The Heart Of The Buddha's Teaching - Episode 9

This is a live recording from episode nine of BookClub with Sarah Sati. During this session, Sarah reads and discusses chapters 23 and 24 of Thich Nhat Hanh's Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. These teachings focus on the five aggregates and five powers. After reading and discussion, Sarah guides a contemplation exercise before offering a practice to help you deepen your ability to take the teachings of the Buddha to heart.

Transcript

Excuse me,

I'm Sarah Sati,

For those of you I've never spent time with before,

And this is Book Club.

We're coming to the end,

We're at the last few sessions of Book Club.

We are reading from the book,

The Heart of the Buddha's Teeth.

This is the book.

You don't need to own it,

We read from it.

Each week we read from it,

A few chapters,

Usually about two chapters.

We're learning as we're going.

After each chapter,

I discuss a very brief piece of the reading,

And then we do some practice.

I give some homework for the week ahead.

Let's go back for a minute and just reassess where we are right now.

I feel like numbers,

Numbers,

Numbers.

First we started with the Four Noble Truths,

The Noble Eightfold Path,

And then it was the Two Truths,

The Three Kayas,

The Three Jewels,

And now we're moving even farther.

We had the Four Measurable Minds.

This week we have the Five Aggregates,

The Five Powers.

I just want to touch really briefly on what we're doing here and the numbers that are involved.

First of all,

We have to remember that the teachings of the Buddha were not taught at one time in such a large way like this,

All of the teachings together.

They were oral transmissions.

Actually none of what we have that is purported to be a teaching of the Buddha is actually the Buddha's words himself.

These are all teachings that were later translated or put down into writing after the Buddha had passed.

We don't have any direct transmission from the Buddha in that way.

What that means is that now we have all of these readings compiled together,

Or all of these teachings compiled together,

And that can sometimes feel,

I would say,

Overwhelming because there are all these lists.

The lists were very valuable hundreds,

Thousands of years ago.

Because they were oral transmissions,

When we had a list,

What we were able to do was memorize it more effectively,

So one list.

These teachings were given one teaching at a time to a specific audience in a specific way.

It's important,

I think,

For us to remember that,

That we may be feeling overwhelmed with the amount of lists that we have,

But we should just relax about that.

We should let go of expectations.

We should allow ourselves to feel like we are playing with Buddhism here together.

We are playing with Buddhism.

This is an exploration of the teachings.

It's not meant for you to understand every teaching after you read this book,

Or after we spend this time together.

It's not meant to be like that.

It's meant to be a situation where you take in,

You plant some seeds,

You take in this information,

You water some seeds,

And over time,

You grow your understanding of the teachings based on your practice.

This is very freeing because we are playing with the ideas that come with Buddhism.

We're playing the practices that come with Buddhism.

From that play,

We can ask ourselves,

Do we trust these practices?

Are they giving us what we're asking them to give us?

Do we feel relief?

When we find that we can trust them,

And when we find that we value them,

Then from that perspective,

We can begin to move forward and really put them into our lives more and more deeply,

Developing faith and these types of things.

You're invited to explore these teachings,

Experiment with the practices.

No walls,

No expectations,

No barriers.

This is your practice,

And we are here together as a vehicle for expression of that.

As usual,

Please listen with a relaxed mind,

With an open heart,

No stress,

No tension,

And in that way,

Develop this quality of transforming yourself for the benefit of all humanity.

If we freeze,

Know that I am recording these,

And I will repost them.

Just allow it to be what it is.

Hopefully,

It works,

And if it doesn't,

We just give it up to the universe.

Let's begin.

Today,

We're reading from chapter 23 and chapter 24.

Chapter 23,

The Five Aggregates.

According to Buddhism,

A human being is composed of five aggregates,

Form,

Feeling,

Perceptions,

Mental formations,

And consciousness.

The five aggregates contain everything,

Both inside us and outside of us,

In nature and in society.

Form means our body,

Including our five sense organs and our nervous system.

To practice mindfulness of the body,

You might like to lie down and practice total relaxation.

Allow your body to rest and then be mindful of your forehead.

Breathing in,

I'm aware of my forehead.

Breathing out,

I smile to my forehead.

Breathing in,

I'm aware of my forehead.

Breathing out,

I smile to my forehead.

Use the energy of mindfulness to embrace your forehead,

Your brain,

Your eyes,

Your ears,

And your nose.

Every time you breathe in,

Become aware of one part of your body,

And every time you breathe out,

Smile to that part of your body.

Use the energies of mindfulness and love to embrace each part.

Embrace your heart,

Your lungs,

And your stomach.

Breathing in,

I am aware of my heart.

Breathing out,

I embrace my heart.

Practice scanning your body with the light of mindfulness and smiling to each part of your body with compassion and concern.

When you finish scanning in this way,

You will feel wonderful.

It takes only half an hour,

And your body will rest deeply during those 30 minutes.

Please take good care of your body,

Allowing it to rest and embracing it with tenderness,

Compassion,

Mindfulness,

And love.

Learn to look at your body as a river in which every cell is a drop of water.

In every moment,

Cells are born and cells die.

Birth and death support each other.

To practice mindfulness of the body,

Follow your breathing and focus your attention on each part of the body,

From the hair on your head to the soles of your feet.

Breathe mindfully and embrace each part of the body with the energy of mindfulness.

Smiling to it with recognition and love,

The Buddha said that there are 32 parts of the body to recognize and embrace.

Identify the form elements in your body,

Earth,

Water,

Air,

And heart,

And heat.

See the connection of these four elements inside and outside of your body.

See the living presence of your ancestors and future generations,

As well as the presence of all other beings in the animal,

Vegetal,

And mineral realms.

Become aware of the positions of your body,

Standing,

Sitting,

Walking,

Lying down,

And its movements,

Bending,

Stretching,

Taking a shower,

Getting dressed,

Eating,

Working.

When you master this practice,

You will be able to be aware of your feelings and your perceptions as they arise,

And you will be able to practice looking deeply into them.

See your body's nature of impermanence and interbeing.

Observe that your body has no permanent entity,

And you will no longer identify yourself solely with your body or consider it to be a self.

See the body as a formation,

Empty of any substance that might be called self.

See your body as an ocean filled with hidden waves and sea monsters.

The ocean might be calm at times,

But at other times you can be caught in a storm.

Learn to calm the waves and master the monsters without allowing yourself to be carried away or caught by them.

With deep looking,

The body ceases to be an aggregate of grasping,

And you dwell in freedom,

No longer caught by fear.

The second aggregate is feelings.

There is a river of feelings within us,

And every drop of water in that river is a feeling.

To observe our feelings,

We sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it flows by.

It may be pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neutral.

One feeling lasts for a while,

And then another comes.

Meditation is to be aware of each feeling,

Recognize it,

Smile to it,

Look deeply into it,

And embrace it with all of our heart.

If we continue to look deeply,

We discover the true nature of that feeling,

And we are no longer afraid even of a painful feeling.

We know we are more than our feelings,

And we are able to embrace each feeling and take good care of it.

Looking deeply into each feeling,

We identify its roots as being in our body,

Our perceptions,

Or our deep consciousness.

Understanding a feeling is the beginning of its transformation.

We learn to embrace even our strong emotions with the energy of mindfulness until they are calmed down.

We practice mindful breathing,

Focusing our attention on the rise and fall of our abdomen,

And take good care of our emotions,

Just as we would take good care of our baby brother or sister.

We practice looking deeply into our feelings and emotions,

And identify the nutriments that have brought them into being.

We know that if we are able to offer ourselves nutriments that are more wholesome,

We can transform our feelings and emotions.

Our feelings are formations,

Impermanent and without substance.

We learn not to identify ourselves with our feelings,

Not to consider them as a self,

Not to seek refuge in them,

Not to die because of them.

This practice helps us cultivate non-fear,

And it freezes from the habit of clinging,

Even clinging to suffering.

The third aggregate is perceptions.

In us there is a river of perceptions.

Perceptions arise,

Stay for a period of time,

And cease to be.

The aggregate of perception includes noticing,

Naming,

And conceptualizing,

As well as the perceiver and the perceived.

When we perceive,

We often distort,

Which brings about many painful feelings.

Our perceptions are often erroneous,

And we suffer.

It is very helpful to look deeply into the nature of our perceptions without being too sure of anything.

When we are too sure,

We suffer.

Am I sure is a very good question.

If we ask this,

We'll have a good chance to look again and see if our perception is incorrect.

The perceiver and the perceived are inseparable.

When the perceiver perceives wrongly,

The things perceived are also incorrect.

A man was rowing his boat upstream when,

Suddenly,

He saw another boat coming toward him.

He shouted,

Be careful!

Be careful!

But the boat plowed right into him,

Nearly sinking his boat.

The man became angry and began to shout.

But when he looked closely,

He saw that there was no one in the other boat.

The boat had drifted downstream by itself.

He laughed out loud.

When our perceptions are correct,

We feel better.

But when our perceptions are not correct,

They can cause us a lot of unpleasant feelings.

We have to look deeply into things so we will not be led into suffering and difficult feelings.

Perceptions are very important for our well-being.

Our perceptions are conditioned by many afflictions that are present in us.

Ignorance,

Craving,

Hatred,

Anger,

Jealousy,

Fear,

Habit energies,

Etc.

We perceive phenomena as the basis of our lack of insight into the nature of impermanence and interbeing.

By practicing mindfulness,

Concentration,

And deep looking,

We can discover the errors of our perceptions and free ourselves from fear and clinging.

All suffering is born from wrong perceptions.

Understanding the fruit of meditation can dissolve our wrong perceptions and liberate us.

We have to be alert always and never seek refuge in our perceptions.

The Diamond Sutra reminds us,

Where there is perception,

There is deception.

We should be able to substitute perceptions with prajna,

True vision,

True knowledge.

The fourth aggregate is mental formations.

Anything made from another element is a formation.

A flower is a formation because it is made from sunshine,

Clouds,

Seeds,

Soil,

Minerals,

Gardens,

And so on.

Fear is also a formation,

A mental formation.

Our body is a formation,

A physical formation.

Feelings and perceptions are mental formations,

But because they are so important,

They have their own categories.

According to the Vijnavata School of the Northern Transmission,

There are 51 categories of mental formations.

This fourth aggregate consists of 49 of these mental formations,

Excluding feelings and perceptions.

All 51 mental formations are present in the depths of our store consciousness in the form of seeds.

Every time a seed is touched,

It manifests on the upper level of our consciousness as a mental formation.

Our practice is to be aware of the manifestation and the presence of mental formations and to look deeply into them in order to see their true nature.

Since we know that all mental formations are impermanent and without real substance,

We do not identify ourselves with them or seek refuge in them.

With daily practice,

We are able to nourish and develop wholesome mental formations and transform unwholesome ones.

Freedom,

Non-fear,

And peace are the result of this practice.

The fifth aggregate is consciousness.

Consciousness here means store consciousness,

Which is at the base of everything we are.

The ground of all our mental formations.

When mental formations are not manifesting,

They reside in our store consciousness in the form of seeds.

Seeds of joy,

Peace,

Understanding,

Compassion,

Forgetfulness,

Jealousy,

Fear,

Despair,

And so on.

Just as there are 51 categories of mental formations,

There are 51 kinds of seeds buried deep in our consciousness.

Every time we water one of them or allow it to be watered by someone else,

That seed will manifest and become a mental formation.

We have to be careful about which seeds we and others water.

If we let the negative seeds in us be watered,

We can be overwhelmed.

The fifth aggregate,

Consciousness,

Contains all of the other aggregates and is the basis of their existence.

Consciousness is,

At the same time,

Both collective and individual.

The collective is made of the individual and the individual is made of the collective.

Our consciousness can be transformed at its base through the practice of mindful consuming,

Mindfully guarding our senses and looking deeply.

The practice should aim at transforming both the individual and the collective aspects of our consciousness.

It is essential to practice with the Sangha to produce such a transformation.

When the afflictions within us are transformed,

Our consciousness becomes wisdom,

Shining near and far and showing the way to liberation to both individuals and the whole society.

These five aggregates inter-are.

When you have a painful feeling,

Look into your body,

Your perceptions,

Your mental formations and your consciousness to see what is brought about this feeling.

If you have a headache,

Your painful feelings come from the first aggregate.

Painful feelings can also come from mental formations or from perceptions.

You might,

For example,

Think someone hates you who actually loves you.

Look deeply into the five rivers of yourself and see how each river contains the other four.

Look at the river of form.

In the beginning,

You may think that form is just physical and not mental,

But every cell in your body contains all aspects of yourself.

It is now possible to take one cell of your body and duplicate your whole body.

It's called cloning.

The one contains the all.

One cell of your body contains your entire body.

It also contains all of your feelings,

Perceptions,

Mental formations and consciousness,

And not only yours,

But also your parents and your ancestors.

Each aggregate contains all the other aggregates.

Each feeling contains all perceptions,

Mental formations and consciousness.

Looking into one feeling,

You can discover everything.

Look in the light of interbeing and you will see the all in the one and the one in the all.

Don't think that form exists outside of feelings or that feelings exist outside of form.

In the Turning the Wheel Sutra,

The Buddha said the five aggregates,

When grasped at,

Are suffering.

He did not say that the five aggregates are in themselves suffering.

There is a helpful image in the Ratnakuta Sutra.

A man throws a clod of earth at a dog.

The dog looks at the clod and barks at it furiously.

The dog does not realize that it is the man and not the clod of earth that is responsible.

The sutra goes on to say,

In the same way,

An ordinary person caught in dualistic conceptions thinks that the five aggregates are the cause of his suffering,

But in fact,

The root of his suffering is his lack of understanding about the impermanent,

Non-self and interdependent nature of the five aggregates.

It is not the five aggregates that make us suffer,

But the way we relate to them.

When we observe the impermanent non-self and interdependent nature of all that is,

We will not feel aversion for life.

In fact,

This knowing will help us see the preciousness of all of life.

When we do not understand correctly,

We become attached to things and get caught by them.

In the Ratnakuta Sutra,

The terms aggregate and aggregate of clinging are used.

Skandhas are the five aggregates that give rise to life.

Upadana skandhas are the same five aggregates as the objects of our grasping.

The root of our suffering is not the aggregates but our grasping.

There are people who,

Because of their incorrect understanding of what the root of suffering is,

Instead of dealing with their attachments,

Fear,

The six sense objects,

And feel aversion for the five aggregates.

A Buddha is someone who lives in peace,

Joy,

And freedom,

Neither afraid of nor attached to anything.

When we breathe in and out and harmonize the five aggregates within us,

This is true practice.

But to practice is not to confine ourselves to the five aggregates within ourselves.

We are also aware that the five aggregates in us have their roots in society,

In nature,

And in the people with whom we live.

Meditate on the assembly of the five aggregates in yourself until you are able to see the oneness of your own self and the universe.

When the Bodhisattva Avalokita looked deeply into the reality of the five aggregates,

He saw the emptiness of self and he was liberated from suffering.

If we contemplate the five aggregates in a diligent way,

We too will be liberated from suffering.

If the five aggregates return to their sources,

The self no longer exists.

To see the one in the all is to break through the attachment to the false view of self,

The belief in the self as an unchanging entity that can exist on its own.

To break through this false view is to be liberated from every form of suffering.

So now we have the five aggregates.

We're moving up,

Right?

We started with two,

Well we started with four,

Then eight,

Then as we go into the deeper Buddhist teachings,

More combinations of relative and absolute truth,

And we start to get more into these small lists that grow over time.

But I will also say that as we've heard again and again throughout this text,

Every teaching has every other teaching within it,

And the five aggregates are no different than that.

So aggregate can be defined as collection,

Total,

A whole formed by combining several disparate elements,

So several elements that are not of the final form.

And I think if we consider these teachings up until now,

The concepts that really come to mind,

Emptiness,

Non-self,

And interbeing,

And Thich Nhat Hanh touches on those throughout this chapter.

So I think we want to remember first that the five aggregates,

This is not a concept,

This is a practice.

And this practice is a tool to help us understand some of these other concepts which may be more challenging to grasp,

Such as emptiness and non-self.

So if we say that we are a form of parts,

Of non-self parts that make up our self,

Then we have to ask,

What are the non-self parts that we are made of?

If we say that we are a form who is empty of an independent essence,

We want to ask the question,

Well,

What is that form composed of that creates a vessel for the empty essence of our non-self nature?

And this is where the explanation of the five aggregates comes into play.

And so again,

Those are form,

Sensations,

Perceptions,

Mental activity,

And consciousness.

And when we can see that these aggregates exist,

Often we get attached to them.

Our attachment to them is the cause of our suffering.

When we start to recognize that truth,

Then we are naturally liberating the suffering that is coming up for ourselves.

So when we say,

When I feel a pain in my physical body,

I'm attaching to a sensation if I start to lean into that pain too much.

There's a difference between,

My teacher says this.

He says,

Go in,

But don't go in,

In.

There's a difference between seeing the pain that exists,

The physical pain,

For instance,

Or the mental pain,

For instance,

And then being caught in that river.

We can sit on the bank and we can observe the river as it flows,

Or we can jump into the river and we can be fully immersed in it and forget that there is a bank from which to observe in the first place.

And this is what we want to train ourselves in,

To train ourselves in the discriminating ability to sit on the bank of the river whenever one of these five aggregates presents themselves as though they are stable,

Persistent,

Permanent,

Real.

When that happens,

We want to know that we can take a step back.

We can observe that they are real in some way.

And at the same time,

They too are an aggregate,

Empty of any true essence and impermanent by nature.

But again,

This is a practice.

It's not just something to be conceptualized.

And this is the practice we'll work on today,

Actually.

Chapter 24.

Five,

Again,

The five powers.

Remember to just relax as you listen and not worry too much about remembering these things.

We're just planting seeds.

I really love this chapter.

The five powers.

As children growing up in central Vietnam,

My brothers,

Sisters,

And I used to run out to the yard every time it rained.

It was our way of taking a shower.

We were so happy.

Sometime later,

Our mother would call us and serve us a bowl of rice with pickled bean sprouts or salty fish.

We'd take our bowls and sit in the doorway,

Eating and continuing to watch the falling rain.

We were free of all worries and anxieties,

Not thinking about the past,

The future,

Or anything at all.

We just enjoyed ourselves,

Our food,

And each other.

On New Year's Day,

Mother served us special cakes,

And we went outside and ate the cakes while playing with the cat and the dog.

Sometimes our New Year's clothes were so starchy that they squeaked as we walked.

We thought we were in paradise.

Growing up,

We began to worry about homework,

The right clothes,

A good job,

And supporting our families,

Not to mention war,

Social injustice,

And so many other difficulties.

We thought our paradise was lost,

But it was not.

We only had to remember how to water the seeds of paradise in ourselves,

And we were able to produce true happiness again.

Even today,

You and I can return to our own paradise every time we breathe in and out mindfully.

Our true home was not only in the past.

It is present now.

Mindfulness is the energy we can produce in our daily lives to bring our paradise back.

The five faculties,

Or bases,

Are the power plants that can help us generate this energy in ourselves.

The five powers are that energy in action.

The five faculties and powers are faith,

Energy,

Mindfulness,

Concentration,

And insight.

When practice is bases,

They are like factories that produce electricity.

When practiced as powers,

They have the capacity to bring about all the elements of the Eightfold Path,

Just as electricity manifests as light or heat.

The first of the five is faith.

When we have faith,

A great energy in us is unleashed.

If our faith is in something unreliable or false,

Not informed by insight,

Sooner or later it will lead us to a state of doubt and suspicion.

But when our faith is made of insight and understanding,

We will touch the things that are good,

Beautiful,

And reliable.

Faith is the confidence we receive when we put into practice a teaching that helps us overcome difficulties and obtain some transformation.

It is like the confidence a farmer has in his way of growing crops.

It is not blind.

It is not some belief in a set of ideas or dogmas.

The second power is diligence,

The energy that brings joy into our practice.

Faith gives birth to diligence,

And this diligence continues to strengthen our faith.

Animated with diligent energy,

We become truly alive.

Our eyes shine and our steps are solid.

The third power is mindfulness.

To look deeply,

To have deep insight,

We use the energy of right mindfulness.

Meditation is a power plant for mindfulness.

When we sit,

Eat a meal,

Or wash the dishes,

We can learn to be mindful.

Mindfulness allows us to look deeply and see what is going on.

Mindfulness is the plow,

The hoe,

And the irrigation source that waters insight.

We are the gardener,

Plowing,

Sowing,

And watering our beneficial seeds.

The fourth power is concentration.

To look deeply and see clearly,

We need concentration.

When we eat,

Wash dishes,

Walk,

Stand,

Sit,

Lie down,

Breathe,

Or work in mindfulness,

We develop concentration.

Mindfulness leads to concentration,

And concentration leads to insight and to faith.

With these four qualities,

Our life is filled with joy and the energy of being alive,

Which is the second power.

The fifth power is insight or wisdom.

The ability to look deeply and see clearly,

And also the understanding that results from this practice.

When we can see clearly,

We abandon what is false,

And our faith becomes right faith.

When all five power plants are working,

Producing electricity,

They are no longer just faculties.

They become the five powers.

There is a difference between producing something and having the power that it has generated.

If there is not enough energy in our body and mind,

Our five power plants need repair.

When our power plants function well,

We are able to produce the energy we need for our practice and for our happiness.

Our store consciousness contains the seeds of all of these energies.

When joy or anger is not present in our mind consciousness,

We may say,

I don't have that,

But we do.

It's below in our store consciousness.

Under the right conditions,

That seed will manifest.

We may say,

I'm not angry,

I don't have anger in me,

But anger is still there in our unconscious mind.

Everyone has a seed of anger lying dormant below in our store consciousness.

When we practice,

Our effort is to water positive seeds and let the negative seeds remain dormant.

We don't say,

Until I've gotten rid of all of my bad seeds,

I can't practice.

If you get rid of all of your unwholesome seeds,

You won't have anything to practice.

We need to practice now with all the wholesome seeds and unwholesome seeds within us.

If we don't,

The negative seeds will grow and cause a great deal of suffering.

Practicing the five powers is a matter of cultivating the earth of our store consciousness and sowing and watering good seeds.

Then,

When they arise into our mind consciousness and become flowers and fruits,

They will scatter more good seeds throughout our store consciousness.

If you want unwholesome seeds to be in your mind consciousness,

You need the condition of continuity.

Fruits of the same nature will re-sow wholesome seeds in you.

The Lotus Sutra says,

All sentient beings have the Buddha nature.

With the right conditions,

The seed of Buddha nature in us will grow.

We could also call that seed the seed of right mindfulness or the seed of insight,

Wisdom,

Or right faith.

These are,

In fact,

One seed.

To practice means to help that wonderful seed manifest.

When we are mindful,

Concentration is already there.

When we are concentrated,

There is insight and wisdom.

When we have faith,

There is energy.

Mindfulness is the seed of Buddha in us.

Concentration is,

Therefore,

Already present in this seed of mindfulness in us.

The appellation of Buddha comes from the root of the verb buddha,

Which means to wake up,

To understand,

To know what is happening in a very deep way.

In knowing,

Understanding,

And waking up to reality,

There is mindfulness.

Because mindfulness means seeing and knowing what is happening,

Whether our seeing is deep or superficial depends on our degree of awakening.

In each of us,

The seed of Buddha,

The capacity to wake up and understand,

Is called Buddha nature.

It is the seed of mindfulness,

The awareness of what is happening in the present moment.

If I say a lotus for you,

A Buddha to be,

It means I see clearly the Buddha nature in you.

It may be difficult for you to accept that the seed of Buddha is in you,

But we all have the capacity for faith,

Awakening,

Understanding,

And awareness.

And that is what is meant by Buddha nature.

There is no one who does not have the capacity to be a Buddha.

But the treasure we are looking for remains hidden to us.

Stop being like the man in the Lotus Sutra who looked all over the world for the gem that was already in his pocket.

Come back and receive your true inheritance.

Don't look outside yourself for happiness.

Let go of the idea that you don't have it.

It is available within you.

The Bodhisattva,

Never despising,

Could not dislike anyone because he knew that each of us had the capacity to become a Buddha.

He would bow to every child and adult and say,

I do not dare to underestimate you.

You are a future Buddha.

Some people felt so joyful upon hearing this that faith arose in them.

But others,

Thinking that he was making fun of them,

Shouted and hurled stones at him.

He continued this practice for his whole life,

Reminding others they had the capacity to wake up.

Why wander all over the world looking for something you already have?

You are already the richest person on earth.

How can we help someone who feels she cannot love herself?

How can we help her be in touch with the seed of love already in her,

So it can manifest as a flower and she can smile?

As a good friend,

You have to learn to look deeply into your own store consciousness and into the store consciousness of others.

We can help our friend cultivate that seed and realize her capacity to love.

There is a sixth power called capacity or inclusiveness.

The capacity to be happy is very precious.

Someone who is able to be happy,

Even when confronted with difficulties,

Has the capacity to offer light and a sense of joy to herself and to those around her.

When we are near someone like this,

We feel happy also.

Even when she enters hell,

She will lighten up hell with the sound of her laughter.

There is a bodhisattva named Kittish Garba whose practice is to go into the places of deepest suffering and bring light and laughter to others.

If your sangha has one person like that,

Someone who can smile,

Be happy,

And have faith in all circumstances,

It is a good sangha.

Ask yourself,

Am I like that?

At first glance,

You might think not.

You might have an inferiority complex,

Which is the second kind of pride.

Please follow the advice of never despising bodhisattva and look deeply into your store consciousness to accept that the seeds of happiness,

The capacity to love and be happy is there.

Practice joy.

You may think that washing dishes is menial work,

But when you roll up your sleeves,

Turn on the water,

And pour in the soap,

You can be very happy.

By washing the dishes mindfully,

You see how wonderful life is.

Every moment is an opportunity to water the seeds of happiness in yourself.

If you develop the capacity to be happy in any surroundings,

You will be able to share your happiness with others.

Otherwise,

You might think,

This is an unhappy situation,

I must go somewhere else,

And you'll go from place to place,

Wandering like the prodigal son.

When you realize your own capacity to be happy anywhere,

You can put down roots in the present moment.

You can take whatever the conditions of the present moment are and make them the foundation of your life and your happiness.

When the sun is shining,

You are happy.

When it is raining,

You are also happy.

You don't need to go anywhere else.

You don't need to travel into the future or return to the past.

Everything in the present moment belongs to your true home.

All the conditions for happiness are here.

You only have to touch the seeds of happiness that are already within you.

When you enter a well-tended garden and see a fresh,

Beautiful rose,

You want to pick it.

To do so,

You have to touch some thorns.

The rose is there,

But the brambles are also there.

You have to find a way to understand the thorns so you can pick the rose.

Our practice is the same.

Don't say that because there are thorns,

You cannot be happy.

Don't say that because there is still anger or sadness in your heart,

You cannot enjoy anything at all.

You have to know how to deal with your anger and sadness so you don't lose the flowers of joy.

When our internal formations and suffering are dormant in our store consciousness,

It is a good time to practice watering the positive seeds.

When feelings of pain come into our conscious mind,

We have to breathe mindfully and practice walking meditation in order to deal with those feelings.

Don't lose the opportunity to water the seeds of happiness so that more seeds of happiness will enter your store consciousness.

When the Buddha was about to pass away,

His attendant,

Ananda,

Cried and cried.

The Buddha comforted him,

Saying,

Buddhas in the past had good attendants,

But none were as good as you,

Ananda.

He was watering the seeds of happiness in Ananda,

Because Ananda had looked after Buddha with all his heart.

He said,

Ananda,

Have you seen the wonderful fields of golden rice stretching out to the horizon?

They are very beautiful,

Ananda replied.

Yes,

Lord,

They are very beautiful.

The Buddha was always reminding Ananda to notice the things that are beautiful.

Ananda was anxious about taking care of the Buddha well,

And he wasn't able to pick the rose of his daily life.

When you see a cloud in the sky,

Ask your friend,

Do you see that cloud?

Isn't it splendid?

How can we live so that the seeds of happiness in us are watered every day?

That is the cultivation of joy,

The practice of love.

When we can practice these things easily,

We have the energy of mindfulness.

But without mindfulness,

How can we see the beautiful rice fields?

How can we feel the delightful rain?

Breathing in,

I know the rain is falling.

Breathing out,

I smile to the rain.

Breathing in,

I know that rain is a necessary part of life.

Breathing out,

I smile again.

Mindfulness helps us regain the paradise we thought we had lost.

We want to return to our true home,

But we are in the habit of running away.

We want to sit on a lotus flower,

But instead we sit on burning charcoal,

And we want to jump off.

If we sit firmly in the present moment,

It is as though we are sitting on a lotus.

The Buddha is always represented as sitting peacefully on a lotus flower,

Because he was always at home.

He didn't need to run anymore.

To enjoy sitting in the present moment is called just sitting,

Or non-action.

Venerable Thich Quang Duc was able to sit peacefully even while fire was blazing all around him.

He was burning,

But he was still sitting on a lotus.

That is the ultimate capacity to sit peacefully in any circumstance,

Knowing that nothing is lost.

The capacity to feel at peace anywhere is a positive seed.

The energy to run away is not.

If we practice mindfulness,

Whenever the energy of wanting to run away arises,

We can smile at it and say,

Hello my old friend,

I recognize you.

The moment we recognize any habit energy,

It loses a little of its power.

Every time Mara appeared,

The Buddha said,

I know you my old friend,

And Mara fled.

In the Samadhi Sutra,

We are taught to practice so that our happiness is present here and now.

It isn't necessary to run away or abandon our present home and look for an illusory home,

A so-called paradise that is really just a shadow of happiness.

When we produce faith,

Energy,

Mindfulness,

Concentration,

And insight in our power plants,

We realize that our true home is already filled with light and power.

What is this chapter about?

Is it about the five powers or is it about happiness and how to be happy?

What is the difference between the two of those things?

So nothing.

There's no difference between the two.

And I think that that's something that this chapter is really highlighting.

If we want to be happy,

We don't say,

I want to be happy and sit around begging for happiness.

We cultivate the container that houses happiness.

We cultivate the proper conditions for happiness to naturally arise.

We cultivate the aggregates of happiness.

And in this chapter,

We're instructed that the aggregates of happiness,

What lead to happiness are these five powers.

So again,

They're faith,

Energy,

Mindfulness,

Concentration,

And insight.

And as with all of the teachings,

We know that each teaching contains each other teaching in it.

So when we look at this chapter,

This is merely another way,

Another road to understand ourselves at this deep absolute level and deal with ourselves on this relative level.

So as I said,

We don't want to just sit around and wait for happiness to descend upon us.

If we can start to put these five powers into practice today,

The core of which being mindfulness,

Then naturally happiness will begin to arise for us.

So we don't want to look to the end road to get there.

We have to look at the map.

We have to say,

If I want to go to Paris,

I have to take a right turn,

A left turn.

I have to drive on this highway and this freeway.

I have to take this boat or this plane or however we are arriving in Paris.

We don't look to the end and say,

Oh,

I just wish to be in Paris.

I just wish to be in Paris.

I just wish to be in Paris.

Rather,

We look at the steps to get us there and then we take those steps.

And naturally we will arrive in Paris and that is what we want for our lives.

If we want to naturally arrive in happiness without more suffering,

Because a striving sensation,

A clinging sensation to the concept of happiness will without a doubt keep us separate from us.

If we choose instead to look at the map to happiness,

To cultivate the container of happiness,

Then we don't even have to think about being happy.

We don't even have to worry about it.

It will naturally express itself for us.

Okay.

Let's sit.

Let's sit together.

We'll do a brief practice together and then once that practice is over,

I will offer some homework for the next few days because we'll meet again.

We have another session sort of soon.

So it's a pretty easy homework and it's a gentle practice.

So wherever you are sitting up or lying down,

Come into yourself,

Arrive,

Arrive inside of yourself,

Withdrawing the sense organs from grasping,

Looking,

Even if the eyes remain open,

It's no problem.

You know,

You just stop grabbing the information that is potential for the eyes to attach to.

So you soften the sense organs inward,

Including the sense of hearing,

Even hearing of my voice because the practice is not coming from me to you.

It's coming from you to you.

So elongate your spine,

Stretch yourself out wherever you are,

Eyes open,

Eyes closed,

No problem.

Arrive here,

Arrive home.

Let's begin.

Be with your breath.

Feel your breath as it expands and touches every part of your body so that the act of being with your breath is an act of being with yourself completely,

Fully.

Look for relaxation and lean more into it,

Softening where softening is accessible,

Letting go of resistance,

Especially in the face,

The shoulders,

The throat,

And take a moment to acknowledge that everything is okay right now,

That you're safe here exactly as you are.

Keeping this gentle framework of your attention,

Expand it now to include any thoughts you might be having inside of your mind,

Seeing the form of the thoughts in your mind made up of other thoughts.

Just take a few moments here and like Thich Nhat Hanh described,

Imagine you're observing the river of your own thinking mind,

Seeing the thoughts flow by in this seamless way.

Notice what shape they take,

Happy or sad,

Bored or anxious,

Worried or calm about this person or that person or this experience or that experience.

Just sit and you may even be able to visualize yourself sitting on the bank of your mind and watching the river of your thoughts flow by.

As you observe in this way,

You can invite in the questions,

Not asking for answers,

But just simply asking for the sake of asking,

Asking yourself the question,

Where are these thoughts coming from and when they leave,

Where are they going?

Expand your awareness now to the sensations that you may be experiencing.

If your eyes are open,

Maybe you have the sensation of vision.

You can feel the texture of the clothing on your skin or the temperature in the room.

Feel sensations with all of the five sense organs,

The eyes,

The ears,

The nose,

The mouth and the physical body.

As you notice these sensations,

Notice what you see and be fully present with it.

Again,

Cultivating this imagery perhaps that you're seated on the shore of your mind and you're watching as the information of the senses flows inward.

Perhaps you linger for a moment with one sense before moving to the next,

Lingering with the sense of the physical sensations in the body and then moving the attention to linger in the sensations in the mouth or the nose.

Once again,

You can invite in the question,

Where do these sensations come from and when they leave,

Where do they go?

Expand your awareness and notice now the perceptions you are experiencing of the thoughts and sensations.

How are these thoughts and sensations being interpreted inside of your mind?

What value are you giving to them?

Are you perceiving them correctly,

Resting with the river of perception?

Notice how it's constantly flowing,

Constantly moving,

Perceiving one thing and then the next.

Ask yourself,

You don't need an answer,

You just ask and then sit with what arises,

Asking yourself,

What does perception look like?

Where does it come from and where does it go?

Expand your awareness more.

The rivers start to join together.

It's not one river form,

One river sensations,

One river perception.

It's one big river that includes all of these.

Notice how your mind is like a fly jumping around and there is this river of mental activity that converges with all the other rivers.

See how your attention is moving here and there,

Just like a fly looking for this juicy resting place.

Observe how the mental activity is never ceasing and be curious as to what causes the fly to land,

What instigates its departure,

How does the mental activity choose to switch and move,

To come and go?

What does the mental activity look like?

You can broaden the question,

Ask yourself,

Where is all of this happening?

Where is all of this taking place,

Thinking,

Sensing,

Perceiving the movement of the mind and who is doing the observing?

Ask yourself these questions and then just be with that.

Where is all of this happening and who is doing the observing?

Be with that.

Bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath.

Just be here for a few moments,

Letting go of deep thinking,

Deep looking and allowing the mind,

The brain to rest.

Maybe perhaps putting your attention on the brain and feeling as though it moves away from the inner surface of the skull,

Softening completely,

Feeling the rhythmic flow of the breath.

Be here.

Homework time.

I love homework.

This homework is easy.

These next few days,

Maybe even just choosing one day,

It doesn't have to be many days.

Of course,

You can always work with these meditations that we've been doing.

That's great homework.

I've given you the homework already to include in your daily practice,

Taking refuge and the four immeasurables.

Now I want to just give a daily homework assignment,

Something that you can do throughout the day.

That is to be the never-despising bodhisattva.

I want you to water the seeds of happiness all around you.

Maybe you choose just one day to do this.

Maybe you choose to do this every day,

Trying to do this,

Trying to actually cultivate this way of being with the world.

Practice seeing the buddha nature in everyone you come in contact with.

As you do that,

Draw your own buddha nature forward and practice seeing what is beautiful around you.

First you do this from within.

No matter what the circumstances are,

Look for what is beautiful.

Place your attention on that.

As you get better at doing it for yourself,

Begin to bring it to other people.

When you're in a room with people who you love,

Notice what is wonderful.

When you're outside with people that you love,

Notice what is beautiful.

Notice what is present.

Hear the birds sing,

See the sunset,

And bring attention to these beautiful parts of life,

To the people that are around you,

As well as highlighting them for yourself.

This is not a gratitude practice.

This is not make a list of all the things you're grateful for.

This is a practice to change the way you relate to moment by moment experience.

It's meant to go on all day long.

Anytime you see something positive,

Uplifting,

Wholesome,

Bring awareness to it.

Spend every day looking for it in every situation.

When you wake up,

Think,

What can I look for right now that is wonderful,

Right now that is naturally incredible,

Magical,

Wholesome,

And amazing?

Pay attention to it.

Do this not just for yourself,

But to everyone,

As I said,

That you meet.

Make a note in your phone.

Set a reminder,

Something like this,

That pops up and says,

Remember to notice what is pleasant,

What is perfect,

What is naturally free and radiant.

Remember to share it with others.

This is a practice for you for now,

For the weeks ahead,

That I hope you will start to cultivate because we can all be this person in our own lives,

Definitely,

And then as a gift to humanity in the lives of others,

And that is so,

So valuable.

I hope you'll practice that.

We meet again next on Sunday.

I thank you so much for spending time with me today.

Until next time,

Live mindfully,

Be well.

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