View full issue in PDF - The Mindfulness Bell

dharma TALKSuppose I draw a line representing the flow of time, from leftto right. And I pick up one point as the point of birth. They say thatI was born on that moment, “B”. It means that the segment before“B” is characterized by my non-being. No being. And suddenly frompoint “B” I begin to be. And I might last, maybe 120 years [laughter],and suddenly I will come to the point “D”. And from being I passinto non-being again. That is the way we think. We think in termsof being and non-being.To the children we said that before the date of their birth, theyalready existed in the womb of their mother. They spent about ninemonths in the womb of their mother. So it’s not true to say that theybegan to exist on the day of their birth. The birth certificate is notcorrect. But did you begin to exist at the moment of conception?Before your conception, you already existed at least half in yourfather and half in your mother. You have not come from nothing,from non-being. You have always been there in one form or another.So your nature is the nature of no birth.Extinction, nirvana, means the extinction of all notions, includingthe notion of birth and death, the notion of being and non-being.We remove all views, all notions. That is the job of the fifteenthexercise.There are theologians who say that God is the ground of being.But if God is the ground of being, who will be the ground of nonbeing?God transcends both notions of being and non-being. Thefifteenth exercise is to remove, to transcend all kinds of notions.True happiness, non-fear, is possible only when all these notionsare removed.Imagine our beautiful wave. She now recognizes that she iswater, and knowing that she is water she is no longer afraid of beginning,ending, coming up, going down. She enjoys every moment. Shedoesn’t have to go and look for water; she is water. Our true nature isthe nature of no birth and no death, no being and no non-being.The sixteenth exercise is to throw away, to release all these notions,and to be completely free.The Sutra on Mindful Breathing offers sixteen exercises onmindful breathing that cover four areas of life: body, feelings, mind,and objects of mind. We can use the sutra as a manual to practicemeditation. Together with the sutra called the Four Foundations ofMindfulness, the Sutra on Mindful Breathing is very precious. Areal gift from the Buddha. In the Plum Village Chanting Book, youcan read both the Sutra on Mindful Breathing and the Sutra on theFour Establishments of Mindfulness, which are common in everyschool of Buddhism.Dear friends, as I told the children, the Sangha is always there.It is a joy when you see the Sangha manifesting like this. Please continuewith your practice. Please share the practice with your friendsand help bring joy and peace and hope to our society. Continue tobe a torch. Each of you is a continuation of the Buddha. We shouldkeep the Buddha alive, the Dharma alive, the Sangha alive in everymoment of our daily lives.When you go home, please do your best to set up a group ofpractitioners in order to have a refuge for many people who live inyour area.photo by Paul DavisThere is a river of mind in whichevery mental formation is a drop ofwater, and you observe the manifestationand the going away of thatmental formation.the Mindfulness Bell 9