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We bring all our body and mind to one point, and we are in touch with that energy. Our hands are like a lotus bud, we touch our forehead: "With all our brain". We bring our hands down to our heart and we are in touch with our heart: "With all our heart". It means we take our brain, we take our heart, and then we put our two hands out to the side and touch the earth. And when our two feet, our two hands and our head are touching the earth we turn our hands upwards very straight, to show that we don't retain anything, we haven't held back anything of ourself. And we open the doors of our soul, of our body, all the cells in our body, in order to receive the energy of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, which is already in our body, so that it can circulate in our body. And as we touch the earth we breathe in and out three times to look deeply. While we are on the earth we need to be really there, we need to follow our breathing, we need to allow the energy of the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas, the ancestral teachers to manifest. And after we prostrate like that we will be a different person. After three breaths in and out there will be a stopping of the bell, and at that point we turn our two hands around to put them on the earth, and we stand up.
When we are prostrating our forehead should be touching the floor, and our two hands and our two feet should be touching the floor. We should be as close to the floor as possible, we should not leave any space between our body and the floor. And we have to let go of everything. We have to surrender ourself and not hold anything back which we consider to be "mine". All my inferiority complexes, my pride, everything I think that I am, all that I think my value is I let go of it and I become emptiness, and then the door opens and the energy of the Buddhas, bodhisattvas and ancestral teachers can be transmitted. If we keep our pride, our inferiority complex , that we have achieved this, we have achieved that, if we hold on to our anger, our hatred when we are touching the earth, then that stiff shell is still there and the prostrating has no fruit. So we have to let go of everything and then our body and our mind can be open. When our forehead is touching the earth and our two hands are touching the earth we open our hands to show that we are not hiding anything, holding anything, we have let go of everything. And our two hands have to be straight, opened up (and some people lift their hands up a little bit) to show I am not holding anything, I have wholly let go of everything, all my ideas about myself. And then you can join the stream, the spiritual stream or the life stream of your ancestors. Because we are cut off from that stream when we are lonely and caught in ideas of ourself….
Buddha Sakyamuni represents our aim, our point of arrival; that is, the absolute, the upward direction. There are two directions, Buddha represents the upper direction, and Mara represents the lower direction. There are moments in our life when our body and mind are going in the direction of Mara, when we are sad, when we are worrying, when we are going in a non-constructive way. For example we see on the table a very tasty dish. We have enough clarity to know that if we eat that dish we will receive unpleasant consequences. We know that very clearly. Our wisdom knows that if we eat that tonight we know what will happen. But there is another force which says: "Go on, eat it, what happens afterward will happen, there's always a medicine you can take." So there is a difference between the two. Wisdom says: "You shouldn't eat that." And then the other one says: "Why don't you eat it, go on, have it, let's live the present moment." And at that moment we can choose whether we go in the upper direction or the lower direction, it's up to us. And it depends whether we have the energy of mindfulness, whether our body and mind are together, because that will give us the opportunity to go in the upper direction. But if our mindfulness is weak, then we don't have the force to go in the upper direction. And sometimes we go backward and forward all day long.
We have a bodhisattva whose name is Manjushri…. Manjushri is Great Wisdom, and … he can be symbolised by an eye, the eye of wisdom. Manjushri is the eye of wisdom of the Buddha. As far as history is concerned it may be different, but as far as the ultimate dimension is concerned we should know that the element of Manjushri is the element of wisdom in Buddha Sakyamuni. So Buddha Sakyamuni and Manjushri are the same. And when we touch the earth before Manjushri we are turning also toward our own capacity to wake up and become Buddha. The object of our prostration is not the statue of Manjushri on the altar. The object of our prostration is to be in touch with the element of Manjushri which is in us, that is, the wisdom of the Buddha. "With one mind I bow down before Manjushri, the bodhisattva of Great Wisdom." And we see clearly that we are going in the energy of Great Wisdom when we do that, and our Right Mindfulness helps us to be in touch with bodhisattva Manjushri.
We have another bodhisattva whose name is Avalokiteshvara. Avalokiteshvara symbolises another hand of the Buddha, and that is the hand of love and compassion. We can say that Avalokiteshvara is Buddha, Avalokiteshvara is the hand of love of the Buddha, because the Buddha is complete love and understanding. Usually Avalokiteshvara is symbolised by an ear, because Avalokiteshvara has the capacity to listen to the suffering of people, to understand, and to find them and help them. When we prostrate to Quan The Am (Vietnamese for Avalokiteshvara) we are in touch with the energy of love in ourself. We see we have the capacity to listen deeply, to love and to understand. First of all to listen to ourself, to hear ourself and love ourself. Because if we cannot understand and love ourself how do we have the energy to love and understand others. So these sources of energy are all energies of the Buddha, and they are all in us. Manjushri is Buddha, Avalokiteshvara is also Buddha….
Another bodhisattva is called Samantabhadra, which means universal kindness. It is the energy of the great vow, great aspiration, and Great Action. Therefore Samantabhadra is symbolised by a hand, the hand of action. And when we prostrate before Samantabhadra we are in touch with the energy of the aspiration and the action of Buddha, and Samantabhadra is the hand of the Buddha. Buddha is Great Understanding, Great Compassion and Great Action.
Alongside them we have another bodhisattva whose name is Ksitigarbha. Ksitigarbha is a bodhisattva who has a great aspiration. His aspiration is to be present wherever there is suffering, wherever there is hell; it could be our office. Therefore Ksitigarbha represents a Great Vow, Great Aspiration. A Great Vow is a great energy, and when we have the energy of Great Vow we are strong, we will not fall down before any difficulty. Even if it's cold below freezing we still go out. If there are thousands of obstacles on our path we still overcome them. When the mountains fall we still continue. Because in us we have a great vow. So we have Great Compassion, Great Understanding, Great Vow and Great Action, and those four things are what make Buddha. And in us it's the same, we all have these essences in us, Buddha is in us. And when we touch the earth, prostrate, we are in touch with these things in ourself."
Thay also speaks of the four great Bodhisattvas on Jan. 15, 1998 at Plum Village:
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