Many of us spend a lot of time asking the question: “Why do I have to die?” The more important question to ask ourselves is: “What happens before I die?” You must go to your beloved one and ask: “Darling, who are you? Are you the same person as the one I married thirty years ago or are you different? Why have you come here? Where will you go? Why shall I have to weep one day when you die?” These are very important questions that cannot be answered by our intellect alone. We need something deeper and more complete.
The practice of Touching the Earth can help us touch our true nature of no birth and no death. If we practice Touching the Earth as the Buddha practiced, it can help us to achieve real insight.
It is written in the sutras that the day before Prince Siddhartha became the Buddha, the Enlightened One, he had a little doubt about his ability to become fully awake. He had been quite confident, but then something made him question it. So he practiced Touching the Earth. He used his hand to touch the earth in order to transform that doubt. The next day, Prince Siddhartha became Buddha.
In Buddhist temples throughout Asia, you will see statues of the Buddha touching the Earth with his hand. Touching the Earth is a very deep practice that can help us transform our fears, doubts, prejudice and anger.
Touching Both Dimensions
The historical dimension and the ultimate dimension of reality are related to each other. If you can deeply touch one, you can touch the other. Jesus Christ can be referred to as both the Son of Man and the Son of God. As Son of Man, he belongs to the historical dimension. As Son of God, he belongs to the ultimate dimension.
There is the historical Buddha but there is also the Buddha who is not limited by space and time. We are all like that. We have a historical dimension, which we live every day, but we also have an ultimate dimension, which we try to live using our spiritual practice. If we can live in the ultimate dimension at the same time as we function in the historical, we will have no more fear. When there is no more fear, there is true happiness. A wave has a right to live her life as a wave, but she must also learn to live her life as water because she is not only a wave. She is also water. And water lives without the fear carried by the wave.
Touching the Earth is an easy and effective way to touch our ultimate dimension. If you do this practice, one day you will touch your true nature of no birth and no death. At that time, you will be liberated from fear. You can become someone who rides majestically on the waves of birth and death because you are no longer agitated by fear or anger.
Touching the Earth:
The Historical Dimension
Imagine the dimension of time as a vertical line. Place yourself standing in the present on that line with the past above you and the future below you. Establish yourself in time. See all your ancestors that have come before you. The youngest generation of your ancestors is your parents. All of them are above you on this line of time. Then below you, see all your descendants, your children, your grandchildren and all their future generations. If you have no children, your descendants are the people you have touched in your life, and all the people they in turn influence.
In you are both your blood ancestors and your spiritual ancestors. You touch the presence of your father and mother in each cell of your body. They are truly present in you, along with your grandparents and great-grandparents. Doing this, you realize you are their continuation. You may have thought that your ancestors no longer existed, but even scientists will say that they are present in you, in your genetic heritage, which is in every cell of your body.
The same is true for your descendants. You will be present in every cell of their bodies. And you are present in the consciousness of everyone you have touched. This is real, not imagined.
This is the first touching of the earth.
Pits and Trees
Look into a plum tree. In each plum on the tree there is a pit. That pit contains the plum tree and all previous generations of plum tree. The plum pit contains an eternity of plum trees. Inside the pit is an intelligence and wisdom that knows how to become a plum tree, how to produce branches, leaves, flowers and plums. It cannot do this on its own. It can only do this because it has received the experience and heritage of so many generations of ancestors. You are the same. You possess the wisdom and intelligence of how to become a full human being because you inherited an eternity of wisdom not only from your blood ancestors but from your spiritual ancestors, too.
Your spiritual ancestors are in you because what you are by nature and what you are by nurture cannot be separated. Nurturing transforms your inherited nature. Your spirituality and your practice, which are parts of your daily life, are also in every cell of your body. So your spiritual ancestors are in every cell of your body. You cannot deny their presence.
You have ancestors whom you admire and of whom you are proud. You also have ancestors who had many negative traits and of whom you are not proud, but they are still your ancestors. Some of us have wonderful parents; others have parents who suffered a lot and made their spouses and their children suffer. Or you may have had spiritual ancestors who did not help you to appreciate the religion practiced by your family and your community. You may not have respect for them now, but they are still your ancestors.
Acceptance
We need to return to ourselves and embrace our blood and our spiritual ancestors. We cannot get rid of them. They are a fact and they are there. They are part of our bodies and our souls.
When you touch the earth the first time, practice accepting all your ancestors just as they are. This is very important. Unconditional acceptance is the first step in opening the door to the miracle of forgiveness. Jesus said, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” He understood that the first step of forgiveness is to accept other people just as they are, even if they have harmed us.
To accept others as they are, we must begin with ourselves. If we cannot accept ourselves as we are, we will never be able to accept others. When I look at myself, I see positive, admirable and even remarkable things, but I also know that there are negative parts of me. So first I recognize and accept myself.
Wherever you are standing to practice Touching the Earth—before a rock, or mountain, or flower or altar in your home—practice conscious breathing. Breathing in and breathing out, you visualize your ancestors, and you see all their positive and negative points. Be determined to accept them all as your ancestors without hesitation. After that, you prostrate, touching the earth with your knees, your hands and your forehead. Stay in that position while you continue the visualization:
“Dear ancestors, I am you, with all your strengths and weaknesses. I see you have negative and positive seeds. I understand that you have been lucky and that good seeds like kindness, compassion and fearlessness were watered in you. I also understand that if you were not lucky and negative seeds like greed, jealousy and fear were watered in you, then the positive seeds did not have a chance to grow.”
If positive seeds are watered in a person’s life, it is partly because of luck and partly because of effort. The circumstances of our lives can help us water the seeds of patience, generosity, compassion and love. The people around us can help us water these seeds, and so can the practice of mindfulness.
But if a person grew up in a time of war, or in a family and community with great suffering, then that person may be full of despair and fear. If they had parents who had suffered a lot and were afraid of the world and other people, then they would transmit this fear and anger to their children. If they grew up embraced by security and love, the good seeds nurtured in them would grow, and these wonderful seeds would be transmitted.
If you can look like that at your ancestors, you will understand that they are human beings who have suffered and have tried their best. That understanding will remove all rejection and anger. It is very important to be able to accept all your ancestors with both their strengths and weaknesses. It will help you to become more peaceful and less afraid.
You can also see your elder brothers and sisters as your very young ancestors because they were born before you. They too have weaknesses as well as talents, which you have to accept because you realize that you yourself have weaknesses and talents. This kind of acceptance is what you realize as you touch the earth. If you need to, you can maintain the prostrate position for five, ten or fifteen minutes to look deeply and realize this acceptance.
The first Touching of the Earth may have to be repeated several times before you can become reconciled with your parents and your ancestors. It takes a lot of practice, but it is important to do because, since your parents and your ancestors are in you, to reconcile with them is to reconcile with yourself. To deny your ancestors is to deny yourself. If you can see that you are not separate from your ancestors, that is great progress. I am sure you can be successful after a few days or a week of this practice.
You can do the practice of Touching the Earth anywhere, before your ancestral altar, before a tree, a cloud, a mountain or anywhere else you like. Standing before a rock or a cloud or a tree or a flower on your altar, visualize the presence of all your ancestors in you. It is not difficult, because you are in fact them. You are their continuation. Please practice with one hundred percent of your being.
Touching the Future
The next step in the practice of Touching the Earth is to look at your descendants—your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. If you have difficulties with them you should visualize as follows:
“I am not an entity separate from my children, because I am continued by my children. They carry me into the future. My son, daughter, friend or disciple is me.”
In the obituary notices they always write, “Mister X has died and is survived by his sons and daughters.” The idea here is that the children continue to live for the father. My disciples are me and I live every day in such a way as to be able to transmit the best of myself to them because they are going to carry me into the future. I have told my disciples that they should watch the sunrise for me and I will watch the sunset and the stars for them with their eyes. I am immortal because of my disciples.
Just as you see yourself in your parents and your ancestors, so you can see yourself in your son and daughter. Thanks to your parents you have access to your source in all your ancestors. My disciples have access to the Buddha and ancestral teachers through me. Thanks to your children you have access to the future. The son needs his father to have access to his source, and the father needs his son to have access to the future and the infinite.
This is a very concrete practice that you can do alone or with one or two friends for mutual support. In the beginning someone can help you by guiding your practice as you do it. But later on you can guide yourself.
Trying to Separate
If you have difficulties with your son or daughter, you may have the tendency to say: “You are not my daughter. My daughter would not behave like that” or “You are not my son. My son would never do things like that.” If you look deeply at yourself, you will see that these negative seeds are in you also. When you were young you made mistakes and you learned from your suffering. When your child makes mistakes, you need to help him understand so he will not do it again. When you can see your own weaknesses, you can say: “Who am I not to accept my son?” Your son is you. With this insight into non-duality, you can reconcile with your children. The practice of Touching the Earth is a path to reconciliation.
Right Concentration
The Noble Eightfold Path, the path of the eight right practices taught by the Buddha, has as its last component Right Concentration. The concentration on no self, impermanence and interconnectedness is what we realize when we touch the earth. Without this concentration there will be no insight. If you can see yourself, your parents and your children in the light of impermanence, no self and interconnectedness, then reconciliation will come very naturally.
Give yourself time to practice Touching the Earth once a day or even twice. You can use the following words to guide your visualization: “Touching the earth, I connect with my ancestors and all descendants of my spiritual and blood families.” (Visualize this for a short time standing before your preferred object, and then touch the earth).
My spiritual ancestors include the Buddha, the bodhisattvas and the Buddha’s disciples. They include my own spiritual teachers, those still alive and those who have already passed away. They are present in me because they have transmitted to me seeds of peace, wisdom, love and happiness. They have woken up in me my own resource of understanding and compassion. When I look at my spiritual ancestors, I see those who are perfect in the practice of the mindfulness trainings, understanding and compassion, and those who are imperfect. I accept them all because I see within myself shortcomings and weaknesses also.
Aware that my practice of the mindfulness trainings is not always perfect, and that I am not always understanding and compassionate, I open my heart and accept all my spiritual descendants. Some of my descendants live in such a way as to invite my confidence and respect, but there are those who have many difficulties and are subject to ups and downs in their practice. I open my heart and embrace them all equally.
In the same way, I accept all my ancestors on my mother’s side and my father’s side of the family. I accept all their good qualities, all the virtuous things they have done, and I also accept all their weaknesses. I open my heart and accept all my blood descendants with their good qualities, their talents and also their weaknesses.
Whatever tradition your spiritual roots are in, you can include teachers from that tradition. If you have Christian roots your spiritual ancestors include Christ, Christ’s disciples, the saints and the Christian teachers who have touched your life. If you have Jewish roots you may want to include the patriarchs and matriarchs and the great rabbis.
My spiritual ancestors, blood ancestors, spiritual descendants and blood descendants are all part of me. I am they and they are me. I do not have a separate self. We all exist as part of a wonderful stream of life.
Meditation on the Historical Dimension
The historical dimension is the dimension of coming and going, birth and death. When we begin to touch the historical dimension, often we can become afraid. We are afraid because we do not yet understand that birth and death are not real. The Buddha said, “Anything that is born must die.” If there is birth, then there must be death also. If the right is there the left must be there also. If there is a beginning, then there must be an end. That is the way things appear to be in the historical dimension. The monks, the nuns and the laypeople in the time of the Buddha practiced recognizing birth and death as realities.
In order to face our fear, it helps to stabilize the mind a little bit through meditation and contemplation. At first, it is easier to practice when we are guided. Breathing is the vehicle that carries concentration. It directs your mind to the object of your meditation. We begin through the awareness of breathing, so that later, when we need to contemplate, we will be able to direct the mind.
We try to direct the mind toward recognizing reality. This is a chant that is recited daily in Buddhist monasteries: “Breathing in and out, I am aware of the fact that I am of the nature to die; I cannot escape dying. I am of the nature to grow old; I cannot escape old age. I am of the nature to get sick. Because I have a body, I cannot avoid sickness. Everything I cherish, treasure and cling to today, I will have to abandon one day. The only thing I can carry with me is the fruit of my own action. I cannot bring along with me anything else except the fruit of my actions in terms of thought, speech and bodily acts.”
We have to recognize this reality and smile. This is the practice of facing our own fear. Fear is always there within us—the fear of getting old, the fear of getting sick, the fear of dying, the fear of being abandoned by our loved ones. It is very human to be fearful and to worry about it.
The Buddha did not advise us to suppress these fears. The Buddha advised us to invite these fears to the upper level of our consciousness, recognize them and smile at them. To do so was a daily practice for monks and nuns in the time of the Buddha as it is for monks and nuns now. Every time your fear is invited up, every time you recognize it and smile at it, your fear will lose some of its strength. When it returns to the depth of your consciousness, it returns as a smaller seed. That is why the practice should be done every day, especially when you are feeling mentally and physically strong.
When you try to practice, your mind may be running after many thoughts. But just come back to the awareness of when you are breathing in and when you are breathing out. Just be aware of it—you do not need to make your breath longer or deeper. You do not need to change anything. Allow your breath to be just as it wants to be. Keep your mind with the breath in awareness. After practicing like that, the quality of your breathing will calm itself.
When you feel calm enough, use the words of the guided meditation below to help you concentrate. The first time, you may like to hear or say to yourself the whole sentence. As you continue, you can just remember a few key words. You do not need to make a big effort. Just relax and let your breath and the words be your support.
EXERCISE TO HELP US LOOK DEEPLY AND HEAL OUR FEAR
Breathing in, I am aware of my in-breath. | In | |
Breathing out, I am aware of my out-breath. | Out | |
Breathing in, I am aware that I grow old. | Old age | |
Breathing out, I know I cannot escape old age. | No escape | |
Breathing in, I am aware of my nature to have ill health. | Ill health | |
Breathing out, I know I cannot escape ill health. | No escape | |
Breathing in, I know I shall die. | Death | |
Breathing out, I know I cannot escape death. | No escape | |
Breathing in, I know that one day I shall have to abandon all I love and cherish. | Abandon all I cherish | |
Breathing out, I know I cannot escape abandoning all I cherish. | No escape | |
Breathing in, I know that my actions of body, speech and mind are my only true belongings. | Actions true belongings | |
Breathing out, I know I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. | No escaping consequences | |
Breathing in, I determine to live my days deeply in mindfulness. | Living mindfully | |
Breathing out, I see the joy and benefit of living in the present moment. | Joy and benefit | |
Breathing in, I vow to offer joy each day to my beloved. | Offering jo y | |
Breathing out, I vow to ease the pain of my beloved. | Easing pain |
Acceptance, forgiveness and facing fear are the deepest results of Touching the Earth in the historical dimension. Using the breath this way, we can begin to heal. Then we can look at the next Touching of the Earth.
Touching the Earth: Space
In the first Touching of the Earth, you practice while visualizing standing on the vertical line of time. Now visualize a horizontal line, which represents the dimension of space. This line representing space crosses the vertical line representing time, the historical dimension.
In space we see other living beings on the planet Earth: men, women, children, elderly people, animals of every species, trees, plants, minerals. When we look at a tree we may think that the tree is outside of us. But if we look more deeply we shall see that the tree is also within us. The trees are your lungs because without the trees you could not breathe. The trees create the oxygen, which is now part of my body, and I create the carbon dioxide, which is now part of the tree. We have lungs in our body, but the trees breathe for us too and can also be called our lungs. Our own lungs are working with the trees to help us breathe.
The Jataka Tales are stories about the lives the Buddha lived before he became enlightened. In those stories we hear how the Buddha was a tree, a bird, a tortoise, a rock, a cloud before he was a human. We too, before manifesting in human form, were trees, one-celled animals, large animals, clouds, forests, rocks. It is not difficult to see in the light of scientific evolution. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. It can change into energy, and energy can change back into matter, but it won’t be destroyed.
We have always been a part of everything else, and everything else has always been a part of us. We have all been trees, roses and animals. We still are trees at this moment. Look deeply at yourself and you see the tree, the cloud, the rose and the squirrel in you. You cannot take them out of yourself. You cannot take the cloud out of you because you are made of seventy percent water. The continuation of the cloud is rain. The continuation of rain is the river. The continuation of the river is the water you drink in order to survive. If you take the continuation of the cloud out of you, you cannot continue.
Angels Everywhere
Looking deeply into the dimension of space, we will also see all the enlightened beings. All the great beings, the bodhisattvas. We will see God. Look hard and you will see bodhisattvas everywhere. You will see men and women who have compassion and who do everything they can to help and protect humanity. In Plum Village we practice evoking the names of bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of deep listening; Samantabhadra, the bodhisattva of great action; Manjushri, the bodhisattva of great understanding; Kshitigarbha, the bodhisattva who always goes to the darkest places, where suffering is unbearable, to help all people.
These are the bodhisattvas we know about because their stories have been passed down to us. There are also countless unknown bodhisattvas everywhere whose work expresses their love, compassion and deep commitment to the world. Their hearts are full of love, and they are not interested in consuming many things. They want to live simply in order to have time and energy to support others. They are everywhere. I know a bodhisattva who lives in Holland. Her name is Hebe. During World War II she helped twenty thousand Jews escape the Holocaust. I do not know how she did it. Looking at her you see that she is very small and she only has two hands. I met her and worked with her when she was helping with Vietnamese war orphans.
There are also bodhisattvas who do not seem to be very active, but they are very calm and kind and their presence inspires us with love, understanding and tolerance.
There are countless bodhisattvas like that in the world. We should live so that we have time to recognize and touch their presence. Bodhisattvas are not gods or figures from the past. They are living around you in flesh and blood. They have much energy, understanding and compassion, and we can benefit from being near them.
Great Beings, bodhisattvas, cannot be recognized by their outer appearance. Sometimes they are small children who bring us much joy. Our own children and our friends are bodhisattvas. Sometimes they make us suffer, but they also help us to grow in love and understanding.
The bodhisattvas never grow weary of the suffering around them and never give up. They are the ones who give us the courage to live. Kshitigarbha, who goes into the darkest places to help all beings, is not just one person. He has so many manifestations in all the different hell realms, which we can find right in this world.
Sadaparibhuta, the bodhisattva who says, “I would never dare to despise anyone,” is also everywhere. Even if someone does not seem to have the ability to be awakened, he sees that within everyone there is that capacity. Sadaparibhuta helps everyone to have self-confidence and remove any feelings of inferiority. This kind of complex paralyzes people. Sadaparibhuta’s specialty is to be in touch with and water the seeds of the awakened mind or the mind of love in us. This bodhisattva is not just a person in the Lotus Sutra but can be found right here in our society in many different guises. We have to recognize the bodhisattva Sadaparibhuta, who is around us in flesh and bones.
Manjushri is the bodhisattva who has understanding—someone who can understand us can make us infinitely happy. Manjushri is able to see our suffering and our difficulties and never blames or punishes us. He is always beside us to encourage us and shine light on us. Manjushri is not a legendary figure but is present around us in many guises, sometimes as a younger sister or brother or nephew or niece.
We do not worship imaginary or mythological figures. Bodhisattvas are not figures from the past living up in the clouds. The bodhisattvas are real people who are filled with love and determination. When we can understand someone else’s suffering and feel love for him or her, we are in touch with the bodhisattva of great understanding.
The bodhisattva of deep listening, Avalokiteshvara, is also around us. Psychotherapists have to learn the art of listening as deeply as bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, the one who looks deeply with her ears. When we can listen deeply to our children or our parents, Avalokiteshvara is already in our hearts.
The bodhisattva of wonderful sound, Gadgadashvara, can use music, writings and sound to awaken people. If you are a poet, a writer or a composer you can be that bodhisattva. Your artistic creations are not just to help people forget their pain momentarily but to water the seeds of awakened understanding and compassion in others. Among us are many writers, poets and composers who are using the wonderful ocean of sound to serve the way of understanding and love by making the dharma doors, which the Buddha taught, more accessible. That is the meaning of one of the aspirations of Samantabhadra:
I aspire to use the Great ocean of Sound,
Giving rise to words of wonderful effect,
That praises the Buddha’s ocean of virtues,
In the past, the present and the future.*
When you touch the earth you connect with the great beings because they are a part of the earth and a part of you. Living in today’s world, it is easy to become the victim of despair. You must protect yourself. The best way is to be in touch with bodhisattvas that are active in compassion and love.
We should be in touch with Buddhas and bodhisattvas here today, in the present moment, and not just light incense and pray to them. When we are truly in touch with them we have much energy by seeing that they are in us and that we are their continuation, not only in time but also in space. We are one of the arms of these bodhisattvas. Our arm can stretch very far, over thousands of miles. Our arms can reach the darkest places on Earth. We have friends everywhere who are our arms, and we can be their arms also.
“Awakened understanding is the practitioner’s only career” is a quotation from the sutra on the Eight Realizations of Great Beings.* All other careers are not really worth following. No honors or fame can be compared with the awakened understanding that we have when we practice stopping and looking deeply into the nature of things. When through understanding we cease to be angry, we are already manifesting the seed of great understanding from within us. Let us live in such a way that bodhisattvas may manifest within us.
Let us be bodhisattvas right now by the way we speak and act. Do not think that you will be a bodhisattva later on this evening. Evoking the names of the bodhisattvas of deep listening, great understanding, great action and great aspiration and being in touch with the qualities of these bodhisattvas will give us the infinite energy we need to embrace beings who are suffering in the world.
Becoming the Pirate
In touching the earth, we touch the great beings, and we also touch all the suffering beings. We must be in touch with both. We must remember that there are beings caught in the deepest kind of suffering, like war, oppression and injustice. They have no way to speak out about the suffering and injustice that they have to bear. There are pirates who are raping young girls. There are rich merchants selling arms to poor nations where children do not have food to eat or schools to attend. There are factory owners who use children as their workforce. There are people who are dying in prisons and reeducation camps. In leprosy camps there are children and adults without limbs, illiterate and without hope. These hell realms need bodhisattvas.
When we stand before the mountain or flower and visualize just before we touch the earth the second time, we see that we are not only bodhisattvas but we are also the victims of oppression, discrimination and injustice. With the energy of the bodhisattvas we embrace victims everywhere. We are the pirate about to rape the young girl and we are the young girl who is about to be raped. Because we have no separate selves, we are all interconnected and we are with all of them.
How we live our life affects everything. So we must think, How have we lived our life so that that young man in Thailand has been able to become a rapist? We have only looked to our own material needs. The family into which that young man was born has been stuck in miserable poverty for many generations. His father was a fisherman who only knew one way to forget his troubles and that was by drinking. He did not know how to bring up his sons, and he beat them often. His mother did not know how to provide education for her children. At thirteen years old he had to accompany his father on the boat and learn to be a fisherman. When his father died he continued in his father’s place. He had no resources of understanding and love. He was tempted to become a pirate because in just one day a pirate can have real gold, which could lift him out of his miserable state that he feared would go on forever. On the ocean there was no police force, so why not follow the example of the other pirates and rape the young girls on the boat they plundered?
If we had a gun we could shoot that young man, and he would die, but would it not have been better to help him to understand and to love? Where were the politicians, the statesmen and the educators to help him?
Last night on the shores of Thailand hundreds of babies were born to fishing families. If those children are not properly cared for, brought up and educated, some of them will become pirates. Whose fault is that? It is our fault: statesmen, politicians, the electorate who puts them in power and the educators. We cannot blame only that young man. If I had been born a poor child who was never educated, who had a mother and a father who were illiterate, who had been poor all their lives and did not know how to bring me up, I could have become a pirate. If you were to shoot me dead, would it solve anything? Who is that pirate? He could be me, and the child he raped could also be me.
All the suffering of living beings is our own suffering. We have to see that we are they and they are us. When we see their suffering, an arrow of compassion and love enters our hearts. We can love them, embrace them and find a way to help. Only then are we not overwhelmed by despair at their situation. Or our own.
Don’t Drown in Despair
When you are in touch with the suffering in the world, it is so easy for despair to overwhelm you. But we do not need to be drowned by despair. Throughout the war in Vietnam young people easily became the victims of despair because the war went on for so long and it seemed it would never end. It is the same with the situation in the Middle East. Young Israelis and Palestinians feel that the heavy atmosphere of war will never end. We have to practice to protect our children and ourselves from despair. Bodhisattvas can stand up and resist despair by their ability to listen deeply, to love, to understand and to be deeply committed. As we touch the Earth the second time we are in contact with great and small bodhisattvas everywhere, and we feel their energy.
Animals, plants and minerals also suffer because of the greed of human beings. The earth, the water and the air are suffering because we have polluted them. The trees suffer because we destroy the forests for our own profit. Some species have become extinct because of the destruction of the natural environment. Humans also destroy and exploit one another. According to the teachings of Buddhism, all beings have the capacity of awakened nature. How can we stop ourselves from collapsing in despair? It is because Buddhas and bodhisattvas are present in the world. They are not somewhere else in a faraway paradise. Whether we are living or dying, they are here, with us.
Benefiting Everyone
Touching the Earth helps us to purify our bodies and our minds. It helps us to maintain the awakened understanding of impermanence, interconnectedness and no self. The Buddha has said that whoever sees inter-being sees the Buddha. So as we touch the earth we see Buddhas in us and we see ourselves in the Buddhas. We see all suffering beings in us and we see ourselves in them. As we keep the prostrate position, the boundary between self and other is removed. Then we know what we should do and should not do in our daily lives. Because of this insight, we can do many things of great benefit.
What have you done with your life? Has what you have done been of real benefit to yourself, your loved ones and all beings?
The deep commitment of the bodhisattva is to relieve suffering. It is to make a career out of becoming an Awakened One, a Buddha. When we make the decision to have our career be that of the bodhisattva, we can let go of all the meaningless things that had attracted us before. We can let go of fame, we can let go of having a lot of money. When we make the decision, those things are easy to let go of.
The Buddhas are in us; we are in the Buddhas. We can become Buddhas. We can become enlightened.
Guiding Ourselves
Use the following words to guide you in the beginning of your practice of the second touching:
“Touching the earth, I connect with all people and all species that are alive at this moment in this world with me.” (Visualize for a short time standing before your preferred object, before you touch the earth.)
I am one with the wonderful pattern of life that radiates out in all directions. I see the close connection between others and myself, how our happiness and suffering is interconnected. I am one with those bodhisattvas and great beings who have overcome the ideas of birth and death and are able to look compassionately at the different forms of birth and death without fear. I am one with those bodhisattvas who can be found in many places on this planet. They have peace of mind, understanding and love. They are able to touch what is wonderful, nourishing and healing, and bring it to others. They have the capacity to embrace the world with a heart of love and arms of caring action. I too am someone who has enough peace, joy and freedom to be able to offer fearlessness and joy to those around me. I do not feel loneliness or despair when I feel the love and the happiness of bodhisattvas presently alive on this earth. Seeing their love and seeing the suffering of all beings helps me to live in a meaningful way with true peace and happiness.
Strengthened by the love of bodhisattvas, I am able to see myself in all the beings who suffer. I am one with those who were born disabled or who have become disabled because of war, accident or illness. I am one with those who are caught in a situation of war or oppression. I am one with those who find no happiness in family life, who have no roots or peace of mind, who are hungry for something beautiful and wholesome to embrace and to believe in. I am someone at the point of death who is very afraid, who does not know what is going to happen and fears being destroyed. I am a child who lives in a place where there is miserable poverty and disease, whose legs and arms are like sticks, and who has no future. I am also the manufacturer of bombs, which are sold to poor countries. I am the frog swimming in the pond and I am also the snake who needs the body of the frog to nourish its own body. I am the caterpillar or the ant that the bird is looking for to eat, but I am also the bird that is looking for the insect to eat. I am the forest that is being cut down. I am the rivers that are being polluted, and I am the person who cuts down the forest and pollutes the rivers and the air. I see myself in all beings and I see all beings in me.
Looking Deeply at No Birth and No Death
When we begin to understand that we are everything, our fear begins to disappear. We have deeply touched the dimensions of space and time. But to really be free of fear, we must look deeply into the ultimate dimension of no birth, no death. We need to free ourselves from these ideas that we are our body, and that we die. This is where we will discover the place of no fear. This is the third Touching of the Earth. Here is a guided meditation to help you prepare for it.
Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in. | In | |
Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out. | Out | |
Breathing in, I am aware of a wave on the ocean. | Wave | |
Breathing out, I smile to the wave on the ocean. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I am aware of the water in Water the wave. | in wave | |
Breathing out, I smile to the water in the wave. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I see the birth of the wave. | Birth of wave | |
Breathing out, I smile to the birth of the wave. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I see the death of the wave. | Death of wave | |
Breathing out, I smile to the death of the wave. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I see the birthless nature of the water. | Water not born | |
Breathing out, I smile to the birthless nature of the wave. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I see the deathless nature of the water. | Water deathless | |
Breathing out, I smile to the deathless nature of the water. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I see the birth of my body. | Birth of my body | |
Breathing out, I smile to the birth of my body. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I see the death of my body. | My body dies | |
Breathing out, I smile to the death of my body. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I see the birthless nature of my body. | Birthless nature of body | |
Breathing out, I smile to the birthless nature of my body. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I see the deathless nature of my body. | Deathless nature of body | |
Breathing out, I smile to the deathless nature of my body. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I see the birthless nature of my consciousness. | Consciousness not born | |
Breathing out, I smile to the birthless nature of consciousness. | I smile | |
Breathing in, I am only aware of my in-breath. | In | |
Breathing out, I am only aware of my out-breath. | Out | |
I Am Not My Body
When I was a novice I thought that the business of going beyond birth and death was something very remote. I thought I would never be able to realize it in one lifetime. But birth and death are just ideas. All we need to do is overcome these ideas. When I learned that, I saw that such a feat was not impossible. These two ideas have imprisoned us for so many lifetimes.
Now we see that we are more than our bodies. Now we see that we have no life spans. We have no limits. We experience this in meditation. If we have been successful in the first and second Touching of the Earth, this third touching is as simple as a child’s game.
The third Touching of the Earth is like a circle placed around the vertical line of time in the first touching and the horizontal line of space in the second touching. In the first touching, we were released from the view that we are separate from our ancestors and separate from our descendants. We were released from our notion of time. In the second touching, we were released from the view that we are separate from the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas, the Great Beings, the suffering beings, the animals, the plants, everything. We were released from our notion of space. This time we touch the earth and are released from the view that we are our body, and that we are subject to birth and death.
Generally, we think that we are our bodies. We think that when our bodies disintegrate, we disintegrate. The Buddha taught clearly that we are not this body.
I often ask my young friends who are not yet thirty years old, “Where were you in 1966 when I left Vietnam?” They should not reply that they did not yet exist. They have to see that they were around, in their parents and their grandparents.
You can use the following words to guide you in your initial practice of the third touching: “Touching the Earth, I let go of the idea that I am this body and my life span is limited.” (Standing before your preferred object, visualize for a short time before you touch the Earth.)
I see that this body, made up of the four elements, is not really me and I am not limited by this body. I am part of a stream of life of spiritual and blood ancestors that for thousands of years has been flowing into the present and for thousands of years flows on into the future. I am one with my ancestors. I am one with all people and all beings, whether they are peaceful and fearless or suffering and afraid. At this moment I am present everywhere on this planet. I am also present in the past and in the future. The disintegration of this body does not touch me, just as when the plum blossom falls it does not mean the end of the plum tree. I see myself as a wave on the surface of the ocean. My nature is the ocean water. I see myself in all the other waves and all the other waves in me. The appearance and disappearance of the form of the wave does not affect the ocean. My dharma body and wisdom life are not subject to birth and death. I see the presence of myself before my body manifested and after my body has disintegrated. Even in this moment I see how I exist elsewhere than in this body. Seventy or eighty years is not my life span. My life span, like the life span of a leaf or of a Buddha, is limitless. I have gone beyond the idea that I am a body that is separated in space and time.
Those of you who have touched things deeply in the dimension of space and time will be able to touch this ultimate dimension. After you have touched the wave, you learn to touch the water.
No Separation
The Buddha said the nature of your reality is the nature of no birth and no death; no coming, no going; no being, no non-being; no same, no different. This teaching sounds as though it contradicts the teaching that everything that is born must die, the teaching that we cannot escape death, sickness and old age. Practice looking deeply. You will realize that birth is a notion, death is a notion, coming is a notion, going is a notion, being is a notion and non-being is also a notion. We have to remove all notions concerning reality. Then we touch the ultimate reality, or suchness.
Suchness is a technical term. It means that reality is as it is. You cannot say anything about it; you cannot describe it. You can say that God is the ultimate reality and anything that can be said about God is wrong. Any notion, any idea concerning God cannot describe God. Nirvana is the same. Nirvana is the removal of all notions and concepts so that reality can reveal herself fully to you. In the historical dimension, observing a wave, we can talk about the birth of the wave, the death of the wave, the wave as being high or low, more or less beautiful, this wave and that wave, and so on. Concerning the ultimate dimension, water, all the adjectives, all the ideas that you use to describe the wave, are no longer valid. There is no birth, no death; no this, no that; no high, no low; no more beautiful, no less beautiful. The wave does not have to die in order to become water. The wave is water in this very moment.
Practice this now so that you do not feel separated from your loved one when she dies. If you have deep insight, you will not feel abandoned. Every day I look deeply at everything around me: the trees, the hills, my friends. I see myself in them all and I know I shall not die. I will continue in many other forms. When my friends look at me they should see me in forms other than this visible body. This daily practice will help them not to cry when the moment comes for my present manifestation to disappear. For when this manifestation disappears, it will leave room for other manifestations.