The Foolish and the Wise (sutra)

Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly (Bala-Pandita, SN 12.19)

"If the traveler cannot find [greater or equal] to go with one, let one travel alone rather than with a fool for company" (H. Hopp Delaney/H-K-D/flickr.com).

I think therefore I am not...

At one time the Blessed One was residing in Savatthi where he said: "When a foolish person is obstructed (hindered) by ignorance and craving, this body is the result.

There is both this body (internal rupa, dhatu) and external name-and-form. Here within this teaching, dependent on this duality, there arises contact at the six sense bases.

Touched by one or all of these, the foolish (unthinking person) is sensitive to pleasure and pain (which one necessarily misunderstands and identifies with rather than seeing them clearly and dispassionately as ti-lakkhana, as bearing the Three Universal Marks of Existence).

"A great rock is not disturbed by the wind; the mind [heart] of a wise person is not disturbed by either honor or abuse" -- or any of the eight worldly conditions of life.

The Wise

Great minds think a d--- Michele Bachmann

"When a wise person is obstructed by ignorance and craving, this body is the result. There is both this body (internal) and external name-and-form. Here within this teaching, dependent on this duality, there is contact at the six sense bases. Touched by one or more of these, the wise person is (also) sensitive to pleasure and pain.
 
"So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there between the wise person and the foolish person?"
 

The fool is his own worst enemy... (H-K-D)

[The monastics replied:] "Venerable sir, for us the teachings (Dharma) have the Blessed One as their root, their guide, and their explainer. It would be good if the Blessed One himself would explain the meaning of this statement. And having heard it from the Blessed One, the monastics will remember it."
 
"In that case, meditators, listen and give close attention. I will explain."
 
"As you say, venerable sir," they responded.
 

Wise Reflection (BPS.lk)

The [Buddha] explained, "The ignorance with which the fool is obstructed, the craving with which the fool is linked, through which this body has resulted, has not been abandoned by the fool, and that craving has not been destroyed/abandoned. Now why is that? It is because the fool has not practiced the supreme life for the ending of suffering.

"Therefore, at the break up of the body, one is headed for yet another body (form). Headed for a body, one is not entirely freed from rebirth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, disappointment, or despair. I tell you, one is not entirely freed from disappointment and suffering.
 

"Gods" Sakka and Brahma go to the Buddha

"However, the ignorance with which the wise is obstructed, the craving with which one is linked, through which this body has resulted, has been abandoned by the wise, and that craving has been destroyed/abandoned. Now why is that? It is because the wise person has practiced the supreme life for the ending of all suffering.

"Therefore, at the break up of the body, one is not headed for yet another body. Not headed for a body, one is entirely freed from rebirth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, disappointment, or despair. I tell you, that person is entirely freed from disappointment and suffering."

What is "right thinking"? (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Thich Nhat Hanh; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

WALDBROL, Germany - Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) gave a 102-minute Dharma talk at the European Institute of Applied Buddhism.

The talk is in English with simultaneous German translation. This is the first Dharma talk of the German Retreat on the theme "Are You Sure?"

The talk begins at 12 minutes into the recording following two chants by the Plum Village monastics.

Let us begin immediately with the concept of dualist thinking and Right Thinking. [Right Thinking refers to the second Noble Eightfold Path factor, often translated as Right Intention, but it seems that what Thay is actually talking about here is the more profound Right View, which is the first factor of the Path.] How do we see the interconnection between things?

For example, how do we see the interconnection between happiness and suffering or all the elements of a lotus flower? The lotus is made of non-lotus elements. 
 
EXPLANATION
Wisdom Quarterly on the wisdom that goes beyond

Li'l Buddha book (literatureismyutopia.tumblr)

[Thay teaches that a lotus flower is composed of non-lotus elements like water, mud, air, sunlight, and so on. These things are not themselves lotus flowers, but a lotus flower does not exist without them.

Whether we accept this insight as true or not, Why is it important? It is important because the Buddha teaches a more profound insight necessary for enlightenment: The "self" ("soul" or "ego") is composed of all non-self elements -- form (body, materiality, the Four Great Elements), feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousnesses (eye consciousness, ear consciousness, etc.)
 

Buddha and Angel' (K/Xiangjiaocao/flickr)

In just the same way, whatever is considered a "lotus" is a construct, a dependently-originated, conditionally-arisen thing that does not exist apart from its component parts.

Since the components are not the whole, not the "thing," the thing's existence is illusory, a dream, born of ignorance of how things really are. What illusion? The illusion that there is a thing there apart from its components! It is not a thing but, paradoxically, it is not nothing. It, whether we are talking about a lotus or a self, arises always and only completely dependent on causes and supporting conditions.
 
Great News

Gold Buddha (Chris & Annabel/Chngster/flickr)

This is great news, but it is an ultimate truth; conventionally, of course, there is a flower -- look, it's this thing I'm holding in my hand. There is a self -- look, it's this thing holding up the flower.
 
There is a world, suffering, and everything else. It is great news that things are dependently-arisen because, if this is a painful dream, we CAN wake up. If this is an illusion, we CAN become enlightened. Others have -- others like Thay and certainly the Buddha and the earliest disciples.

Enlightenment, nirvana, final liberation means seeing things as they truly are, for it is the Truth that sets a person free. Just as ignorance is trapping and binding us to suffering, rebirth, more suffering, and this endless round of wandering, so enlightenment means the end of ignorance about the the Four Noble Truths.

Have you ever heard of the Buddhist teaching or concept of Dependent Origination? It may be the most important thing the Buddha ever said. He describes it in this way: Seeing dependent origination is seeing the Dharma; seeing the Dharma is seeing dependent origination. It is due to not seeing this dependent origination that not only you but I have wandered from life to life, suffering and searching. One who sees the Dharma sees me, and so on. What could possibly be so important?

"Dependent Origination" as a formula is a set of 12 causal links. In the simplest terms, the formula goes like this: Wait. Why do we want to know this formula? Because it leads to enlightenment, nirvana (the complete end of all suffering), and deathlessness, that's why. Oh, okay, then go on. The formula runs: "Because of this, that comes to be; with the ending of this, that ends." Wait, what's this? What's that? The 12 links beginning with ignorance. Do you know how Siddhartha became enlightened? Most people do not.

How did the Siddhartha become enlightened?

Why do beings suffer, why is there suffering?

He became enlightened because he kept asking a question. He had asked it in many previous lives as a bodhisattva (buddha-to-be), and he asked it as a prince, then asked it as a renunciant, then as a meditator:

"Why is there suffering?" After learning how to enter the jhanas, the meditative absorptions, for about six years, he went off on his own without a teacher, still asking this question.
 
He sat under a heart shaped leaf tree still asking this question. The answer that dawned on him, after emerging from mind/heart-purifying absorption was Dependent Origination working backward to a first cause:

There is suffering, this always-unsatisfactory and often-painful state we find ourselves in. What is it dependent on? It is dependent on formations...and so on all the way back to ignorance. Ignorance is not really a "first cause," a prime mover, a causeless cause as in Western philosophy, Christian theology, and linear logic.

There was not one ignorance but lots of instances of it at every moment. Our suffering does not have just one cause; our suffering is being constantly replenished, giving rise to all the necessary causes and conditions. It is a dynamic, circular process.

• The Heart Sutra (the core of the Prajna Paramita or the "Perfection of Wisdom" literature) is exactly this: understanding and penetrating "not-self" also called "emptiness" with insight. What is not-self? It is the "wisdom that has gone beyond." It breaks down or unpacks the Five Aggregates: "Form is emptiness, and the very emptiness is form. Feeling is emptiness, and the very emptiness is feeling," and so on.

When the "self" comes into existence, what has come into existence? No-thing really, just an illusion dependent on causes and conditions like the Five Aggregates that are the basis of clinging. But it is not nothing, as evidenced by the fact that by insight meditation, purified and supported by absorption, it is possible to discern the causes and conditions, the factors, the components, the parts that give the illusion of there being something that just came into existence.

There is no being, only becoming, no static entity, just a dynamic process, no personality, just a series of mental and physical processes. What goes out of existence at every moment? Not a "being" -- as there never was a being, not even for one moment, only becoming. What goes out for the enlightened person? Only ignorance, only the illusion, only the frightful dream.

If all of this sounds shocking, it is. What an awakening! But it can be confirmed in many lines and teachings scattered all over the Buddhist texts. One of the most famous is:

"Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;

The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;

Nirvana is, but not the person who enters it;

The path is, but no traveler on it is seen." 

 

There's a Meditation for Dummies in the series

The profound teaching of egolessness or not-self is not a teaching the Buddha, or Thay, directly gives ordinary instructed worldlings.

 

But it is the deeper meaning of "lotuses being composed of all non-lotus elements." Most monastics cannot grasp it for a long time as they are training to understand it. For it is subtle, deep, and goes against the stream of all of our assumptions. A clever person would never figure it out by mere reasoning.

 

No, no, What about that Descartes, the Westerner? He said it best: "I think; therefore, I am!" Yes, and didn't he jump the gun? Based on the evidence, all that one could conclude is, "Thinking is; therefore, thinking is going on."

 

Thinking -- that is, impersonal cognitive processes which are explained at length and in excruciating detail by the Buddha and cataloged in the voluminous Abhidharma and available for any and all of us to verify for ourselves during insight meditation -- does not need a self, a thinker. 

 

In fact, it is the process of thinking and cognizing that gives rise to the illusion/assumption of a self, not the other way around. And to assume that there is self, and to futher assume that self/the thinker is eternal or unchanging, permanent, destined for eternity in paradise or a pulverizing place of punishment is the sad state of the majority of the world's religionists. Isn't it great news that reality is not this way; it's not unfair and without a cause, not just some God's whim, not a random error of a cold universe that accidentally got a some heat in it....

 

Wait. What about karma? The five karmic causes (ignorance, karmic-formations, consciousness, mind-and-matter, six sense bases) of the past birth are the condition for the karmic-results of the present birth. And the five karmic causes of the present birth are the condition for the five karmic-results of the next birth. It is said in the Path of Purification (Vis.M. XVII):

"Five causes were there in the past,

Five fruits we find in the present;

Five causes do we now produce,

Five fruits we reap in the future."]

Gardening Analogy

A good gardener knows how to make good use of the mud just as a good mindfulness practitioner knows how to make good use of her suffering.

The goodness of suffering [is using it to grow]. When you understand suffering then understanding and compassion arises -- the foundation of happiness.

From the "Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing," we have exercises handed down by the Buddha to help our practice with suffering.

• Generate a feeling of joy.
• Generate a feeling of happiness.
• Recognize painful feelings.
• Calm down the painful feelings.

Mindfulness is an energy that helps us know what is going on in our body and our feelings [sensations]. How do we bring relief to our painful [physical] feelings and emotions?
 

Thay, Thich Nhat Hanh

There are three kinds of energies we should try to generate: mindfulness, concentration, and insight.

There are four elements of True Love and being present for those we love. By taking care of our suffering and our lives, we can learn to take care of the world. 

In the last 10-minutes, walking meditation instructions are given.

(Plum Village Online) Thay, Thich Nhat Hanh, teaches from Germany: Are you sure?

• PODCAST: AUDIO download (1:43 - 94.1MB) embed
• Domains of Mindfulness Practice
• Embrace the Whole Cosmos
• Conditions of Happiness
• We Are Peace
• The Holiness of Mindfulness, Concentration, and Insight
• Applying Buddhist Teachings to the Classroom
• Breathing and Interbeing 
• Full of Wonder 
• Touching the Wonders of Life 
• Energies of Buddhism 
• Blue Cliff Monastery
• Deer Park Monastery
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Magnolia Grove Monastery
• Planting Seeds of Compassion
• Plum Village

This entry was posted in Breathing, European Institute of Applied Buddhism, Retreats, Walking and tagged 2013 German Retreat, concentration, EIAB, German, Insight, mindfulness, Right Thinking, True Love on July 1, 2013.

The Seven Obsessions

Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Terms and Doctrines

Obsession destroys (tasithoughts.com)

The seven obsessions or anusayas (proclivities, inclinations, tendencies) are:

1. sensuous greed (kāma-rāga, see fetters),
2. resentment (aversion, anger, patigha),
3. speculative views (wrong views, opinions, ditthi),
4. skeptical doubt (vicikicchā),
5. conceit (māna),
6. craving for continued states of existence (bhava-rāga),
7. ignorance (avijjā) (D.33; A.VII.11-12).

"These things are called obsessions or proclivities because, as a consequence of their pertinacity, they again and again tend to become the conditions for the arising of ever new sensuous greed, [aversion, and delusion]'' (Path of Purification, Vis.M. XXII, 60).

 

Yam. VII first determines in which beings such and such obsessions exist, and which obsessions, and with regard to what, and in which sphere of existence [Sensual, Fine Material, or Immaterial]. Thereafter it gives an explanation concerning their overcoming, their penetration, and so on. Cf. Guide VI (vii).

 

According to Kath. several ancient Buddhist schools erroneously held the wrong view (opinion) that the anusayas, as such, meant merely latent -- and therefore karmically neutral qualities -- which however contradicts the Theravāda school conception. Cf. Guide V, 88, 108, 139.

• Four Dangers of Living a Simple Life (MN 67)

Obsession – When it Turns Destructive

Tasithoughts 

What causes people to fixate on someone [or something] so much that it takes over their being and wipes out whatever common sense and self-esteem they have for themselves?

Recently I have seen this in a few individuals who have basically thrown their self-respect out the window by going uber crazy over someone they initially had a crush on that turned into a full on -- almost Fatal Attraction -- kind of situation. 

The irrational behavior reaches fever pitch when they are rejected by the object of their affection.  Their feelings of  ultra-attachment turn into hurt and open bitterness.  It becomes a frenzy of texting,  calling, and harassing the person who scorned them.

In one instance, I have seen it become violent.... because they have attached their egos and their self-esteem so much to their object of affection...

• The Downward Spiral of Vengeance (anger)
• Can anger ever be good?
• Masks (depression)

Racism Hurts Everyone: Costs to White People

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; United Church of Christ Massachusetts Conference (maucc.org)

We're just kids. Are you raising us racist without even realizing what you're doing?

"Stop racism!" (femen.org/en)

Part of being committed to eliminating racism is continuing to grow in our understanding of the horrible effects of racism on people of color today. While there is no comparison with the effects on people of color, white people are also dehumanized and burdened by racism. 

So it is valuable to also grow in our understanding of this part of the system of racism that affects us all. For instance, white people often:

Oh, to be the black sheep of the group! Or white in a group of colored sheep!!

 

I can overcome inequality and guilt?

• Experience a sense of being cut off from people of color -- of not belonging with, or being welcomed by, people of color (who, after all, are a majority of the world’s population).

• Hold stereotypes and prejudices or have negative thoughts about people of color or unintentionally give off an air of entitlement or superiority.
• Are deeply pained by learning about historical/contemporary suffering and racist inequities experienced by people of color.
• Feel powerless to create a just society in the face of racism.
• Feel guilty about the history of racism and current racist institutions.
• Fear making mistakes and being seen as racist or prejudiced.

Beloved Buddhist Saint Sivali

• Have our integrity eroded and our sense of goodness and self-worth undermined by our failures to stand up against racism we observe.
• Experience unjustified fears of people of color.
• Are separated from people of color who are working-class and poor, who are our natural allies, with whom we could join forces to bring about a more equitable distribution of wealth that would benefit us all.
• Experience unfounded fears of what people of color may do to white people, when and if they ever get the chance, exactly what whites did to people of color -- exacting revenge or retribution for past and ongoing racism.

• Miss out on the benefits of deep human relationships with people of other “races” and cultures, and all that can be learned and enjoyed in such relationships.

• Are unconscious of "white privilege" or subtle biases.

• Are separated from other white people by feelings about race... What would you add to the list?

A better kind of arms race

The position of supremacy is inherently dehumanizing to individuals in the dominant group in addition to the terrible and more obvious costs to any subordinated group.

 

Our full humanity can only be realized in full community with other human beings -- in situations of reciprocity, equity, fairness, and mutuality... More

• Anti-Racism Ministry in Local Churches
• Building a Bridge Toward a 21st Century, Multi-Racial, Multi-Cultural Society
• One Church's Anti-Racism Statement
• Race and Justice Resources

Ode to Heroin! - A Buddhist Solution

I. Rony, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly

Heroin used to be chic (lelaid). Thx, Big Pharma!

Oh, Heroin, you take all my pain away (temporarily).

And no matter what they say ordinarily,

I won't support our invasion of Afghan fields.

So I'm turning to fentanyl and Vicodin...

And any synthetic painkiller

My doctor can prescribe

Because roses are maroon

Orchids rainbow spread,

I know I'm doomed;

I'm so Hoffmanesque.

 

Bulging opium poppy pods? No, it's the "Buddha Belly plant," Jatropha podagrica, which grows from the bottleplant shrub (1guy2be/flickr.com)

A Buddhist solution?

Wisdom Quarterly

Levine's new book on recovery

Is there a "Buddhist" solution? Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at a Time and A Burning Desire) says yes! Noah Levine and others agree. Siddhartha was born in Afghanistan, according to maverick historian Ranajit Pal, Ph.D. Poppies must have grown there at the time. And what is "addiction" but craving, the curable source of suffering? Where there is craving, there is also likely to be aversion, usually manifesting as fear: fear of pain, aversion to pain. And without exception, whenever craving or aversion are present, each is supported by the true cause and condition of all suffering, disappointment, and woe: ignorance. The solution? Enlightenment.

Chic Phillip Seymour Hoffman (cracked.com)

Easier said than done. How did the drugs and drink help your quest for awakening? Even people who drop LSD, DMT, GHB, E, and/or 'shrooms do NOT suddenly awaken to the liberating-truth. Which is odd, isn't it? One would think Space Cadets would because they're so far out, so "beyond the beyond" (Heart Sutra). The real "ambrosia," the nectar of the divine, is deathlessness, a synonym for nirvana. See, getting "high" is a kind of delusion, alcohol a "liquid ignorance," the urge to get stoned or s-faced a dream. We're already in a dream (maya)! Maybe "mind-expanding" (entheogenic) substances can help. But the best "drugs" of all are endogenous, that is, internally-manufactured by these great bodies. So stop taking artificial, external drugs. And take care of your pineal gland. How? For one thing, avoid pharmaceuticals like Prozac.
  

Death of a Drug Addict

A Martinez and Alex Cohen, Take Two, scpr.org

The death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman of an apparent drug overdose was a shock to almost everyone who heard the news. Hoffman, it has been widely reported, had over two decades of sobriety under his belt before relapsing into addiction last year. Journalist Seth Mnookin, co-director of MIT's Graduate Program in Science Writing and a recovering drug addict, joined "Take Two." He wrote about it in Slate.

AUDIO INVESTIGATION: Heroin's Resurgence

Salvation in a dirty spoon?

Take Two talks to author and LA Times reporter Sam Quinones about the resurgence of heroin in the US. More than 90% of opiate abusers are white and getting it delivered like pizza. 

Authorities are still investigating the official cause of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death, but the actor struggled with addiction, and investigators have confirmed the presence of heroin in his apartment.

It's a growing problem in this country, and heroin use here has doubled since 2007. According to the DEA, heroin seizures in New York State are up nearly 70 percent over the last four years. LISTEN 

Spock: Cigarettes gave me cancer. Don't smoke.

• BOOK: A Buddhist Path to Recovery from Addiction 
• FULL VIDEO: "DMT: The Spirit Molecule"
• Why do so many celebrities suffer from drug addiction?
• CVS to ban tobacco sales! Why? Pharmacy plans to make more money selling pharmaceutical treatments to fight nicotine addiction "treatments"
• COMEDY: The Hummus (the Muslim "Onion") takes a satirical look at Islamophobia
• Is it all in my thyroid gland? (extended ad)
• Bill Nye "the Science Guy" debates Creation Museum's Ken Ham

Ignorance, O ignorance! (cartoon)

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, CC Liu Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines; GoComics.com; Dilbert.com

IGNORANCE (avijjā, Sanskrit avidya) refers to lack of insight, lack of wisdom, nescience, unknowing. As a Buddhist term it is synonymous with "delusion" (moha, one of the three roots of all unwholesome action). In fact, it is the primary root of ALL bad karma and unhappiness in the various planes of existence generally referred to as "the world" or "universe."

It veils our mental eyes and prevents us from seeing the true nature of existence. It is the delusion or wrong view tricking beings by making life appear to them as (1) permanent, (2) happy, and/or (3) personal. Seeing its beauty without being mindful of inherent danger, living being cling to existence and experience even as it is passing away, disappointing, and impersonal.

What might we be were it not for ignorance? Enlightened here and now in this very life?

 

It prevents us from seeing that everything -- every compounded thing that comes into existence or originates dependent on supportive conditions -- is, ultimately speaking, radically impermanent, unsatisfactory, and void of "I," "me," or "mine": It is basically unattractive, foul, impure. (See The Four Perversions that make it appear otherwise).

 

Ignorance is defined as "not knowing [i.e., fully penetrating the truth of] the Four Noble Truths, namely, (1) unsatisfactoriness, (2) its origin, (3) its cessation, and (4) the way to its cessation" (S. XII, 4).

 

Kermit would have remained in the dark...

This root ignorance is the foundation of all karma that leads to becoming, all rebirth-producing actions, of all harm and suffering. Therefore, it stands first in the formula of Dependent Origination -- the 12-linked causal chain of the arising of present unhappiness.

But on account of it being first, explains the Path of Purification (Vis.M., XVII, 36f), ignorance should not be regarded as "the causeless root-cause of the world... It is not causeless. For a cause of it is stated: 

The Buddha glowing golden (Mesamong/flickr)

"'With the arising of defilements (taints, cankers, outflows, āsavas), there is the arising of ignorance' (MN 9). But there is a figurative way in which it can be treated as a root-cause. Namely, when it is made to serve as a starting point in an exposition of the Round of Existence... 

"As it is said: 'No first beginning of ignorance can be perceived, meditators, before which ignorance was not and after which it came to be. Yet, it can be perceived that ignorance has its specific [causal or supportive] condition'" (AN.X.61).

The same statement is made (AN.X.62) about the craving for [eternal] existence. The latter and ignorance are called "the outstanding causes of karma that lead to unhappy and happy destinies" (Vis.M. XVII, 38).

 

Ignorance as wrong or false view

As ignorance still exists -- albeit in a very refined way until the attainment of full enlightenment -- it is counted as the last of the Ten Fetters, which bind beings to samsara, the Cycle of Rebirths. As the first two unwholesome roots, greed and hate, are themselves rooted in ignorance, ALL unwholesome states of mind/heart are consequently and inseparably bound up with it.

 

Ignorance (delusion) is the most obstinate of the three roots of unhappiness. It is fully eliminated by the dawning of enlightenment, insight, final knowledge, liberating wisdom.

 

Ignorance is not only one of the taints or cankers, it is one of the proclivities. It is often called a mental hindrance (e.g., in S.XV.3; A.X.61) but does not appear together with the usual list of Five Hindrances [which it is at the root of].

The other definition of "ignorance" is anyone who disagrees with me (dilbert.com)

"Letting Go" with Thich Nhat Hanh (video)

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Source of Light Monastery; plumvillage.org (donate)

Thay ("teacher")

To preserve some of Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh's previous lectures, some of his older lectures are being uploaded by Source of Light Monastery as they become available.

Here Thay, as he is affectionately known, discusses what he calls the most important practice in Buddhist meditation -- the practice of letting go or "throwing away."

Wrong ideas, misperceptions, and false notions (moha, delusion, ignorance) are at the root of our suffering: They are the ground of all afflictions whatsoever. Cravings and aversions never stand without the support of ignorance.

 

In order for us to touch happiness in the here and now, we need to throw away the strong ideas and subtle notions that prevent us from learning and growing. 

Mahayana Buddhism's Diamond Sutra suggests four notions that should be thrown away: self, human being, living being, and life span. The main portion of this talk is dedicated to elaborating on these notions as well as our attachment to views, pairs of extremes, as well as "rules and rituals" we expect can lead to enlightenment. 

• Free Buddhist eBooks: sourceoflightmonastery.com

Thich Nhat Hanh on Oprah's OWN