View full issue in PDF - The Mindfulness Bell

dharma TALKphotos by Laura ConstantinescuThis is our home. We want to manifest again and again and again inorder to make this home more beautiful with good action.At the Path of the Buddha retreat, Thay focused on global ethics.A handout (see page 7) summarized four different approachesto ethical questions. Here is an excerpt from Thay’s last Dharmatalk, in which he discussed the Buddhist approach.We study this line: “Both subject and object of perception manifestfrom consciousness according to the principle of interbeing.” Thisexpresses an understanding of deep Buddhism. The question ofwhether we continue to be after the disintegration of this bodyhas been asked by so many people. And there are many ways toanswer, according to our capacity to understand. There are at leasttwo kinds of Buddhism. Those who practice popular Buddhism arepracticing more devotion than meditation, so their understanding ofrebirth is quite different. But to answer this question satisfactorily,you have to use the understanding given by deep Buddhism, theunderstanding that is in accord with science.We usually believe that consciousness is something inside ofus, and we go and look for the world outside. We think there isan objective world outside and there is a subjective world inside.Remember when we read from “Winnie the Pooh”? Winnie thePooh thought he saw the footprints of a hostile animal, and hebecame afraid. But with the help of Christopher Robin, Winniethe Pooh discovered that the footprints he found on the snowwere his own footprints! The same thing is true with the objectof our inquiry – the so-called objective reality of the world. Wethink it is something distinct from our consciousness, but in factit is only the object of our consciousness. It is our consciousness.That’s the hardest thing to understand and a basic obstacle forus and for science. Now a number of scientists are beginning tounderstand this concept. The British astronomer, Sir Eddington,said that on the unknown shore we have discovered footprints ofunknown people, and we want to know who has been there beforeus. We come, inquire and investigate, and we find that they areour own footprints.The world outside is our consciousness, is us. It is notsomething separate and distinct. The object and the subject ofperception inter-are. Without subject, there is no object; withoutobject, there is no subject. They manifest at the same time. To seemeans to see something. The seer does not exist separately fromthe seen; they manifest at the same time. If you imagine that theseer is independent and goes out in order to see the seen, that isa mistaken perception.The Nature of ConsciousnessConsciousness is always consciousness of something, andconsciousness only lasts a millisecond. Consciousness is like anelementary particle, like an electron; its nature is non-local. Nonlocalityis a word used by scientists about time in quantum physics.An elementary particle can be everywhere at the same time. Wethink that one thing cannot be several places at once, but scientistshave agreed that an elementary particle – an electron – can be bothhere and there at the same time. It can be both this and that at thesame time. It can be you, it can be me.Many philosophers and scientists have said that the natureof consciousness has a cinematographic nature. A film is madeup of separate pictures that last only a fraction of a second. Consciousnessis like that, it just lasts one millisecond. Then, becausemoments of consciousness succeed each other continuously, youhave the impression that consciousness is something that lasts. Butthe notion of a permanent consciousness is illusion, not reality.Consciousness is only a flash.It’s like a flame on the tip of a candle. You think there is oneflame, but really there is a succession of millions of flames, oneafter the other, that give the impression that it is only one flame.The flame of this moment gives rise to the flame of the next moment,and the flame of the next moment gives rise to the flameof the next moment. Things exist only in one millisecond. Andthe Mindfulness Bell 5