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Pure Land or Hell Created by Collective Will

The Ground of Brain and Consciousness

Thich Nhat Hanh · December 11, 2005 · Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, France Not yet reviewed

Dear fellow practitioners and friends on the path. In this talk we learn of the joy and the happiness of the practice. The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh offered this 107-minute dharma talk on December 11, 2005 from Upper Hamlet at Plum Village (France) during the annual Winter Retreat. We are reminded of the basic practices of walking and sitting followed by a deeper teaching on the Five Dimensions of Reality.

Touching paradise. When you practice walking, you involve your body with your practice. We can walk in the ultimate dimension. You turn on every cell in your body. Being completely free with the energy of mindfulness. Each step brings healing and nourishment to you. We use the techniques of mindful breathing.

We apply the same techniques to sitting. We turn on all the cells in our body to arrive in a unified state of being. All the cells will sing in unison and we are in a state of concentration. This is the foundation of enlightenment. Thay comments on sleepiness during sitting meditation. We have to make our sitting interesting. There is so much to enjoy. This state of being gives us the capacity to heal.

The Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing offers us exercises to touch all the cells of our body.

Thay offers some reflections on neuroscience and consciousness and how the Buddhist tradition sees things quite different. The elements of the human are: Form, Feelings, Perceptions, Mental formations and Consciousness. The Five Skandhas. Perceiver and the perceived. We train ourselves in seeing the object of our perception. What is the object of our perception? Our consciousness? The Five Dimensions of Reality in Buddhism.

Thay offers a deeper teaching on consciousness and mental formations, including technical terms from Chinese and Sanskrit.

One lesson from this talk is we practice with body and mind together.

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The Ground of Reality

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Previous Talk December 8, 2005

The Eleventh Mindfulness Training of Plum Village

Next Talk December 15, 2005

The Fourteen Precepts of Plum Village 12-15: Precepts-Diligence-Suffering

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7m

Pure Land or Hell Created by Collective Will

From "Mindfulness and Selective Touching: Embracing Positivity and Healing" • July 10, 1994

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Transcript

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Entering the Pure Land with Each Step

00:01:53

Good morning dear Sangha. Today is Sunday, the 11th of December in the year 2005. And we are in the Upper Hamlet during our winter retreat.

00:02:18

If you have been in hell, then you have the capacity to recognize paradise. You may be in paradise but you don't, you don't recognize it. You are not capable of touching it.

00:02:53

But if you have already been in hell, many of us have been, and then you have a chance, you have an opportunity. Because being in hell is a very basic condition for us to be able to recognize that we are in paradise, in the kingdom of God, in the pure land of the Buddha.

00:03:23

Suffering is the background. Suffering is the condition.

00:03:37

When you practice mindful walking, you may touch the kingdom of God, the pure land of the Buddha with every step. Because you have had a chance to walk in hell. It's so hot, it's so difficult. That is now you are capable of touching the pure land, the kingdom of God.

00:04:40

Those of us who have been in hell, we are lucky. Because we know what it is like, hell. And if we compare with the situation now, we can recognize that we are very lucky. We now have the capacity of walking in, in paradise.

00:05:11

When you practice walking, you involve your body into the practice. Of course, you don't walk with your mind. If you walk with your mind only, you get lost.

00:05:38

In the Vietnamese Gatha, we read, we recite: đi chơi trong bản môn, nên đi bằng hai chân, không nên đi bằng đầu, đi bằng đầu sẽ lạc. [vietnamese] It means that to enjoy walking in the ultimate dimension, you have to walk with your feet. You should not walk with your mind. If you walk with your mind, you get lost.

00:06:06

So, in walking meditation, you have to involve your feet. You have to involve your body. With mindfulness, with the energy of mindfulness, you turn on every cell in your body.

00:06:35

With the power, with the energy of mindfulness, you turn on every cell of your body, and then you can walk. It is like electricity. You turn on all the, all the lamps.

00:07:13

This is, this is the basic condition for you to succeed.

00:07:32

You might like to bring your mind down to the level of your feet, on the sole of your feet. And you walk as if you kiss the earth with your feet.

00:08:10

Because down there, every cell is turned on. They are capable of touching. You have turned on every cell in your body, including the cells down there on the sole of your feet. And that is why you can walk. You are completely free from your thinking about the past or your worries about the future. You are completely free from your projects, your sorrow, your fear, your anger.

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