THE EYE OF THE BUDDHA

A 21-day retreat in Plum Village

June 2nd - 21, 2000

Teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh

Tape 3, June 3rd, 2000

Non-discriminative Wisdom The bodies of the Buddha

Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Side A

Chanting

Good morning dear Sangha, today is June 4th, 2000 and we are in the Upper Hamlet, the
name of the place is Dharma Cloud Temple.

If we observe our body we may see that the cells in our body function like a Sangha and
not only the cells of our body, but different parts of our body like our hands, our feet, our
eyes, our ears and so on. When I look at my right hand, even if I call it "my right hand,"
I don't see my right hand as a separate entity from my left hand. Even if you can situate
it in time and in space it is still part of an organism. We know that my right hand is able
to do calligraphy, you cannot see it unless my hand picks up a brush and performs. It is
with my right hand that I wrote all my poems. It is with my right hand that I invite the
bell for you, but my right hand never gets caught in the thought that it is the right hand
and it is doing all these things. My right hand never addresses my left hand with such a
mentality, "you know, all the poems that have been published or not published have been
written by me (laughter). You don't seem to be doing anything at all! (laughter)
Therefore, my right hand never gets suffering because it is inhabited by the wisdom of
non discrimination. My right hand is free. You want to hang a painting on the wall,
your left hand picks up a nail and your right hand picks up the hammer and you try to
drive the nail into the wall. Maybe you are not skillful enough and instead of hitting the
nail you hit your finger. The pain of the left hand is the pain of the right hand. Without
thinking my right hand puts down the hammer, holds the finger that is hurt and tries to
do whatever it has to do in order to bring relief and this is done with the wisdom of non
discrimination. The Sanskrit word is (Sanskrit).

The Buddha is someone who can operate on the ground of non discrimination. Whether
you see the white color or the black color there is no discrimination. Whether you see a
person with a Ph.D. degree or a person who has never been able to go to school, there is
no discrimination at all. Inhabited by the wisdom of non discrimination you do not
suffer and you do not make the other person suffer. And what is the wisdom of non
discrimination, it is not an idea, it is not a notion it is a reality that you can observe. Just
look at every cell of your body, just look at your right hand and left and you see that the
wisdom of non discrimination is acting, it is operating. It is a reality, it is not a hope, it is
not a notion, an idea.

When you observe a bee hive we can see that. Every bee, while living the life of an
individual bee lives also the life of a cell, of a tissue, of the organism of bee hive. The
ant in the hill behaves just like that. You can see the wisdom of non discrimination in
every bee, in every ant. When the bee is out of the hive retrieving sugar, although she is
one kilometer away from the hive she is still very much the bee hive as if she is attached
to the bee hive with some kind of filament. She is doing everything as an organism, as a
community, as a Sangha and not as an individual and that is the strength that you can
observe in her. When you send someone to the market to shop for the Sangha, that
someone is the Sangha. She is doing everything as a Sangha, she has a lost of strength
within her. When you send a brother to another city to organize a day of mindfulness
that brother is equipped with the whole Sangha, the energy of the whole Sangha that is
why you can see the tremendous energy of that brother because he is not operating on the
ground of self, he is operating on the ground of community, of Sangha, and in him there
is the wisdom of equanimity, the wisdom of non discrimination. If he happened to give
an excellent Dharma talk he would not say, "It is me! who has given the Dharma talk!
Only me can give such a good Dharma talk!" Because in that brother there is the wisdom
of non discrimination, so that the Dharma talk is a collective product of the whole
Sangha and of the audience. If you enjoy the Dharma talk you may know that the
Dharma talk is not the product of Thay. It is the collective product. If you look into
Thay you can see his Teacher, you can see many generations of teachers, you can see the
Buddha and the teachers of the Buddha. You can see yourself. You can see your
happiness, your suffering in the Dharma talk. The Dharma talk is not something you can
pre-fabricate, the Dharma talk is a flower that blooms in the garden of communication.
There is suffering, there is a teaching, there is practice capable of transforming the
suffering and when the suffering is understood the talk reveals itself and that is the
essence of the Dharma talk.

When you cook for the Sangha and you shop for vegetables for the cooking team it is
possible that you do that with the wisdom of non discrimination. You can do that with
the hand of the Sangha instead of your individual hand, and then you see the difference.
It will bring you a lot of energy, a lot of joy if you can cut the vegetable on the ground of
non discrimination, if you can chop the vegetable with the hand, with the arm of the
Sangha. That is a big difference. And if you know how to do it as a Sangha you will not
suffer at all and you get a lot of joy, like that bee out there, far from the bee hive,
retrieving sugar. She is doing that for the Sangha, she does not suffer because she is not
operating on the ground of self. It looks like difficult, but it is being done everywhere, in
our body, around us. Just observe, just smile, just do it and then happiness will be yours
right away. You have had a chance to observe the monastics in Plum Village operating.
The lay people in Plum Village operating. You know that no one of us here has a salary.
We are all bees of the same bee hive, no one has a salary. And the strength that we got
does not come from the salary because there is no salary, the strength that we got is the
Sangha, the motivation of the Sangha because the Sangha is the refuge for so many ____
Sangha. You are performing a very noble task and your well being depends on that
understanding, on that action, on your practice on your daily life.

When Sister (Vietnamese) she trained herself to do it like a bee retrieving sugar she
knows that she does that for the whole Sangha, so the Sangha has something healthy to
eat, the Sangha gets enough energy to practice and that is her joy, her happiness. Only
by working that way that she can be a happy member of the Sangha. Other ways of
working would not give her the same sort of satisfaction. That monastic, that sister may
already be a Dharma teacher, may already have received the transmission of the lamp to
teach but she is very happy working for the Sangha. She is very happy cleaning the toilet
for the Sangha and anything she does can bring her a lot of happiness and you can
observe her, you can see her face glowing. You can see her eyes looking with love.
Happiness is in your mind, it is born from your heart, not born from the environment.
The way you look, the way you sit, the way you act make your happy. If we look for
conditions of happiness outside of ourselves we don't know that happiness depends on
our way of looking at things and conditions for your happiness are already there, more
than enough for you to be happy. If you are equipped with understanding about
Sangha, if you are equipped with the spirit of community life, if you are equipped with
the wisdom of non discrimination happiness is a matter of the present moment and not
something in the future. You can be happy right now.

In the Sangha there are monks and nuns who have a Ph.D. degree there are monks and
nuns who have never had a chance to go to school. If you stay long with us you will find
out, but they are the same. They look on each other as brothers and sisters, there is no
discrimination at all, there is no complex at all, complex of superiority, complex of
inferiority or complex of being equal to the other person, three kinds of complexes. In
psychotherapy when you have low self esteem you get sick, but in the teaching of the
Buddha when you have a high self esteem you are sick also. And if you think you are
equal to him or to her you are sick also, because you are one with him, you are one with
her. The complex of being equal, the complex of being better or worse, or the three
complexes are based on the notion of self. The wisdom of non discrimination has not
been attained and that is why you still live with the three kinds of complexes. A really
happy person is free from the three kinds of complexes: to be better, to be equal, to be
worse than.

Bell

Next time when you do something for the Sangha…. we are always doing something for
the Sangha…. learn to do it that way. Learn to behave like a bee or an ant and lean to do
it like your right hand or your left hand, without discrimination. You will be able to get
the taste of happiness that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas always have, a taste of joy and
freedom. It is so simple! it is possible in the here and the now. When you take a step
and breathing in say, "I have arrived," learn to do it, as a Sangha. In the beginning you
think that it is you that is making the step and it is true, but if the practice deepens then
you do not see it that way any more, you are making the step for every one because if
you are capable of making such a peaceful and solid step the whole Sangha benefits.
Whether we see you, walking or not, the whole Sangha ______.

If you are capable of smiling, a smile of awareness, when you encounter the wonders of
life and then the smile will profit everyone in the Sangha, not only now, not only here
but everywhere, at all times. Do you know that when you are able to smile all your
ancestors are smiling at the same time with you? When you encounter a wonder of life
and you are really there, mindful, and you smile, then countless ancestors of yours will
be smiling within every cell of your body, that is the way the Buddha sees it, so you
smile, not only for yourself but you smile for the whole Sangha, you smile for all your
ancestors and you smile for your children and their children at the same time. In the
historical dimension it does not seem that your children have been born yet, but out of
that dimension they are already there in you, the whole of the past, the whole of the
future is there in the present moment. That is the way the Buddha looks and sees.

Maybe one of your ancestors were not able to enjoy making steps during the whole of his
or her life, always in a hurry, always afraid of the future. Maybe that ancestor was not
capable of making peaceful and solid steps during the whole of his or her life, but now
we are capable of doing so. You are capable of stopping, of establishing yourself in the
present moment. You are capable of breathing in mindfully and making a step and arrive
in the here and the now and when you do that you do it for that ancestor of yours who
did not have a chance to encounter the Dharma. If you walk like that you get a lot of
freedom a lot of happiness, you are doing that for the Sangha, not only in the immediate
here and now but in the eternal here and now.

When you make a step visualize all of your ancestors together at the same time making a
step with you and this is really what is happening because you know that you are a
continuation of your ancestors and you are your ancestors. In the beginning in thought
that your ancestors are no longer there, they are dead and only you are alive, but
practicing deeply you see it differently, you see that in this very moment all your
ancestors are still alive in you in every cell of your body and when you smile all the cells
in your body smile at the same time and all generations of ancestors smile at the same
time. We are given a chance to do that all day long. When you breathe, you breathe for
all your ancestors and your children and if you can maintain that insight alive it is
wonderful, it is very healing, it is very transforming, it is very nourishing.

The Buddha, teacher of many gods and men, also stood there and washed his bowl after
lunch. Visualize Shakyamuni Buddha washing his bowl. His bowl looks very much like
the bowl you see the monks and the nuns handle here. And the water with which he
washed his bowl is very much like the water that you use today. Observe the Buddha
standing there washing his bowl with liberty, with freedom, with joy and when the
Buddha washed his bowl like that all the Buddhas in the cosmos are washing their bowls
like that with joy and happiness. Are you capable of washing your dishes like that after
your breakfast? That time of washing your dish is the time of practice. It is not work. It
is work all right, but it is not just work, it is the practice so in our twenty-one-day retreat
everything you do, whether walking, breathing, or cleaning, or eating, or drinking, or
putting your robe on.. everything can be the practice and do it like a Buddha, do it like an
enlightened one because you have the seat of enlightenment within yourself. You have
the seed of awakening within yourself. You can do it just like him, you need only to
have that desire, that motivation. It is not impossible to be a Buddha. If you want to be a
Buddha then you can be a Buddha. Mindfulness is the kind of energy that helps us to be
aware of what goes on and the seat of mindfulness is within us. We are all capable of
drinking our water in mindfulness. We are all capable of making steps in mindfulness,
we are all capable of washing our bowl in mindfulness. You know that, the problem is
whether you want to do it and you do it not only for yourself, you do it for the Sangha,
for your ancestors and your children and their children. If you do it you get a lot of
happiness and you will transcend birth and death by that practice. And birth and death
are first of all notions that are in your head.

Bell

Before speaking of the Buddha eyes let us speak about the Buddha body. The Buddha
has so many bodies but first of all he has his Dharma body, Dharmakaya and you also
you have your Dharma body. In your daily life try to recognize the presence of your
Dharma body. Practice so that your Dharma body grows and manifests itself for the
greater happiness of the Sangha and of the world. Your Dharma body is a reality and not
just a thought.

Kaya means body. ______ The Buddha had many disciples, monastics and lay and
among the monastics there was a man called Vaccali (?). The young man came to the
Buddha because he was attracted by the beauty of the Buddha, the physical beauty of the
Buddha. He was a man but he was attracted by the body of a man and became a disciple
of the Buddha. He took a great pleasure sitting there and contemplating the Buddha as a
body. You may be surprised but things like that do happen (laughter). He did not come
for the Dharma talk (laughter) he just wanted to sit there and enjoy the presence of the
Buddha, he was attached to the Buddha as a physical body. He tried to be close to the
Buddha and at the time he was allowed to be the attendant of the Buddha but very soon
the Buddha realized that attachment in him and the Buddha did not allow Vaccali to
follow him any more as an attendant. One day he thought that the Buddha rejected him,
his love for the Buddha was very deep but he felt rejected by the Buddha because the
Buddha did not allow him to go on that trip to the city of Vaisali, so out of despair he
wanted to kill himself. You know, there are crazy people like that (laughter) attracted to
the Buddha not for spiritual purposes but attracted by the physical beauty of the Buddha.
The Buddha had a lot of problems in that aspect. There were beautiful women who
followed the Buddha and wanted the Buddha to love them and to be theirs and when their
desire was not satisfied they created a lot f difficulties for the Buddha. So Vaccali
wanted to commit suicide out of despair and he wanted to jump from the mountain into
an abyss but the Buddha had suspected that before so he went to save the man and to give
him teaching that he should not bee too attached to the physical body of the Buddha, that
he should learn in order to see the spiritual body of the Buddha. So the story of the
monk Vaccali can be described as a love story. When Vaccali was dying the Buddha
went to see him. He was very sick. The Buddha said: "Vaccali, how do you feel in your
body?" "I feel very painful in my body, Lord." "Did you practice well mindful
breathing and looking deeply into your five elements: form, feelings, perceptions,
mental formations and consciousness?" "Yes, Lord, I practiced mindful breathing, I
looked deeply into the five elements of my person." "Do you have anything to regret?"
"No, Lord, except (laughter) that I am so sick that I cannot go the ______ mountain and
listen to your Dharma talks and to see you." And the Buddha said, "This physical body is
not important, it is my Dharma body that is more important and if you know the Dharma
and live with the Dharma 24 hours a day you are with me all the time." From that
teaching we know that the Dharma body of the Buddha is more important than his
physical body an the Dharma body of the Buddha is available to you, to everyone and the
Dharma body of the Buddha can be described as one of the living bodies of the Buddha
and you can help that body to continue existing and operating for the good of many
living beings.

When you practice walking in mindfulness enjoying every step you make cultivating
solidity and freedom you are helping the Dharma body of the Buddha to shine and that is
for the happiness of so many people. When you practice mindful breathing and enjoy
your in breath and out breath and realize that you are alive in touch with the wonders of
life you are helping the Dharma body of the Buddha to manifest and when people look at
you they see the Dharmakaya, the Dharma body of the Buddha shining and they will be
inspired to do the same, helping the Dharma body of the Buddha to continue. So the
Dharmabody is not some abstract idea, it is something real and when you practice well
you help the Dharma body of the Buddha to continue and at the same time it becomes
your Dharma body and you may say that you share the Dharma body with the Buddha.
Your friends, your disciples, your students will continue to help your Dharma body to
last, to be there for a long time for the sake of living beings. As a practitioner I have
received the Dharma body of the Buddha, I have received the Dharma body of my
teacher and in the process of practicing my Dharma body is born, manifesting itself in
many ways. In every cell of my body the Dharma body of the Buddha is there and my
Dharma body is there in every cell of my body.

The real Dharma, the true Dharma, is something that can answer directly to the present
situation. The Dharma is not a promise for the happiness in the future. The Dharma, the
nature of the Dharma is to be concerned with the here and the now. The wonders of life
that can be nourishing, transforming and healing, the Dharma helps us to be in touch.
The sufferings in the here and the now the Dharma helps us to recognize them, embrace
them and transform them. The Dharma is addressing the present moment, the here and
the now. It is not a promise for the future and that is why the first characteristic of the
Dharma is (Sanskrit).

When you are in touch with the true Dharma you know that the Dharma is for you to be
in the here and the now. The Dharma is addressing the questions of our time, the
questions of happiness, sorrow and suffering of our time. The Dharma helps us to
recognize what is there in the here and the now, positive and negative. We know that the
positive is made of the negative and the negative is made of the positive, all these things
inter are, it is like the left and the right. Without the left there is no right, without the
right there is no left so we have to understand the words positive and negative in that
way. Negative is not something you have to throw away because if you throw the
negative away you don't have the positive, like if you throw the garbage, the compost
away you never have the flower. We only need to take care of the negative and then
from the negative you have the positive. And according to the law of impermanence the
positive is to become a negative but we are there to retransform it into the positive and
that is the practice.

When you practice walking you know that the first step you make can already bring
something if you are truly mindful, if you are breathing in mindfully, if your mind and
your body /…..

Side B

/…. and if you can produce your true presence in the here and the now, then one step can
already bring you some stability, solidity, freedom and joy. So the Dharma is not a
question of time, the Dharma does not say, "if you practice ten years then you begin to
see something." The Dharma is lovely in the beginning, in the middle and at the end. The
Dharma is not a matter of time. Timeless. That is the second characteristic of the
Dharma: (Sanskrit). (Sanskrit) is time. (Sanskrit) means transcending time. The
Dharma…. you don't need someone to serve as a mediator, the Dharma is for you to
come and see by yourself. The Dharma is much more than the Dharma talk, the Dharma
can be seen, the Dharma can be touched, the Dharma can be felt, it is the living Dharma
and you can produce the living Dharma when you walk. You can produce the living
Dharma when you breathe, you can produce the living Dharma when you shop for
vegetables. This happiness radiates from yourself in the moment you practice the
Dharma and that is why it is said that the Dharma is to come and see by yourself.
(Sanskrit).

The moment when you embrace the Dharma and practice your Dharma body is born.
Not only a Buddha has his Dharma body but all of us have our own Dharma body. We
should have confidence in our Dharma body. Our Dharma body is the ground, the
foundation of our peace, our joy, our happiness. Our Dharma body is the ground of the
peace, happiness and joy of so many people, including the ones we love. Taking good
care of our body, of our Dharma body is very important and you can help your Dharma
body to shine in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening by your practice of living
deeply every moment of your daily life and you know that the Dharma body of the
Buddha and your Dharma body are very much linked to each other.

Bell

And the Buddha has his Sangha body, Sanghakaya. Shakyamuni recognized that the
four-fold Sangha is his body. Shakyamuni Buddha was an excellent Sangha builder. At
the end of the first year of his ministry Shakyamuni already had a community of 1,250
monks. I wonder how he could do that! (laughter). I know 120 monks is already
difficult (laughter). The Sangha body of the Buddha has given so much joy and
happiness to so many people. We have knowledge that there are excellent Sangha
builders in the Sangha of the Buddha, people like Sariputra, Mahakasyapa, Ananda and
so on…. We could imagine how difficult it is to build a Sangha like that, from the very
first year of his teaching career we are told that when Shakyamuni Buddha had 1,250
monks came into the city of Rajagrha for the first time it made a deep impression on the
population. During the time the Buddha was practicing as a monk, the king of Magada,
Bimbisara had already a chance to meet the Buddha and he was too attracted by the
appearance of the Buddha and he wanted to invite the Buddha, at the time not the
Buddha yet, and he wanted to invite Sidhartha to come to his palace and become the
teacher of the nation and Sidhartha said, "No, I have not yet got enlightenment I want I
cannot be your teacher, I cannot be the teacher of your country, please allow me to
continue my practice and I promise that when I have realized awakening then I will
______." So, when he came back to the city of Rajagrha he was not alone, he had his
Sangha body.

And they trained themselves on the mountain __________ and when they arrived they
were divided into several groups, holding their bowls and walking into the city in a very
serene beautiful way with all their mindfulness _____. They made a good impression on
the population and only a few days later King Bimbisara realized that the old friend had
come back and he organized a visit. At the time in the suburb of Rajagrha there a young
palm grove. The Buddha and his Sangha body resided in there and it was there that the
king and his retinue came to visit the Buddha and you know the really saw the Sangha as
his body. He did everything in order to take care of his body and the value of a teacher
can be seen in the Sangha. You are all a Sangha builder, when I look at the Sangha I see
you. This is not a statement that I just made. This is a statement made by king Prasanajit
(?) of the Kosala kingdom where the Buddha had a friend who was a king, that is the
king of Kosala residing in the capital of Sravasti. They were of the same age. In the
beginning the king was not very fun of the Buddha but they finally came to understand
each other and they became a very close couple. At the age of 80 they met for the last
time in a small city very far from the capital and he stopped to see the Buddha and he
made a few declarations that have been recorded by the Buddha. He said, "Lord, when I
see your Sangha, when I look at your Sangha I have a lot of confidence in the Lord,"
because peace, gentleness, compassion, mindfulness was radiating from the Sangha and
if the king did not look at the body of the Buddha he would not have seen the Buddha
very deeply. So looking at your Sangha body very deeply you see yourself.

Those of you who are concerned about building a Sangha you may like to observe in that
way. Look at your Sangha, the Sangha is a complete expression of your practice, of
yourself. You have to spend a lot of your time not to say all your time building the
Sangha because that is the refuge for society for everyone not only humans, but animals,
plants and minerals. The Sangha is our escape. The Sangha is our way out and with the
Dharma body you will be able to build your Sangha body. You are motivated by a very
strong desire to build your Sangha body and you are just the continuation of the Buddha.
The Buddha is acting in you. The Buddha is still practicing through you and if you are
aware of that you see your mission is Sangha building for the enlightenment of many
living beings around you and as a practitioner you learn to look at things through your
Sangha eyes. It is wonderful to live with your Sangha eyes. If you are a member of your
Sangha your practice is to learn to live with your Sangha eyes. Don't just look with your
private, individual eyes, learn to look with your Sangha eyes and then you will suffer
much less and you will be very happy if you know how to make use of your Sangha eyes.
Those of you who are building a Sangha please listen to me: do learn to look with your
Sangha eyes. It may be a little bit difficult in the beginning but it is very rewarding
because the Sangha eyes are closer to the Buddha eyes than your private eyes. The
Sangha is an organism that lives according to the Six Togethernesses and therefore the
Sangha eyes are much brighter than your eyes. It is wonderful to use the Sangha eyes in
order to understand the Buddha eyes.

The Buddha also has his Transformation body, Nirmanakaya. Shakyamuni is only one
of the Transformation bodies of the Buddha and we are supposed not to get caught in that
body. We should be able to recognize Shakyamuni in his many Transformation bodies.
There is a very wonderful chapter in the Lotus Sutra. The Buddha was teaching in the
_____ mountains, he was giving his disciple a teaching of _______ pundarika, the
Lotus of the wonderful law. Suddenly a pagoda, a stupa, appeared in the sky. You can
see the beauty of the stupa, you can see the stupa is richly decorated, you can see the
music, the heavenly music coming out of the stupa and suddenly there is a very beautiful
voice coming out of the stupa, in the air, uttering these words: "It is wonderful, it is
wonderful, Shakyamuni Buddha you are teaching the Lotus Sutra, it is wonderful," and
everyone stopped and marveled at that manifestation and everyone turned to Shakyamuni
Buddha, "Dear Teacher, why in the midst of a teaching such a stupa appeared in the air
and whose voice is that?" The Buddha said, that is the voice of a Buddha, his name is
Prabhutharatna (Vietnamese). He got his enlightenment a long, long time ago, you
cannot calculate and know how long ago he has got his enlightenment but he made a vow
that wherever there is a Buddha preaching the Lotus Sutra he will appear in order to
congratulate that is why he is here today in order to utter the words of congratulations:
"Wonderful, wonderful, Shakyamuni Buddha, you are teaching the Lotus Sutra!"

And everyone sitting in the audience wanted to see the Buddha called Prabhutharatna,
they wanted to see the other Buddha and they turned to their Teacher, "Dear Teacher,
you are powerful, can you help us to see that Buddha? Can you do something in order
for the stupa to be opened so that we can look into it and see the Buddha who has uttered
these wonderful words. Shakyamuni smiled and said, "It is a little bit difficult, my dears
but I will try my best!" And then he told his disciples sitting with him, "You know, in
order to open the door of the stupa I have to call back all my Transformation bodies from
the cosmos." His disciples did not know that the Buddha had so many bodies… they are
caught in that image of a person sitting on the _______ mountain, they are caught, just
by one image of one body. They could not see the Buddha in other directions, in other
forms they could only identify the Buddha in this form and yet in the Diamond Sutra the
Buddha was very clear, "If you want to see my true form, if you want to hear my true
sound and you cannot really see me and hear me you are in the wrong Path."
(Vietnamese) "If you try to see my true form, if you try to see my true sound you are on
the wrong Path and you can never see the Tathagata, the one who has come from
Suchness." It is clear, but most of his disciples were still caught in that image and that is
that is a wonderful kind of teaching in order to show the disciples that, "This is not my
body this is only a sparkle of my body," and the Buddha was using his concentration as a
beam and he was touching all the planets in the cosmos in a very far galaxies and asking
all his transformation bodies to come back to be present in the hear and the now so that
the door of the stupa be opened. Then all the disciples of the Buddha at that time
witnessed to the coming from every corner of the universe many, many Buddhas and
they are all manifestation bodies of Shakyamuni, the first time they get free, they did not
imagine, they could not imagine that their teacher is of that greatness because they are
caught in just one image, one sound.

All of you have your Sangha body to take care of. You may like to do like the Buddha
spending all of your time taking care of your Sangha body for the happiness and
protection of everyone. All of you have your Transformation body. You have to
identify your Transformation body otherwise you are caught in the idea that this body is
the only body you have.

Bell

You may be caught in the idea that you were born on such and such a day, in such
hospital and that your body is limited by this skin and that you die on such and such a
day and you disappear… you might be caught in that idea. In that case you have not
really seen your body yet. You have to practice to look deeply in order to realize, to
recognize your manifestation body everywhere, in your son, in your daughter, in your
friends, in your students… everywhere.

When the manifestation bodies of Shakyamuni were there then the Buddha just made a
gesture like that and suddenly the door of the stupa is opened. But still people could not
see because the stupa is up high, there, and people are sitting very low, very close to the
earth, and rely (?) everything on their teacher, "Teacher, how can we see?" because only
the gods in the air could see really, clearly, the Buddha Prabhutharatna that, "we are
sitting very low like this, how can we see the Buddha? so please, help." You know that
we rely on the Teacher too much. You want your Teacher to do everything for you, it is
only very human. So, this is the same and Shakyamuni had to use his magic strength in
order to lift the whole congregation up to the level of the stupa and then they saw
Prabhutharatna Buddha smiling. The lion seat is large, Prabhutharatna made room and
invited Shakyamuni to come and sit with him together. It is a very charming spectacle.
The Buddha said, "Yes," and then he sat close to the other Buddha and the two Buddhas
were sitting together in the same throne. It is very beautiful as a teaching, teaching by
images, by poetry. The Buddha of the outer dimension is sitting with the Buddha of the
historical dimension. Are they one or two? Please read and study the Lotus Sutra again.

In the Tibetan tradition when your teacher dies you hope that he will be reborn very soon
and that in about three or five years you will go look for him in the form of a little boy or
a little girl. You believe that he will be reborn for you, you are too attached to him or to
her. You go searching for him, for the rinpoche and you bring a few items that your
teacher used to like during his lifetime and you put together with the other things and
when you are in front of the child and you expose all these things and then the child
picks up the right things and then you know it is really your teacher and you invite him
back to your temple and make him your teacher again. There is something very poetic,
very charming about that tradition and you may be tempted to do the same with your
teacher. Maybe after Thay dies you may go and look around Europe and America to see
a little boy that looks a little bit like Thay (laughter) and then you present him with ____
tea and _____ tea and if he picks up the right thing you see, "This is my Thay." That is
attachment, attachment to views, to images, to form and it is true that if you are attached
like that and if you try to see Thay true form and true sound you cannot see your real
Thay, your true Thay. It is the same.

Now we can do better. I don't think that Thay will be reborn only after his passing away.
To me he has already been reborn and he has so many manifestation bodies available in
the hear and the now if you are attentive enough now you recognize them already. Thay
is everywhere.

Last year Thay went to give a Dharma talk in a prison in a state of Maryland. And the
number of prisoners who gathered to hear me was just 120. Physically I was there to
share a meal with the prisoners. We tried to eat in mindfulness, we tried to enjoy the
present moment and we give the prisoners the kind of practice that they can enjoy in
prison and the talk has been reprinted with the title, "Be Free Where You Are." I told
my friends that the air inside the compound of the prison is the same as the air outside.
The sky also has the same quality and if they know how to enjoy the practice of sitting,
and walking and breathing they will be free, they get a lot of happiness and prison will be
a positive element, you have no alternative, you just practice. Conditions are favorable
for your practice of you are in prison. If you are outside you may be tempted to do other
things that are not very good for your health, mental and physical. Nowadays that talk
has penetrated into many prisons and when you see that talk you see Thay in person. It is
Thay's manifestation body in a different kind of form. There are many Catholic nuns or
monks living in cloisters very, very far away, like in Malaysia… the Philippines, you
don't know how books like "Living Buddha, Living Christ" have penetrated into these
spaces and when they read it they got the transformation, enlightenment, they even wrote
to us… So don't get caught in this appearance of Thay and consider this is Thay. The
real Thay is free of birth and death, is like the Buddha. The Buddha is free of birth and
death. If you are not caught by form then you can begin to see.

If you have received the Five Mindfulness Trainings from Thay and if you have
practiced the mindfulness in the form of Five Trainings you see that Thay is in you and
you are somehow a manifestation body of Thay because your practice radiates peace,
security and joy and many people around you profit from it and then your manifestation
body you can recognize also around you, even before you were born. In the Zen circle
we have a koan, "Tell me, dear friend, how did you look before the birth of your
grandma?" It is very nice, a very kind invitation for you to go looking for yourself in
several manifestation bodies.
If you think of Shakyamuni Buddha as one who was born in Sravasti and practiced in the
state of Bengali and died in Kusinagara you have not seen the true Buddha. The Buddha
is not something belonging to the past, the Buddha is alive right here and right now. We
have to recognize him in the here and the now. The Buddha is available in every
moment of your daily life you can take his hand and do walking meditation at any time
we want. We are very much behind the event when we contemplate a beautiful cloud.
You may like the form and the color of the cloud but when a cloud becomes rain you
may cry. We are not capable of seeing the cloud in the rain. We are still caught in the
form of the cloud and think that the cloud is no longer there and cry for it while the cloud
is singing in the form of the rain. If you have lost someone who is dear to you,
reconsider. If grief is still inside of you, if you are still not able to forget, if you still
carry that sorrow that lives in you because you are too much attached to one form….
your beloved one is there, very close to you, you need only to look deeply to recognize
his new Manifestation body. As I have said, we are much behind. Therefore, the
Buddha is always available in the here and the now in many, many _____ of his
Manifestation body. And you should not complain that the Buddha was born 2,600 years
ago… I am born too late….(laughter). You should see that the Buddha is available in
his Dharma body, in his Sangha body and in his Manifestation body.

And the Buddha also has his Enjoyment body. (Vietnamese) Reward. (Vietnamese) To
receive, to make good use of it, to enjoy it. I think we continue tomorrow (laughter)

End of tape