A Sense of Contact

Summary

This talk is a Dharma teaching delivered in Plum Village during the winter retreat, dated 28 November 2013, in the Full Moon Meditation Hall at New Hamlet. It begins with chanting and collective recitation, invoking the Sangha to return to the breath and practice as one body. The opening prayers express wishes for peace, protection, and the well-being of all beings across the three realms and four modes of birth, and they invoke the Triple Gems, Shakyamuni Buddha, and the Bodhisattva path. The chanting also includes Vietnamese passages and references to a satsang with Mooji, though the main body of the teaching is firmly rooted in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist psychology and practice. The teacher then turns to practical announcements about upcoming ordination ceremonies. He describes the Great Ordination Ceremony, “Dharma Nectar,” scheduled for the last week of May, and the full ordination for the “24 London trees” in the Upper Hamlet Meditation Hall, Stillwater Hall, on 8 December. He explains that aspirants in Thailand, Vietnam, and Plum Village may receive ordination, including some who will participate online through the Internet. He emphasizes that older sisters and brothers should help younger aspirants prepare for ordination, framing the event as a communal and intergenerational practice. The main teaching concerns the five universal mental formations in Buddhist psychology: contact, feeling, perception, volition, and attention, with mindfulness discussed as a crucial practice that intervenes in these processes. The teacher explains that contact arises when organ, object, and consciousness meet, producing a vibration or modification in the sense faculties. Feeling follows as the reception of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral impressions. Perception grasps signs and images, identifying and distinguishing objects, but it can also mislead and create delusion, attachment, and aversion. Volition then pushes the mind toward action, whether to grasp, flee, fight, or reject. Attention is presented as the mental act that selects one object among many possible contacts. The teacher distinguishes between appropriate attention and inappropriate attention. Appropriate attention directs the mind toward wholesome objects, such as the sound of the bell, while inappropriate attention leads to distraction, irritation, or unhealthy mental states, such as focusing on gossip, arguments, or toxic internet content. He stresses that practitioners must train themselves to choose beneficial objects of attention so that mindfulness can arise and stabilize the mind. A major theme is the rapid, almost simultaneous functioning of these mental formations. The teacher gives examples of how a person may hear an unpleasant remark, immediately feel irritation, perceive the speaker as harmful, and then react with anger. He describes these patterns as worn pathways or habitual neural pathways that are reinforced by repeated reactions. In contrast, mindfulness, concentration, and insight can interrupt these patterns and open new pathways leading to understanding, compassion, and skillful action. He uses examples such as hearing the bell instead of engaging in conversation, or recognizing that a difficult person is suffering rather than malicious. The teaching then expands into a detailed explanation of store consciousness, or alaya. The teacher describes alaya as the repository of seeds, experiences, and potentials, and as the foundation from which the other consciousnesses arise. He discusses its continuity, its role in storing and preserving seeds, and its relation to the seventh consciousness, manas, which is characterized by grasping, cogitation, and the tendency to identify with the store consciousness as a self. He contrasts the continuous nature of alaya with the intermittent functioning of the first six consciousnesses, noting that store consciousness remains active even in sleep and is essential for life. The teacher also explains the maturation of seeds, or vipaka, emphasizing that ripening happens continuously in the present moment rather than only across lifetimes. He uses examples from human development, pregnancy, childhood, and monastic practice to show how conditions shape the ripening of wholesome and unwholesome seeds. He links this to the Buddhist understanding of samsara as a process occurring moment by moment, not merely at death and rebirth. Another important section addresses the non-duality of cause and effect. Using examples such as H2O, clouds, rain, ice, and fog, the teacher explains that cause and effect inter-are and cannot be separated. He extends this to the relationship between father and son, mother and child, and Mother Earth and human beings. He argues that the manifesting and the manifested are not separate, and that alaya should be recognized in the very phenomena that appear to us. This leads to a critique of dualistic thinking, including a brief comparison with Christian ideas of a creator separate from creation. The teacher concludes that one should not search for alaya or the creator outside phenomena, but rather see the source in the manifestation itself. Overall, the talk combines ritual chanting, ordination announcements, and a deep doctrinal explanation of Buddhist psychology. Its central message is that mindfulness can transform habitual reactions, open new neural and ethical pathways, and reveal the interdependent, non-dual nature of consciousness, experience, and reality.