(Bell)
Dear Thay, my name is Frances.
My parents gave me that name after Saint Francis of Assisi.
Thay , we are all your continuation
and I vowed to continue what you taught us.
Especially yesterday you told us about the bell.
Perhaps we will be awakened
and will help others to be awakened
and we transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow.
This is my vow
and I know that the path will not be effortless,
even though we've learned about effortless,
we have learned about mindfulness with insight.
I know that the solution for that is the dying of the self.
With the dying of the self there can be effortlessness.
But at the same time,
to live a vow
we have to go through burning decisions,
like a flame is burning.
I have to make a decision against the collective energy.
I also see that I am transforming my suffering
and also my parents' suffering.
The way I have been doing it and the way that I will continue to do it
is to... I pray to God and to the Goddess in me.
Outside of me is the cosmic true nature body
and it is also inside of me.
But supposing that everything comes from the arising of conditions,
I see it as if everything comes from God's plan
which is that everything is good.
I get anxiety, I get depression, I get ill health
it is a blessing.
If I get good health, I get a Sangha, I get a teaching,
it is a blessing.
So I cannot see it as if everything arises from conditions.
I see it as a path of compassion
and everything arises from compassion.
(Sister) Dear Thay, dear Sangha,
our friend Frances was named after the monk
Saint Francis of Assisi.
First of all she expressed to Thay
how inspired she was by Thay's teachings of the bell yesterday.
She has made a vow to herself
to continue Thay and to really master this practice
and to live the insight of the gatha deeply
to transcend her own anxiety and sorrow.
Her first partial question is:
How, with such a strong vow, she can do that
without having a too strong sense of a self.
How can she realize her vow to overcome difficulties in her life
to heal herself.
For example, in order to truly transcend anxiety and sorrow
she knows she will have to make a lot of burning decisions
to change her way of life
against the opinions of those around her, her family and society.
How can she realize that vow without having too strong a sense of self?
The second part of her question is
that when she experiences difficulties in her life,
whether it is anxiety, or depression or ill health,
she understands this as being a gift from God.
Frances is a Christian
so she takes these as a blessing,
it is part of God's plan.
So her question is:
She sees God as something both outside of herself and inside her.
But is it true that God is good, that everything that God sends her is good?
And that she should receive it as good?
Frances is aware that everything arises from conditions.
Can we see God's world in these conditions?
You spoke about the death of the self.
The dying of the self.
I don't think that the self has to die,
because there is no self to die.
(Laughter)
The self is just a view,
a wrong view, a notion.
It is not reality.
So there is no need for something that is not there to die.
We should not try to kill the self.
But you can remove the illusion
by having a deep vision of reality,
practicing the meditation on impermanence,
because everything is changing so quickly,
and naturally the notion of the self is no longer there.
Because the self is something that is everlasting,
remaining the same.
We may ask whether God is a self or not.
It is sure that God is not a self.
If God is a self, then all of us are selves.
A big self or small selves.
If there is a me, a self,
there should be a non me existing at the same time.
We can accept the self as a reality.
On the conventional level of truth we can speak of me, I and you,
he and she,
because that designation is useful.
It is called conventional designation.
If we don't have these conventional designations,
we cannot talk, we cannot do business.
I, you, this and that
are called conventional designations.
The problem is that we have to be aware that it is only conventional designation,
and we are free from them.
We can make good use of them but you are free from them.
And as I said, even the Buddha, he had to be free from the Buddha.
There was a Zen teacher.
One day, in his Dharma talk, he said:
'I am allergic to the word Buddha'.
(Laughter)
'But sometimes I have to pronounce the word Buddha.
But you know, my friends?
Every time that I have to utter the word Buddha,
after that I have to go to the bathroom
and rinse my mouth three times.'
(Laughter)
That is the way the Zen people talk.
(Laughter)
They want to speak about freedom.
Even freedom from the Buddha.
The Zen teachers have their own way,
and their way is sometimes very strong.
'I'm allergic to the word Buddha.
Every time I have to pronounce the word Buddha,
I have to go to bath and rinse my mouth.'
It is something not very clean.
It is a very strong statement.
Then, in those days,
there was a Zen student who stoop up
and said:
'Dear teacher,
I am also allergic to the word Buddha.
Every time I hear you pronounce the word Buddha,
I have to go to the river
and wash my ears, three times!
(Laughter)
I think that is a good teacher-student couple.
(Laughter)
They are free from words and notions.
Even from words like Buddha or God.
They are free from the notions.
Because you may get Buddha and God only as notions
and not the truth, the reality.
So you have to be very careful.
Of course you have learned about dependent origination.
Remember we have that example on the clouds.
There are many clouds in the sky.
These clouds interact with each other.
They produce each other.
There is the lateral, horizontal relationship
but we all know that all clouds come from the ocean.
So there is a vertical relationship.
You are a cloud, you carry the ocean with you.
You are a human being
but you carry God inside of you.
That is a vertical relationship.
So there is the horizontal explanation
and there is a vertical one.
But these two should not be distinguished as two separate things.
Looking into the horizontal you see the vertical.
And looking deeply into the vertical you see the horizontal.
But you have to remove
the notion of horizontal and vertical at the same time.
We have learned
that notions like being and not being,
good and evil have to be removed.
Because that is the way our mind consciousness perceives things.
If you describe God as the ground of being,
we lock Him, we lock Her into a notion,
the notion of being.
If God is the ground of being,
who will be the ground of non-being?
So we cannot think of God in terms of being and non-being.
God transcends the terms being and non being.
As the Buddha said:
'The right view is a view that transcends both the notions of being and non-being.'
Not only that,
but the right view is also the view that transcends the notions of good and evil.
If you say that God is in control of the Kingdom of the Goodness,
who will be in control of the Kingdom of Evil?
So God ultimately transcends both the notion of good and evil.
Until you see that,
you cannot see the plan of God, his intention.
So that means you are pulled to say that
if God is compassionate,
why He has created something like death,
tsunamis, tempest and things like that?
Why He has allowed these things to happen?
Delusions are trying to say:
'This is for you to learn, that is also good for you.'
But our mind is inclined to think
that what is good is not causing suffering.
Only the bad things are called suffering.
So that is our mind of discrimination.
We should not use that mind of discrimination
in order to try to understand God.
That is why the deepest way,
the most wonderful way to touch the ultimate
is to remove notions.
Including the notions of being and non-being, good and evil.
We have learned that for alayavijñana everything is a wonder.
There is no good and evil in it.
There is no being and non being in it.
Only mind consciousness has these notions.
We are caught in these notions.
These notions may be useful.
But if you are caught in them, you suffer.
(Bell)