Nicole Tomlinson: What would happen if you gave up all of your worldly possession, left your environment, friends, and family to live a life of celibacy, peace, and meditation? Today, we will take a look inside the life of a Buddhist monk and find out what we can learn and adapt into our own life. Next, on Zen Living.
I would like you to meet the Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang, who for the past 16 years has been the Abbot at the only Buddhist temple in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It's an honor to be here with you today. I wanted to know how you got started in this path.
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Well, back to 1991, at that time, some of my best friend, he became a Buddhist monk, and at that time I did not understand anything about Buddhism. First, I had a thought to get into the monastery and get him out
Nicole Tomlinson: So with a rescue mission.
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Right. But eventually the more I study Zen Buddhism, I fall in love with Zen Buddhism, and finally I became a Buddhist monk. Next step for me in term of making myself more peaceful, and I think that's the best way to benefit for the society.
Nicole Tomlinson: So what would you say has been the greatest challenge in your life with this work?
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: As a human being we have a lot of temptation around you; a beautiful girl, the power, the money, the good thing, especially when I move to this country a lot of challenges in term of different language, different culture, you have to overcome and try to balance your life in the society is really tough.
Nicole Tomlinson: So you begin your day with the meditation.
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Yes.
Nicole Tomlinson: Why?
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Because human being mind have a tendency to travel a thousand mile away from here, so practicing mindfulness, meditation is a significant thing of being a Buddhist monk, being in touch with the moment, be aware of your feelings, your sensation, your thoughts, and you understand about yourself
Nicole Tomlinson: How do you do that? Is there any way to explain it?
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Yes. You have to keep yourself in the right position. Usually we sit in the lotus position and you keep your hand like this, and you look about three-fifths on the center of your body, just following. You are breathing in, you are breathing out. You are breathing in, breathing out.
At the higher level, you can just breathing in, breathing out naturally, but then you be aware of what's going on inside yourself. From Buddhist perspective, when you know about inside of yourself is the best way to understand outside.
Nicole Tomlinson: I see. What do monks eat?
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Well, we eat whatever the lay people offer, but we belong to Mahayana tradition so we eat only vegetable, we are vegetarian.
Nicole Tomlinson: All Buddhist monks are vegetarian?
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Just only the Buddhist monk who follow and practice Mahayana tradition.
Nicole Tomlinson: Why do you wear these robes, and why do you shave your head?
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Good question. The life of a Buddhist monk is supposed to very simple and modest. So when we shave the head, also we promise cut out all attachment, and most of time attachment is the cause for suffering. Being a Buddhist monk, I never ever try to convene or convert anyone to be Buddhist, believe in Buddhism, rather than to share with them the technique, we live in peace and happiness.
Nicole Tomlinson: The Buddha, is he a God, do you worship him?
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Buddha is not a God. Buddha is not a human being. Buddha is the Awakened One, the Enlightenment One. When I look at the Buddha as the great teacher who show me the way to get up the circle of illusion, hallucination, or suffering, I bow deeply in front of Buddha statue to show my respect and my love to Him. I pray to Buddha in terms to --
Nicole Tomlinson: Save you.
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Yeah. To help me to overcome all the problems. I have to practice based on his teachings.
Nicole Tomlinson: Anybody can be a Buddha, anybody who reaches that Enlightened status can be Buddha?
Venerable Thay Thich Dao Quang: Exactly. In Buddhism, we strongly believe that anyone is able to become Buddha if you practice continuously and constantly from this life to many, many lives. In Buddhism, we believe we are interconnected, we are interrelated to each other, especially with the nature, therefore practice of Zen Buddhism, we try to protect our environment as much as possible. We try to conduct our lives in moderate. We don't want to overuse, so that the next generation may have problem with natural resources.
We feel that we should perceive ourselves related to other people, especially to the nature, therefore in Buddhism we don't try to control the nature rather than to live in harmony and try to balance our life.
When we invited the sound of the bell, that is the way to remind everyone, be aware of what's going on right now so that we are able to bring our mind back to the present moment. Because the technique of mindfulness or Zen living is to bring your mind, connect it with your body, at the moment.
Reincarnation is a big concept in Buddhism. Being a Buddhist, we strongly believe in reincarnation. That means you cannot destroy something to become nothing. As a human being we have a spiritual and material object. So when a person die, we believe his spirit, his mind, his karma, whatever you want to call it, is continue to transform into the next life. So when a person dies, we strongly believe that his life continues.
So life is not beginning when you are just born and life is not ending when you die, it just transforms to the next life, and how it is transformed depend on your karma.
Nicole Tomlinson: The Zen philosophy can be summed up in two words: practice and mindfulness. In doing so, we can be more mindful of others and our environment.
I would like to thank the spiritual teacher for enlightening my mind and heart. From all of us here at Zen Living, thank you for watching. I will catch you next time. Peace.
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