Our Cosmic Body

Summary

The talk is a Dharma teaching delivered on the final day of a retreat at Plum Village on 24 August 2014. It begins with a warm address to the Sangha and the children present, framing the retreat’s closing as a moment to continue practice after returning to France and Holland. The speaker introduces a simple homework assignment using a corn seed, which becomes the central teaching metaphor for transformation, continuity, and interbeing. The corn seed is presented as a living example of how something does not disappear when its form changes. The seed sprouts, grows roots and leaves, and becomes a plant; in this process, the seed is not annihilated but transformed. The same principle is extended to clouds, water, tea, and even a wolf, emphasizing that nothing truly dies in the absolute sense. The speaker uses this to explain the Buddhist insight expressed in the Heart Sutra: nothing is born and nothing dies. Children are encouraged to observe the seed, plant it in a pot, and later speak to the plant as if it still contains the seed. This exercise is meant to cultivate deep looking and the understanding that continuation is more accurate than disappearance. The teaching then turns to human life and family continuity. A child is described as beginning from a tiny seed formed by father and mother, with half of the seed coming from each parent. The womb is portrayed as a protected, comfortable, almost paradisiacal environment sustained by the mother through the umbilical cord. Birth is described as a difficult transition, but not a beginning from nothing. Father and mother are said to be present in every cell of the child’s body, and the child carries them into the future. Death, therefore, is not absolute disappearance; parents continue through their children. The talk then broadens into a doctrinal explanation of death, fear, and liberation. The speaker recalls a 21-day retreat in Plum Village in June on the question “what happens when we die?” and argues that contemplating death is beneficial because it makes one more alive and mindful. Using the image of a wave and the ocean, the speaker explains that a wave has a wave body and an ocean body; recognizing the ocean body frees the wave from fear of birth and death. This becomes a way to describe the human cosmic body, which is larger than the physical body and connected to the ultimate dimension, sometimes referred to as God. The talk develops the Buddhist teaching of interbeing and the logic of paired opposites. Birth and death, being and non-being, coming and going, sameness and otherness are presented as interdependent notions that cannot stand alone. The speaker uses examples such as the left and right sides of a sheet of paper, the birth and death of cells, and the manifestation of a flame to show that existence is a series of continuations rather than isolated events. A birthday is reframed as a “continuation day,” and a death day is also a continuation day. The flame is used to illustrate no coming and no going: it does not come from nowhere in a conventional sense, nor does it go anywhere when it ceases to manifest. The same reasoning is applied to beloved persons, whose nature is also described as no coming and no going. The speaker then connects these insights to science, citing the first law of thermodynamics and the conservation of matter and energy as a scientific parallel to the Buddhist insight of no birth and no death. However, the speaker notes that science has mostly applied this understanding in technology rather than in psychology to relieve fear. The discussion of right view in the Noble Eightfold Path and the short Katayana Sutra on emptiness reinforces the idea that wisdom means transcending the notions of being and non-being. A major section recounts the story of the lay practitioner Anathapindika at the time of the Buddha. On his deathbed, he receives a visit from Sariputra and Ananda, who guide him through recollections of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and then through meditation on the six sense organs and the insight of no coming, no going. This practice helps him transform pain into joy, and he dies peacefully. The story is offered as a model for how monks, nuns, doctors, nurses, and caregivers can support dying people with mindfulness and compassionate guidance. The talk concludes by encouraging the European Institute of Applied Buddhism, especially for practitioners from Holland and Germany, to host retreats and courses in mindfulness, art, music, literature, health, and youth practice. The five mindfulness trainings are described as applied ethics, free from religious flavor, and the Noble Eightfold Path is presented as the path of true love, true understanding, and true insight. The closing invitation is to continue practice, listen deeply, care for the body, and sing together the song of no coming and no going.