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Children of the Sun
December 24, 2012. 118-minute dharma talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh from Upper Hamlet at Plum Village. The sangha is in the 90-day Rains Retreat (Winter Retreat) and this is the special Christmas Eve dharma talk (and the fourteenth dharma talk of the retreat with the theme Are You The Soulmate of the Buddha?). Begin with a teaching on listening to the chant. Learning to recognize our own suffering and the suffering of the other person. We can then generate compassion. The monastics then chant the name Namo ‘valokiteshvaraya.
The practice of going home is a very deep practice. We need the energy of mindfulness. We don’t need a plane or train ticket to go home. There is a station - Radio NST - (non-stop thinking) and this doesn’t help us arrive home. Walking and breathing allow us to arrive. The more you are mindful and concentrated the more pleasant. Help you stop the thinking and the worrying. Just walk and heal. “I have arrived. I am home.” This is the best dharma talk we have in Plum Village. We do not have to force ourselves to breathe or to walk. It can be really pleasant. There is no way home, home is the way. The Buddha taught about the island of self. Loneliness is an illusion. It is a wrong perception. Every breath and every step can help us see this. The teaching on “going home” is very strong.
Thay explores the living Christ. We reflect on the birth of Jesus into this world as the son of man. Did he exist before this time? What do we mean by birth? Science and Buddhism. Matter and energy. Nothing is born. Nothing dies. Our true nature is of no birth and no death. This is the ultimate truth. There is no being, no non-being, only Interbeing. When we celebrate the birth of Christ, we can look deeply into this teaching of no birth and no death.
Thay speaks about the practice of mindfulness and how it can bring us back to our true home. “The practice offered by Plum Village is to go home at every moment, wherever you find yourself. Breathe, and you find yourself alive. Breathe, and you are already home, in the here and the now. That is the basic practice; and many of us have succeeded in that practice. When you have become a home for yourself, you become a home for other people at the same time.”
Thay shares how the Earth is a Bodhisattva. “Every time we feel alone, alienated, we can practice touching the Earth: a practice we learn in Plum Village. We are the Earth’s children, and we need to see her in us and us in her. When we get sick, we need to go back to her. We need to come back and realize that we have a body. If we can connect with our body, we are alive again. When we connect with our body, we connect with Mother Earth, and healing is possible. Your healing must go together with the healing of the planet. The Earth is not the environment; the Earth is us.”
Thay continues to share about vertical and horizontal theology, and the influence of Albert Einstein on Paul Tillich. “Einstein admired how the cosmos is arranged, but he could not believe that God is a person. Tillich agreed with that. We tend to see things from our human point of view: we want to personalize everything–the Sun is a god, the Moon is a god.” “When I do walking meditation, I don’t see the Earth as just matter. It is not that consciousness is separate from matter. It is possible to transcend the dual-grasping of concepts of ‘body’ and ‘mind’. I am not caught in that dualistic view. I do not see a deity in the Earth. To me, an atom or an electron is very intelligent. It is no less with consciousness. Dead matter cannot give birth to Buddhas, bodhisattvas, saints, and many wonderful things.”
“To the question: Is God a person? The answer is ‘yes’, God can be a person, God can be a cloud, God can be a flower. By realizing this we can make peace with everything in the historical dimension.”
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Part of the following collection
What Do You Want to Do with Your Life