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Buddhist Understanding of Reality
Thay explains the meaning of Engaged and Applied Buddhism and the range of courses offered in the newly opened European Institute of Applied Buddhism (EIAB), with the benefits of staying in this residential community that embodies the practice. Thay encourages us to support the Institute and to put Applied Buddhism in the forefront of our practice, reducing suffering in ourselves and in the world.
In the second part of the talk, Thay elucidates the Buddhist teaching of right view of the nature of consciousness, its cinematographic nature and its relationship to impermanence and non-self. Thay explores the concepts of rebirth and reincarnation and teaches us not to fall into the traps of eternalism or annihilationism. Individual and collective Karma (our thoughts, speech and actions) is the dynamic force that underlies everything. Thay shares how our actions can transform the world, and that they are our continuation. Thay also teaches that subject and object inter-are as they arise from consciousness at the same time—the nature of reality is interbeing. This means that we are within all things and all things are within us, and so to preserve other species is to preserve ourselves.
This is the last talk in a series of thirteen given during The Path of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2009. Thay offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet in Plum Village, France.