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Where Do We Go When We Leave This Body – The Insight of the Sangha, The Insight of the Teacher
In every present moment, our life has both input and output. Output manifests through the three karmas:
- Thought (mental karma) arises from right view or wrong thinking,
- Speech (verbal karma) – right speech or harmful words,
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Action (bodily karma).
When we generate a thought or speech based on right view and right thinking, we create happiness both within and around us; conversely, when it arises from wrong view and wrong thinking, we sow suffering. Input includes air, food, news, sounds… The quality of the input largely determines the quality of the output; therefore, we practice guarding the six sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind) with the guard – that is, mindfulness – to neutralize all toxins, transforming garbage into flowers.
To realize the nature of non-self and the unceasing continuation, three images should be used:
- The teapot represents output: when pouring hot water in succession, the essence of tea spreads throughout the pot, the cup, the poem, the work;
- The stream of human life: all thoughts, speech, and actions are transmitted into the future, going beyond the boundary of the five skandhas;
- The banyan tree and the bamboo grove: roots hang down from each branch into the earth to create a new trunk, like “a body outside the body” – not one, but not many, not truly born or destroyed, not truly nothing. Therefore, all skandhas do not possess a self, but are only a network of continuous continuation.
The decisive principle in the sangha: when meeting to make a decision, there are five main cases for the relationship between “what the teacher wants” and “what the sangha wants”:
- The teacher wants – the sangha decides;
- The sangha decides – the teacher supplements;
- The teacher wants – the sangha disagrees – the teacher reconsiders;
- The sangha wants – the teacher disagrees – the teacher reconsiders;
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The sangha wants – brings it to the teacher for final decision (rarely happens).
The two opposite cases (the teacher forces his will, or the teacher does not want but the sangha still does it) are both not allowed; the spirit is to rely on the Dharma, not on the person, and the collective insight of the sangha is more important than the individual’s opinion.
