THE EYE OF THE BUDDHA

21-day retreat in Plum Village

June 2nd - 21, 2000

Teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh

Tape 2, June 3rd, 2000

Practicing as Sangha the Six Harmonies

Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Side A

Chanting

Bell

Sangha is an organism, is a super organism and each of us is a tissue, is a cell in the body
of the Sangha. In the Christian Gospel we read, "whenever there are two or three of you
gathered in my name…" so the number two and three were mentioned. In the Buddhist
tradition the minimum number of individuals that can make up a Sangha is four, the strict
minimum. Five is a comfortable number, so if you want to build a Sangha, begin with
five. If it is less than five it is not a Sangha. With five members we can make decisions
concerning the life of the Sangha, the practice of the Sangha. There is a procedure called
Sanghakarman and everything is decided by that democratic procedure and the Sangha is
using its Sangha eyes in order to make the decision. You have your insight, you have
your experience and you have to combine insight and experience with the insight and
experience of other members of the Sangha and when the Sangha has made a decision
everyone has to follow.

Our retreat has the theme of the Buddha eyes but it is best to understand the Buddha eyes
with the Sangha eyes. If we live in a Sangha body we usually have the Sangha eyes.
The Sangha eyes are much brighter than the eyes of individuals in the Sangha. That is
why you have to take refuge in the Sangha. We trust the insight of the Sangha, the eye
of the Sangha and we learn to look at the Buddha eyes with the eyes of the Sangha. The
Sangha has to meet very often regularly because there should be a good situation of
communication within the Sangha. If there is no communication in the Sangha it is not a
Sangha and the Sangha communicates with each other in several ways. It is very
important that you learn the practical, the concrete ways by which the Sangha operates
because each of us should be a Sangha builder.

There is a formula that you have to memorize, it is very simple. "Has the community
assembled?" that is the question asked by a senior member of the Sangha. And another
answer, "The Sangha has assembled." When I was a novice, at the age of 16 I was very
impressed by that Sanghakarman procedure. After the recitation of a gatha or a sutra the
senior member of the Sangha will make a sound. There is an instrument made from a
little piece of wood (we do not have an equivalent here). It may be this one and the
sound is very sharp. (Sound) And everyone pays attention and then he asks, "Has the
community assembled?" (Chanted in Vietnamese) "The community has assembled." The
next question is, (Vietnamese) "Is there harmony in the Sangha?" and the other person
replies (Vietnamese), "There is harmony." If the answer is negative the meeting is
canceled, right away. And people have to practice Beginning Anew Reconciliation
before the meeting is convened again.

I would like to repeat: the first question is, "Has the Sangha assembled?"… the
Sangha…. assembled…. "Is there harmony in the Sangha?" "Yes, there is harmony in
the Sangha" The third question, "Have those who have not received the precepts left the
meeting?" And the answer is, "Yes, they have left," because only those who have
received the precepts have the right of voting because you know that in the four-fold
Sangha there are fully ordained monks and nuns and there are novices and lay people.
And this is a Sanghakarman performed by fully ordained monks or nuns, that is why the
third question is, "Have the ones who have not been fully ordained left?" And the
answer should be positive. Those who have not been ordained as a bikshu, as a fully
ordained monk and nuns have left. So novices should not be there, the lay people should
not be there, only fully ordained monks or nuns, and then based on that the meeting can
go on. The fourth question, "What is the purpose of the Sangha meeting today?" and
then the answer comes, "The purpose of the Sangha meeting today is… " to recite the
precepts or to discuss about whether to accept such and such a person into the Sangha.
Many items can be listed as the topic, as the purpose of the meeting of the Sangha.

We have to pay attention to the fact that only fully ordained monks can make the
decision. If you are a committee of novices, then only those of you who have received
the novice precepts should make the decision as far as the novice community is
concerned. If you are a member of the Order of Interbeing who have received the
Fourteen Precepts, before doing Sanghakarman you have to make sure that other people
who have not received the fourteen precepts will not be there for the decision making to
be legal. And if you are of those who have received the Five Mindfulness Trainings and
if you are to make a decision for the community, for the Sangha of Five Mindfulness
Trainings and then you have to make sure that other people who have not received the
Five Mindfulness Trainings will not be there before you can vote. This is a democratic
procedure invented during the time of the Buddha and it has lasted for more than two
thousand six hundred years.

The Sangha of fully ordained monks and nuns are the center of the four-fold Sangha, it is
like the roots and there are six principles that serve as the foundation for the Sangha life.
We call it the six togethernesses. To be a real Sangha you should have this kind of
togetherness.

The first kind of togetherness is that your bodies should be together in a place. It means
living together 24 hours a day in the same place. It is mentioned very concretely this is
the body, your physical body. Your physical body should be there, living with other
people which means you have to live under the same roof, in the same center and sharing
everything in order for you to be a true Sangha. That is the first condition, the first
togetherness. We live together, in one place and our bodies should be present. Your
spirit is not enough, your body should be there.

The second togetherness is the mindfulness training and the mindful manners. The same
kind of mindfulness trainings, the same kind of mindful manners should be observed by
everyone in the Sangha. If you are a Sangha of fully ordained monks you should observe
the same mindfulness trainings in the number of two hundred and fifty. So you know
that the fully ordained monks have two hundred and fifty mindfulness trainings to learn
and train? And the fully ordained nuns have more, for their protection also. This is very
important because this is the training, this is the basic training of the members of the
Sangha, you train by mindfulness trainings. If you lead a lay life and if you need to train
yourself in the teaching of the Buddha then you have to receive the Five Mindfulness
trainings and you have to come together in order to practice the recitation of the Five
Mindfulness Trainings. You have to come together in order to practice the Dharma
discussion about the Five Trainings so that your application of the Five Trainings in daily
life will deepen day by day. And you have your root Sangha. And you may like to
organize your Mindfulness Trainings recitation at the root temple, where the root Sangha
is (there). Because Mindfulness Trainings, Sila, in the most concrete expression of
mindfulness practice you are aware of the suffering caused by that kind of thinking, that
kind of action, that kind of speech that is why you are determined to practice the Five
Mindfulness trainings in order to avoid thinking that way, to avoid speaking that way, to
avoid acting that way in order for you to be protected and for the people living together
with you be protected. So when you practice mindfulness trainings you protect yourself
and you protect your Sangha at the same time. That is why everyone practices the same
mindfulness trainings and that is very crucial for the well being and the happiness of the
Sangha.

Without the second togetherness it is not a Sangha. It is a group of people but it is not a
Sangha. When we come together in order to recite the mindfulness trainings we have to
go through the Sanghakarman procedure with these questions and these answers because
during the mindfulness training recitation you may discover that someone in the Sangha
is not practicing well the trainings and that kind of situation can bring suffering to the
community and therefore the whole Sangha will support that individual to practice
Beginning Anew in order for him or for her to be renewed. And the Sangha will meet in
order to offer that individual the kind of practice that will help him or her to renew
herself or himself and it maybe seven days of probation or the practice of seclusion. It
may be 50 days, it may be three months, it may be nine months. It depends on the
Vinaya. The Vinaya is a monastic code that can provide you with information so that
you can help an individual or a group to renew himself or itself in order to be fully
integrated into the Sangha life again.

Suppose you violated a rule. Suppose you have lied, you have performed an act, you
have spoken in such a way that it has caused division and hatred in the community. And
now, during the recitation of the precepts you are asked whether you have, during the
past two weeks, you have practiced well that precept and you remain silent. When you
remain silent it means that you have practiced well the precept. And the question may
beput fourth three times. "Dear Brothers or dear Sisters, this is the second mindfulness
training, have you made an effort to learn, to study, to practice it during the past two
weeks?" If you have made a mistake, you have caused suffering, you have violated the
precepts and if you remain silent it means that you commit another offense, you lie.
And if you continue to lie for six months and one day it is discovered by another member
of the community, you might confess by yourself and the period of probation, seclusion
will be six months. And during day and night you practice beginning anew and after that
a ceremony will be performed to reintegrate you into the Sangha life and you become
Sangha again. And if you study the Vinaya, the monastic code, you will see that – there
are those of us who spend ten or twenty years in order to study just the Vinaya, the
monastic code, because the Sangha life is guided by the monastic code.

There are minor violations of the monastic code and you need only to kneel down and
confess to a brother in a community and then you are renewed. But there are more
serious violations of the monastic code that you should spend more time in order to
practice, in order to purify yourself, in order to be reintegrated fully into the Sangha life
and it is the Sangha who prescribes the course of practice. It is very subtle, with much
details and in the Buddhist Sangha you have masters who are specialized on the Vinaya,
on the mindfulness trainings, on mindful manners.

The practice of the mindfulness trainings are the heart of the Sangha life. If it is a real
Sangha, a true Sangha then you know that the practice of the mindfulness trainings is
there in the heart of the Sangha.

(Vietnamese) Your insight, your understanding, your wisdom and can be translated as
insight, knowledge, understanding. Because the life of a Sangha member is to practice
looking deeply, practicing mindfulness, practicing concentration, practicing insight so
that you can understand deeply what is there, whether it is a flower or a mental formation
because meditation is the act of looking deeply into the nature of things in order to
understand. Your happiness, your sorrow, your fear, your hope and your anger, a pebble,
a cloud, everything can be object of your inquiry, your meditation. So, because
mindfulness is there, concentration is there, every member of the Sangha is getting more
and more insight, more and more information every day and that should be shared.

That is why the third togetherness of the Sangha is the sharing. Everything you acquire,
you obtain in your life of a practitioner you are ready to share and Dharma discussion is
one of the ways of sharing. Sitting in a circle you share your practice, your difficulties,
your achievement your insight with other members of the Sangha. You have the duty of
sharing and other people in the Sangha have the duty of receiving, of profiting from your
insight, your understanding, your experiences and the sharing should be permanent.
Dharma discussion is a practice where you can use your language, your notions.
Mankind is endowed with language. We can share our insight, our experience by
Dharma discussion. The secret of the success of Western science is that since the XVII
century until now discoveries in the domain of science have been shared together. If you
have discovered something in the domain of science you can publish your insight in a
science magazine so that other scientists will be aware of that and it will help them to
make their own discovery. This is the deepest cause of the success of science in the
West.

The sharing is very crucial for the growth and the happiness, the stability and the
liberation of members of the same Sangha, that is why sharing should be permanent.
The technique of soliciting many modest contributions in the field of science,
contribution to the store of human knowledge, has been the secret of the success of
Western science and a scientist whose name is _______ has said this. The innovation,
the invention of a mechanism for the systematic publication of all fragments of scientific
work may well have been the key event in the history of modern science. We have to
invent the kind of mechanism so that fragments of scientific work could be published and
that would help tremendously. The sharing is very important and what makes a real
Sangha is if the sharing is permanent, day and night. And we do not share only with our
speech, with what you say. In a practicing Sangha we share in many other ways also.

Bell

In a Dharma talk we may learn that when the other person hurts you, when the person
says things that can be insolent, hurting, you should go back to your mindful breathing
and be yourself. Mindful breathing can help you to be yourself and not to let you to be
carried away by anger. Mindful breathing and deep looking can help you to understand
and overcome your anger or prevent your anger to manifest and you may learn things
like that and that is a kind of sharing. But sometimes you don't share by a Dharma talk
living in a Sangha we can share by other means. When you are provoked, when you find
yourself in a situation where you can get angry very easily, the other person wrote you a
very nasty letter, the other person said something very nasty to you in the presence of
many other people and you remain calm, you remain fresh and smiling, that is
communication. That is real communication. Members of the Sangha witness to that
realization in you. They see your solidity, they see you can protect yourself, they see you
are well protected by the practice and they marvel at your capacity to remain calm in
such a situation and they say, if they can do it like that, why not me? And that is
communication.

I do not communicate with my Sangha with my Dharma talks alone. I communicate with
my way of walking, my way of looking, my way of acting and reacting, my way of
sitting, my way of handling difficulties that arise in the Sangha. So, in a true Sangha
communication should be permanent so that insight, not only in terms of notions and
ideas, but insight as reality be communicated. There are many young members of the
Sangha but the way they move around is very peaceful, very pleasant, very happy. Their
way of talking, their way of reacting are so wonderful! They do not actually give
Dharma talks, but they are giving Dharma talks with their own bodies, their own way of
walking and sitting and smiling and that is part of the third togetherness. And in a
Sangha there should be that element in order for the Sangha to be a real Sangha.
We know that humans have many ways to communicate with each other. We can
accumulate information. The accumulation, the processing and the retrieval of
information, that is what we do every day. And now we have the internet, we can share,
we can store, we can download, we can do everything in order to enrich the treasure of
information we have. But information is not enough because information is presented
and preserved only in notions and speech. We need more information. The kind of
information about how to live a happy life, how to be free, how to be compassionate…
all these things are more difficult to communicate than notions and concepts.

We know that the bees communicate ceaselessly. We know that the ants, the termites,
communicate ceaselessly. There are many ways of communicating. We humans
communicate but sometimes it is difficult. Very often we feel stuck and we should learn
how to remove obstacles within ourselves and within other people so that
communication will be possible again. These obstacles we have to call them by their true
names: prejudices, jealousy, anger, arrogance and so on. In a Sangha everyone is
motivated by the desire to remove these obstacles and to transform these obstacles so that
information/communication be restored.

In the community of the sisters of the New Hamlet there is one nun who is very quiet.
She does not talk a lot, she does not give spectacular Dharma talks, she does not propose
spectacular ideas. She just lives her life as a nun in a community but she is very
determined to practice as a nun. She is happy, she is solid, she is committed to her life as
a nun and her stability, her joy, her happiness communicates a lot and every monastic
profits from that presence. It does not seem that she is trying to communicate at all
because she speaks very little and yet she communicates every well. We would be very
lucky if we have many people in the Sangha like her because they contribute a lot of
stability, a lot of freedom, a lot of happiness and that is why communication has to be
understood on that level also. On the level of action, on the level of non action, namely
on the level of being. That is the third togetherness: sharing. You are determined to go
home and build a Sangha you know that the six togethernesses are so crucial for the well
being of a Sangha. The third one, communication, sharing up to many levels.

The fourth is (Vietnamese) means speech. To practice loving speech you practice the
fourth mindfulness trainings in such a way that there would be harmony in the
community. You speak with calm, you try to speak with gentleness. In a community the
happiness depends very much on the way we communicate with each other with words.
When we are angry, when we are overwhelmed by emotion, when we are jealous, we
may say things that can cause the community to suffer and to break. That is why one of
the four togethernesses is that all practice loving speech. Even if we have all the other
factors for happiness and if you don't have this factor, loving speech, happiness still does
not exist. Therefore, learning to speak in such a way that concord, happiness and peace
be preserved in a community is very important and this needs training. When you feel
that you are not peaceful enough to say something, don't say it yet, you still have time to
say it. You have the right to tell him or to tell her what is in your heart, of course, but
you have to say it in such a way that it will not disrupt the harmony and the peace in the
community. So, wait until you are calm enough to write down on a piece of paper and
wait until you are calm enough to say it with loving kindness.

The fifth one is (Vietnamese) and it means material resources which should be shared
equally. Everything should belong to the community and members of the community
when they need something the community will provide them with what they need in
terms of food, in terms of clothes, in terms of shelter, in terms of medical treatments and
so on. And a monk is supposed to have only three robes, one bowl and one water filter.
When you are ordained as a monk or as a nun, the material conditions for you to be
ordained as a monk or as nun is to have three robes. Usually you need only one but in a
time of cold you can use the three other robes as a blanket and then you need a bowl in
order to go for the alms round to get something to eat in the morning and also you need a
water filter. If you don't have these things you cannot be ordained as a monk or as a nun.
That dates back to the time of the Buddha.

When I was a novice that struck me very much that every time you drink a glass of water
you have to breathe in and breathe out and visualize that there are many tiny living
beings in a glass of water and you have to recite a mantra so that compassion will arise in
you before you drink that water. I still remember (Vietnamese). With the Buddha, when
looking into a glass of water, he recognizes the existence of 84,000 tiny living beings.
And if you do not practice this gatha to give rise to your compassion you are eating the
flesh of living beings. The manual that novices use dates back to 400 years ago, long
before the manifestation of Louis Pasteur. According to the eye of the Buddha there are
so many living beings in just a glass of water… If you practice concentration deeply
enough you see things that other people cannot see. The Buddha did not use a
microscope, he did not have scientific instruments but he saw very much the same thing,
he saw tiny living beings living in the water and he advised his disciples to use a water
filter although he knew that a water filter cannot filter all living beings, but it helps. I
was very impressed when I saw that gatha in a book for novices. Holding the glass of
water like this, breathing in and breathing out and you recognize that there are tiny living
beings in there and you have to got compassion in you is a very beautiful practice.

Side B

And the sixth one is (Vietnamese) it means happy, joyful and it means your ideas, your
notions because people have different ideas as how to do that. The Sangha will have to
do something but there are so many ideas. People are inclined to do things in their own
way and this is the art of combining ideas in order to make everyone happy, the synthesis
of all ideas, and this is an art to practice in the Sangha. You have an idea and the other
member of the Sangha may have another idea that looks like the opposite of your idea
and that happens very often in a Sangha. Your idea is like black and her idea is like
white. They cannot come together. But the art is to practice looking deeply in order to
see the nature of the two ideas and very soon we can see that the two ideas can
complement each other, can support each other, complete each other. From the thesis we
have the antithesis and if you know how to do this then you have a synthesis. This is
always true. So you are free to express your idea even if your idea is the opposite of his
idea the Sangha will find ways in order to combine the wisdom of the two ideas and even
if you have three ideas, five ideas… the Sangha will be able to do that for the happiness
of everyone. And this is an art of combining ideas and this is the sixth togetherness that
we have to practice. This is a test prescribed by the Buddha himself, how to build a
happy Sangha and you have the practice of the six togethernesses.

The Sangha has to be built with the practice of the six togethernesses. You cannot built a
Sangha by telephone, you cannot build a Sangha with e:mail and letters. You cannot
build a Sangha even with ordinations. The Sangha has to live together, practicing
together, share together, combine ideas together and when you have a Sangha like that
many people can come and take refuge. You may belong to the extended Sangha, there
is the root Sangha, the core Sangha, and you may belong to the Sangha or your Sangha
may be called extended Sangha. Core Sangha and extended Sangha. An extended
Sangha do not have to stay twenty four hours a day with the core Sangha. Members of
the extended Sangha can profit to the maximum by the presence of the core Sangha and
that is why you make an effort to go back to the core Sangha as much as you can. You
may like to organize the mindfulness trainings recitation where the core Sangha is.
Suppose you have received the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings and you can only meet
with the members of your Sangha once a week or once every two weeks and during the
time, the hours when you spend time together and practice together you are a real Sangha
but when you go home the situation is not the same. That is why members of the
extended Sangha have to find ways to go back as much as possible to the core Sangha.

A group of people operating only on letters and electronic mail, or telephone cannot be
called a Sangha. A real Sangha has to practice the six togethernesses, and it is a real
refuge. That is why the setting up of permanent Sanghas are very crucial. You are very
lucky if in your area there is a permanent Sangha, there is a core Sangha where people
live together twenty four hours a day building a Sangha and this is a refuge. A refuge
not only to the extended Sangha but for the society as a whole. Therefore, supporting the
setting up of a permanent a Sangha in your area is very important. When we established
the Green Mountain Dharma Center we sent there twelve monks and twelve nuns to the
Maple Forest Monastery. And this is a big gift that we give to the state of Vermont
because this is a real Sangha. There are monks, nuns and lay people who live together
practicing the six togethernesses. And that is why to set up that kind of Sangha and to
support the setting up of that kind of Sangha is very crucial because people will feel very
comfortable. They have a place to take refuge in, a live Sangha, a real Sangha, a living
Sangha. An extended Sangha can be strong only with the presence of such a Sangha in
their area.

Bell

It is very interesting to observe the life of the Sangha and to observe the life of a bee
hive, an anthill or the life of the termites. With the Dharma, with the practice of the six
togethernesses it is possible that we can do as good as the bees and we can do better.
Yesterday I said that when we observe a solitary ant we don't see much of a thought, only
when we see thousands and thousands of ants in an anthill, blackening the soil that you
see the organism, the real organism, the animal, with all the intelligence, the thinking, the
strategy and so on. When you put four or five termites in a place where there is soil and
pellets the termite just goes around. They hold one pellet and put it down and go around
and they just do that. But when you put more of them into the same place and when the
termites reach the community size intelligence begins to express itself. We have talked
about Sangha and we know that the number five is the minimum that can make up a
Sangha because only with five could we perform the Sanghakarman procedure, decision
making.

When the termites reach community size they begin to operate as an organism, they
begin to build columns like the termites. They use the soil, they use pellets and they
build a column and when the column reaches a certain height they stop. We ask, "why
do they stop?" because they naturally know that it is high enough and it is inscribed in
their experience, in their body and they begin to build another column. And when the
other column reaches the same height they begin to build buttresses (?) that link this
column to another column and after they finish and we observe them doing so they make
very beautiful, curving, very symmetric kind of artistic (?) like that… and after they
finish one they begin another and they continue to build very beautiful vaulted chambers
like that and you know that in their home they have all kinds of comforts. They are
capable of setting up air conditioner, ventilation, they can farm inside, they can raise
livestock, they can send whole armies into war and they capture slaves. They do
everything that humans do but they do not know how to sit at the conference table in
order to make peace and that is why I said that we can do better.

With the six togethernesses we can become as good as the bees, he termites, the ants, but
with the six togethernesses we can go much further. We can build peace not only for
humankind but for other species as well we can be protectors of the Earth, of the whole
environment and who knows, one day the ants, the termites will learn from us the way of
peace…

Bell

It is the organic function of the ant to build a hill and if we come to disrupt their hill they
will begin again until they finish, they complete the work. In humans it seems that our
biological function, our spiritual function is to build some kind of hill also for the well
being, not only of the human kind but also of other living beings. We know that the
compassion and the loving kindness of the Buddha is without limits, we know that
Sangha is a hill, we have to build our Sangha because the Sangha is a refuge for so many
of us. The Sangha is capable of making peace not only inside of it but outside of it
because it is Sangha is always growing, not like the ant hill, where they are close, they
think and they act only for the well being of their own Sangha, their own community,
their own organism. But thanks to the practice of mindfulness, concentration and insight
we will be able to build, not only to build the peace, the joy and the happiness for our
Sangha but also the peace, the joy, the happiness for society and as practitioners we know
that we have a hill to build ourselves: Sangha building. We know that Sangha will be the
refuge for many of us have the impression of getting lost in these days and therefore, a
Sangha that practices tolerance, stability, safety and joy is a refuge for all. Because the
Sangha, when it is a true Sangha always manifest the presence of the Buddha and he
Dharma.

When I was a novice I was given a definition of the word Buddha. I learned that
Buddha is someone who is awakened and who is working for the awakening of other
living beings and when the career of enlightenment has been finished then he will be
called a Buddha. It is very interesting. As a novice monk I already reflected deeply on
that definition. The Buddha, first of all, is an enlightened person who is working for the
enlightenment of others and when the work of self enlightenment and enlightenment of
others has been finished he is called a Buddha. (Vietnamese) means self enlightenment
(Vietnamese) enlightenment other people (Vietnamese) the fulfillment of the action of
enlightening people. So when I saw that ________ and had the idea that the Buddha
still continues his way of enlightenment. Enlightenment is a living thing! Enlightenment
is a living reality and the Buddha is still practicing through you, through me, because the
first function of a Buddha is to get enlightenment within. The second function of a
Buddha is to help other living beings to get enlightenment. And we know that the world
is still going on. Shakyamuni Buddha is still practicing, that is what I saw when I was a
novice and Shakyamuni Buddha is practicing in you, in each one of us. We practice in
order for co-enlightenment to manifest every day. We practice so that enlightenment can
be born in the other person and we are continuing the work of the Buddha, namely, the
Buddha is still practicing in us, in every one of us until the work of enlightenment is
achieved, the act of enlightenment is fully achieved. So do not think that the Buddha is
now resting, the Buddha is very active and you are his, you are her continuation, working
for your enlightenment, working for the enlightenment of other species. And that is a
kind of hill we humans we are to build. Building Sangha so that the Buddha continues to
practice through us.

You may think of Jesus in the same terms. Jesus is still working, that is why we call him
the Living Jesus and my book "Living Buddha, Living Christ" expresses the same idea,
the same insight: that the work of Jesus Christ still continues, the work of the Buddha
still continues and we are the people who continue the work of the Buddha, of Jesus for
more understanding, more enlightenment. And as I said the best way to look at the
Buddha is through the Sangha and with the Sangha eyes we will be able to understand
the Buddha eyes.

Bell

End of tape