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dharma TALKphotos by Laura Constantinescufor the potatoes to cook. If you light the burner and then you turnit off, you will never have cooked potatoes. Samadhi is like that.Samadhi is the concentration needed to maintain the steady presenceof that insight. Scientists are capable of finding no-self andimpermanence, but what they need is samadhi to maintain thatunderstanding throughout the day. They need the tools of mindfulness,concentration, and samadhi, in order to discover more. Itwould be helpful to have practitioners of meditation and scientiststo collaborate, in order to discover more about ourselves.You can be sure that the world is an object of mind. The sun,the moon, the earth, the cosmos, the galaxies – they are all objectsof mind. And our body, also, is an object of our mind. And ourmind, also, is an object of our mind. That is why we can investigateThe ultimate reality transcends notions of good and evil, right and wrong.That is the absolute criterion for Buddhist ethics.that is true not only with consciousness; it is also true with ourbodies, because cells die to give rise to other cells. In a month,all our cells will be new cells. It’s like a river. We see a river andcall it one name, but the water is not the same water, it’s alwayschanging. You cannot swim twice in the same river, and it is notthe same person who goes into the river. Tomorrow it will not be“you” who goes into that river. You will have changed, just likethe river constantly changes.Buddhism offers the example of someone holding a torch anddrawing a circle in the dark. Since he moves the torch quickly, youhave the impression that there is a circle of fire. But in fact thereis only one dot of fire. Everything is fleeting and impermanent.Modern science acknowledges this.No-Self and SamadhiScience is now capable of demonstrating no-self. Neuroscienceteaches that neurons communicate with each other very well,and they operate together without a leader or a boss. They are likean orchestra playing beautiful music without a conductor. Ourbodies are made of many cells and there is coordination amongthe cells; they don’t need a president of all the cells in order tomake decisions. There is no-self.If a scientist knows how to maintain that insight on life, thenthat flash of insight will become a liberating factor. If you just acceptthat idea as a notion, that is not enough to liberate you fromyour fear, your desire, your despair. No-self and impermanence asnotions are not very helpful. You need to maintain a long-lastingunderstanding in order to get liberation. That is why samadhi hasbeen translated, “you maintain it like that.” You keep the insightalive and you make it last. In your daily life you are able to maintainthe vision of impermanence, the vision of no-self as a livingexperience. Only that insight can liberate you from fear, fromanger, from separation. It is like when you boil potatoes, you haveto maintain the fire underneath them for at least twenty minutesthe object of our mind. When we understand the object of ourmind, we understand our mind, because mind and object of ourmind inter-are. One cannot be without the other.When we believe that consciousness is permanent, and onlythe body perishes, that the soul continues and goes to heaven orhell, that is eternalism. A right view should transcend a view ofeternalism. A permanent, immortal soul is something that cannotbe accepted, either by good Buddhists or good scientists. But theopposite view – that after this body disintegrates, you disappearaltogether, is another extreme, another wrong view, called nihilism.As a student of Buddhism, you are not caught in either ofthese views. There’s only continued manifestation in differentkinds of forms; that is rebirth, continuation, in the context ofimpermanence and no-self. Good scientists see that nothing isborn and nothing dies.Being a CloudSuppose you are a cloud. You are made of tiny crystals of iceand water and you are so light, you can float. And maybe floatingas a cloud, you encounter a block of hot air so you become dropsof water and fall as rain. You go down, you come up again, yougo down, and you come up again. Transmigration, reincarnation,rebirth is always taking place in a cloud. And yet a cloud doesnot need to become rain in order to have a new life. A cloud hasa new life every moment. Rebirth, continuation takes place withus in the same way.There is a lot of cloud in us, and we continue to drink cloudevery day. Birth and death are taking place in every moment ofour daily life. We should not say, “I will die in twenty years, inthirty years;” no, you are dying right in this moment and you arereborn right in this moment. Rebirth is happening in the here andthe now – not in the future. So when someone asks you, “Whatwill happen to me when I die?” Ask him or her, “What happensto you in the here and the now?” If you know what happens in thehere and the now, you can answer the first question very easily. You6 Autumn 2009