If the educators, economists, politicians in Thailand and in the world don't do anything at all for them, for the babies who were born last night, a number of them will become sea parrots in 20 or 25 years. This is like this, that is why that will be like that. So we are co-responsible for everything. We cannot say that our hands are clean. Our hands can never be clean because we interact with everybody else. If 40,000 children die every day because of lack of food, we are responsible. The way we live our daily life makes that possible. In order for that not to happen again, we have to change. We have to be aware of what is going on. And Buddhist meditation is to look in order to really see what is going on.

[01:02]

All dharmas are marked with emptiness. They are neither produced nor destroyed, neither defiled nor immaculate, neither increasing nor decreasing. It's like the moon. We think that the moon gets bigger or smaller, but in fact the moon does not get bigger and smaller. What have we got yesterday? And what are we going to lose tomorrow? We have to look in order to see. Therefore in emptiness there is neither form nor feeling nor perception nor mental formations nor consciousness. That means any of these can be by itself. No eyes or ears or nose or tongue or body or mind, no form, no sound, no smell, no taste,

[02:44]

no touch, no object of mind. These are only enumerating realms of being, realms of existence. There are six organs, eyes, nose, tongue, ear, body, and then form, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of mind. There are six organs of sense and then six kinds of objects for these organs. The form is the object of the eyes, the smell is the object of nose, and there are six sense organs and six kinds of objects of sense organs. And when these come together, form with eyes, smell with nose, taste with tongue, six other

[03:50]

things are produced. They are called consciousness. And these six consciousnesses are eye consciousness which we call sight, ear consciousness which we call hearing, and so on. So it makes three times six, 18 realms of existence. And here, it's only enumerating these 18, you see, eyes, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, form, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of mind, and then sight, hearing, and so on, 60. No realms of elements from eyes to mind consciousness. Eyes is the first realm of elements and mind consciousness is the last realm of elements.

[04:55]

No interdependent origins and no extinction of them. You have the list of 12 interdependent origins beginning with ignorance and ending with death and decay. And these 12 follow the same rule. None of these 12 can exist by itself. Everything has to rely on the being of others in order to be. Therefore everything is empty. And because they are empty, they are there, really existing. Let us do some breathing. Let us continue our meditation on the sheet of paper.

[06:19]

In a former life, in one of its former life, this sheet of paper had been a leaf. A leaf. I think in a former life I had been a leaf also, you also. In one of my former life I was a rock. And another life I was a tree. And I had been a cloud also in my former life. And this is not something superstitious. This is very, very clear. Because life on earth you can look and see. There was water. And then there were single-celled beings in the water. And then there would be fungus in the water. And there were small plants and trees on the earth.

[07:27]

And then we had animals. We had many kinds of animals and plants. And then we have man, our species. Man is a very young species on earth. And therefore in his former life man has been a rock. Man has been water, a tree, an animal. And therefore this is not something very abstract. This is something very clear. And I am sure that in one of my former life I was a cloud. And I had a good time. In one of his former life the sheet of paper was a leaf.

[08:34]

I think not very far, long ago. Just the life preceding it, it was a leaf. And one day I was standing alone by the door of a jungle, by the wood. And I was examining a leaf that was about to fall down. It was autumn and the leaves were beautiful. So I looked at the leaves and I particularly paid attention to one of them. A very beautiful, tiny leaf like this with the shape of a heart. And I was not an observer only. I penetrated into the leaf and this is what I saw. I want to share with you. First I saw that the leaf is its mother.

[09:38]

Because usually we think of the tree as a mother and leaves only as children. But looking deeply I see that the leaves nourish the tree. Because the sap that is brought up by the roots is only water with some minerals. That kind of sap has to be transformed into another kind of sap. More elaborate in order to nourish the tree. And it is the leaf that is given the duty to do so. So when the water and the mineral is accepted by the leaf, the leaf uses the sunshine and the gas in order, day and night, to work and transform that sap into an elaborate sap and send it back to nourish the whole tree.

[10:41]

Therefore a leaf is a mother. And a leaf is connected with the tree by a stem. It seems that we are not connected with our mother with a stem. But we did have a stem when we were inside our mother. The stem is long like that and that stem is called umbilical cord. Unfortunately that was cut when we were born. That is why we had the impression that we are autonomous. But if we look deeply we see that we still have a million kinds of stems connecting us with everything else. Do we have a stem with the cloud? Yes. Between the cloud up there and me there is a stem. Otherwise I cannot be alive. If there is no cloud there is no water for me to drink.

[11:43]

And you know that I am made of at least 90% of the water. So the stem between me and the cloud is really there. And the stem linking me to the forest, the stem linking me to the sun, I have a multitude of stems linking me to everything in the cosmos. Therefore I can be. So we have to see that. And I saw the leaf as a mother. And I saw the leaf as a teacher. Because I learned a lot from the leaf. The leaf told me that life is not only in the leaf but also in the tree. The leaf told me like this. You know all my life I have made efforts to nourish the tree.

[12:47]

So I am in the tree. Not only I am in this shape of the heart but I am also in the tree. And therefore you should say something like this. Life in the tree and life in the leaf. And you shouldn't say life of the leaf. Because life as it is, it is only one. And as I look, this is the word of the leaf, I see myself in the tree. Therefore when the leaf is about to fall, it looks at the tree and it sees itself in the tree. This heart-shaped thing is only a part of it. And therefore when it was about to fall, I was standing there and waiting and it fell in front of me.

[13:49]

And when it was about to fall down, it looked at the tree and it saw itself in the tree and it waved and said goodbye. I'll be with you soon. Because it really sees itself in the tree. And it is not scared at all because it knows that it is there. Therefore when falling, it is not crying at all. I saw him dancing, falling to the ground, dancing, knowing that very soon that tiny part of life will be integrated into the soil and then come up into the tree again. So there is a lot of wisdom, of insight within the leaf. And that is why I said that the leaf was my teacher as I examined the leaf carefully. I have said that once I was a cloud and I enjoyed it.

[15:24]

And now contemplating the cloud, I can see that the cloud has not been born and is not going to die. Sometimes the cloud will become red and at that time the cloud is not scared. It knows that it is going to be something else and it is very exciting. It is going to fall down in the form of drops of water. It may fall on the vegetables. It may fall on the Mississippi River. It can fall on the mountain, the peak of a mountain. And it is going to have a lot of fun. And when I fell into the ocean, I became a part of a wave. A wave. The wave, if we look at it,

[16:28]

we can see that there is a beginning to the wave and an end to the wave. You see? You see? It looks like the wave has birth and death. But the wave is very wise. It looks at itself the way we contemplate our feelings and perceptions. And the wave sees that it is the wave all right, but it is also the water. You can say that the wave has a beginning and an end, but you cannot say that the water has a beginning and an end. So a wave is just playing like this, having a good time, not being afraid of becoming a non-wave. Once we know that we are water, we waves, we are not scared any longer. So if we look into our own nature, the nature of interbeing, if we know that we are the water of life,

[17:31]

we are no longer subject to birth and death. We are at most, we are very free. And there are a lot of lessons to learn from the wave, from the water, from the cloud, and from the leaves. Anything, if we look at it carefully, deeply enough, we will discover the mystery of interbeing. And once we have seen it, we will no longer be subject to fear, fear of birth, fear of death. Many times we say that man is made of dust, and we are going back to be dust. And it does not sound very joyful. There is a discrimination that man is very valuable,

[18:33]

but the dust has no value at all. I think that is a discrimination. I think a piece of dust, we don't know what it is. Even the best scientist doesn't know yet what is a piece of dust. You know that an atom, an atom, an electron travels around with a speed of something like 300,000 kilometers per second. We don't know yet. The piece of dust, the electron still retains

[19:35]

a lot of mystery about itself. We also still retain a lot of mystery about ourselves. So don't look at another person and say that I understand who you are. Well, a piece of dust, if you do not understand it, how can you pretend to understand a person? Driving in the car, the husband plays with the wheel, singing, and not paying attention to his wife sitting nearby, because there is nothing interesting about her. I know everything about her. I have lived with her 20, 30 years, I know everything about her. That is a very arrogant attitude. If you do not know well enough about a piece of dust, how can you pretend to know about a person?

[20:41]

That attitude is the attitude of someone who is not ready to learn anything. The person who sits close to you in the car is a mystery. You have to look, you have to see deeply, and you will discover a world of wonders. So I wouldn't mind going back to a piece of dust. It's a very great adventure. It can be the kingdom of God, the piece of dust. It can be the pure land. Because I and the piece of dust, we inter-are. Without it, I cannot be. Without me, it cannot be. And therefore, I would have no complex. And as the cloud is laughing when it becomes a drop of rain,

[21:44]

chanting, singing, when I go back to a piece of dust, I will do the same. Now we come to Buddhism. What is Buddhism? Buddhism is made of non-Buddhist elements. Right? It must be like that. And the Buddha also is made of non-Buddha elements. Right? It must be like that. And the good and the evil. The good is made of non-good elements. The evil is made of non-evil elements.

[22:47]

Please believe me. And then look and you will see by yourself. I would like to chant to you a line that we used to chant in the Vietnamese tradition. Before you make a bow to the Buddha, you form a lotus with your two palms. And you chant that silently in yourself, or you can chant it aloud. The chant is like this. NANG LE SHAR LE TAN KHONG THET NGA MANG DAO YAU NAN TU NGHI It means the one who is bowing and the one who receives the respect, both of them are empty.

[23:48]

And that is why communication is perfect. The one who is bowing is me. The one who receives the respect is the Buddha. And before bowing to him, I say that you and I, you know, we are all empty. That is why the communication between you and I will be perfect. It is not really arrogance. Because if I am not empty, how can I bow to the Buddha? And if the Buddha is not empty, how could he receive the bow? I and the Buddha, we into are. And Buddha is made of non-Buddha elements like me. And me, I am made of non-me elements like the Buddha. Just look at this stick. This stick, if we look at it with a non-discriminative mind,

[24:55]

we see it is a wonderful stick. But as soon as we think that this is the right and this is the left, we are caught. Now we want to eliminate the right. We want only to keep the left. It is like the good and the evil. You want to eliminate the evil and you want to preserve only the good. Now I think if this stick has right and left, I would like to remove the right side. So I divide into half and I remove this. But as soon as I do this, this becomes the right. You cannot. As far as you have the left, you always have the right. And now if you make another step, you divide the rest into two and you remove one side, the right is still there. Until you arrive at a piece of dust,

[25:57]

still the left and the right is there. So good and evil, Buddha and Mara, we inter-are. We need Mara very much in order for the Buddha to be. Don't try to remove Mara from our life. That is the non-dualistic way of looking at things. When you set up a play with the hero and the pirate, you need the pirate very much in order to make the hero apparent, right? And the hero needs very much the pirate. And vice versa. Therefore, there is a game. There is a kind of tacit agreement between the Buddha and Mara. One day, meditating like that, I told this story.

[27:04]

I said that the Buddha, sitting in his cave, and his beloved disciple Ananda was waiting outside. And then Ananda saw Mara coming. Ananda couldn't believe it. How could Mara have the courage to come to the Buddha? Because Mara is the enemy of the Buddha and he was defeated by the Buddha under the Bodhi tree. So he was hoping that Mara would get lost. But instead of getting lost, Mara went directly to the cave. And when Mara came, Ananda said, He didn't say good morning either. He discriminated against Mara.

[28:09]

That is why he didn't want to say good morning to Mara. He just said, What are you here for? I want to see the Buddha. Mara said, No, you cannot see the Buddha. You are his enemy. The Buddha wouldn't like to see you. Are you not ashamed? Don't you remember that you were defeated by him under the Bodhi tree? Go away. The Buddha will not see you. You are evil. You are the enemy of the Buddha. At that, Mara laughed and laughed and he said, Did you say that your teacher has said that he has enemies? That made Ananda think hard because never before the Buddha said that he had enemies.

[29:10]

So he was defeated and he had to go into the cave in order to announce Mara's visit. Hoping that the Buddha will tell him to go out and say that he is not there. Or say that, tell him that I am in conference. But to his surprise, the Buddha was very excited of the visit. Is that true that Mara is there? And then he went out in person in order to greet Mara. Ananda was very sad. He could not understand. So he followed the Buddha and he saw the Buddha's face. And he saw the Buddha bowing to Mara,

[30:13]

taking his arm and asked very heartily, Ah, hello, how have you been? And he took him into the cave and asked him to sit in a chair. And he told Ananda to go and make herb tea for both of them. Making the tea for the teacher, he can make 100 times a day. But making tea for Mara, he is not very glad about it. But since the teacher has told him to do so, he had to go and boil the water. But he tried to keep an ear on the conversation. And the Buddha asked the question again, How have you been? Is everything okay?

[31:19]

Mara said, No, everything is not okay. I don't want to be Mara anymore. I don't want to be Mara anymore. You know that being a Mara, you have to talk in riddles. To be a Mara, you have to do evil things. And I am tired of doing evil things and to look as evil. And what is worse is that my disciples now have begun to talk in terms of social justice, peace, equality, liberation, all these things, so I have had it enough. I want to come and handle over all these disciples of mine to you,

[32:22]

and I want to be something else than Mara. Ananda was making tea and he was scared. He is scared. He is afraid that Buddha will accept to change the role. Mara now will play the role of Buddha, and Buddha will play the role of Mara. That way he will be very sad. The Buddha said, After listening carefully to what Mara said,

[33:26]

the Buddha asked him this short question, Do you think it's fun to be a Buddha? If you know how the Buddhists do every day, you will not be proud to be a Buddha. They built a very big house, and they put a statue of mine on a big table to attract bananas and oranges. They put into my mouth the things I have never said before. They have made a commerce out of me and my teaching. No, if you really know what is happening to me,

[34:34]

you wouldn't be enjoying being a Buddha, he said. And thereupon the Buddha recited a long gatha, telling that everyone should do his job well, and not to try to be the other thing. Since the gatha is too long, I cannot remember. But if you want to read the gatha and read the story, try to find a book written by Dan Berrigan, The Book of Psalms, the story of the encounter between Buddha and Mara was in that story, as an epilogue to the book. And you see the gatha, the long gatha, in it. It deals with liberation, good and evil, justice and injustice.

[35:38]

So it is clear that in the light of interbeing, Buddha is made of non-Buddhist, non-Buddha elements. Evil is made of non-evil elements. And that is why the prasna paramita transcends all concepts. Not only it transcends the concept of birth and death, defilement and immaculation, but it transcends all concepts, above, below, inside, outside, right, left. Birth, death. Good, evil. Buddha, Mara. We have talked about the rose and the garbage.

[36:49]

We have talked about the prostitute. Only the prasna paramita can help our prostitute to have an escape. If the prostitute looks in herself, carefully, she knows her nature of immaculation. She knows that she is there for others to be. The way the others are depends on her way of being. And therefore, her salvation, her emancipation, can only come with the practice of the prasna paramita. Otherwise, she cannot overcome that kind of feeling and complex. And the prasna paramita gives us a very solid ground for making peace.

[37:54]

Making peace with us, with ourselves. Transcending the fear of birth and death, of this and that. Because in the light of emptiness, everything is everything else. And we inter-are. We are responsible for everything that happens in life. So when you produce in yourself peace and happiness, you begin to realize peace for the whole world. Because a smile that you produce in yourself, a conscious breathing that you establish in yourself, you begin to work for peace in the world. To smile is not to smile only to yourself. The world will change because of your smile.

[38:58]

When you practice sitting, every moment of your sitting like this, and if you enjoy it, if you establish serenity, happiness inside in yourself, you provide the world with a solid base for peace. If you do not get peace for yourself, how can you share peace with others? If you cannot begin the peace work with yourself, where can you begin the peace work? And therefore, to breathe, to smile, to sit, to look at things is the basic thing you do for peace. A tree out there does not seem to do very much. But the fact that a tree is a tree is very important. If a tree is less than a tree, then all of us will get into trouble.

[40:04]

Imagine that a tree is less than a tree. Because the tree can be really a tree, we can still be here alive. But you know that in the last five years, during the last five years, trees begin to die because of the acid rain, because humans have become less than humans. We are not responsible enough. We are destroying life around us. We are destroying each other. And therefore, to become a real human being, to be a real human being is the basic thing for peace, for the survival of other species as well. Therefore, practice breathing, practice being awake,

[41:11]

practice smiling, be yourself, is the basic thing you can do for peace. Yesterday we had a tangerine party in our retreat. Everyone was offered one tangerine, children and adults alike. We put the tangerine on the palm of our hand. We look at it, breathing. We look at it breathing in a way that the tangerine becomes real. Because most of the time when we eat the tangerine, we are not really looking at the tangerine. We are thinking of many things except the thing we are with. Therefore, looking at the tangerine to see the flower, to see the young tangerine, to see the sunshine, to see the rain, to see that the tangerine in your palm is a wonderful presence of life,

[42:15]

you really see the tangerine. And as the tangerine becomes real, you become real also. Life in that moment becomes also real. And that is a way of life that is called mindful. Without mindfulness, life cannot be real life. And when you begin to peel the tangerine, you smell it. You take one section of the tangerine you put in your mouth, and you feel it is a real tangerine. And each section of the tangerine we ate in perfect mindfulness until we finish the tangerine. And eating a tangerine like that is very important because both the tangerine and the eater of the tangerine become real. And this is the basic word for peace.

[43:19]

In the retreat, during the retreat, we also practice walking. We learn to walk really for walking. And each step we make on the floor or on the ground is a real step. Each step like that brings us to the present moment. Each step like that restores our entire person. And therefore, each step like that can make us very happy, very alive. Because life can only be found in the present moment. If you are not in touch with the present moment, life is lost. And in our daily life, very seldom we deal with the present moment. We always think of the past, or we always think of the future. And therefore, life is not real.

[44:41]

And if we do not live mindfully, we lose the present moment and become less than a human being. We do not become responsible. And therefore, we create death, destruction around us and in us. When we pick up a newspaper like the New York Times, if we are mindful, we can see a lot of things in the newspaper. And if we are aware of the things that are happening in each moment, each minute of our life, we will be responsible. We know what way to go in order for peace to be possible. I think it is very important to live in such a way

[45:44]

that will demonstrate that peace will be possible. By looking at the way of living of a person, we can see that there is a future or not for our children. And therefore, the basic thing we do for peace is to live mindfully our daily life. In Buddhist meditation, we do not struggle for a kind of enlightenment that will happen ten years from now or five years from now. We practice so that each moment of our life becomes real life.

[46:47]

And therefore, sitting is for sitting. If you sit for twenty minutes, these twenty minutes should bring you joy, life. You sit for sitting. You don't sit for something else. If we practice walking meditation, we walk just for walking. Each step makes life real. Therefore, walking is not to arrive. If you only think of arrival, then the final destination must be the graveyard. That is why you have to be alive during each step. And each step brings life back to you. The same thing is practiced when you eat your breakfast, when you hold your child in your arms. Be really alive. The other day I said, the hugging is invented by the West,

[47:53]

but we would like to contribute the breathing. When you hold your child in your arms, practice three breathings, and your happiness will be multiplied by ten times, at least. And when you look at someone, really look at him or her with mindfulness, practice breathing. For instance, when you go back to your home at the end of the day, and having a meal together, sit around the table, and before eating, just practice breathing three times to recover yourself. It may be that during your entire day, you have been dispersed too much. Mind here, feeling there, body here, perception there.

[48:56]

You are not entirely yourself. So sitting around the table, breathe deeply to restore yourself, and you are really alive. And then take a look at each person around the table to really see them. It only needs one second to look and to see, to really see that the person is there. Because in our daily life, we rarely see things. Turn off the television, because it prevents us from seeing each other, and smile to the person you look at. And if you look at someone, and if you cannot smile, the situation is dangerous. And you know that being together in that way,

[49:57]

you can feel very happy. And as you are happy, you have the conditions to work for the happiness of others. Otherwise, there is no hope. So each breath you make, each step you make, each smile you realize, is a positive contribution to peace. And therefore, being happy is a very necessary step for peace in the world. And you know, in the light of interbeing, peace, happiness in your daily life means peace and happiness in the world. Thank you. If you have a few questions to ask,

[51:06]

I would be happy to answer. Thank you. Please. Gathe, gate, paragate, parasamgate. Could you please... Yes. I am sorry because of the time, I could not speak about the last sentences of the sutra. Gathe, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhisattva-saha. It means gone, gone, gone over to the other shore. Everyone gone to the other shore. Bodhi means awakening, and saha is like a cry of joy or excitement.

[52:09]

A mantra means something that you utter in your perfect concentration. When you have a very strong concentration of body, speech and mind, and if you utter something, that is a mantra. If your intellect is not a mantra, you have to say it with your body, with all your being in order for it to have a power. A mantra is a statement with a very big power. It is like a young man in love with a young lady, and during three years, he has to re-examine whether his love is really serious. And that is why the young lady has been waiting for his statement,

[53:16]

but the statement has not come yet. So one day, by the bank of the river, the atmosphere is serene, he became somehow quiet, and in a state of being that is quite concentrated, he uttered the words. He knew that he could not say these words in the subway, it is too noisy, or in a coffee shop. He needs a place where he can be really expressing with his entire being. That is why on the bank of the river that morning, he declared that he loved her. And because he spoke in that state of being,

[54:20]

the words have a very strong power. It can make the young lady shiver. And that is a mantra. But his power of concentration is not as large as the concentration of Avalokiteshvara. That is why his mantra, if we compare to this mantra, is less powerful. Avalokiteshvara, after having discovered the mystery of interbeing, of emptiness, his power of concentration is at the highest. That is why the mantra he pronounced can have the power of changing the world, of everything. And if you want to receive the power of the mantra,

[55:23]

you have to get yourself into that kind of concentration also. If you practice the meditation on emptiness, on interbeing, if you penetrate the nature of interbeing with all your heart, your body, your mind, your breathing, then you will realize a state of being that is quite concentrated. And in that state of being, you pronounce the mantra gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, swaha. And then there is a kind of communion that will be made between you and Avalokiteshvara. And that will be able to transform yourself in the direction of enlightenment. And therefore, a mantra is words that people utter in a state of highly concentrated being.

[56:24]

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