January 26, 2012. 105-minute dharma talk from New Hamlet of Plum Village, France. The sangha is in the 2011-2012 Winter Retreat. The talk is given in Vietnamese with English translation.
We have learned that birth and death are nirvana. There is nothing separate. The river of life can either be nourishing or less nourishing depending on the inputs. We also have outputs. A river will also continue. It cannot die, so we need be in a way to make life more beautiful. We don’t have to aim at anything – aimlessness. This is the first door of liberation. We are already what we are searching for. With that deep vision, the river can run peacefully.
Today we begin a new text, Praising the Buddha of Light. Amit?bha Buddha. With each renewal of a text, what we’re doing here, we have to reflect back to the original. There are also texts in the Mahayana tradition that were written hundreds of years after the Buddha. Sometimes of these later texts are even more profound (such as the Avata?saka sutra). Thay talks about how Buddhism is different depending on the country and the time. Pure land is in your heart. You are of the nature of Amitabha. Every living being has a Buddhanature.