to understand better the nature of ill-being.  Many people are afraid that genetic technology will bring about a lot of suffering.

Let us talk about the policy of insurance, of employment.  Directors of big companies will be tempted to verify your genes before they employ you.  They must know whether you can be a good worker, whether or not you will fall sick in one or two years.  So they want to check whether your genetic situation is good,  for you to be accepted  as an employee.  Insurance companies also want to check on your genetic situation and we all lose our privacy.  Already people have begun to do that.  Therefore, there are big issues of our time to be understood.  This is the First Truth, and we are out there in society in order to look for the Sangha. We are all Manifestation bodies of the Buddha, we are all cells of the Sangha body and we should do the best we can.  We know that storing information, processing information, retrieving information, making good use of information is the way we would like to do.  And if we know how to do it as a Sangha,  then you have enough information and insight in order to prevent us to go in the wrong direction and cause a lot of suffering and destruction to our society and to ourselves.

I will propose that we organize in several groups according to our affinity.  Biologists will have to meet as part of the Sangha.  School teachers will have to meet as part of a Sangha.  Parents have to meet, and you consider the big issues of our time, because understanding suffering is what the Buddha advised us to do.  Because if we don't understand suffering, we cannot see the way out, the way of transformation and healing, which is the Fourth Noble Truth: the Path, the Path leading to the cessation of suffering, of ill being.   The Third Truth is the Cessation and the Second is the Nature, or Roots of Ill-being.

The Four Noble Truths are the very foundations of our practice, and that is why members of the Sangha, transformation bodies of a Buddha, should operate on this ground.  It is wonderful to have a twenty one day retreat because we have enough space and time in order to operate  like a  Sangha, and to go much deeper into our practice of looking deeply.

Biologists: one group.  Physicists: one group.  Physicists could look into the infinitely small and the infinitely large.  Schoolteachers: one group. Parents: one group. Mass-media, reporters:  one group.  Economists: one group.  Consumers: one group.  Politicians: one group.  Health professionals:  one group.  Mental health professionals: one group, because you are in touch daily with the suffering.  You have to report to the Sangha about the true suffering of your patients and even of yourselves, because the Sangha needs information, needs insight into the nature of suffering.  If we have enough insight and information on ill-being , then the Path will appear in front of us.  There can be no Path without understanding of the nature of ill-being, and you have, like the Buddha, your Dharma eyes, you have your Sangha eyes.  You have Manifestation bodies everywhere, and everyone has to perform the duty of a member of the Sangha, like the bees, like the ants, like the termites.

Bell

In the tradition, we speak of the five kinds of eyes that everyone possesses, including the Buddha, and the first eyes are called fleshly eyes (Nhục Nhãn).  We all have our fleshly eyes, and the practice is how to cleanse, how to make good use of our fleshly eyes, so we will reduce the amount of suffering, and we will improve the quality of our happiness.  We take care of our fleshly eyes, we make good use of our fleshly eyes.  Of course, with our fleshly eyes we need light, we need the removal of obstacles in order for us to see things.  We can see stars, we can see flowers, the moon, we can see the trees.  We can see the faces of children and adults, and we can enjoy a lot by just using our fleshly eyes; but if we do not know how to use our fleshly eyes, we suffer.  We have eyes, but it is as if we don't have eyes at all.  We have never looked deeply into the blue sky and smiled to it.  Maybe we have already lived thirty years, forty years, but we have never had a chance to look into the blue of the sky and smiled to it.  We have not made good use of our fleshly eyes because we do not know how to live in the here and the now, and we allow our fleshly eyes to be caught in the objects of our desire.  We imagine a lot.  We think these objects constitute our true happiness, and in fact they are only illusions.  They are only the causes of our despair and suffering.  We are fooled by these sights, these sounds, these odors, these touches and therefore we have not cleansed our fleshly eyes.  For a good member of the Sangha, for a Transformation body of the Buddha, we should know how to cleanse, how to purify, to make the best use of our fleshly eyes for the suffering to be diminished and for our happiness to increase.  

And then we have heavenly eyes (Thiên Nhãn).  When you practice concentration, when you go into the four djanas, thanks to the power of mindfulness, of concentration, you get heavenly eyes.  You can see very far.  Or if you prefer technology, you can also get heavenly eyes, you can see things very far, far away. You can see things even if it is dark.  You can use a telescope.  Already you have spectacles, you have glasses that can help to see further.  You can use binoculars, you can use a telescope, you can use television and therefore, with technology, we also get heavenly eyes.  But beware!   If we don't know how to use our heavenly eyes, we get into trouble.   You know the internet.  It can be very useful, it can be very communicative, helpful.  But it can be very dangerous.  Television programs … you sit in your living room and you can see things all around the globe and even on other planets.   But if you are not careful, the images that come to you right in the living room can destroy you, can make you suffer, can make you destroy your body and your consciousness, and therefore it is very important to cleanse your heavenly eyes.   It is important to learn how to profit from your heavenly eyes in order to understand more of the situation of the world, rather than to get caught in situations of despair and craving and so on.   Educators, film makers, reporters, can come together and discuss this, because technology has helped but has destroyed also a lot of our well being, our safety.

With heavenly eyes, even if there are obstacles on the way, we can still see things.  In our hospitals nowadays, there are scanners.  We use x-ray and techniques of computers in order to see things in our body, and therefore with our heavenly eyes, the obstacles along the way are no longer obstacles.  The idea is how to make good use of our heavenly eyes and not to allow them to get caught in despair, in craving, in discrimination and jealousy.

And then we have Dharma eyes.  We have our Dharma eyes. (Pháp Nhãn) We have a brother here, member of the O.I. whose name is True Dharma Eyes.  With the Dharma eyes you can see the Dharma.  You can see the true Dharma, the authentic Dharma, the orthodox Dharma, the real Dharma proposed by the Buddha.  And you are capable of seeing the kind of practice that is suitable to you and to another person because there are 84,000 Dharma doors.  There are many ways of practicing the Dharma, and each of us has to have the appropriate kind of Dharma door or practice to suit our situation, our suffering.  And therefore, we good Dharma eyes you understand the Dharma well, and you know what kind of practice you should offer that particular person for his transformation and healing.  You cannot give everyone the same kind of practice, you cannot give everyone the same kind of teaching, no.  If you do so, your Dharma eyes have to be cleansed.

When you look into the situation of your suffering, of your difficulties, and if you understand the nature of your suffering, the nature of your difficulties, then you know what kind of practice, what kind of Dharma door is more suitable to you.  We have a book here called the "Blooming of the Lotus," offering something like fifty exercises of guided meditation, and when you read over and try all the fifty or fifty-five exercises, you see that there are ones that suit your better.  And when you look at a Dharma brother and a Dharma sister and her suffering and his suffering, her difficulties, his difficulties, and you know which guided meditation in the book will suit him or her, that means you have your Dharma eyes.  It is very important to have our Dharma eyes cleansed.  It is wonderful to know how to make good use of our Dharma eyes in our daily life, in order  to help ourselves and to help the people around us.

When you have your Dharma eyes, you will be very effective as a Dharma teacher because you don't just teach with Dharma talks, you know exactly what people need in their particular case; and you just offer the appropriate teaching or practice for him or for her to transform.  You become a co-practitioner for him or for her, and you teach not only with your words, but you teach also with your way of life.  That is the best way of teaching.  

Now we talk about the fourth kind of eyes, (Tuệ Nhãn), wisdom eyes.  Everyone of us has our wisdom eyes, but we need to make good use of them.  We need to cleanse them, to purify them, in order for them to become a wonderful instrument for the practice.  The wisdom eyes are capable of seeing the nature of impermanence in everything and in everyone.  Intellectually, we may have been convinced that everything is impermanent, everyone is impermanent, but in fact in our daily life we still behave as if everything is permanent.  Everyone will be there for one million or more years.  Therefore our wisdom eyes are not really there.  A person with  wisdom eyes can see the nature of impermanence of things and people everywhere and at any time, thanks to his or her capacity to be mindful and concentrated.  Everyone who has  Dharma eyes will be able to see the nature of no-self in himself, in herself and in other people.  And if we are capable of seeing such a thing,  then we can behave like a perfect organism.  There is no self anymore and you are no longer operating on the ground of self, and you don't suffer.  The community's well being is your own well being.  No discrimination any longer.

With our Dharma eyes we realize the nature of inter-being of everything.  When we look into a flower, we see the flower is made only of non-flower elements.  Looking deeply into the rose, you see the cloud which is a non-flower, a non-rose element.  I can touch the cloud with my wisdom eyes because I know that if I remove the cloud from the rose, the rose will collapse.  Not only the cloud is there in the rose, but the cloud is there in you.  You are made of at least seventy percent of cloud and if I take all the cloud out of you, you dry up (laughter).  And therefore with our wisdom eyes we can see the nature of Inter-being.  You can see the sunshine in the rose.  Without the sunshine, the rose cannot be there for you to smell or to touch.  Looking deeply into the earth you see the earth and all the minerals, because without the earth and the minerals, the rose cannot be there to contemplate.  Therefore, with  wisdom eyes, you can see the true nature of reality, and with that kind of wisdom you will not suffer like you have suffered in the past.  With our wisdom eyes we have the capacity of transforming and healing.  With the wisdom eyes you can touch deeply reality in its historical dimension, and at the same time you can touch reality in its ultimate dimension.  You can touch the ground of no birth and no death in yourself, and you transcend all your fear.  It is like a wave which is capable of touching the nature of water within her, and when she knows that she is water she is no longer afraid of dying.  That is why our practice is to help manifest our wisdom eyes, to cleanse our wisdom eyes, for us to penetrate deeper and deeper into the heart of reality.

Now we speak of another kind of eyes called Sangha eyes, which is not in the five.  Now we have six eyes instead of five (laughter).  I am convinced that the Buddha is extremely happy when he hears us talking and practicing with Sangha eyes.  It is extremely important when we live in a Sangha, whether it is a monastic Sangha or a lay Sangha or whether it is a family Sangha…. (because it is possible to make our family into a Sangha where everyone practices the Five Mindfulness Trainings and makes decisions together).  Maybe we have to take refuge in the Sangha, and  take refuge in the Sangha eyes, because the Sangha eyes are the totality of the wisdom.  It is like a bee hive, it is the product of all the bees and not just one bee.  We combine our talent, we combine our wisdom, we combine our experiences, because we get information from everywhere, from everyone.  Please remember the transformation bodies of Shakyamuni.  They are present in all directions, gathering information and insights for Shakyamuni Buddha.  The Sangha is the same, the bee hive operates in the same way.  Every bee has its bee eyes and that is why the well-being of the bee hive is assured.  Because every bee is using its bee eyes in order to look, to explore and to bring information back to the hive.  And they can share information by the way of dancing, by the chemical they release.  There are many ways of communicating.  The Sangha eyes are the same.

Every member of the Sangha observes, listens, reflects and contributes the insight, the experience of the Sangha.  And that is why the Sangha eyes are very bright, much brighter than your individual eyes.  Living in a Sangha, you have to take refuge in the Sangha eyes; you have to surrender to the Sangha eyes.  With the Sangha eyes, the Sangha can look into your situation and recognize your strength, your talent, and also your weakness.  The Sangha can recommend to you a course of practice, of transformation and healing, so you can bring more happiness and joy to yourself and also to the Sangha.  That is why the Sangha can offer you guidance.  In Plum Village, the monks and the nuns and the lay people practice Light Shining, and the tradition is very ancient.  A monk will kneel down and join his palms and address his fellow monk: "Dear brother, please shed the light on me, please use your Sangha eyes in order to tell me what are my strengths and what are my weaknesses, and please suggest to me a course of action, methods of practice that can help me to improve my practice and bring more happiness to the Sangha and to myself."   That is our practice.  And Sister Annabel, although she is the abbess of the Green Mountain Dharma Center, she still practices like that.  She kneels in front of other sisters, and many of them are her disciples, and she asks for guidance because she has faith in the Sangha eyes, the Sangha wisdom.

That is why when the Sangha comes together, we have to profit from the Sangha eyes.  We say, "Dear brothers and sisters, please shed the light on me, please tell me of my strengths so that I can be encouraged to develop the positive things in me; please tell me about my weaknesses so that I can be more careful.  Please tell me how to practice, what kind of practice I should take up in order to improve my situation and in order to avoid making the Sangha suffer, so that I can bring more happiness to the Sangha..  And from time to time, we have to practice like that.  In Plum Village, things are not decided by the Teacher, by the Abbot or by the Abbess, things are decided by the Sangha through the procedure of Sanghakarman.  If someone wants to become a permanent resident it is not Thay who decides, it is not the Abbess or the Abbot who decides, it is the Sangha who decides.  That person has to try to be in Plum Village for a certain period of time to see whether his or her practice is good enough, not to disturb the Sangha too much and then the Sangha will use the Sangha eyes to make a decision:  "You know brother, you have to wait because we cannot say yes now, but you have a chance to continue, and you may show your capacity to be a harmonious element of the Sangha.  Then the answer will be Yes.  It depends on you, and not on us." This is very important.  Your position, your place in the Sangha depends on you and not on the Abbot.  Not on the Sangha.  If you really accept the Sangha, take refuge in the Sangha, suddenly you have a very beautiful place in the Sangha.  If you resist, if you do not accept, it is very difficult for you to have a comfortable place in the Sangha.  No one can remove you from the Sangha except yourself.  It is your practice that makes you stay long in the Sangha and become a very important pillar of the Sangha.  It is your practice that evicts you from the Sangha.  If the practice is not good, you evict yourself from the Sangha.

When an aspirant for monk or novice asks for ordination, it is not Thay, the Teacher or the Abbots who decide whether that young man, young woman, can be ordained as a young monk or nun.  No, it is the Sangha eyes that decide, and it is not something new.  It is the tradition, the democratic nature of the Sangha dating back to the time of the Buddha. And when someone is selected in order to go to a country together with other brothers and sisters to offer a retreat or a day of mindfulness, it is the Sangha who decides.  The Sangha eyes decide everything, because the Sangha eyes are the best.  And if you live in the Sangha, you have to learn how to cleanse your Sangha eyes and you have to learn to look with your Sangha eyes, not just with your private eyes.  Your eyes, although described as private eyes, have the Sangha eyes inside.  So try to look with the Sangha eyes.  

This is the end of the tape.  We will continue with the Sangha eyes and the Buddha eyes in the next Dharma talk.  Time to enjoy our breakfast./…..

End of Tape