Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Building a Community of Love (2)

Read deeply the following Thay's teaching on "Building a Community of Love". http://www.lionsroar.com/bell-hooks-and-thich-nhat-hanh-on-building-a-community-of-love/?blm_aid=24265
The followings are the excerpts.

Quote:
bell hooks: Martin Luther King said that you must have courage to love, that you have to have a profound will to do what is right to love, that it does not come easy.

Thich Nhat Hanh: Martin Luther King was among us as a brother, as a friend, as a leader. He was able to maintain that love alive. When you touch him, you touch a bodhisattva, for his understanding and love was enough to hold everything to him. He tried to transmit his insight and his love to the community, but maybe we have not received it enough. He was trying to transmit the best things to us—his goodness, his love, his nonduality. But because we had clung so much to him as a person, we did not bring the essence of what he was teaching into our community. So now that he’s no longer here, we are at a loss. We have to be aware that crucial transmission he was making was not the transmission of power, of authority, of position, but the transmission of the dharma. It means love.

bell hooks: So people say, is it enough that you’ve learned from books by him, or must you meet him, must there be an encounter?

Thich Nhat Hanh: In fact, the true teacher is within us. A good teacher is someone who can help you to go back and touch the true teacher within, because you already have the insight within you. In Buddhism we call it buddhanature. You don’t need someone to transfer buddhanature to you, but maybe you need a friend who can help you touch that nature of awakening and understanding working in you.

So a good teacher is someone who can help you to get back to a teacher within. The teacher can do that in many different ways; she or he does not have to meet you physically. I feel that I have many real students whom I have not met. Many are in cloisters and they never get out. Others are in prison. But in many cases they practice the teachings much better than those who meet me every day. That is true. When they read a book by me or hear a tape and they touch the insight within them, then they have met me in a real way. That is the real meeting.

bell hooks: I want to know your thoughts on how we learn to love a world full of justice.

Thich Nhat Hanh: This is a very interesting topic. It was a very important issue for the Buddha. How we view justice depends on our practice of looking deeply. We may think that justice is everyone being equal, having the same rights, sharing the same kind of advantages, but maybe we have not had the chance to look at the nature of justice in terms of no-self. That kind of justice is based on the idea of self, but it may be very interesting to explore justice in terms of no-self.

bell hooks: Sometimes in life all things are not equal, so what does it mean to have justice when there is no equality?

Thich Nhat Hanh: Is justice possible without equality?

bell hooks: Justice is possible without equality, I believe, because of compassion and understanding. 

Thich Nhat Hanh: Right. And who has created inequality?

bell hooks: Well, I think inequality is in our minds.

Thich Nhat Hanh: Makes sense (laughs).
:Unquote

(My commentary)
The interviewer often uses the words such as "think" and "believe". Those who think or believe are ego. Awareness, or Buddha nature attains insight without thinking. So, she doesn't recognize that she is ego. She asked about 'justice' and said, "Justice is possible without equality". I understand that justice is the word of self (ego) who separates oneself from others. Self (ego) is mind, or thinking. If we are awareness who never separates ourselves from others, there is no separation, discrimination, or duality. I am you. You are me. Then, there is no need for separation. The word of 'justice' is for separation, for self-protection and self-justification. Therefore, awareness doesn't need the word of 'justice'. That's why we need to return to awareness (revival of awareness) in order to generate true love. And true love is based on our understanding (insight), not on courage or profound will.

(Cf.) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LA87R7A
http://compassion5151.blogspot.jp/2015/10/notice-of-building-awakening-sangha.html
http://compassion5151.blogspot.jp/2016/01/notice-of-session-format-change-of.html

Martin Luther King Jr. and Thich Nhat Hanh