Thầy’s organizing purpose here is to advocate for insight-informed practice rather than views or notions that too readily become doctrines or dogmas. He opens with the “backbone of Buddhism,” the Noble Eightfold Path, not to dwell upon interpretations but to make the point that the Buddha intended the Path to be practiced, not idealized or idolized, from which he concludes that “Buddhism was engaged Buddhism from the beginning,” “engaged in actual life, social life, everyday life.” Thầy then takes an example from the history of Buddhism to show how its teachings can be reduced to a limiting notion, concluding that even the Dharma can be made into a “dangerous thing” if not learned carefully with intelligence and guidance. Thầy warns us about getting “caught in views,” assuming that our narrow perception constitutes the truth, a way of thinking that can lead to personal tragedy—Thầy shares a Vietnamese folk story to illustrate that—and to discrimination, violence, and war. Thầy’s prescribed antidote is to practice the teaching of Right View, understood in its ultimate sense as “free from all views” and, therefore, practicing non-discrimination. This is Buddhism not as doctrine but as method, and Thầy enlists the example of scientific method: remaining radically open to all theories that challenge one’s own current perception. Thus, Thầy challenges all Buddhists not to “be idolatrous about any doctrine. . .including Buddhist ones.” This is equally true of each of us in daily emotional life, because, as Thầy shows us, often our preconceived notion about what is necessary for our happiness is a limited view that blocks our ability to be truly happy. As Thầy concludes, true love practices the life-presence of mindfulness, which he contrasts to forgetfulness, and the insight of Right View, which is non-attachment to views.

This is the sixth talk in a series of twelve given during The Heart of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 1996. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.