Bringing the Ultimate Dimension Down to Earth (Episode #40)

Welcome to episode 40 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives.

This time, the presenters, Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and journalist Jo Confino, are joined by a returning guest, Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Linh (Brother Spirit) – who is also the composer of the podcast’s theme music. Together, they talk about how to stay centered in difficult and dark times by looking at a particular deep teaching within Buddhist philosophy: the two dimensions – the ultimate dimension and the historical dimension – and helping us to meaningfully integrate them into the present day.  

They further explore how feelings of grief and joy don’t have to be in conflict with each other; challenges to touching the ultimate dimensions, and (finally) touching the ultimate peace and freedom; the terror of nothingness; true presence; letting go of the four notions (of self, man/human, living beings, and lifespan); cultivating good energies; how the ultimate transforms the historical – and more!

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Co-produced by the Plum Village App:
https://plumvillage.app/

And Global Optimism:
https://globaloptimism.com/ 

With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation:
https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/

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List of resources

Brother Phap Linh (Brother Spirit)
https://plumvillage.org/people/dharma-teachers/brother-phap-linh/

Enjoying the Ultimate Dimension: The Nirvana Chapter of the Dharmapada
https://plumvillage.shop/products/study/books-for-monastic-practice/enjoying-the-ultimate-dimension/ 

Classes: ‘In the Ultimate Dimension, Every Dharma Is an Unconditioned Dharma’
https://plumvillage.org/library/classes/class-2-in-the-ultimate-dimension-every-dharma-is-an-unconditioned-dharma/ 

Dharma Talks: ‘The Nature of No Birth and No Death’ (Neuroscience Retreat)
https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/the-nature-of-no-birth-and-no-death-neuroscience-retreat-br-phap-dung-2019-06-20/    

Dharma Talks: ‘Free from Notions: The Diamond Sutra’
https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/free-from-notions-the-diamond-sutra/

Dharma Talks: ‘The Diamond Sutra’
https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/the-diamond-sutra-sr-dang-nghiem-2020-2-27-deer-park-monastery/  

Deep ecology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology 

Mahāyāna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana 

Dharma Talks: ‘Freeing Ourselves from Notions’
https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/freeing-ourselves-from-notions/ 

The Way Out Is In: ‘From Extraction to Regeneration: Healing Ourselves, Healing Society (Episode #16)’
https://plumvillage.org/podcast/from-extraction-to-regeneration-healing-ourselves-healing-society-episode-16/ 

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Quotes

“In the historical dimension, we understand that there is time: time is passing; we are in the present moment; the future hasn’t yet come; the past is already gone; and things are outside of each other. I’m sitting over here, you’re sitting over there, Phap Huu is over there; we are apparently separate. I’m separate from my father, from my mother, from the world. I am myself. There are things outside of me, you could say.  Thay once said that, in that world, the cow is outside of the ice cream. That’s the historical dimension. Things are made up of other things. Things are composed of parts; that’s what we learn in science. Everything is made up of atoms and molecules, and beyond the atomic to the subatomic, to the quarks, the gluons, all that other stuff. It seems to be made up of ever smaller things. And that can all be ultimately teased apart and separated and identified. That’s the historical.”

“The ultimate is this sense in which – poets and artists and meditators all touch on this – everything is interconnected. The all is in the one. You look into an oak leaf, you see the tree. And not only the tree, but the whole forest. You see the whole Earth. You see the sun, the moon, the stars, time, space, consciousness. It’s all there, somehow implicit in whatever you look at, whether it’s a leaf or a block of concrete. It’s like everything is in everything else. And that’s in the realm of space, but also in time. So in this present moment, from the point of view of the ultimate, we can see that the whole past history of the cosmos has brought about this moment. So, in a sense, all of that past is in this moment. This is the interbeing of the past and the present. And then the interbeing of the present and the future gives birth to the entire future of the cosmos, according to what we do, how we speak, how we think, how we act in this moment. So the future is also present in this moment. It’s the interbeing of the three times: past, present, and future. You look deeply into it, you see the whole of eternity in the present moment.” 

“Getting in touch with the ultimate dimension doesn’t mean a kind of spiritual bypass. Learning to touch these wonderful states of bliss in your sitting meditation doesn’t mean you can then ignore all of the terrible things going on in the world and still feel fine. That is not touching the ultimate; that is spiritual bypassing. Touching the ultimate means that you are able to contact this deeper level of meaning, of significance – of love, ultimately – in your life, and in the world. And that nourishes you, gives you energy, gives you peace, and [allows you] to come back and stay in the game: to do daily things but with the freshness and the freedom of the ultimate dimension.”

“In meditation practice, when we really start to still our minds, you can do it just by following your breath. [Even] the very basic teaching goes all the way; it’s the whole thing. You sit in stillness and start to follow your breath. And if you are sufficiently determined – or maybe stubborn – and you manage to stick with the sensations of the breath, the whole of the inbreath, the whole of the outbreath, then every time your mind gets pulled away into thinking and distraction and fantasizing, or worrying, regretting or whatever, you can gently bring it back, over and over and over again. If you’re lucky, maybe it becomes completely still and you reach an effortless concentration and your mind just stays there. And if you continue, a fear comes up: the fear of abandoning our inner monologue. The part of us that we tend to unconsciously identify with is the little voice, the nonstop thinking radio that’s narrating our experience to ourselves. It’s very natural, it’s part of the human condition. There’s part of us which is anxious; the part of us which worries about our social standing: are we liked? Are we good enough? Do we have what we want? Do we want something else? It’s always pushing us out of stillness into wanting to get something else, wanting some other experience.”

“Zen is all about transcending language. It’s difficult; you have to be quite stubborn, quite determined.”

“When we use language to understand the world, we start to believe the separateness of things, because the words are separate. Things have separate names: ‘leaf’ is not ‘table’, ‘table’ is not ‘chair’, ‘egg’ is not ‘chicken’. They seem to be separate because they have different names. If we are perceiving the world through language alone, we start to think those separations are real. And that gives rise to so much suffering, stress, and confusion because it includes us: we think that we humans are different, separate, cut off, maybe even lonely. And we experience species-loneliness or -superiority: ‘We’re better than all the rest, we’re the master race.’ That’s also stressful and lonely – but it’s just an artifact of language and [a result] of the way language dominates our perceptions.” 

“We want to touch the ultimate, not to escape but because we want to do everything we can to transform the historical dimension, to make it a more beautiful place, a more loving place, a place where there’s less stress and anxiety. So there’s a reason to do all this.”