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The Four Pairs of Opposites: The Path to Right View and Liberation
No Coming, No Going
Thầy begins this talk by discussing no sameness, no otherness. He shows a photo of himself at sixteen and asks the children in the Sangha if this is the same person that’s seated in front of them. A young sangha member answers that Thầy is both the same and a different person. Thầy agrees and adds, “Or neither the same nor a different person.” In the same way, we are both a continuation of our parents and different from them.
He then explains the concept of no coming and no going using a flame as an example. Another pair of opposites is no birth and no death, and a fourth is no being and no non-being. When we touch the nature of these four pairs of opposites, we obtain right view—awakening to our true nature.
Our usual understanding is that we begin at our birth and end at our death. We enter the realm of being—our life—and then return to the realm of non-being—death. But, in fact, it is impossible for us to die. We transform into something else. This is confirmed by the first law of thermodynamics, which states that matter and energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transformed. By meditating deeply, we can remove the notion of birth and death.
We can’t “be” by our self; our nature is that we can only inter-be with everything else. Right View is the insight that transcends the notion of being and not-being. Right View creates Right Thinking, Right (loving) Speech, and Right Action. Our actions create our karma, which continues with us even after the death of our physical body.
Right View also leads to Right Livelihood, Right Diligence, and Right Mindfulness. Mindfulness carries within itself the energy concentration.
The Three Doors of Liberation are the concentration on emptiness, the concentration of signlessness, and the concentration of aimlessness. Emptiness means being empty of a separate, unchanging self. Signlessness refers to nonattachment to form—such as the form of a loved one. Aimlessness means searching for something outside of ourselves that we believe will make us happy, even if that something is God. The source of everything we’re searching for is within us, and when we stop searching, we discover this.
This is the final talk of thirteen given during the Summer Opening in the year 2013. Thầy offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.