Thầy begins with a review of what’s taken place during the four weeks of this Fall retreat. Just as a cloud is never born and never dies—it only undergoes a change in appearance—we, too, are never born and never die. We can see this if we look with the eyes of signlessness. For us or for the cloud, there’s no being; there’s only continuous becoming. Samsara refers to our perception that birth and death exist when, in fact, there’s a continuation, a process of always becoming. Science supports the idea that there’s no birth and no death—neither energy nor matter can be created nor destroyed.

In Buddhism, mind and body inter-are. Thought, speech, and bodily action are all forms of action, which is rendered as “karma” in Sanskrit. With mindfulness, we can create good action through our thoughts, speech, and body—good karma—and good karma arises from having Right View. To develop Right View, we must have Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Our karma—all our actions of mind and body—continue on through the illusion of birth and death, and we have the power to affect that continuation.

With Right View, we’re able to practice Right Livelihood—living in a way that doesn’t harm other beings or Nature. Right View also leads to Right Diligence, which is the art of generating happiness by selectively watering the positive seeds in our store consciousness. The four practices of Right Diligence are:

1. Refraining from Watering Negative Seeds
2. Tending to Negative Seeds with Mindfulness
3. Inviting Positive Seeds to Arise
4. Letting Joy Abide.

In this talk, Thầy has addressed the elements of the Noble Eightfold Path, beginning with Right View. The Buddha said that Right View transcends the notions of being and non-being, birth and death. With Right View, we come to understand that suffering is necessary to learn how to create happiness.

This the final talk in a series of nine given during the Fall Retreat in the year 2012. Thầy offered this talk at the New hamlet, Plum Village, France.