Good morning. In the Buddhist circle, they usually refer to the Buddha as a healer. Y Vuong, the Vietnamese word means the king of the healers. That means he can heal the disease of people. And also there are Bodhisattvas bearing that kind of name also, the Bodhisattva, the healing Bodhisattva, the healing Buddha.

[01:34]

There is a Buddha whose name is Basajja Guru. It means the teacher who is a healer. So Buddhism is very close to psychotherapy. The Buddha himself helped to heal the mental disease of many people, including the king of the Magadha kingdom, whose name is Ajatasattru. Ajatasattru assassinated his father and became king of the country of Magadha. His father's name is Bimbisara, and Bimbisara was a very close friend of the Buddha. He was younger than the Buddha, and he sponsored Buddhism, and Buddhism became a very important community in the kingdom of Magadha.

[02:35]

After the assassination of King Bimbisara, Ajatasattru became king, and he supported another Buddhist community led by one of the senior disciples of the Buddha, the Venerable Devadatta. There was a deep division of the Buddhist community at that time, and the monk Devadatta was able to recruit 500 monks from the community of the Buddha and set up a pro-governmental Buddhist community. When invited to the ceremony of coronation of the new king, the Buddha refused to come.

[03:39]

He advised his disciples not to come in order to show resistance to the kind of action that does not go well with the Dharma. There was a non-violent resistance at that time of the Buddha vis-à-vis the new regime. Three attempts on the life of the Buddha were made by pro-governmental forces. After the third attempt on his life, the Buddha left the kingdom of Magadha and went to the country of Kosala in order to teach. The king of Kosala was also a friend, a very close friend of the Buddha. His name is Prasenajit, and he is exactly the same age with the Buddha.

[04:41]

He died about eight months before the Buddha, at the age of 81. After a few years, he went back to the kingdom of Magadha because of the request of his disciples. Then a disciple of his, a doctor, a very famous doctor, came to him. His name is Jivaka. He came to the Buddha and he reported to him what had been going on in the kingdom of Magadha. He reported that the king was very severely ill, of mental illness. He had invited many healers in the country to come, but nobody could help him.

[05:45]

Jivaka proposed that the king go to the Buddha in order to seek help. The king did not want to do that because he had considered the Buddha as his enemy, so he did not have a heart to go to the Buddha. He knew that the Buddha knew about his crime, and he knew that the Buddha knew that he had attempted to take the Buddha's life three times. That is why he hesitated to come. The doctor Jivaka said, I am considered to be a good doctor here in this country, but if you compare me with the Buddha, I am nothing. Your only hope is to go to the Buddha. You know now you have regretted what you did in the past. You have been living a nightmare. You want to reconcile with your father, but your father is dead.

[06:52]

But the Buddha is still alive. He is a very close friend of your father. So if you go and reconcile with the Buddha, that is a way to reconcile with your own father. Then he persuaded the king to go to the Buddha. It was during the night that King Ajatashatru went to the Buddha in the monastery built up by Dr. Jivaka. Dr. Jivaka was practicing as a lay person. He built a monastery and he invited many monks to come and practice. He had a beautiful Dharma hall with many round windows. The king came with a lot of people and gods because he did not feel safe at all to go alone. When he came to that place, he was frightened because it was so calm.

[08:00]

People reported to him that there would be more than 1,000 monks with the Buddha at that time. But when he approached the place, he felt it so quiet, so calm, so he panicked. He said that Jivaka was trying to put him into an ambush. But Jivaka laughed and laughed and said, Well, don't be afraid, Majesty, look at that window with the light coming out. The Buddha was sitting inside with 1,200 monks. So they got down from the elephants and they went in. The Buddha greeted him warmly and then he gave a very good sermon, the sermon of the fruit of the practice, Samantabhala Sutra. I would like to tell you a little bit about the beginning of that sutra

[09:21]

The king asked the Buddha this question, Master, I don't know whether the practice can bring about the effect. I see thousands and tens of thousands of people becoming monks and I don't know whether the practice leads to anything at all. Can you tell me? The Buddha said, Well, I can tell you and you can see right now that the practice can bring the fruit very quickly. Suppose you have a slave and that slave one day looks at one monk passing by and he saw the monk so peaceful, so happy and everyone seems to respect him as a monk and he had this idea, he is a man, he is a human being, I am a human being, why am I a slave? Why can I not be like him, a free person, not shouted at by anyone?

[10:27]

So he asked the permission to stop working for the king and to become a monk. And he wears a yellow robe, he goes around for alms and he practices meditation. Majesty, if you see such a person, would you call him and say, Now, slave, would you like to go and get me a glass of water? Now, would you go and get me this or that? The king said, No, I would not do anything like that. I would bow to him and if necessary I would offer him a robe or food. The Buddha said, Well, you see, as soon as you become a monk and start practicing Buddhism, you get out of your situation as a slave. And the discrimination of the people against the people of lower class,

[11:38]

you get out of that. So that is the first fruit of the practice. The king said, It is very interesting, please go on. The Buddha said, Well, if you are a monk, you have to practice the precepts. Not killing, not committing adultery, not drinking alcohol and get drunk, not stealing, not having sexual misconduct, things like that. And you are protected by the precepts because the king and his people cannot arrest you because you do not commit such crimes. And that is why you are well protected. You are a free person. Nobody can arrest you and torture you. And practicing the precepts, you have the fruit right away. And that is the second fruit of the practice.

[12:41]

The king said, That is wonderful. That is the real fruit, the immediate fruit of the practice. Please continue. The Buddha said, Well, as a monk you do not have many things. You only have your rope and your bow. And you do not have to be afraid of losing your things. People will not make an attempt on your life because you do not have jewels, you do not have money, you do not have anything. So you are very safe. You can sleep under a tree. You can wander around. You do not risk to lose anything. But if you have a lot of money, a lot of high, very high situation, you hold a very high situation in society, you are wealthy and you cannot enjoy that kind of freedom

[13:43]

and being at ease. When the king heard like that, he began to tremble because he has so much money, so much power, so much wealth that he feels that he can be assassinated at every time. That is why on the way to the Buddha's monastery, he panicked. He said that somebody was trying to ambush him. And the Buddha saw that, saw the reaction of the king. That is why he continued and teach him in order to remove fear and depression from the king. The sutra is very interesting. Please find and read it. After the teaching, the Buddha felt much, much better. He bowed to the Buddha and he asked to become a lay disciple of the Buddha.

[14:49]

From that time on, he continued to come to the Buddha to receive instructions. Finally, he was completely healed. This story is to remind you that the Buddha is a healer. I think that Buddhism can sometimes be described as a philosophy or a religion. But I think it is possible to describe Buddhism as a kind of psychotherapy. In the Buddhist circles, they are practicing therapy, really. People who are not very sick yet practice in order not to become sick. And people who are sick already practice in order to be healed. But the first kind of practice is much easier.

[15:50]

When you do not suffer very much and if you practice, it is very easy to get in touch with the wonderful things in life that will nourish you, that will prevent you from falling down into sickness. That is the kind of preventive medicine. It is much easier to practice than the second kind. That is why the establishment of a joyful community, practicing in order to live more joyfully and peacefully, is very important. If people wait until they get very sick, until their sorrow and their pain grow too big and they get together, it will be very difficult to practice. When we have a block of pain within ourselves, it is very hard for us to be in touch with the flower that is so beautiful. So the flower is just in front of you, but you cannot touch it

[16:56]

because so much pain is in it. It is possible to get out of yourself in order to transform that pain for the contact between you and the flower to be possible again, but it is much, much harder. If a practicing community has the majority of its members, people who are in that situation, the practice will be very difficult. In the Buddhist circles, there are teachers of the Dharma and students of the Dharma. But the Dharma is not just a doctrine, a theory. You just cannot teach your students a theory. You have to give them something more, the fruit of your practice, your experience. Therefore, you have to practice yourself. And your student, although she is a student or he is a student,

[18:02]

she has to be at the same time a teacher because she is not only the object of your teaching, but she has to assist you in the teaching. Without being so, she cannot arrive at a stage where she can be on her own. If you are a teacher, you have to practice. That means you should be at the same time a student. That is somehow the principle of non-duality in the Buddhist practice. The teacher and the student, they coexist. Without one, the other cannot be. This is because that is. This is not because that is not. I am a teacher because there is a student in front of me. If the student does not exist there, I cannot be called a teacher. My student can only be a student if there is someone in front of him in order to teach.

[19:06]

Therefore, if you look deeply, you can see the student in the teacher and the teacher in the student. That is the way we practice. The teacher has to be a student at the same time, practicing, living what he is teaching. Otherwise, he is not a real teacher. And the student also, while he receives the teaching, he has to teach himself how to practice that. If there is no teacher within the person of the student, that student has no future. Therefore, the teacher is both in this person and in the other person in order for the teaching to be real and possible. I believe the same thing must be true in Western psychotherapy.

[20:19]

If the therapist does not practice what he is trying to do to his client or her client, then that is not a true good therapy. Because he cannot just practice something that he does not have experience. Therefore, the understanding that he has got should come from his or her own experience of practice. And he or she should also rely on the capacity of the client to practice and to be a teacher to himself and herself. Without the collaboration of the client, therapy is not possible. Therefore, the therapist should give birth to a teacher,

[21:20]

to a therapist within the client. Without that, nothing could be done. And everything that has been experienced by the therapist could be shared and transmitted to the client. And that has happened within the Buddhist circle. A teacher should be able to share everything with his or her student. Because if that has worked with him or with her, that will work with the student also. I have heard some people say that they have learned a number of things in Buddhism, in the practice of meditation. But they hesitate to share that with their friends who are clients. I read somewhere something like this.

[22:39]

The teaching of non-self is very deep in Buddhism. I have the understanding of the teaching of non-self, but I do not use it as a therapeutic leverage. I don't understand that. Because if you cannot use your insight on non-self in order to help your patient, that means you don't understand what is non-self. It means that you have not been able to integrate the insight into your life and your understanding. The teaching of Buddhism should be digested. And you know whether it is digested or not. Once it has been digested, it becomes your life, your being. It could be impossible that you won't share it with other people,

[23:48]

including the people you are trying to help. Maybe because many of us think of the practice of meditation as just sitting and sitting very long. And they are afraid that the people they are trying to help would not be able to practice that. So they hold the practice for themselves only. And they cannot share. But to me, the practice of meditation is not only the practice of sitting. Sitting is a very comfortable position. But it is not all. The practice of meditation, to me, is the practice of mindful living in our daily life. We can practice meditation at every moment of our life. Like drinking tea, making a cup of coffee, washing the dishes, changing your baby,

[24:49]

changing diapers for your baby. All these things can be described as the practice of meditation. Eating our breakfast, walking from one building to another, that's the practice. And of course when you practice like that and you get peace, happiness and insight, you can share that way of life with your patients. Suppose I meditate on a flower. When I look into the flower, and if I look deeply into it, I will discover elements that are not flowers. I call them non-flower elements. Like the sunshine. The sunshine is not a flower.

[25:50]

It is an element. But without it, a flower cannot be. A cloud is a non-flower element. But without the cloud, the flower cannot be. So when I look at the flower, I discover that a flower is made only with non-flower elements. And I know that among these elements, there is an element I call garbage. And I can see the garbage within the flower. When I see garbage in the flower, I am not surprised. Because I know that a flower is made also of garbage. Those who do not practice meditation, they look at the flower, they don't see the garbage right at that moment.

[26:55]

But if they wait for five or seven days, they will see that the flower becomes garbage. The flower will become part of the garbage heap. And for those who look deeply, they don't have to wait. They can see it right there. They can see the garbage that has become the flower, and the garbage that the flower will become. And they know very well, not theoretically, but as a fact, that the flower is on her way to the garbage. And looking like that, the meditator discovers something that is called the nature of impermanence. The nature of impermanence. Impermanence is a very common word in Buddhism. Some people say that impermanence is a kind of concept

[28:05]

that is not very positive, that it sounds a little bit too pessimistic. But impermanence is neither optimistic nor pessimistic. That is the true fact of life. Impermanence is the base of life. Without impermanence, nothing can be possible in life. Someone who came from England reported to me that one day her daughter told him that he should not complain about the nature of impermanence in things. She said, if things are not impermanent, how can your daughter grow up? And that is true. When you confine a grain of corn to the ground, well, you expect that the grain of corn becomes a plant of corn in order to offer you a year of corn later. But if things are not impermanent,

[29:08]

how can the grain of corn sprout and become a plant of corn? That is why impermanence is necessary for life. And it is the base of life itself. So instead of complaining about impermanence, we should say something like long life impermanence. When you look at the flower and you see the very nature of impermanence, you see life in the flower and you cherish the flower as it is in the present moment. You know the flower is on her way to the garbage. That is why you cherish the moment when the flower is still the flower. So your insight about impermanence helps you to be alive,

[30:11]

to be alert, and to appreciate really the presence of the flower. You know the flower will fade, will wither within a few days. That is why you look at the flower and you contemplate her. You enjoy her presence in a moment. So a person like a husband, a wife, or a child should be looked upon like a flower. And if we are able to see impermanence within that person, we know how to love, how to protect, how to serve that person, how to make that person happy. Thank you.

[31:56]

So your insight about impermanence is helping you to really enjoy the things that are in the present moment, to make him or her happy, the person you love, and when that person is happy, you are happy also.

[32:37]

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