The wisdom of Interbeing helps you to touch
the wisdom of nondiscrimination in you
and set you free.
There's no more discrimination;
There is no more hatred;
You don't think that you want to belong just to...
one geographical area and cultural identity.
Looking into yourself
you see a multitude
of ethnic sources, a multitude of cultural sources.
And you can see the presence of the whole cosmos within yourself.
You may manifest as a lotus flower.
You may manifest as a magnolia flower.
You might manifest as an orange flower. But every kind of flower is beautiful
whether that flower is red or yellow or white or black.
Scientifically you know that...
a color has no self.
A color is made only of elements of other colors.
Looking deeply into one color, you see all the other colors in it.
The color white is made of non-white elements.
And that can be proved scientifically.
The color brown is made of non-brown elements.
The color black is made of non-black elements.
We inter-are.
That is the fact.
We inter-are.
You are in me, and I am in you.
It's silly to discriminate against each other.
This is ignorance.
It is ignorance to discriminate,
to think that you are superior to me, that I am superior to you, and so on.
In Europe and in America, there are many people who have mental illness.
And their psychotherapists tell them that they have low self-esteem
and that's why they suffer.
And they try everything to help you feel you are superior.
In this winter retreat, the monastics in Deer Park...
studied the rules of Benedictine monks
together with Buddhist Pratimokṣa.
Comparative studies of the two traditions.
They found out that in the Benedictine tradition
they tried to combat the complex of superiority, arrogance
using the complex of inferiority:
I am nothing.
I'm not worth a worm...
Because the superiority complex can bring about a lot of suffering.
That is why, in order to counter that you use the complex of inferiority.
But the complex of inferiority is also a complex.
You are using a poison to neutralize another poison.
According to the teaching of the Buddha, there's no self.
You cannot compare.
There's nothing to compare with.
There's no self to compare with.
The right hand and the left hand have no separate self.
That is why you cannot compare.
And you should not compare.
That is why you don't suffer.
In Buddhism,
all complexes are born from the notion of self.
There are three complexes.
Not two.
The complex of superiority is called [thang man]...
In Vietnamese, called [thang man 滿].
And if you think that you are superior to him or her or to them,
you are sick.
And the ground of your sickness is your illusion of self, of a self that is better.
And many of us have been struggling to prove that we are better;
that we are more powerful than they;
that we are cleverer than they.
We are trying to seek happiness by proving that we are superior.
We behave like a hammer...
trying to drive the nail in order to prove that...
everyone is a nail except me, the hammer.
And all our lives we try to demonstrate one thing:
"I am superior to you."
"Our nation is superior to yours."
"Our race is superior to yours."
You want to prove that you are, in terms of military power,
the number one power.
That you can overpower every other nation.
You want to prove that you can defeat any nation.
And that gives you some satisfaction.
"Oh, I'm superior to them."
"My nation is the mightiest nation."
And when the other side suffers,
they want to respond in the same way.
They want to say, "We are not nothing.
"We are something.
"If you can hit us that way, we can hit you back another way.
"If you can bomb us, we can bring a bomb
and blow ourselves in a bus.
"We can make you sleepless.
"We can make your nation live day and night in fear."
So they try to retaliate to prove that they are something,
they are not nothing.
And both sides try that they can do something to punish,
that they are superior.
And that is happening with many groups... Palestinian or Israeli,
Hindu or Muslim, anti-terrorists or terrorists.
We want to prove that we are not nothing; we are worth something;
and you cannot look down on us.
And all that kind of striving is based on the illusion of self.
In fact, we inter-are.
If you suffer, we suffer also.
If you are in safety, we'd be in safety also.
Safety and peace are not individual matters.
If the other person is not safe, you cannot be safe.
If the other person is not happy, there's no way you can be happy.
Look at any couple.
If the father is unhappy, the son has no chance to be happy.
If the wife is not happy, it's very difficult for the husband to be happy.
That is why happiness is not an individual matter.
You have to see the nature of interbeing.
When you make the other person happy, you have a chance to be happy, also.
And that is why the insight of interbeing is the ground for peace and happiness.
You have to touch the ground of your interbeing.
You have to help him or her to touch the ground of interbeing,
and then discrimination will vanish.
So the complex of superiority brings a lot of suffering to you and to them.
Because when they suffer of the complex of inferiority, they struggle...
and they make you suffer.
According to the Buddha, the complex of superiority...
or high self-esteem...
is a sickness.
Because it is based on the illusion of self.
Now the low self-esteem...
Inferiority...
is another sickness.
And you cannot use a poison in order to heal a poison.
You go around [the circle].
Because the suffering of the inferiority complex
is also born from the illusion of a separate self.
The right hand and the left hand have no separate self.
The three olive trees [from the same root], they don't have a separate existence.
The two brothers, also.
The two sisters, also.
The two partners, also.
And then, if you consider yourself as "equal" to him or her,
that's also a sickness.
Because there is a self, you compare
and there is competition.
"I am as good as you are.
I will prove it."
That will cause you also a lot of suffering.
So the psychotherapy in Buddhism is a little bit different.
The psychotherapy in Buddhism is based on the wisdom of no-self, of interbeing.
That is why when you remove the notion of self,
you are free from three kinds of complexes.
And there will be peace, reconciliation,
and brotherhood and sisterhood.
And the Buddha is not a god.
The Buddha is a human being like us.
He had suffered.
He had practiced.
He was able to transform himself.
And he was able to transmit the wisdom of interbeing, of nondiscrimination to us.
With that wisdom, we can liberate us and help liberate the world
with our practice.
We live without any kind of complex...
Whether the complex of superiority, or inferiority, or equality.
Because there's no self.
To be a lotus flower is wonderful.
To be a magnolia flower is equally wonderful.
In a lotus, there is a magnolia; In a magnolia, there is a lotus.
The Buddha told us that man is made of non-man elements, namely...
animals, vegetables, and minerals.
That is why you have to remove the notion of "man"...
"human being."
If the human being is aware of the fact that he is made only of non-human elements,
namely animal elements, vegetable elements, and mineral elements,
he would know how to protect the lives of animals, minerals, and vegetables.
And he would not exploit them,
pollute them, and destroy them.
Because protecting the realm of animals, protecting the realm of vegetables and minerals,
is protecting the realm of humans.
That is the teaching of Diamond Sutra.
Diamond Sutra is the most ancient text on deep ecology.
Looking into men, you have to see non-men elements,
namely animals, vegetables, and minerals.
The teaching is so clear and simple enough for us
to understand, to touch, and to practice.