Eye of the Buddha Retreat - Taking Refuge in the Sangha as a Practice
In the spring of 2000, practitioners came from across the world to Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Eye of the Buddha” retreat at Plum Village. If you have not had the pleasure of being on retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh (or if you have), here is an opportunity to read in succession each Dharma talk he gave at the 21-day retreat. We will be posting them week by week. In this first talk, “Taking Refuge in the Sangha,” Thây describes the power of practicing as part of the Sangha body. Enjoy your reading…..
The Eye of the Buddha Retreat
A 21-day retreat in Plum Village
June 2nd - 22, 2000
Teachings from Thich Nhat Hanh
June 2nd , 2000
Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Edited by: Susan O’Leary
Homage to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
With body speech and mind in perfect oneness
I send my heart along with the sound of the bell
May the hearers awaken from forgetfulness
And transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow
May the sound of the bell merge deeply into the cosmos
In even the darkest places
May living beings hear it clearly
So that understanding lights up their hearts
And without hardship they transcend the cycle of birth and death.
Listening to the bell I feel the afflictions in me begin to dissolve
My mind becomes calm my body relaxed
A smile is born on my lips
Following the sound of the bell
My breath guides me back to the safe island of mindfulness
In the garden of my heart flowers of peace bloom beautifully
The universal Dharma door is already open
The sound of the rising tide is clear
And a miracle happens
A beautiful child appears in the heart of a lotus flowers
A single drop of the compassionate water
Is enough to bring back refreshing spring to mountains and to rivers
Homage to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Bell
Good morning dear Sangha, good morning friends, welcome to the retreat of twenty-one days with the theme The Eye of the Buddha.
Many of us have come from Europe, America and elsewhere, and your coming has modified deeply our Sangha here in Plum Village. You have brought with you your wisdom, your insight, your solidity, your happiness, your sorrow, your suffering. The Sangha of Plum Village is no longer the Sangha of Plum Village. You are now a larger Sangha. This is a new Sangha for all of us. The coming together of the Sangha is a great event always. We are attracted to each other because we share the same concern, the same interest, the same kind of joy.
When scientists have studied about the social behavior of animals and insects, they have spoken of inter-attraction. Living beings are like bees, termites and ants. They feel wonderful being together. They are social animals; they want to be with each other, they feel more secure, they feel happier being together. You cannot keep a bee alone or isolated because after a few hours, a few days, it will dry up. Without the bee hive, a bee cannot be a bee any more. In Vietnam we used to say that a practitioner who has left his or her Sangha is like a tiger leaving his mountain. After having left the Sangha, the practitioner who abandoned his or her practice may in just a few months die as a practitioner, like a bee without the community of bees. When the tiger leaves her mountain to go to the lowland, she will be caught by humans and killed. A person who is without a Sangha, a practitioner who is without a Sangha, cannot continue his or her practice. That is something we feel very strongly. Our practice is nourished and grows deeply only in the context of the Sangha, and that is why each of us feels that we should be a Sangha builder. Because it is with the Sangha that we feel more solidity, security, joy and happiness.
So, as practitioners we want to be with each other, something that is the equivalent of interattraction. We are motivated by the same desire to practice for our transformation, for our healing, and for transformation and healing in the world. We know that a solitary ant cannot do much. She just goes around. She does not look as if she has a mind or a thought or any imagination or ideas. But when we put one hundred ants together, they behave as a new organism and you begin to see them operating as an organism, with intelligence, with thinking, with planning. A solitary ant has only a few neurons strung together by fibers. If we look at her we don't see intelligence manifesting, we don't see thinking, we don't see ideas. But when the ants get together, something begins to manifest. If you observe an anthill with thousands and thousands of ants working together, you can see clearly the intelligence, the ideas, the thinking, the talent also.
Human beings are a kind of social animal. When we observe the bees or the ants we have the impression that we can learn something from them. Scientists have used the word "super organism" to describe the life, the reality of these communities of social insects: "super organism." Why? Because each individual bee or ant can live his or her life as individuals, but they always live the life of the community, of the organism. They live together at the same time as a cell, as a tissue of the same body. And interestingly enough we observe, when we observe them, that there are no egoistic acts, there is no jealousy, there is no anger, there is no discrimination. Every individual works naturally for the well-being of the whole community, and the ant and the bee do not dream much of the future. They do not get caught in the past. They are there living the present moment and doing whatever they need to do for the well-being of the whole community.
We know an ant hill can last for many, many years, maybe 60 years or more, but the life of the ant is only for one month or so. In one month also the whole generation of ants vanish; every day they die at the rate of three or four percent, and yet they don't think of the future. They are doing their best. They don't think whether they will be there when the anthill is finished and they don't care whether at some distance another hill is being built.
When we observe the bees, the termites and the ants, we see that they are perfect in the way they lead their daily lives. They do not have egotistic acts. Everything they do is for the good, the well-being of the whole community. Therefore there is no jealousy, there is no fear, there is no discrimination. But there is something lacking in the community of bees, of ants, of termites. That is the awareness that they are there, alive, living for themselves, for the community and for others.
This is something you can notice when we observe a Sangha. Members of a Sangha can very well live their individual life, but at the same time they can play the role of a tissue, of a cell of the community. As Sangha builders, as people who live 24 hours a day with the Sangha, we continue to learn a lot about Sangha as an organism. When you live in a Sangha you try to be like a cell in a body, you try to be like a bee in the bee hive for the well-being of the community. And because there is well-being in the community, there is well-being in every one of us, and the Sangha can serve as refuge for many, many people who come. That is our practice every day - how to live your individual life at the same time with your life as an organism. And when you are capable of living like that you are no longer the victim of your jealousy, your anger, your discrimination, your fear because you are the organism. The Sangha has become your body and therefore besides having the individual body you have the Sangha body, the Sanghakaya.
It is strange that in the teaching of Buddhism we speak a lot about Buddhakaya, the body of the Buddha, and we speak about the body of the Dharma, Dharmakaya, but we have waited until the end of the twentieth century in order to speak about the Sanghakaya, the body of the Sangha. The Sangha is our body. It is like the beehive is the body of the bee, the anthill is the body of the ant. And when we are able to live in that spirit, considering the Sangha as our body, most of our suffering will vanish. Taking refuge in the Sangha is not an expression of faith, it is a practice.
Taking refuge in the Sangha means learning to live as well in the organism called Sangha. Living as a tissue - and this is something possible. We who live in Plum Village twenty four hours a day, we know that if we are able to look at the Sangha as our body most of our suffering will vanish and we will get a lot of joy. Seeing the Sangha body as your Sangha is a practice, and mindfulness is the kind of energy that helps you to do so. This is something that we can do.
Bell
It looks like the purpose of the bees is to build a hive, it looks like the purpose of the ants is to build a hill. That is inscribed in their DNA; every cell of the body is there to build communities. When we observe these insects, we see the intelligence, we see the intelligences; we see the experiences, we see the wisdom that has been transmitted to them by many generations of bees and ants or termites. When we observe humans doing something together we can see also the wisdom, the intelligence, the experiences handed down to them by many generations of humans that have come before. The social insects, they too have means of communication. They don't use language like us but they do communicate. The bees can dance, they can release pheromone messages in form of chemicals that can communicate very well and sometimes perfectly. The ants can also dance and make sonorous vibrations to communicate, and they also release pheromone, tiny particles of chemicals that can communicate so well. We humans, we use language. We know how to store information, we know how to process and how to retrieve information. We know how to communicate. We use language, we use fax, we use email, we use telegrams and telephone and so on, but sometimes communication is difficult.
In a practicing Sangha we communicate with each other also, but the base of our communication is silence. We have Dharma discussion sessions, but Dharma discussions are not the only way in which we communicate with each other. We communicate in several ways, and mostly in silence. When we come together and sit we don't say anything, but we communicate and the message is very clear: "My dear brothers, my dear sisters, I am here for you. I feel so glad to be surrounded by you members of my Sangha. I feel secure, I feel safe, I feel happy, I feel solid when I find myself surrounded by my Sangha." That is the kind of communication that we make during sitting meditation and that is only the basic one. Because in sitting meditation we learn how to really be there, with our full presence. We learn how to establish ourselves in the here and the now. We know that life is available only in the here and the now. That is why sitting for us is to be in a position where we can touch life deeply and all the wonders of life are available to us from inside and from outside at the same time. This is a very powerful communication. Dear Sangha, it is wonderful that we are there as a body, the Sangha body. I don't have to strive any more, to fight any more, to run any more. I feel at home with my Sangha. With the Sangha body I feel a lot of energy. I will not dry up like a bee when kept alone for half a day or two days before my body is here, my Sangha body is here with me all the time.
Sitting in a Sangha - even if you don't do anything - makes you alive, makes you solid, makes you happy, but only if you know how to allow yourself to be your Sangha. Only if you know how to allow yourself to be penetrated by the Sangha so that communication becomes possible. Communication yes. In the modern world, we have very sophisticated instruments and means for communications, but very often we feel stuck.Sangha communication is based on freedom - freedom from discrimination, freedom from a notion of self because we know how to allow ourselves to be the Sangha. We know how to allow our bodies to become part of the Sangha body and the Sangha body to be our body. The bees are always doing something: building the hive. The ants are always trying to do something: building the hill. We humans, we members of the Sangha, maybe our spiritual vocation, our biological structure tells us that we are there also to build some kind of hill, some kind of hive, but we don't do it by our work alone. We don't do it by action alone, we do it by non action, namely, being Because doing is not the only thing we can do as humans and as members of a Sangha. Being is the basic action. It can be called non action, but that is the foundation of all meaningful actions. So when you observe the organism of a Sangha, you see there is action but you see there is non action. That means being, and being is an art. When we come together and sit like this, we are not doing anything, but our being together, our confidence in the Path, in the practice, in the Sangha is a tremendous source of energy that is able to heal us, to transform us and to bring us a lot of solidity, freedom and joy. So, non action, being, is the foundation of all kinds of actions.
When we practice walking together we don't do anything, we just enjoy every step we make. When you see the centipede walking with so many feet, we are like that, we are just one body with so many feet walking at the same time. And where do we go? We go nowhere because our destination is the here and the now where life is available right now. And therefore every step brings us to the here and the now, to life and all its wonders that are available in that moment.
So when we do walking meditation we don't do anything. We don't fight, we don't strive for anything, we just learn to be. Touching the earth at our feet deeply and realizing that we are alive as an organism, as a Sangha, that is wonderful enough. That is good enough for our transformation and healing. The healing elements can be found not only in the action but mostly in the non action, our being. And the quality of being is what we learn from the Dharma. The moment when you arrive in Plum Village you become a cell of an organism. There are monks, nuns and other people who live in Plum Village permanently; each of them is also a cell of the organism. The monks, the nuns and the lay men and women in Plum Village they do not consider themselves to be the host and you to be the guest. No, they look upon you as members of the Sangha. They do not hesitate to invite you to share the full life of the Sangha. A nun is a cell of the Sangha body, each of you are also a cell of the Sangha body. Learn to be, learn to practice so that you can really be an organism called Sangha. And thanks to the Dharma, thanks to the practice, our body, our Sangha body, our organism can be something like a super organism, if you wish, a holy organism, because it is, essentially, holy.
What makes the Sangha a holy entity is the energy of mindfulness, the energy of concentration and insight. Mindfulness is the kind of energy we generate every day, every hour, every minute, every second by the practice of mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful sitting, mindful looking, mindful listening. Holy life is something possible, something that you can observe, that you can witness to. In our daily lives we often live more or less in forgetfulness. We are caught in our regret and sorrow concerning the past, we are caught in our anxiety and fear concerning the future. We are caught by our craving, our despair in the present moment. But with the energy of mindfulness we can establish ourselves in the here and the now. We can be free from our regret concerning the past, our fear concerning the future or the craving or the despair that can come up in us in the present moment. With the energy of mindfulness, we can touch the wonders of life within us and around us. With the energy of mindfulness we can recognize and embrace our fear, our anger, our craving so that we can bring relief and the joy of life into ourselves, into our Sangha. This is something that is happening all the time during our daily life of practice and this is the element called holy in the holy Sangha, the holy Sangha. A Sangha that is inhabited by the energy of mindfulness is a true Sangha, and we know that if mindfulness is there, concentration is there, and insight is there, also. When you are inhabited by the energies of mindfulness, concentration and insight the Buddha is there; the Buddha can be touched through the Sangha and of course the Dharma. And of course the Dharma can be touched through the Sangha. The Sangha carries within herself the presence of the Buddha and the Dharma, and that it is why it is so important that we take refuge in the Sangha. Maybe if you don't like to use the word super organism we can use the word holy organism because the Sangha is a jewel.
The Sangha is not just a group of people - the Sangha is something much more than a group of people. Members of a Sangha have the same kind of affinity, the same kind of aspiration, the same kind of need, the same kind of practice, the same kind of concern. They are aware that suffering is there and there is a need to understand deeply the nature of suffering. Members of the Sangha are aware that the cessation of suffering, that transformation and healing are all possible. They are aware of the fact that there are ways to transform and to heal. Members of the Sangha have confidence in the way of the Eightfold Path (called Marga in Sanskrit), which leads to the cessation of suffering, to transformation and healing. This way can be seen in the daily practice. When a member of the Sangha walks, she walks in such a way that makes life possible right in that moment. With her foot she touches the earth, she touches so deeply that you can see the energy of concentration, of mindfulness in her, emanating from herself. She really invests herself into the act of making a step and when she does that she communicates. She does not need to release any pheromone, she does not need to talk, she does not need to telephone, to send a fax. She just walks like this, and with each step she makes, she cultivates more freedom, more solidity and more joy. And she can do this every time she needs to move from one place to another place. We humans, we need to move from one place to another place many times during the day, and therefore we have plenty of opportunities to practice so that every step can bring more solidity, more joy and especially more freedom. Because every step you make like that helps you to reclaim the freedom that you have lost in the hectic kind of life out there in society.
The permanent residents of Plum Village are instructed to walk like that every time they need to move from one place to another place - whether they are monks or nuns or lay people, they are instructed to do that. When they do that, they do it for themselves, they do it for the whole Sangha and they do it for the greater Sangha that is there, that is out there everywhere. We build a hill not only for the sake of the hill itself, we build a hill for the sake of the whole world because the Sangha is a holy refuge. People suffer so much they do not know where to turn to, and Sangha building is the most noble task. The twentieth century was characterized by individualism, a lot of destruction, a lot of sorrow, of fear, of alienation. The twenty-first century should be different, we learn to live like bees in a beehive. Here at Plum Village, we learn to live like cells in the same body, our practice is Sangha building. Taking refuge in the Sangha. "Sangham saranam gacchami." That is our practice.
So you have arrived. You have become a cell of the body. You can do Sangha building by your walking, by your breathing, by your sitting and bring yourself a lot of joy, a lot of relief, of peace, of freedom. You can offer the Sangha a lot of joy, a lot of peace, a lot of liberty also. And you don't have to strive. You allow the Sangha to transport you, to protect you like the bees. They really take refuge in the beehive, as the ants take refuge in the anthill. Even if you have come with a lot of pain, sorrow and fear within yourselves, allow yourself to be embraced by the Sangha. "Dear Sangha, I have come with a lot of pain, a lot of sorrow, a lot of fear. Please embrace me, please embrace my fear, my sorrow, my pain. I surrender to the Sangha." If you are capable of practicing like that, transformation may be obtained in just a few hours.
If you continue to suffer because you are still caught in your notion of self, you think that is your suffering, that is your pain, that is your sorrow. Now if you are capable of seeing yourself as a cell in the body of the Sangha, if you trust the Sangha, if you surrender yourself to the Sangha together with your intelligence, your talent, your sorrow, your fear then the energy of the Sangha will be able to take you in, to embrace you, to transform you. And you will get relief right away, right away. And your relief will be the relief of the Sangha.
I said in the beginning that your coming has modified very deeply the Sangha at Plum Village because you have brought your wisdom, your insight, your happiness and your sorrow and fear. Everyone of us - whether we are permanent residents of Plum Village or whether we have just come - all of us become a cell in a new body, a Sangha body. And if you know how to trust, how to authorize yourself to be home, to be held by the Sangha, to surrender to the Sangha, if you know how to be just a cell of the Sangha body, I promise that that kind of relief and transformation can take place in just a few hours.
When we come together and enjoy breakfast, this is also a practice. You don't need breakfast for yourself alone, you eat for the Sangha. When you chew the food, chew it for the Sangha please - it is possible to do so. I remember one day we had a picnic in the mountains not far from Montreal, we were on a retreat there. I took a walk, and I saw a member of the Montreal Sangha. He was eating his bread, sitting at the foot of a tree and when he saw me I asked him, "What are you doing?" and he said, "Well, I am feeding you, Thay, I am feeding the Sangha." That was a good answer. Your well being is the well being of the Sangha. Everything you do is for the Sangha; you do it for every one of us and for yourself. That is the behavior of the bees; that is the behavior of the ants.
If you can get out of the notion of self, suffering will vanish very soon, very soon. And a twenty-one-day retreat is something very rare. You cannot afford to have a twenty-one-day retreat several times a year, and therefore we should treasure this opportunity. Noble silence is a wonderful means in order for us to enjoy deeply our twenty-one-day retreat, to acknowledge that twenty-one-day retreats always bring transformation and healing to many, many people.
If you had been there in St. Michael College two years ago, you would have noticed that the suffering was at first immense. But after twenty-one-days practice, so many people felt release from the suffering thanks to the power of the Sangha. It is the Sangha that heals you, that allows you the opportunity to transform. And who is the Sangha? The Sangha is you. Therefore, during the twenty-one-day retreat here please do not think of the monks, the nuns and other lay people in Plum Village as your host and you are only the guest. No. We are looking on you as members of our Sangha, and your joy, your happiness will be our joy and our happiness. We can learn something from the bees. We can learn something from the termites. Then we are no longer subject to our individual sorrow and fear and discrimination and pain. We give up, we become a cell in the body of the Sangha, and suddenly we feel much, much better. We can release all these negative energies. It is much easier than you have thought.
Bell
If during breakfast you get caught in your worries, your fear, eat for the Sangha and release that fear, that sorrow. Eating for the Sangha I have to enjoy my breakfast for the Sangha expects me to do so because eating breakfast while swallowing my fear and sorrow is not healthy for the Sangha. The Sangha is there to support you, to remind you that eating breakfast is a way to nourish the Sangha with stability and freedom. That is the way we should eat our breakfast - which is something you are going to do very soon now (laughter). Enjoy every morsel of your breakfast like that. You know you are feeding the Sangha and you know what the Sangha needs - not sorrow, not fear but stability, joy and liberty. So, eating breakfast is a deep practice, and if you allow yourself to be touched by the Sangha, if you know that the Sangha is there surrounding you, embracing you, you will eat your breakfast with a lot of joy. This is not difficult at all. Eating breakfast is a deep practice. After that we enjoy walking together. Eating breakfast cannot be described as work, just as walking meditation cannot be described as work. Both practices can be very pleasant, very nourishing and healing. So, walking, not as individuals, we walk as an organism. Your feet are my feet and your feet are my feet. I walk in the best way I can, I enjoy every step I make, not only for myself, but for you. And if you are released from your suffering and your fear, and if you can touch the earth with joy, then you nourish me, you nourish the whole Sangha.
I have arrived. That is my insight when I breathe in and make two steps. I have arrived, I have arrived. Peacefully, gently, but very determined. We have been running for all our life, it is now time to stop. If you are not capable of stopping, how can you enjoy touching the earth with your feet? The miracle is not to walk on water or on fire, the miracle is to walk on earth, and any one of us can perform this miracle. The miracle is to walk on earth, that is a statement made by the Zen master Lin Chi, or Rinzai. If you can establish yourself in the here and the now, and make a step and touch the wonders of life in the here and the now, you are performing the miracle. "Le miracle c'est de marcher sur terre." (The miracle is to walk on water.) That is the title in French of Thay’s book, The Miracle of Mindfulness. Walking on earth, you walk in such a way that the Kingdom of God is available to you right here and right now. This is possible. With the support of the Sangha, this is possible - to walk in the Kingdom of God, to walk in the Pure Land. There is not a day that I do not walk in the Kingdom of God. There is not a single day when I do not walk in the Pure Land of the Buddha. You need some freedom, you need to release your sorrow and your fear in order to do so and it is exactly with the Sangha that you can perform that miracle. The Sangha has a tremendous source of energy if you know how to take refuge, to surrender to the Sangha, to allow the Sangha to take care of everything. You just enjoy being a cell of the Sangha; that is enough. And please don't say that you cannot do that.
When you signed up for the retreat you expressed the intention to be here. Taking refuge in the Sangha and enjoying every step you make, nourishing the Sangha, healing the Sangha with your steps, you are a Sangha builder now. Later on, wherever you find yourself you will continue to be a Sangha builder because our world, our society, desperately needs the presence of Sangha builders to offer refuge for so many living beings who are getting lost every day! I have arrived because the destination I want to arrive in is life, and life is available only in the here and the now. When I take one breath, breathing in I bring my body and my mind together. And in that state of being I am available to life and life is available to me. The oneness of body and mind realized by just one in-breath can make you available to life and its wonder, and make life and its wonder available to you. Just one in-breath, and during that in breath you make two steps, "I have arrived, I have arrived." That is enlightenment, that is awareness already, and suddenly you are capable of stopping, of being there in the here and the now. That is the fruit of the practice. You don't need to practice several days or several years in order to have that. Just one in-breath and suddenly you are there, fully present, body and mind. You need to take just one step in order to enter the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is ready, is available. Only sometimes in our state of forgetfulness we are not ready and therefore mindful breathing brings us back to the here and the now, body and mind united. We only need one step to enter the Kingdom of God: "I have arrived, I have arrived," Arrived where? At the Kingdom of God, at the Pure Land of the Buddha in the here and the now. Life available in the here and the now, and when you breathe out you say, "I am home."
Many of us have been searching for our home, for our true home, and we have not found it. The Buddha told us our home is in the here and the now. If you want to get in touch with your ancestors, if you want to get in touch with the Buddha, with the Kingdom of God, then go back to the here and the now, and mindfully enough, concentrated enough, you will be able to touch everything you look for in the here and the now. To me, the Kingdom of God is now or never. The Pure Land is now or never. The practice is clear. When you practice, "I have arrived, I am home," you stop running. Our ancestors have been running and in our turn we continue to run. The Dharma says, "Stop! Be alive! Be in the here and the now."
Not only in sitting, but in walking you realize that. And later on, while you wash your dishes, you realize that also. It is wonderful washing dishes and arriving in the here and the now. It is very nice washing the dishes in the Kingdom of God. There are those of us who wash dishes in hell. (laughter) it is much nicer, much more pleasant to wash dishes in the Kingdom of God. "I have arrived, I am home, in the here in the now," because the here and the now is the real address of your true home - the address of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the address of the Kingdom of God. here-now@ com.fr
If you want, you can go home very easily because your home is the here and the now. And as a Sangha it is not difficult to go home because the Sangha energy is powerful. I know that. No matter how talented you are if you are only a solitary being, you dry up. With the Sangha you have an opportunity to express all your talent and nourish the Sangha, heal the Sangha with your talent and get the nourishment and the healing from other members of the Sangha. In the here and the now, I am solid, I am free. If you know how to stop, to arrive, to enjoy each step you make, the element of solidity and the element of freedom become a reality; this is not auto suggestion. You have made a few steps in mindfulness and concentration if you are able to arrive in the here and the now. There, solidity and freedom will become a reality, and that will make your joy, your happiness grow. Solidity and freedom are the two characteristic of Nirvana. The Buddha said, "You can touch Nirvana in the here and the now even with your body." The body can touch Nirvana by touching solidity and freedom. Every step you make helps to cultivate your solidity and your freedom because no happiness can be possible without some solidity and freedom. All of us know that.
In the ultimate I dwell. There are two dimensions to reality. The historical dimension and ultimate dimension. We have historical concerns - we are concerned with our health, with our success and the well being of our family, our society, yes. That is called historical concern, but deep in us there is an ultimate concern. We want to touch the absolute, we want to realize our true home, and in the teaching of the Buddha the two dimensions are not separate from each other. If you know how to touch the historical dimension deeply, with mindfulness and concentration, you can touch at the same time the ultimate dimension. Therefore with solidity and freedom you can very well touch the ultimate - your nature of no birth and no death, the nature of suchness. That is something you will develop later in the retreat. So let us memorize these words because they can let us enjoy sitting meditation and walking meditation. You can use this while doing things like dish washing, bathroom cleaning, also. Everything we do or we do not do in our daily life is for the practice of nourishing the Sangha, nourishing ourselves and the Sangha. We know that is the refuge of the world. And as good practitioners each of us has to take the vow to build Sangha. That is the most noble task of our century. Shall we sing together?
I have arrived, I am home
In the here and in the now
I have arrived, I am home
In the here and in the now
I am solid, I am free
I am solid, I am free
In the ultimate I dwell
In the ultimate I dwell.
Bell
In the spring of 2000, practitioners came from across the world to Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Eye of the Buddha” retreat at Plum Village. If you have not had the pleasure of being on retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh (or if you have), here is an opportunity to read in succession each Dharma talk he gave at the 21-day retreat. We will be posting them week by week. In this first talk, “Taking Refuge in the Sangha,” Thây describes the power of practicing as part of the Sangha body. Enjoy your reading…..
The Eye of the Buddha Retreat
A 21-day retreat in Plum Village
June 2nd - 22, 2000
Teachings from Thich Nhat Hanh
June 2nd , 2000
Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Edited by: Susan O’Leary
Homage to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
With body speech and mind in perfect oneness
I send my heart along with the sound of the bell
May the hearers awaken from forgetfulness
And transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow
May the sound of the bell merge deeply into the cosmos
In even the darkest places
May living beings hear it clearly
So that understanding lights up their hearts
And without hardship they transcend the cycle of birth and death.
Listening to the bell I feel the afflictions in me begin to dissolve
My mind becomes calm my body relaxed
A smile is born on my lips
Following the sound of the bell
My breath guides me back to the safe island of mindfulness
In the garden of my heart flowers of peace bloom beautifully
The universal Dharma door is already open
The sound of the rising tide is clear
And a miracle happens
A beautiful child appears in the heart of a lotus flowers
A single drop of the compassionate water
Is enough to bring back refreshing spring to mountains and to rivers
Homage to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Bell
Good morning dear Sangha, good morning friends, welcome to the retreat of twenty-one days with the theme The Eye of the Buddha.
Many of us have come from Europe, America and elsewhere, and your coming has modified deeply our Sangha here in Plum Village. You have brought with you your wisdom, your insight, your solidity, your happiness, your sorrow, your suffering. The Sangha of Plum Village is no longer the Sangha of Plum Village. You are now a larger Sangha. This is a new Sangha for all of us. The coming together of the Sangha is a great event always. We are attracted to each other because we share the same concern, the same interest, the same kind of joy.
When scientists have studied about the social behavior of animals and insects, they have spoken of inter-attraction. Living beings are like bees, termites and ants. They feel wonderful being together. They are social animals; they want to be with each other, they feel more secure, they feel happier being together. You cannot keep a bee alone or isolated because after a few hours, a few days, it will dry up. Without the bee hive, a bee cannot be a bee any more. In Vietnam we used to say that a practitioner who has left his or her Sangha is like a tiger leaving his mountain. After having left the Sangha, the practitioner who abandoned his or her practice may in just a few months die as a practitioner, like a bee without the community of bees. When the tiger leaves her mountain to go to the lowland, she will be caught by humans and killed. A person who is without a Sangha, a practitioner who is without a Sangha, cannot continue his or her practice. That is something we feel very strongly. Our practice is nourished and grows deeply only in the context of the Sangha, and that is why each of us feels that we should be a Sangha builder. Because it is with the Sangha that we feel more solidity, security, joy and happiness.
So, as practitioners we want to be with each other, something that is the equivalent of interattraction. We are motivated by the same desire to practice for our transformation, for our healing, and for transformation and healing in the world. We know that a solitary ant cannot do much. She just goes around. She does not look as if she has a mind or a thought or any imagination or ideas. But when we put one hundred ants together, they behave as a new organism and you begin to see them operating as an organism, with intelligence, with thinking, with planning. A solitary ant has only a few neurons strung together by fibers. If we look at her we don't see intelligence manifesting, we don't see thinking, we don't see ideas. But when the ants get together, something begins to manifest. If you observe an anthill with thousands and thousands of ants working together, you can see clearly the intelligence, the ideas, the thinking, the talent also.
Human beings are a kind of social animal. When we observe the bees or the ants we have the impression that we can learn something from them. Scientists have used the word "super organism" to describe the life, the reality of these communities of social insects: "super organism." Why? Because each individual bee or ant can live his or her life as individuals, but they always live the life of the community, of the organism. They live together at the same time as a cell, as a tissue of the same body. And interestingly enough we observe, when we observe them, that there are no egoistic acts, there is no jealousy, there is no anger, there is no discrimination. Every individual works naturally for the well-being of the whole community, and the ant and the bee do not dream much of the future. They do not get caught in the past. They are there living the present moment and doing whatever they need to do for the well-being of the whole community.
We know an ant hill can last for many, many years, maybe 60 years or more, but the life of the ant is only for one month or so. In one month also the whole generation of ants vanish; every day they die at the rate of three or four percent, and yet they don't think of the future. They are doing their best. They don't think whether they will be there when the anthill is finished and they don't care whether at some distance another hill is being built.
When we observe the bees, the termites and the ants, we see that they are perfect in the way they lead their daily lives. They do not have egotistic acts. Everything they do is for the good, the well-being of the whole community. Therefore there is no jealousy, there is no fear, there is no discrimination. But there is something lacking in the community of bees, of ants, of termites. That is the awareness that they are there, alive, living for themselves, for the community and for others.
This is something you can notice when we observe a Sangha. Members of a Sangha can very well live their individual life, but at the same time they can play the role of a tissue, of a cell of the community. As Sangha builders, as people who live 24 hours a day with the Sangha, we continue to learn a lot about Sangha as an organism. When you live in a Sangha you try to be like a cell in a body, you try to be like a bee in the bee hive for the well-being of the community. And because there is well-being in the community, there is well-being in every one of us, and the Sangha can serve as refuge for many, many people who come. That is our practice every day - how to live your individual life at the same time with your life as an organism. And when you are capable of living like that you are no longer the victim of your jealousy, your anger, your discrimination, your fear because you are the organism. The Sangha has become your body and therefore besides having the individual body you have the Sangha body, the Sanghakaya.
It is strange that in the teaching of Buddhism we speak a lot about Buddhakaya, the body of the Buddha, and we speak about the body of the Dharma, Dharmakaya, but we have waited until the end of the twentieth century in order to speak about the Sanghakaya, the body of the Sangha. The Sangha is our body. It is like the beehive is the body of the bee, the anthill is the body of the ant. And when we are able to live in that spirit, considering the Sangha as our body, most of our suffering will vanish. Taking refuge in the Sangha is not an expression of faith, it is a practice.
Taking refuge in the Sangha means learning to live as well in the organism called Sangha. Living as a tissue - and this is something possible. We who live in Plum Village twenty four hours a day, we know that if we are able to look at the Sangha as our body most of our suffering will vanish and we will get a lot of joy. Seeing the Sangha body as your Sangha is a practice, and mindfulness is the kind of energy that helps you to do so. This is something that we can do.
Bell
It looks like the purpose of the bees is to build a hive, it looks like the purpose of the ants is to build a hill. That is inscribed in their DNA; every cell of the body is there to build communities. When we observe these insects, we see the intelligence, we see the intelligences; we see the experiences, we see the wisdom that has been transmitted to them by many generations of bees and ants or termites. When we observe humans doing something together we can see also the wisdom, the intelligence, the experiences handed down to them by many generations of humans that have come before. The social insects, they too have means of communication. They don't use language like us but they do communicate. The bees can dance, they can release pheromone messages in form of chemicals that can communicate very well and sometimes perfectly. The ants can also dance and make sonorous vibrations to communicate, and they also release pheromone, tiny particles of chemicals that can communicate so well. We humans, we use language. We know how to store information, we know how to process and how to retrieve information. We know how to communicate. We use language, we use fax, we use email, we use telegrams and telephone and so on, but sometimes communication is difficult.
In a practicing Sangha we communicate with each other also, but the base of our communication is silence. We have Dharma discussion sessions, but Dharma discussions are not the only way in which we communicate with each other. We communicate in several ways, and mostly in silence. When we come together and sit we don't say anything, but we communicate and the message is very clear: "My dear brothers, my dear sisters, I am here for you. I feel so glad to be surrounded by you members of my Sangha. I feel secure, I feel safe, I feel happy, I feel solid when I find myself surrounded by my Sangha." That is the kind of communication that we make during sitting meditation and that is only the basic one. Because in sitting meditation we learn how to really be there, with our full presence. We learn how to establish ourselves in the here and the now. We know that life is available only in the here and the now. That is why sitting for us is to be in a position where we can touch life deeply and all the wonders of life are available to us from inside and from outside at the same time. This is a very powerful communication. Dear Sangha, it is wonderful that we are there as a body, the Sangha body. I don't have to strive any more, to fight any more, to run any more. I feel at home with my Sangha. With the Sangha body I feel a lot of energy. I will not dry up like a bee when kept alone for half a day or two days before my body is here, my Sangha body is here with me all the time.
Sitting in a Sangha - even if you don't do anything - makes you alive, makes you solid, makes you happy, but only if you know how to allow yourself to be your Sangha. Only if you know how to allow yourself to be penetrated by the Sangha so that communication becomes possible. Communication yes. In the modern world, we have very sophisticated instruments and means for communications, but very often we feel stuck.Sangha communication is based on freedom - freedom from discrimination, freedom from a notion of self because we know how to allow ourselves to be the Sangha. We know how to allow our bodies to become part of the Sangha body and the Sangha body to be our body. The bees are always doing something: building the hive. The ants are always trying to do something: building the hill. We humans, we members of the Sangha, maybe our spiritual vocation, our biological structure tells us that we are there also to build some kind of hill, some kind of hive, but we don't do it by our work alone. We don't do it by action alone, we do it by non action, namely, being Because doing is not the only thing we can do as humans and as members of a Sangha. Being is the basic action. It can be called non action, but that is the foundation of all meaningful actions. So when you observe the organism of a Sangha, you see there is action but you see there is non action. That means being, and being is an art. When we come together and sit like this, we are not doing anything, but our being together, our confidence in the Path, in the practice, in the Sangha is a tremendous source of energy that is able to heal us, to transform us and to bring us a lot of solidity, freedom and joy. So, non action, being, is the foundation of all kinds of actions.
When we practice walking together we don't do anything, we just enjoy every step we make. When you see the centipede walking with so many feet, we are like that, we are just one body with so many feet walking at the same time. And where do we go? We go nowhere because our destination is the here and the now where life is available right now. And therefore every step brings us to the here and the now, to life and all its wonders that are available in that moment.
So when we do walking meditation we don't do anything. We don't fight, we don't strive for anything, we just learn to be. Touching the earth at our feet deeply and realizing that we are alive as an organism, as a Sangha, that is wonderful enough. That is good enough for our transformation and healing. The healing elements can be found not only in the action but mostly in the non action, our being. And the quality of being is what we learn from the Dharma. The moment when you arrive in Plum Village you become a cell of an organism. There are monks, nuns and other people who live in Plum Village permanently; each of them is also a cell of the organism. The monks, the nuns and the lay men and women in Plum Village they do not consider themselves to be the host and you to be the guest. No, they look upon you as members of the Sangha. They do not hesitate to invite you to share the full life of the Sangha. A nun is a cell of the Sangha body, each of you are also a cell of the Sangha body. Learn to be, learn to practice so that you can really be an organism called Sangha. And thanks to the Dharma, thanks to the practice, our body, our Sangha body, our organism can be something like a super organism, if you wish, a holy organism, because it is, essentially, holy.
What makes the Sangha a holy entity is the energy of mindfulness, the energy of concentration and insight. Mindfulness is the kind of energy we generate every day, every hour, every minute, every second by the practice of mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful sitting, mindful looking, mindful listening. Holy life is something possible, something that you can observe, that you can witness to. In our daily lives we often live more or less in forgetfulness. We are caught in our regret and sorrow concerning the past, we are caught in our anxiety and fear concerning the future. We are caught by our craving, our despair in the present moment. But with the energy of mindfulness we can establish ourselves in the here and the now. We can be free from our regret concerning the past, our fear concerning the future or the craving or the despair that can come up in us in the present moment. With the energy of mindfulness, we can touch the wonders of life within us and around us. With the energy of mindfulness we can recognize and embrace our fear, our anger, our craving so that we can bring relief and the joy of life into ourselves, into our Sangha. This is something that is happening all the time during our daily life of practice and this is the element called holy in the holy Sangha, the holy Sangha. A Sangha that is inhabited by the energy of mindfulness is a true Sangha, and we know that if mindfulness is there, concentration is there, and insight is there, also. When you are inhabited by the energies of mindfulness, concentration and insight the Buddha is there; the Buddha can be touched through the Sangha and of course the Dharma. And of course the Dharma can be touched through the Sangha. The Sangha carries within herself the presence of the Buddha and the Dharma, and that it is why it is so important that we take refuge in the Sangha. Maybe if you don't like to use the word super organism we can use the word holy organism because the Sangha is a jewel.
The Sangha is not just a group of people - the Sangha is something much more than a group of people. Members of a Sangha have the same kind of affinity, the same kind of aspiration, the same kind of need, the same kind of practice, the same kind of concern. They are aware that suffering is there and there is a need to understand deeply the nature of suffering. Members of the Sangha are aware that the cessation of suffering, that transformation and healing are all possible. They are aware of the fact that there are ways to transform and to heal. Members of the Sangha have confidence in the way of the Eightfold Path (called Marga in Sanskrit), which leads to the cessation of suffering, to transformation and healing. This way can be seen in the daily practice. When a member of the Sangha walks, she walks in such a way that makes life possible right in that moment. With her foot she touches the earth, she touches so deeply that you can see the energy of concentration, of mindfulness in her, emanating from herself. She really invests herself into the act of making a step and when she does that she communicates. She does not need to release any pheromone, she does not need to talk, she does not need to telephone, to send a fax. She just walks like this, and with each step she makes, she cultivates more freedom, more solidity and more joy. And she can do this every time she needs to move from one place to another place. We humans, we need to move from one place to another place many times during the day, and therefore we have plenty of opportunities to practice so that every step can bring more solidity, more joy and especially more freedom. Because every step you make like that helps you to reclaim the freedom that you have lost in the hectic kind of life out there in society.
The permanent residents of Plum Village are instructed to walk like that every time they need to move from one place to another place - whether they are monks or nuns or lay people, they are instructed to do that. When they do that, they do it for themselves, they do it for the whole Sangha and they do it for the greater Sangha that is there, that is out there everywhere. We build a hill not only for the sake of the hill itself, we build a hill for the sake of the whole world because the Sangha is a holy refuge. People suffer so much they do not know where to turn to, and Sangha building is the most noble task. The twentieth century was characterized by individualism, a lot of destruction, a lot of sorrow, of fear, of alienation. The twenty-first century should be different, we learn to live like bees in a beehive. Here at Plum Village, we learn to live like cells in the same body, our practice is Sangha building. Taking refuge in the Sangha. "Sangham saranam gacchami." That is our practice.
So you have arrived. You have become a cell of the body. You can do Sangha building by your walking, by your breathing, by your sitting and bring yourself a lot of joy, a lot of relief, of peace, of freedom. You can offer the Sangha a lot of joy, a lot of peace, a lot of liberty also. And you don't have to strive. You allow the Sangha to transport you, to protect you like the bees. They really take refuge in the beehive, as the ants take refuge in the anthill. Even if you have come with a lot of pain, sorrow and fear within yourselves, allow yourself to be embraced by the Sangha. "Dear Sangha, I have come with a lot of pain, a lot of sorrow, a lot of fear. Please embrace me, please embrace my fear, my sorrow, my pain. I surrender to the Sangha." If you are capable of practicing like that, transformation may be obtained in just a few hours.
If you continue to suffer because you are still caught in your notion of self, you think that is your suffering, that is your pain, that is your sorrow. Now if you are capable of seeing yourself as a cell in the body of the Sangha, if you trust the Sangha, if you surrender yourself to the Sangha together with your intelligence, your talent, your sorrow, your fear then the energy of the Sangha will be able to take you in, to embrace you, to transform you. And you will get relief right away, right away. And your relief will be the relief of the Sangha.
I said in the beginning that your coming has modified very deeply the Sangha at Plum Village because you have brought your wisdom, your insight, your happiness and your sorrow and fear. Everyone of us - whether we are permanent residents of Plum Village or whether we have just come - all of us become a cell in a new body, a Sangha body. And if you know how to trust, how to authorize yourself to be home, to be held by the Sangha, to surrender to the Sangha, if you know how to be just a cell of the Sangha body, I promise that that kind of relief and transformation can take place in just a few hours.
When we come together and enjoy breakfast, this is also a practice. You don't need breakfast for yourself alone, you eat for the Sangha. When you chew the food, chew it for the Sangha please - it is possible to do so. I remember one day we had a picnic in the mountains not far from Montreal, we were on a retreat there. I took a walk, and I saw a member of the Montreal Sangha. He was eating his bread, sitting at the foot of a tree and when he saw me I asked him, "What are you doing?" and he said, "Well, I am feeding you, Thay, I am feeding the Sangha." That was a good answer. Your well being is the well being of the Sangha. Everything you do is for the Sangha; you do it for every one of us and for yourself. That is the behavior of the bees; that is the behavior of the ants.
If you can get out of the notion of self, suffering will vanish very soon, very soon. And a twenty-one-day retreat is something very rare. You cannot afford to have a twenty-one-day retreat several times a year, and therefore we should treasure this opportunity. Noble silence is a wonderful means in order for us to enjoy deeply our twenty-one-day retreat, to acknowledge that twenty-one-day retreats always bring transformation and healing to many, many people.
If you had been there in St. Michael College two years ago, you would have noticed that the suffering was at first immense. But after twenty-one-days practice, so many people felt release from the suffering thanks to the power of the Sangha. It is the Sangha that heals you, that allows you the opportunity to transform. And who is the Sangha? The Sangha is you. Therefore, during the twenty-one-day retreat here please do not think of the monks, the nuns and other lay people in Plum Village as your host and you are only the guest. No. We are looking on you as members of our Sangha, and your joy, your happiness will be our joy and our happiness. We can learn something from the bees. We can learn something from the termites. Then we are no longer subject to our individual sorrow and fear and discrimination and pain. We give up, we become a cell in the body of the Sangha, and suddenly we feel much, much better. We can release all these negative energies. It is much easier than you have thought.
Bell
If during breakfast you get caught in your worries, your fear, eat for the Sangha and release that fear, that sorrow. Eating for the Sangha I have to enjoy my breakfast for the Sangha expects me to do so because eating breakfast while swallowing my fear and sorrow is not healthy for the Sangha. The Sangha is there to support you, to remind you that eating breakfast is a way to nourish the Sangha with stability and freedom. That is the way we should eat our breakfast - which is something you are going to do very soon now (laughter). Enjoy every morsel of your breakfast like that. You know you are feeding the Sangha and you know what the Sangha needs - not sorrow, not fear but stability, joy and liberty. So, eating breakfast is a deep practice, and if you allow yourself to be touched by the Sangha, if you know that the Sangha is there surrounding you, embracing you, you will eat your breakfast with a lot of joy. This is not difficult at all. Eating breakfast is a deep practice. After that we enjoy walking together. Eating breakfast cannot be described as work, just as walking meditation cannot be described as work. Both practices can be very pleasant, very nourishing and healing. So, walking, not as individuals, we walk as an organism. Your feet are my feet and your feet are my feet. I walk in the best way I can, I enjoy every step I make, not only for myself, but for you. And if you are released from your suffering and your fear, and if you can touch the earth with joy, then you nourish me, you nourish the whole Sangha.
I have arrived. That is my insight when I breathe in and make two steps. I have arrived, I have arrived. Peacefully, gently, but very determined. We have been running for all our life, it is now time to stop. If you are not capable of stopping, how can you enjoy touching the earth with your feet? The miracle is not to walk on water or on fire, the miracle is to walk on earth, and any one of us can perform this miracle. The miracle is to walk on earth, that is a statement made by the Zen master Lin Chi, or Rinzai. If you can establish yourself in the here and the now, and make a step and touch the wonders of life in the here and the now, you are performing the miracle. "Le miracle c'est de marcher sur terre." (The miracle is to walk on water.) That is the title in French of Thay’s book, The Miracle of Mindfulness. Walking on earth, you walk in such a way that the Kingdom of God is available to you right here and right now. This is possible. With the support of the Sangha, this is possible - to walk in the Kingdom of God, to walk in the Pure Land. There is not a day that I do not walk in the Kingdom of God. There is not a single day when I do not walk in the Pure Land of the Buddha. You need some freedom, you need to release your sorrow and your fear in order to do so and it is exactly with the Sangha that you can perform that miracle. The Sangha has a tremendous source of energy if you know how to take refuge, to surrender to the Sangha, to allow the Sangha to take care of everything. You just enjoy being a cell of the Sangha; that is enough. And please don't say that you cannot do that.
When you signed up for the retreat you expressed the intention to be here. Taking refuge in the Sangha and enjoying every step you make, nourishing the Sangha, healing the Sangha with your steps, you are a Sangha builder now. Later on, wherever you find yourself you will continue to be a Sangha builder because our world, our society, desperately needs the presence of Sangha builders to offer refuge for so many living beings who are getting lost every day! I have arrived because the destination I want to arrive in is life, and life is available only in the here and the now. When I take one breath, breathing in I bring my body and my mind together. And in that state of being I am available to life and life is available to me. The oneness of body and mind realized by just one in-breath can make you available to life and its wonder, and make life and its wonder available to you. Just one in-breath, and during that in breath you make two steps, "I have arrived, I have arrived." That is enlightenment, that is awareness already, and suddenly you are capable of stopping, of being there in the here and the now. That is the fruit of the practice. You don't need to practice several days or several years in order to have that. Just one in-breath and suddenly you are there, fully present, body and mind. You need to take just one step in order to enter the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is ready, is available. Only sometimes in our state of forgetfulness we are not ready and therefore mindful breathing brings us back to the here and the now, body and mind united. We only need one step to enter the Kingdom of God: "I have arrived, I have arrived," Arrived where? At the Kingdom of God, at the Pure Land of the Buddha in the here and the now. Life available in the here and the now, and when you breathe out you say, "I am home."
Many of us have been searching for our home, for our true home, and we have not found it. The Buddha told us our home is in the here and the now. If you want to get in touch with your ancestors, if you want to get in touch with the Buddha, with the Kingdom of God, then go back to the here and the now, and mindfully enough, concentrated enough, you will be able to touch everything you look for in the here and the now. To me, the Kingdom of God is now or never. The Pure Land is now or never. The practice is clear. When you practice, "I have arrived, I am home," you stop running. Our ancestors have been running and in our turn we continue to run. The Dharma says, "Stop! Be alive! Be in the here and the now."
Not only in sitting, but in walking you realize that. And later on, while you wash your dishes, you realize that also. It is wonderful washing dishes and arriving in the here and the now. It is very nice washing the dishes in the Kingdom of God. There are those of us who wash dishes in hell. (laughter) it is much nicer, much more pleasant to wash dishes in the Kingdom of God. "I have arrived, I am home, in the here in the now," because the here and the now is the real address of your true home - the address of all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the address of the Kingdom of God. here-now@ com.fr
If you want, you can go home very easily because your home is the here and the now. And as a Sangha it is not difficult to go home because the Sangha energy is powerful. I know that. No matter how talented you are if you are only a solitary being, you dry up. With the Sangha you have an opportunity to express all your talent and nourish the Sangha, heal the Sangha with your talent and get the nourishment and the healing from other members of the Sangha. In the here and the now, I am solid, I am free. If you know how to stop, to arrive, to enjoy each step you make, the element of solidity and the element of freedom become a reality; this is not auto suggestion. You have made a few steps in mindfulness and concentration if you are able to arrive in the here and the now. There, solidity and freedom will become a reality, and that will make your joy, your happiness grow. Solidity and freedom are the two characteristic of Nirvana. The Buddha said, "You can touch Nirvana in the here and the now even with your body." The body can touch Nirvana by touching solidity and freedom. Every step you make helps to cultivate your solidity and your freedom because no happiness can be possible without some solidity and freedom. All of us know that.
In the ultimate I dwell. There are two dimensions to reality. The historical dimension and ultimate dimension. We have historical concerns - we are concerned with our health, with our success and the well being of our family, our society, yes. That is called historical concern, but deep in us there is an ultimate concern. We want to touch the absolute, we want to realize our true home, and in the teaching of the Buddha the two dimensions are not separate from each other. If you know how to touch the historical dimension deeply, with mindfulness and concentration, you can touch at the same time the ultimate dimension. Therefore with solidity and freedom you can very well touch the ultimate - your nature of no birth and no death, the nature of suchness. That is something you will develop later in the retreat. So let us memorize these words because they can let us enjoy sitting meditation and walking meditation. You can use this while doing things like dish washing, bathroom cleaning, also. Everything we do or we do not do in our daily life is for the practice of nourishing the Sangha, nourishing ourselves and the Sangha. We know that is the refuge of the world. And as good practitioners each of us has to take the vow to build Sangha. That is the most noble task of our century. Shall we sing together?
I have arrived, I am home
In the here and in the now
I have arrived, I am home
In the here and in the now
I am solid, I am free
I am solid, I am free
In the ultimate I dwell
In the ultimate I dwell.
Bell
Eye of the Buddha Retreat - Practicing as Sangha & the Six Harmonies
June 3rd , 2000
Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Edited by: Jim Roseberry
Sangha is an organism. It is a super organism and each of us is a tissue, 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 numbers two and three were mentioned. In the Buddhist tradition the minimum number of individuals that can make up a Sangha is four; it is 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 and the practice of the Sangha. There is a procedure called Sanghakarman where everything is decided by a democratic procedure. The Sangha uses its Sangha eyes in order to make the decision. You have your insight and your experience. You combine your insight and experience with the insights and experiences of other members of the Sangha. When the Sangha makes 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 which is the eye of the Sangha. We must learn to look at the Buddha eyes with the eyes of the Sangha. The Sangha has to meet regularly because there should be good communication within the Sangha. If there is no communication in the Sangha it is not a Sangha. The Sangha communicates in several ways. It is very important that you learn the practical and the concrete ways by which the Sangha communicates 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. Another member will answer, "The Sangha has assembled." When I was a novice at the age of 16, I was very impressed by this 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 asked; "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; "Has the Sangha assembled?” The Sangha has assemble. "Is there harmony in the Sangha?" "Yes, there is harmony in the Sangha." The third question is posed; "Have those who have not received the precepts left the meeting?" And the answer is, "Yes, they have left." 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. Anyone who has not been ordained as a bikshu or a fully ordained monk or nuns has left. So novices should not be there. The lay people should not be there. Only fully ordained monks or nuns may be present so the meeting can go on. The fourth question is asked; "What is the purpose of the Sangha meeting today?" 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 may be discussed 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 has 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 one of those who has received the Five Mindfulness Trainings and if you are to make a decision for the community of the Sangha of Five Mindfulness Trainings then you have to make sure that other people who have not received the Five Mindfulness Trainings are not be present before you 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 is 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 them 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 that 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 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 so that our bodies are present. Your spirit is not enough; your body should be there, too.
The second togetherness is the mindfulness training including mindful manners. The same kind of mindfulness trainings including mindful manners should be observed by everyone in the Sangha. If you are a Sangha of fully ordained monks you should observe all of the two-hundred fifty mindfulness trainings. The fully ordained monks have two hundred and fifty mindfulness trainings to learn and teach. And the fully ordained nuns have more for their protection. This is very important because 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 choose 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. You may like to organize your Mindfulness Trainings recitation at the root temple where the root Sangha is. Because Sila or the Mindfulness Trainings are the most concrete expression of mindfulness practice you are aware of the suffering caused by unmindful thinking, action or 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 and to avoid acting that way in so that you and the people living together with you are 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. Using this procedure during the mindfulness training recitation you may discover that someone in the Sangha is not practicing well the trainings. That kind of situation can bring suffering to the community. 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. It may be seven days of probation or the practice of seclusion. It may be 50 days, three months or 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 renew himself or itself in order to be fully integrated into the Sangha life again.
Suppose you violated a rule. Suppose you have lied, performed an act or spoken in such a way that has caused division and hatred in the community. And during the recitation of the precepts you are asked whether you have practiced well that precept in the past two weeks and you remain silent. When you remain silent it means that you have practiced well the precept. And the question may be put 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 have committed another offense: you lied. If you continue to lie for six months and one day it is discovered by another member of the community, you might confess and the period of probation or seclusion will be six months. And during this period you practice beginning anew. After that a ceremony will be performed to reintegrate you into Sangha life making the Sangha whole again. And if you study the Vinaya or the monastic code, you will see that there are those of us who spend ten or twenty years studying the Vinaya, 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 or sister in the community and then you are renewed. But there are more serious violations of the monastic code which require more time in order to be purified, in order to be reintegrated fully into the Sangha life. It is the Sangha who prescribes the course of practice. It is very subtle, with many details. In the Buddhist Sangha you have masters who are specialized in the Vinaya, in the mindfulness trainings, and the mindful manners.
The practice of the mindfulness trainings are the heart of the Sangha life. If it is a real Sangha and 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 and your wisdom can be translated as insight, knowledge, understanding. Because the life of a Sangha member is to practice looking deeply, practicing mindfulness, practicing concentration, and practicing insight so that you can understand deeply what is there, whether it is a flower or a mental formation. Meditation is the act of looking deeply into the nature of things in order to understand. Your happiness, sorrow, fear, hope and your anger as well as a pebble or a cloud can be the 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, or obtain in your life as a practitioner you are ready to share. Dharma discussion is one of the ways of sharing. Sitting in a circle you share your practice, your difficulties, your achievement and your insights with other members of the Sangha. You have the duty of sharing and other people in the Sangha have the duty of receiving. They will profit from your insights, understanding and experiences. The sharing should be permanent. Dharma discussion is a practice where you can use your language and notions. Mankind is endowed with language. We can share our insights and our experience through Dharma discussion. The secret of the success of Western science is that since the XVII century discoveries have been shared. 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 discoveries. 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 contributes to the store of human knowledge. This has been the secret of the success of Western science and a scientist whose name is _______ has said this. The systematic publication of all fragments of scientific work may well have been the key event in the history of modern science. It has led to important inventions and innovations. We have to invent the means whereby the fragments of scientific work could be published. That would help tremendously. The sharing is very important. 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 another person hurts you, when the person says things that can be insolent or 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 from erupting. You may learn things like that and that is a kind of sharing. But sometimes you don't share only by a Dharma talk. Living in a Sangha we can share by other means. When you are provoked by a situation where you can get angry very easily because another person wrote you a very nasty letter or said something very nasty to you in the presence of many other people, you may remain calm, fresh and smiling: that is communication. That is real communication. Members of the Sangha witness 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. They say: “If you 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 and 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 is communicated. There are many young members of the Sangha but the way they move around is very peaceful, very pleasant and very happy. Their way of talking and their way of reacting are so wonderful! They do not actually give Dharma talks, but they are giving Dharma talks with their 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, processing and retrieval of information is what we do every day. And now we have the internet. We can share, store and download 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. We need information about how to live a happy life, how to be free and compassionate. All of these things are more difficult to communicate than notions and concepts.
We know that bees communicate ceaselessly. We know that ants and 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 should be called by their true names: prejudice, 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 and communication are 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 and solid. She is committed to her life as a nun and her stability, her joy and her happiness communicates a lot. Every monastic profits from her presence. It does not seem that she is trying to communicate at all because she speaks very little and yet she communicates very well. We would be very lucky to have many people in the Sangha like her because they contribute a lot of stability, freedom and happiness. That is why communication has to be understood on this 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 is communication and sharing on many levels.
The fourth is (Vietnamese) means speech. To practice loving speech you practice the fourth mindfulness training in such a way that there would be harmony in the community. You speak with calm and 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 or overwhelmed by emotion or jealousy, 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 of us practice loving speech. Even if we have all the other factors for happiness, 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 are 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 of the community. So, wait until you are calm enough to write your thoughts down on a piece of paper. Wait until you are calm enough to say it with loving kindness.
The fifth one is (Vietnamese) and it means that material resources which should be shared equally. Everything should belong to the community. Members of the community will provide those in need with what they need in terms of food, clothes, shelter, 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, you will receive three robes. Usually you need only one but in a time of cold you can use the three other robes as a blanket. In addition you need a bowl in order to go for the alms round to get something to eat in the morning and you need a water filter, too. 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 it struck me very much that every time I drank a glass of water I had to breathe in and breathe out and visualize that there are many tiny living beings in a glass of water. Also I had to recite a mantra so that compassion would arise in me before I drank the water. I still remember (Vietnamese). When the Buddha looked into a glass of water, he recognized 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 existence of Louis Pasteur. According to the eye of the Buddha there are so many living beings in 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--you recognize that there are tiny living beings in there which means you have an opportunity to practice compassion in yourself. This is a very beautiful practice.
And the sixth one is (Vietnamese) it means happiness and joy. It is related to your ideas, and your notions because people have different ideas as how to achieve happiness and joy. The Sangha will have to do something but there are so many ideas about what it should do. People are inclined to do things in their own way and this is the art of combining ideas in order to make everyone happy. It is 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. 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 and 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 to combine the wisdom of the two ideas. Even if you have three ideas or five idea the Sangha will be able to combine them 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. It is how to build a happy Sangha and you have the practice of the six togethernesses to do this.
The Sangha has to be built with the practice of the six togethernesses. You cannot build a Sangha by telephone. You cannot build a Sangha with email and letters. You cannot build a Sangha even with ordinations. The Sangha has to live together, practice together, share together and 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 or core Sangha, and you may belong to that Sangha or your Sangha may be called the extended Sangha. Two Sanghas exist: the core Sangha and the extended Sangha. An extended Sangha does 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. During that time the hours you spend time together and practice together with your extended Sangha 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 communicating only by letters, electronic mail or the telephone cannot be called a Sangha. A real Sangha has to practice the six togethernesses and be a real refuge. That is why the setting up of permanent Sanghas is very crucial. You are very lucky if you have a permanent Sangha in your area. There is a core Sangha where people live together twenty four hours a day building a Sangha and this is a refuge. It is 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 twelve monks and twelve nuns to the Maple Forest Monastery. And this is a big gift that we gave 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 setting up that kind of Sangha and supporting it 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 termites. With the Dharma imbedded in the practice of the six togethernesses it is possible that we can do as much or more good as the bees. 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 will we see the organism, the real organism. Only then do we see the animal with all his intelligence. When you put four or five termites in a place where there is soil and pellets the termites just go 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 of decision making.
When the termites reach community size they begin to operate as an organism. They begin to build columns like 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?" They stop because they naturally know that it is high enough and it is inscribed in their experience. Then they begin to build another column. And when the other column reaches the same height they begin to build buttresses that link one column to another column. After they finish that they make a very beautiful, curving and very symmetric kind of artwork. After they finish one, they begin another and they continue to build very beautiful vaulted chambers like that. You know that in their home they have all kinds of comforts. They are capable of setting up an air conditioner and proper ventilation. They can farm inside. They can raise livestock. They can send whole armies into war and 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, the termites and the ants, but with the six togethernesses we can go much further, too. We can build peace not only for humankind but for other species as well. We can be protectors of the Earth and the whole environment. Who knows? One day the ants and the termites will learn from us how to practice 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 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 of everyone, not only for humans but also for 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. This is because the Sangha is always growing, not like the ant hill which tends to act only for the well being of its own Sangha, its own community and organism. But thanks to the practice of mindfulness, concentration and insight, we will be able to build not only the peace, joy and happiness of our own Sangha but also the peace, joy and happiness of society. As practitioners we know that we have a hill to build ourselves first: Sangha building is crucial to the success of this enterprise. We know that Sangha will be the refuge for many of us who have the impression of getting lost these days. 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 manifests the presence of the Buddha and he is the 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. 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. 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 ________ I 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 and me. 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. I saw that 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. Doing this we are continuing the work of the Buddha. The Buddha is still practicing in us, in every one of us and this will continue until the work of enlightenment is achieved, fully achieved. So do not think that the Buddha is now resting. The Buddha is very active and you are his/her continuation. You are working for your enlightenment and working for the enlightenment of other species. And that is a kind of hill we humans we are trying to build. We are building Sangha so that the Buddha can continue 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" expressed the same idea. It is 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 and of Jesus for more understanding, more enlightenment. And as I said the best way to look at the Buddha is through the Sangha. With the Sangha eyes we will be able to understand the Buddha eyes.
Bell
June 3rd , 2000
Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Edited by: Jim Roseberry
Sangha is an organism. It is a super organism and each of us is a tissue, 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 numbers two and three were mentioned. In the Buddhist tradition the minimum number of individuals that can make up a Sangha is four; it is 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 and the practice of the Sangha. There is a procedure called Sanghakarman where everything is decided by a democratic procedure. The Sangha uses its Sangha eyes in order to make the decision. You have your insight and your experience. You combine your insight and experience with the insights and experiences of other members of the Sangha. When the Sangha makes 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 which is the eye of the Sangha. We must learn to look at the Buddha eyes with the eyes of the Sangha. The Sangha has to meet regularly because there should be good communication within the Sangha. If there is no communication in the Sangha it is not a Sangha. The Sangha communicates in several ways. It is very important that you learn the practical and the concrete ways by which the Sangha communicates 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. Another member will answer, "The Sangha has assembled." When I was a novice at the age of 16, I was very impressed by this 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 asked; "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; "Has the Sangha assembled?” The Sangha has assemble. "Is there harmony in the Sangha?" "Yes, there is harmony in the Sangha." The third question is posed; "Have those who have not received the precepts left the meeting?" And the answer is, "Yes, they have left." 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. Anyone who has not been ordained as a bikshu or a fully ordained monk or nuns has left. So novices should not be there. The lay people should not be there. Only fully ordained monks or nuns may be present so the meeting can go on. The fourth question is asked; "What is the purpose of the Sangha meeting today?" 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 may be discussed 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 has 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 one of those who has received the Five Mindfulness Trainings and if you are to make a decision for the community of the Sangha of Five Mindfulness Trainings then you have to make sure that other people who have not received the Five Mindfulness Trainings are not be present before you 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 is 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 them 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 that 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 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 so that our bodies are present. Your spirit is not enough; your body should be there, too.
The second togetherness is the mindfulness training including mindful manners. The same kind of mindfulness trainings including mindful manners should be observed by everyone in the Sangha. If you are a Sangha of fully ordained monks you should observe all of the two-hundred fifty mindfulness trainings. The fully ordained monks have two hundred and fifty mindfulness trainings to learn and teach. And the fully ordained nuns have more for their protection. This is very important because 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 choose 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. You may like to organize your Mindfulness Trainings recitation at the root temple where the root Sangha is. Because Sila or the Mindfulness Trainings are the most concrete expression of mindfulness practice you are aware of the suffering caused by unmindful thinking, action or 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 and to avoid acting that way in so that you and the people living together with you are 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. Using this procedure during the mindfulness training recitation you may discover that someone in the Sangha is not practicing well the trainings. That kind of situation can bring suffering to the community. 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. It may be seven days of probation or the practice of seclusion. It may be 50 days, three months or 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 renew himself or itself in order to be fully integrated into the Sangha life again.
Suppose you violated a rule. Suppose you have lied, performed an act or spoken in such a way that has caused division and hatred in the community. And during the recitation of the precepts you are asked whether you have practiced well that precept in the past two weeks and you remain silent. When you remain silent it means that you have practiced well the precept. And the question may be put 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 have committed another offense: you lied. If you continue to lie for six months and one day it is discovered by another member of the community, you might confess and the period of probation or seclusion will be six months. And during this period you practice beginning anew. After that a ceremony will be performed to reintegrate you into Sangha life making the Sangha whole again. And if you study the Vinaya or the monastic code, you will see that there are those of us who spend ten or twenty years studying the Vinaya, 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 or sister in the community and then you are renewed. But there are more serious violations of the monastic code which require more time in order to be purified, in order to be reintegrated fully into the Sangha life. It is the Sangha who prescribes the course of practice. It is very subtle, with many details. In the Buddhist Sangha you have masters who are specialized in the Vinaya, in the mindfulness trainings, and the mindful manners.
The practice of the mindfulness trainings are the heart of the Sangha life. If it is a real Sangha and 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 and your wisdom can be translated as insight, knowledge, understanding. Because the life of a Sangha member is to practice looking deeply, practicing mindfulness, practicing concentration, and practicing insight so that you can understand deeply what is there, whether it is a flower or a mental formation. Meditation is the act of looking deeply into the nature of things in order to understand. Your happiness, sorrow, fear, hope and your anger as well as a pebble or a cloud can be the 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, or obtain in your life as a practitioner you are ready to share. Dharma discussion is one of the ways of sharing. Sitting in a circle you share your practice, your difficulties, your achievement and your insights with other members of the Sangha. You have the duty of sharing and other people in the Sangha have the duty of receiving. They will profit from your insights, understanding and experiences. The sharing should be permanent. Dharma discussion is a practice where you can use your language and notions. Mankind is endowed with language. We can share our insights and our experience through Dharma discussion. The secret of the success of Western science is that since the XVII century discoveries have been shared. 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 discoveries. 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 contributes to the store of human knowledge. This has been the secret of the success of Western science and a scientist whose name is _______ has said this. The systematic publication of all fragments of scientific work may well have been the key event in the history of modern science. It has led to important inventions and innovations. We have to invent the means whereby the fragments of scientific work could be published. That would help tremendously. The sharing is very important. 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 another person hurts you, when the person says things that can be insolent or 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 from erupting. You may learn things like that and that is a kind of sharing. But sometimes you don't share only by a Dharma talk. Living in a Sangha we can share by other means. When you are provoked by a situation where you can get angry very easily because another person wrote you a very nasty letter or said something very nasty to you in the presence of many other people, you may remain calm, fresh and smiling: that is communication. That is real communication. Members of the Sangha witness 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. They say: “If you 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 and 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 is communicated. There are many young members of the Sangha but the way they move around is very peaceful, very pleasant and very happy. Their way of talking and their way of reacting are so wonderful! They do not actually give Dharma talks, but they are giving Dharma talks with their 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, processing and retrieval of information is what we do every day. And now we have the internet. We can share, store and download 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. We need information about how to live a happy life, how to be free and compassionate. All of these things are more difficult to communicate than notions and concepts.
We know that bees communicate ceaselessly. We know that ants and 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 should be called by their true names: prejudice, 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 and communication are 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 and solid. She is committed to her life as a nun and her stability, her joy and her happiness communicates a lot. Every monastic profits from her presence. It does not seem that she is trying to communicate at all because she speaks very little and yet she communicates very well. We would be very lucky to have many people in the Sangha like her because they contribute a lot of stability, freedom and happiness. That is why communication has to be understood on this 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 is communication and sharing on many levels.
The fourth is (Vietnamese) means speech. To practice loving speech you practice the fourth mindfulness training in such a way that there would be harmony in the community. You speak with calm and 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 or overwhelmed by emotion or jealousy, 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 of us practice loving speech. Even if we have all the other factors for happiness, 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 are 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 of the community. So, wait until you are calm enough to write your thoughts down on a piece of paper. Wait until you are calm enough to say it with loving kindness.
The fifth one is (Vietnamese) and it means that material resources which should be shared equally. Everything should belong to the community. Members of the community will provide those in need with what they need in terms of food, clothes, shelter, 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, you will receive three robes. Usually you need only one but in a time of cold you can use the three other robes as a blanket. In addition you need a bowl in order to go for the alms round to get something to eat in the morning and you need a water filter, too. 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 it struck me very much that every time I drank a glass of water I had to breathe in and breathe out and visualize that there are many tiny living beings in a glass of water. Also I had to recite a mantra so that compassion would arise in me before I drank the water. I still remember (Vietnamese). When the Buddha looked into a glass of water, he recognized 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 existence of Louis Pasteur. According to the eye of the Buddha there are so many living beings in 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--you recognize that there are tiny living beings in there which means you have an opportunity to practice compassion in yourself. This is a very beautiful practice.
And the sixth one is (Vietnamese) it means happiness and joy. It is related to your ideas, and your notions because people have different ideas as how to achieve happiness and joy. The Sangha will have to do something but there are so many ideas about what it should do. People are inclined to do things in their own way and this is the art of combining ideas in order to make everyone happy. It is 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. 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 and 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 to combine the wisdom of the two ideas. Even if you have three ideas or five idea the Sangha will be able to combine them 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. It is how to build a happy Sangha and you have the practice of the six togethernesses to do this.
The Sangha has to be built with the practice of the six togethernesses. You cannot build a Sangha by telephone. You cannot build a Sangha with email and letters. You cannot build a Sangha even with ordinations. The Sangha has to live together, practice together, share together and 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 or core Sangha, and you may belong to that Sangha or your Sangha may be called the extended Sangha. Two Sanghas exist: the core Sangha and the extended Sangha. An extended Sangha does 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. During that time the hours you spend time together and practice together with your extended Sangha 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 communicating only by letters, electronic mail or the telephone cannot be called a Sangha. A real Sangha has to practice the six togethernesses and be a real refuge. That is why the setting up of permanent Sanghas is very crucial. You are very lucky if you have a permanent Sangha in your area. There is a core Sangha where people live together twenty four hours a day building a Sangha and this is a refuge. It is 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 twelve monks and twelve nuns to the Maple Forest Monastery. And this is a big gift that we gave 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 setting up that kind of Sangha and supporting it 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 termites. With the Dharma imbedded in the practice of the six togethernesses it is possible that we can do as much or more good as the bees. 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 will we see the organism, the real organism. Only then do we see the animal with all his intelligence. When you put four or five termites in a place where there is soil and pellets the termites just go 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 of decision making.
When the termites reach community size they begin to operate as an organism. They begin to build columns like 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?" They stop because they naturally know that it is high enough and it is inscribed in their experience. Then they begin to build another column. And when the other column reaches the same height they begin to build buttresses that link one column to another column. After they finish that they make a very beautiful, curving and very symmetric kind of artwork. After they finish one, they begin another and they continue to build very beautiful vaulted chambers like that. You know that in their home they have all kinds of comforts. They are capable of setting up an air conditioner and proper ventilation. They can farm inside. They can raise livestock. They can send whole armies into war and 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, the termites and the ants, but with the six togethernesses we can go much further, too. We can build peace not only for humankind but for other species as well. We can be protectors of the Earth and the whole environment. Who knows? One day the ants and the termites will learn from us how to practice 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 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 of everyone, not only for humans but also for 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. This is because the Sangha is always growing, not like the ant hill which tends to act only for the well being of its own Sangha, its own community and organism. But thanks to the practice of mindfulness, concentration and insight, we will be able to build not only the peace, joy and happiness of our own Sangha but also the peace, joy and happiness of society. As practitioners we know that we have a hill to build ourselves first: Sangha building is crucial to the success of this enterprise. We know that Sangha will be the refuge for many of us who have the impression of getting lost these days. 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 manifests the presence of the Buddha and he is the 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. 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. 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 ________ I 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 and me. 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. I saw that 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. Doing this we are continuing the work of the Buddha. The Buddha is still practicing in us, in every one of us and this will continue until the work of enlightenment is achieved, fully achieved. So do not think that the Buddha is now resting. The Buddha is very active and you are his/her continuation. You are working for your enlightenment and working for the enlightenment of other species. And that is a kind of hill we humans we are trying to build. We are building Sangha so that the Buddha can continue 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" expressed the same idea. It is 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 and of Jesus for more understanding, more enlightenment. And as I said the best way to look at the Buddha is through the Sangha. With the Sangha eyes we will be able to understand the Buddha eyes.
Bell