There are a number of questions regarding ancestors, so I choose this one. Dear Thay, My question is about the Ancestors Festival and your Dharma talk about ancestors. I was adopted. I was adopted when I was three months old, so I don't know my biological blood parents or ancestors. For me it was very difficult to listen to the talk because I don't feel, I didn't feel most of what you talked about. Of course I love my not biological grandfather and grandmothers, but I don't think I have much of them. I think I have nothing from them. So I don't feel the things you said about feeling them in youth.

Maybe I feel it with my adopted parents or adoption parents. They raised me so I have many things of them but not in my genes. Because of this it is difficult for me to honor my ancestors like we do in this tradition but which I think is very beautiful. Thank you very much for reading this and answering my questions, because it is very hard for me sometimes. I only have my real name from my biological mother. It is Nellen, which means lotus. Isn't it beautiful? I'm very proud of it.

Transmission can be made in two ways, genetically and culturally. What you get from the genetic way is there in your genes, but what you get from the cultural, spiritual way is also in your genes. So it's not true to say that your adopted, your foster parents are not in every gene of your body. That's not correct.

I feel very clearly that I am in every disciple of mine. And sometimes the things I transmit to them may be more important than the things that have transmitted to them genetically. So as an adopted parent, you can love your adopted child very deeply, like your blood child, and you can offer the best that are in you. And there is an advantage by being an adopted father or mother, because you are capable of transmitting only the good things. The not so good things you refrain from transmitting them to him or to her. That's the way I feel. I want only to transmit the best in me to my disciples. And that's what I try to do every day.

So don't feel so bad if you are only an adopted child. You are a real child of your parents. Their love can be very complete, very deep, very powerful.

As far as your blood, your genetic father and mother, you have not got a perception, an image of them. And because of that you don't feel them in yourself. The perception you can get from your father and mother can be very wrong. It's not because you have a perception of the image and of the characters of your father and mother that you have them, because these perceptions may be wrong. You have not got into the reality of your father, into the reality of your mother, because you have not got the true nature of them. Your wrong perception prevents you from getting in touch with them, outside of you.

But they are also inside of you, and if you know how, you can get deeply in touch. Then those of us who still have our parents alive, but you are not happy, you cannot communicate with them. You do not have your birth parents around you, but if you know how to practice looking deeply and touching deeply, you have more your parents than they do. They do have parents around them, but they don't have. They don't really have. You don't have, but if you have the practice of looking deeply, you do have your parents in a more existential way than they. That is the advantage of the practice.

So if you practice looking deeply into your five skandhas, form, body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness, you can touch your parents deeply. And you can visualize your parents, because your parents are fully present within you. And looking at you, you can see your parents. But you need a kind of eye that can allow you to look. The eye of signlessness. When you look at the cloud, and if you are attached to the image of the cloud, you might suffer a little when the cloud has become rain. But if you are aware of the fact that the cloud may become rain sometime later, you are safer.

And when the cloud has become the rain, looking into the rain, you can still see the cloud. And you don't have the sorrow, the despair, the fear. And when you drink your tea, you can see the cloud in your tea, and you know that you are drinking the cloud. If you don't have the eyes of signlessness, you cannot do that.

But Buddha has transmitted to you the eyes of signlessness. So if you look into your five skandhas, you touch deeply the nature of your father and your mother, And you can no longer say that: "Well, I don't have a father, I don't have a mother." You do have them in a very existential way. Your father and your mother have never left you. They are always there with you in every minute, every second. The other people seem to have their father and mother around, but they don't really have them because they have a wrong, have had a wrong perception of them. They cannot communicate with them.

So in that case their situation is worse than your situation where you can touch your real father and mother within yourself. You are your ancestors. You are the continuation of your ancestors. This is a fact, not a speculation.

Like this hand of mine, it's funny to say this is my hand only. This is the hand of my mother. This is the hand of my father. This is the hand of my ancestors. They have transmitted the hand to me. And when I look with the eyes of the Buddha, I can see their hand.

And when I I put my hand on my forehead, all my ancestors are touching my head with their hands. That's the insight of the Buddha. So you do have your father and your mother in your daily life, and every time you visualize this is the hand of your mother, and then your mother is touching you with a lot of love. The time when I touch to my head with the eyes of the Buddha, [Thay touches the back of his head.] It's wonderful. It's very healing. If you are a Christian, you know that if you are touched by Jesus, the healing may come.

As a child of the Buddha, you have the Buddha within your gene. And when you bring up your hand with mindfulness, and know that this hand is also the hand of the Buddha because in the genes of your body the Buddha is present. And touching like this, [Thay touches the back of his head.] the Buddha is touching you with a lot of love and compassion. It's wonderful the teaching and the practice and I feel very fortunate to have been born in the tradition and to inherit this kind of teaching and practice. Nothing is lost. Everything is available, including your parents, your ancestors.