Wednesday, August 26, 2015

atma (self) & dharma (world)

The followings are important messages from Thay in this video.

(Watch from 59:42 to 1:05:07)

In the Buddhist literature, we speak of the self and the world. We speak of atma and dharma. Atma is the self and dharma is the world. We know that in the Buddhist literature, Dharma with a capital D means the teaching, or the law of the Buddha. But dharma with a small d means the thing, the world, or the object of our knowledge, or the object of our perceptions (the world). There is the man (atma), and then there is the world (dharma) of the man.

When you look into yourself, even your body, you see that your body is made of non-body elements. You see that the whole world is in your body. And you can not distinguish between atma and dharma. You and the world are not two different things. I have meditated on the Sutra of Rohitassa. The meaning is very deep. You (atma) are the world (dharma). You are in the world and the world and you, you inter-are. (The man and the world are interdependent co-arising.)

Long time ago, I wrote a book on meditation with the title of "The Sun My Heart". That day, I meditated on the sun and I saw that the sun is my heart. Of course, I have a heart inside of my body. And I know that if this heart fell to function, I will die right away. But when I look at the sun, I see it as my second heart of the body. And if that stops the function, I die also right away. So, I don't have just one heart. I have many hearts. And my hearts can be in the body or out of the body. "The Sun My Heart"

So, if you point to this (Thay's) direction, I'm there. But if you point to the opposite direction, I'm there, too. So, the world we are in, are one with us. We are the world. The four elements that we have in our body, they are outside of our body. So, the notions of in-here and out-there are just notions. And that is the obstacle, the hardest obstacle that modern science has to overcome. (The notions created by the man is the obstacle to touch the reality as it is.)

Consciousness as something in here. And the world is something out there. And that kind of dualistic thinking is the great obstacle. So, instead of saying the world we have, we should say the world we are. And if you are the world, how can you get out of the world? That is not possible. (The world (man) can't get out of the world.)

So, the Buddha is right. It's not possible by the way of walking or flying, even with the speed of light. But if you know how to practice looking deeply, there will be a way out, the way out of birth and death, suffering, despair. And that is why the Buddha proposed us to practice looking deeply into our body. And looking into our body, you begin to see our mind. (That's because the world is the object of our mind.)

(Notes) The descriptions in the parenthesis are my commentaries.

(Cf.) http://www.slideshare.net/compassion5151/spiritual-ancestors

New Caledonia Photo by Jeremy Bezanger