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Meditation on Being and Non-Being with the Candle
This archive is used for the teaching of the 2021 Rain Retreat. Thay’s teaching during the 2011 Francophone Retreat.
On May 4, 2012, Thay offered a very comprehensive final teaching, summarizing the essence of the Buddha’s teachings in a simple, humorous, and applicable way for daily life. He revisited the teaching of the Four Noble Truths in terms of consumption, emphasizing that societal suffering stems from improper consumption. Understanding suffering is essential to understanding happiness, and this path of understanding is noble because there is holiness within us, which the Five Mindfulness Trainings help to develop.
Thay then reviewed the Exercises of Conscious Breathing (Anapanasati Sutta) and invited us to redefine Nirvana to free ourselves from notions and touch the ultimate dimension of reality: “Nirvana is a word from the peasant vocabulary meaning the extinction of the fire; it is not a place or a country, but the extinction of notions.” He also offered a meditation on Being and Non-Being, using a matchbox to illustrate the release of notions of being, non-being, coming, and going.
He continued with the teaching of the Three Doors of Liberation: Emptiness, Signlessness, and Aimlessness, concluding that “if you want happiness, mindfulness, joy, then everything is already available in the present moment; there is no need to run.” Finally, he shared the story of the death of the generous layperson Anatapindika, illustrating that laypeople can also receive and practice the teachings on Non-birth, Non-death, Non-being, and Non-non-being, applying them in daily life to liberate from the fear of death and help those at the end of life to die peacefully.
A complete, dense, and profound teaching that is also light, joyful, and accessible, this is a final gem offered for our 2012 Francophone Retreat, a piece of art to fill our lives with true energy and wisdom.
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Part of the following collection
Pebbles, Meditation - To love is to be there