Throughout this series of videos, I have tried to show the difference between Buddhism, called "the inner way" and other religions, philosophies, thoughts, approaches, grouped under the name "the outer way".

Finally, the major difference between these two paths is the way in which both consider the relationship between oneself and the world around us. The outer path proposes a dualistic view of this relationship, whereas Buddhism speaks of "non-duality".

For the outer path, we see mountains because they exist, while for Buddhism, mountains exist because we see them.

In other words, for the outer path, things, objects, living beings, represent independent existences of each other, present somewhere, whether we ourselves are present or not, alive or dead, whereas for Buddhism, the same things, objects, living beings are only the reflection of our individual mind and do not exist outside.

It may seem to be just two different ways of seeing the same things, just a detail, and wonder how important it is. But in fact, the importance is colossal, because all the wars, whether between states or individuals, all the climatic, social and sanitary catastrophes come from the dualistic vision of things. All our individual sufferings come from dualistic thinking, because it prevents us from seeing the true aspect of things, namely their emptiness.

The dualistic view of things is a kind of handicap that we are born with. Buddhism calls it "fundamental darkness". It conditions our actions and our consciousness, it inflates our ego, as well as the notions of "me" and "mine" and is the engine of our wandering in the cycle of lives and deaths. The goal of Buddhist practice has always been to eradicate the fundamental darkness, or dualistic view of things.

This dualistic view has been exacerbated by the monotheistic religions, including Genesis 1, where it is written that after God created heaven and earth, light and darkness, animals, etc., he said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree that has fruit of a tree in it and bears seed; it shall be your food.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that moves upon the earth, having in itself the breath of life, I give every green herb for food. And so it was.

And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

Thus, the Bible induces a dualistic vision of man and nature, in which man believes he is entitled to impose his hegemony over any form of life other than himself, including, finally, other humans, as evidenced by slavery, racism and sexism. As long as this idea of man's superiority over nature remained at the artisanal or individual stage, it was a lesser evil. However, with the development of technology, production moved from the artisanal stage to mass production in factories. From then on, the confrontation with nature, which took an organized form in order to subjugate it, led to the present materialistic civilization. In doing so, man made a serious mistake: pollution, epidemics, global warming, desertification... All of these phenomena are, in a frightening turn of events, only the revenge of nature. The human being has been the victim of a dreadful illusion. We have believed that we can reign as monarchs over all the animals, forests, mountains, rivers and oceans of our planet, and this with the blessing of God whose "will" it is. To believe that man can subdue everything is a mistake. As long as we do not fundamentally correct our vision of nature, continuing to consider it as a simple object against which we must fight, nature will always take its revenge and, in the end, this situation will undoubtedly lead to the disappearance of humanity itself.

In a society made up of living beings, no species has the right to impose its hegemony. The human being does not escape this principle. If, as he is doing now, man continues to destroy the natural balance, and that, within this natural system, a rupture is created, he would himself be the most vulnerable being. If the balance of nature were to be destroyed, nature, thanks to its power of reconstitution, would seek to re-establish its balance by means of cataclysmic phenomena.

Today, because of human errors, all forms of living beings on this earth are in danger. The origin of these errors lies in dualistic, materialistic, scientific and rationalist thinking, exacerbated by monotheistic religions which, in addition to making man believe that he is superior to other forms of life, exonerates him of all responsibility, since he acts "according to the will of God".

According to Buddhism, matter and spirit are not in a dualistic relationship. If they are not two different things, are they then the same thing? Well, no! They are not in a monistic relationship either. They are both the same thing and two different things. In other words, they are two while being one (ni ni funi - 而二不二).

Now let's look at the Buddhist view of body, mind and environment.

I don't know if the word environment originally existed in Japanese or if it was invented as a translation of a foreign word, but I don't think there is a word for environment in Buddhist terminology. On the other hand, there is the word "receptacle world" (sk. bhajana-loka, jp. Ki-seken - 器世間), which seems close to the word "environment". By environment, we usually mean not only the natural environment, but also the social and cultural environment. However, in the Buddhist receptive world, it basically means only the material environment, i.e., nature and cities, all that is non-sentient.

Buddhism defines that the body and mind of a sentient being live in a receptacle world and takes into consideration the problems of this receptacle world. Sentient beings (sattva) are those who have feelings and mind, that is, living beings excluding plants, and are said to exist in ten different worlds: hells, hungry spirits, animals, ashuras, humans, celestial beings (gods), auditors, conditionally awakened, bodhisattvas and buddhas, each of which survives in its own world of existence.

As the phrase "cycle of lives and deaths in the six paths (samsara = rokudō rinne - 六道輪廻) indicates, these ten worlds exist as an effect of our karma (our actions). Therefore, in terms of karma retribution, the body and mind (i.e., the individual) are called "principal retribution" (shōhō - 正報) while the receptacle world is called "support retribution" (Ehō - 依報). There is also, for example, the expression "the three realms". This is the view that the world is a compound of the five aggregates (forms, perception, conceptualization, reaction, and consciousness), which are material and mental elements (the five skandhas) and that these are further divided into sentient beings and territory. Therefore, the realm of the five skandhas is the real Dharma (that which exists substantially), i.e., ourselves, while the realm of beings and the realm of territory represent the provisional Dharma (that which has no substance and is provisionally established over that which is substantial). Thus, in Buddhism, the body/mind and the receptacle world, the principal reward and the supporting reward, the sentient beings and the territory are always considered as a whole.

In fact, the relationship between us and our environment is exactly the same as the relationship between the body and its shadow. We are the body and the environment is our shadow. Without the body, there can be no shadow. The shadow is the reflection of our body illuminated by light. The body and its shadow are therefore one and the same inseparable thing, while being two different things. Where there is a body, there is necessarily a shadow and where there is a shadow, there is necessarily a body. The relationship between the individual and his environment is identical. Without human, there can be no environment and without environment, there can be no human. Let us specify that the environment in question in Buddhism is what is perceived by the individual and not an environment existing completely outside, before and after the individual, in other words, it is our inner environment, the one of which we become aware.

Why, when the mind is purified, is the environmental world also purified? The correlation between subject and object and the correlation between matter and mind can also be explained in terms of conditioned production. In the thought of nothing but consciousness, the seventh and eighth consciousnesses are established under the first six consciousnesses, at an unconscious level. In the eighth, the Alaya consciousness are the unknowable world of the receptacle (the environment) and the body.

In our most primordial mind, the body and environment are held and there we see, hear and think, all of which constitute the life of a person. The body and environment we know are mainly perceived by our five senses, while our primordial body and environment, which are unknowable, are shaped from the beginningless past in Alaya consciousness. At this point, we speak of "nothing but individual consciousness" and say that there are as many receptacle worlds. However, when one is born in the human world, one manifests the common receptacle world to the human world. In this way, the body, the mind and the environmental world are seen as a whole, in which there is only one life.

As a painting is executed by a painter, so everything around us is produced by our own mind. The environment created by the Buddha is pure, but the environment created by the ordinary man is impure. A life of ignorance and misguidance comes from an ignorant and misguided mind. By understanding that the world of illusion does not exist outside the mind, one makes one's mind clear; and when one ceases to create an impure world, one attains enlightenment.

The purpose of the teaching given by the Buddha throughout his life was only to make all beings realize his enlightenment. Knowing that we create our own environment is not enough. We still have to awaken to it and for that, there is no other way than practicing as the Buddha taught. But how can we find our way in the immense teaching of the Buddha and find the appropriate practice for our predisposition and our time?

This is what we will see from the next episodes.