Happiness is the Way

This is the public talk by Thay on 27 May 2013 in Hong Kong

I have a number of questions I would like to ask you tonight.

This questions might touch something very deep

dnd can provide you with insight

that will help you to see the way to go.

Allow the question to penetrate into your heart.

And answer yes

or no

or I'm not sure

quietly inside of you.

And...

whether the answer is yes or no

or I'm not sure

It will bring you insight

to help you to see

the way ahead.

The first question:

Are you in love?

Are you still in love?

Do you want to reconect with the person who used to be the one you love?

Do you think that he or she is happier than you are now?

Do you havethe time for each other or are you both too busy?

Have you been able to preserve your freshness and your beauty

for yourself and for the other person?

Remember the other person, maybe your partner

maybe your father

maybe your son, your daughter or your mother.

Are you able to offer him/her freshness and beauty everyday?

Do you know how to handle the suffering

within yourself?

Are you able to help handle the suffering in the other person?

Do you understand your own suffering and their roots?

Are you able to understand the suffering in the other person?

Do you have the capcity to help the other person suffer less?

Have you learned a way to calm down your painful feelings and emotions?

Do you have the time to listen to yourself, your suffering, your dificulties, your deepest desire?

Do you have the time to listen to him/her

to help him or her suffer less?

Do you know the Buddhist way

of restoring communication

and bringing about reconciliation?

Are you able of creating a feeling of joy

and happiness for yourself.

Are you able of helping the other person to create

a feeling of joy and happiness?

Do you really think you have a clear spirual path

to go?

Do you have the feeling of peace and contentment within yourself?

Do you know how to nourish your love everyday?

Have you ever met a person who is truly happy?

Dear friends, yesterday just finished

the retreat

And in the begnning of the retreat

these questions

have been asked.

This year, the retreat only last four days,

instead of five days

like the one before.

But during four days,

the four days, we have learned

quiet a lot of things.

The first thing we learned

was how to breath,

and how to walk

so that every breath and every step,

can help release the tention in our body.

Everyday we went on a walking meditation together.

1300 people walking together,

for one hour.

We combine our breath with our steps.

We learn to walk in such way,

that every step could help us,

release the tention in our body.

And during the four days when we need to go

from one place to another place

we always applied a technic called mindfull walking.

Mindfull walking is walking in such way that we arrive,

with every step.

We arrive in the here and now.

Because the Buddha said the past is already gone

and the future is not yet there.

There is only one moment where life is truly avaible

it's the present moment

And that is why each step should bring us hope to the present moment,

for us to encounter life

and all wonders of life,

that are avaible in that moment.

And every step, like every breath

help us to get in touch

with the wonders of life

in us and around us,

that are nourishing and healing.

Everytime we breath in mindfully,

we bring our mind home to our body.

And when the mind is with the body,

they are well estabilished in the here and now.

In that moment we are fully present,

we are fully alive.

We can get in touch

with the wonders of life

that have the power

to help us heal

and transform.

During these four days,

we also have learned how

to breath and to connect

and to get in touch with the suffering in us.

Everytime a painful felling

or a painful emotion arises

we know how to breath in and out mindfully,

in order to be able to recognize,

and embrace tenderly

that painful felling or emotion.

In that way we are able to calm down,

the painful felling

the painful emotion

and suffer less

after a few minutes of practice.

And during sitting meditation,

we try our best to listen

to the suffering within ourselves.

We learn to understand the suffering within ourselves,

in order to help us understanding the suffering

in our father, or mother or ancestors

in our society.

And we practice so that we can

recognize the suffering, the dificulties in the other person.

That person may be our mother, our father, our husband, our wife

our daughter or our son,

We know

that if

we can recognize the pain

the suffering in him/her,

we'll no longer be angry

at him/her.

Because understanding suffering

we'll always bring about compassion

and forgiveness.

We learn to look

at the other person

in such a way that we can recognize

the suffering in him/her.

And the result is that

when we have seen the suffering in that person,

we are no longer angry at him/her.

We do not want to blame or punish the other person anymore

In fact, we want to do something

or to say something

in order to help him or her,

suffer less.

When there is compassion in our heart,

we are able to use the practice

of love and speech,

and compassionate listening

in order to help

restore communication

within us,

and the other person,

and bring about reconcilation.

We only need to practice for five days,

in order to have

enough compassion and understanding

in our heart.

And on the fourth day or fifth day

we can already

practice compassionate listening and loving speech.

Compassionate listening is the practice

of Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

If know how to listen with compassion,

you can help the other person suffer less,

just after one hour of listening.

If we train ourselves

in the art of

compassionate listening

in four or five days,

we'll be able to do like Quan Yin,

you can listen to him or to her with compassion.

After,

having seen the suffering in the other person,

we can go to him or to her and using the kind of language,

called gentle loving speech

in order to talk to him or to her.

You may say,

darling, I know that you have suffered so much,

in the past,

many years.

I have not been able to help you to suffer less.

In fact,

I have reacted in such way,

that made you suffer more, I'm sorry.

Darling, it's not my intention to make you suffer.

It's only because I did not see

your suffering,

have not understood the suffering in you.

And the difficulties in you.

So please, darling, help me.

Please tell me what is in your heart.

Tell me of sufferings, your difficulties, your despair.

I believe that if i have seen and understood the suffering,

I will not react

the way I have in the past

and made me suffer.

Darling, you are partner,

you are my father, your are my mother,

your are my son, you are my daughter.

I do not want you to suffer,

I want you to be happy.

But if you do not help me, who will help me?

Many people, before the retreat,

they could not believe that they can talk

to the other person

in that way.

But after four or five days of

practice

they are able to use that kind of language

that is called the loving speech.

And when you speak that way,

when you use the loving speech,

you are able to open the doors of his/her heart.

And he/she will empty the heart to you.

Now you have the chance to practice

the practice of Avalokiteshvara listen, listen with compassion.

As I have said

If you know how to listen with compassion,

you can help the other person to suffer much less,

just after one hour of listening.

In order to succeed in the practice of compassionate listening,

you have to practice mindfulness of compassion.

If mindfulness of compassion is practiced

during the time you listen

then you are protected by the energy of compassion,

and what the other person say will not touch of irritation and anger in you.

And you'll be to listen for one hour or more.

The practice is simple enough,

and everyone can do it.

During the time we listen,

we have to try to remember one thing.

I'm listening to him/her just,

just...

for one purpose,

to help him/her suffer less.

In that way, even if you use

a lot of acusation, blames.

Even if his speech is full of wrong information,

wrong perseptions,

I'm not going to interrupt him.

I know that if I interrupt him,

if I correct him,

I'll transform this session of listening

into a debate, that will be irritating.

So even if he has a lot of wrong informations,

wrong perseptions,

if he is bitter in his way of speaking,

if he blames a lot,

if he acuses a lot,

I still continue to listen.

Because a mindfull person

is only to listen and help her to suffer less.

Later on, in three or four days,

I'll be able to

offer him/her some informations,

so that he can correct his perseption,

not now.

Now is just the time to listen,

and help him to suffer less.

So if during the time you listen,

if you know how to breath in and out mindfully,

and keep in mind that

mindfullness of compassion,

you'll be able to do like bodhisattva Quan Yin,

to listen with compassion

and help the other person to suffer less.

In the last 40 years we have offered

so many retreats of mindfullness

in Europe and America.

People used to come and stay together in the campus

for five or six days

in order to attend the retreat.

Sometimes the retreat is attended by

1200 people, like the one we just finished in YMC Camp.

The practice of deep listening, compassionate listening and loving speech

always has the power to restore communication

and to reconcile.

And the miracle of reconciliation always take place in our retreat.

If the other person is in the reatreat,

restauring communication and reconcile will be easier,

because that person has been

exposed to the teaching,

has learned a way to calm down,

her feeling and emotions,

have been able to understand the suffering in

himself and in the other person.

And if the other person is not in the retreat

then you have the right to use,

your portable telephone in order to practice.

If on the fifth day of the reatreat,

you ask people in the retreat to make good use of the practice of deep listening and loving speech

in order to reconcile with the other person.

We say that gentleman, ladies and gentleman,

you have up to midnight tonight, in order to reconcile with the other person.

Because you have learned enough,

trainned enough, in order to do so.

And...

on the sixth day,

always there are people who come up and report

to us that the day before they have been able to reconcile

with their father, their mother, with their partner and so on.

Most of the people who attend to our retreats in Europe and America,

they are not Buddhist.

Most of them are of Jewish and Christian background.

They have profited from the teaching and practice offered by the Buddha.

And if not Buddhist can succeed in restoring communication and bring about communication,

I'm sure that Buddhist can do it too.

In the morning of the sixth day of the retreat,

we offer to transmit to practioners the five mindfullness trainnings.

In the old time we called them the five precepts.

So in the last 40 years,

after having been in touch with the suffering

of our modern society

we represent the five presepts in such way

that

can be relevant to our time.

And there have been cerimonies of transmition of the five precepts.

Than we lead the five mindfullness trainnings

when

700, 900 people kneeled down to receive the five trainnings at the same time.

The five mindfulness trainnings are the expression

very concrete expressions

of the teaching of the Buddha on the Four Noble Truths

and the Noble Eighthfold Path.

The Noble Eightfold Path and

the Five Mindfulness Trainnings

are based on the kind of vision

the kind of

insight

called right feel.

Right Feel is a kind of insight

that transcend all kind of discrimination.

And you are able to remove discrimation

you can remove all kind of fear, anger, separation

and dispair.

The first mindfulness trainning is the practice of

protecting life.

We know that if we do not have compassion in our heart

we do not know how to protect life,

not only the life of humans, but also the life of other species.

The first mindfulness trainning, protecting life

is the practice of cultivating, understanding

and compassion.

Understanding here, means understanding the suffering

inside of yourself

and in the other species.

When you are able to understand suffering,

compassion naturally arises.

And compassion has the power to heal and to transform.

It is why the first trainning, the first precpt.

Is a factor,

strong factor of happiness.

Because a person who does not have any understanding

and compassion, that person is actually alone

and he/she cannot relatate to another human being.

He/she cannot be a happy person.

That is why cultivating understanding and compassion is the first factor

of happiness.

The second mindfulness trainning is about true happiness.

Many people believe that happiness is made of wealth,

fame

power

and sensual pleasures.

But when we look around us,

we see many people who have plenty of these four things

money, power, fame and sex.

They suffer very deeply,

and many of them commit suicide.

And we can see that there are people who are not wealthy,

they are not famous,

but they are truly happy.

Because in them

there is the energy of understanding and love

and compassion.

That is why the buddhist way to cultivate happiness

is to cultivate more understanding

and compassion.

The third mindfulness trainning is about true love.

We know that without love, happiness is not possible.

But many of us do not know how to love

and the more we love, the more we make the other person suffer.

The Buddhist teaching of love is very clear.

To love according to the Buddha is made of four elements.

The first is loving kindness, maitri.

The second is compassion, karuna.

The third is joy,mudita.