Thầy teaches interbeing—emptiness, non-self, and nirvāṇa—using the resources of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, other traditional teachings of the Buddha, scientific findings, and poetry, as well as his own wisdom based on his deep observations and experiences:

Science:
Implicate order: The physicist David Bohm uses the term “implicate order” to explain the phenomenon that “the one is made of the all, and the all is made of the one.”

Phenomenal and noumenal worlds: The noumenal world is the world of true nature, separate from our perceptions; the phenomenal world is the world of forms that we experience through our senses. Thầy explains that these two worlds are not separate; they are one and the same.

Space and Time:
“All past, presents, and futures enter one time frame. One time frame enters all past, presents, and futures.”

Vairocana Immanent Body of All Buddhas:
Vairocana is the base and the substance of all buddhas of the past, present, and future. This includes our own substance, since we are all fundamentally buddhas.

Poetry:
Quách Thoại: Thầy shares how this young Vietnamese poet stepped into the realm of the dharmakāya, met a buddha called Dahlia, and listened to a continuous Dharma talk which became his poem about non-separation.

• “Beckoning”: Thầy shares his own short poem, which teaches that “every flower, every leaf, every pebble is teaching the Lotus Sutra.”
• The Caterpillar: Thầy shares his love poem about a green caterpillar, beautifully describing the caterpillar’s (and our own) infinite, deathless manifestations across galaxies.

Ten Gates of Universal Entry:
The Avataṃsaka Sūtra describes the reality of an infinite, interconnected universe where every tiny part completely contains the whole.

Interpenetration of Body and Mind:
“Untold faculties enter one faculty. One faculty enters untold faculties.” “All perceptions enter one perception. One perception enters all perceptions.” “One utterance enters all utterances. All utterances enter one utterance.” Everything interpenetrates into everything else.

Thầy himself synthesizes his Dharma talk with three key points:

1. “What have we found out during this visit? We found out that it is possible to encounter the Buddha everywhere, at any time.”
2. We have learned that the world is a collective construction of our mind (contrasting the deluded mind, vọng tâm, with the true mind, chân tâm).
3. “Everything penetrates into everything else.”

This is the ninth talk in a series of thirteen giving during the Looking Deeply in the Mahāyāna Tradition, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 1992. Thầy offered this talk at the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

These teachings later appear in the book Cultivating the Mind of Love.