(Bell)
Good morning
dear Thay dear sangha, today is the 9th, Sunday, the 9th of December, 2018.
We are in the Assembly of Stars meditation hall in Lower Hamlet,
and this is the last of the Dharma talks
before the end of our three month retreat together.
So I feel a special sense of
speaking to that.
Most of us have been here for the three month retreat together.
We've been
those of you who came
to Plum Village for three months have experienced
going through ups and downs.
And maybe,
some of the time you wondered, 'Why did I come?'
I don't know. Excuse me.
It's a loud blow.
(Laughter)
Maybe you felt, 'Yeah, I'd be better off
in a cave somewhere'.
Maybe in the Pole, or somewhere,
in some mountain.
When we practice together, we really
have to meet each other,
and get along together.
If we don't get along together,
because we are living together 24/7,
it really shows up. It is difficult to stay calm and to enjoy.
So actually, a lot of the practice that you've been learning these three months
is how to live in harmony, how to get along.
How to practise loving speech,
but also you have to communicate when there is a difficulty,
but with loving speech.
How to let go
of your preference and maybe your irritation.
How to see the other person is also suffering.
Maybe see that
try to understand them so you can let go of judgment.
And we have practices, like Beginning Anew that we do regularly.
We do that formally, we sit down
and practise expressing gratitude, noticing the good things in each other,
and also expressing when we have a regret towards each other.
It is a very renewing practice.
We had - It is also, we call it the season of Shining Light.
So because we see each other,
we are rooming together, eating together, working together,
we see each other and we have something called the sangha eye.
Because, ourselves, if we are just practising alone,
there is a number of things that we miss from practising in a community.
One is that because we are not interacting,
things don't maybe come up in the same way.
So when we are interacting we get to see ourselves,
but also we have blind spots.
And so then it's very helpful for us, for the people we trust,
we open ourselves up, we allow ourselves to be
open to receiving their view about us.
And that view is expressed with all of the love and appreciation also
for the whole of us not just pointing to the difficulty.
So we also practise this in the three months retreat,
shining light on each other's practice,
in order to help the other person have more freedom,
more growth in themselves, and more happiness.
Sometimes it can be a bit scary
to allow ourselves
to have people share like that.
I've known people run away.
But when they allow themselves to they only experience the love.
I'm sure there are some exceptions to that.
Sometimes people can get hurt also, and then we also have compassion
that we are learning the practice.
So living together is a practice in itself.
And in a sense, it is -
you can say that learning to live together,
learning to get along is also the fruit of the practice.
Thay has said, brotherhood, sisterhood, there is no religion
that is higher than that.
So we are generating brotherhood and sisterhood.
We are going in that spirit.
There was a Harvard study
done, it was one of the longest ever studies, 75 years.
It is still going on, I think.
And they interview and get also self-information
from standardised groups of men in the States.
Essentially the point is that
they were looking to see what are the conditions
for happiness and health
looking right through the life.
And what they found was if you want to know
what makes a happy octogenarian, that means, if you are 80 years or over,
because these groups they've been following since they were boys,
and now they are in their 80's.
You look back to when they are 50 years old, which is roughly my age,
and you can determine whether
the conditions that seem to be common,
like the ones that are happy, the ones that are healthy,
the result is only one factor.
It is not how much cholesterol in the blood,
it is not many things you might think,
but the one factor that comes out
is those people report that they have good relationships.
Relationships they can trust.
And that seems to be
an essential requisite for a happy life.
So in community we are blessed with having many deep connections to each other.
There is a lot of trust of each other in the community,
which allows us to be open, and allows us to be
free to express.
And, of course, relationships,
when we talk about relationships,
what came to my mind when I heard about this study was,
what about the relationship we have to ourselves?
Do we trust ourselves?
This must also be important.
And the relationship we have to society, to Mother Earth.
This must also count as a relationship.
And it is also clear we know from our experience
that to the extent that we are in a good relationship with ourselves,
our relationship with others goes well.
And when our relationship with ourselves is not so good,
we find things seem to get reflected to us.
The sangha is like a hall of mirrors. We keep seeing ourselves reflected.
So when we have a difficult interaction,
it's always helpful to ask what is going on in me
that is connected with that difficult interaction,
as well as, you know, because there is a tendency maybe
to blame or put it on the other person.
We may see interesting things when we do that.
We may see that,
'Ah! This reaction I had in the meeting, or in this interaction,
brought about quite a strong emotion in me.
It seems a bit more than,
it is disproportionated to what actually happened.
Why did I get so angry?
Why did I feel so anxious?'
I myself found myself in a situation where some anxiety and fear came,
and it started actually as anger.
I was,
I was feeling somehow slightly let down about something, and then
this anxiety came. And I asked that question to myself,
what does this remind me of?
I asked it to my store consciousness. What does this remind me of?
I just waited for something to come,
and I suddenly had an image of myself in kindergarten.
A memory that I didn't have before.
It is not one I could remember, but it's suddenly a flash
of waiting to be picked up.
But my mother was late that day.
And there was a fear in me, I guess. And it was amazing how that
I made the connection just by asking that question.
So it allowed me to, just having that interaction with the other person
allowed me to touch something that needed healing.
And the healing is maybe a continuous
path of healing that we are on.
We are not going to heal everything overnight,
or with one insight.
But we, each time we have a small healing, we get more energy and more confidence.
And we feel, wow! Okay, this is a good path.
And actually,
just understanding ourselves,
understanding that this is where this is coming from,
in a sense it can help so much,
and knowing that we have a practice to also embrace
ourselves in that moment,
embrace maybe the little boy, the little girl in us,
when we see that coming up,
we recognize that there is some suffering there relating to that age
when we were very young,
we have the opportunity to embrace, to smile and with our solidity,
that we generate through the practice, we can breathe with that emotion.
So knowing we have a path,
we have a lot of a kind of -
We have happiness and we have a sense that the suffering
doesn't need to be so much now,
because the biggest suffering is not having a way, having a path.
So we have a lot of gratitude also for having the practice.
Even before we've applied it, but when we apply it, and we get the experience,
every time we are so grateful.
I also had an opportunity in this winter, this three month retreat,
we don't call it the winter retreat now because for the very first time
is more the autumn period. I also had an experience this three month retreat
of connecting with my 14 year old in me.
And, yeah. At that time when he felt very isolated
and not enjoying school, and feeling
pretty in a bit of a hostile environment he found.
I knew, I know about this time, and I know it somehow shows up in my interactions
but I took sometime to try to talk with the boy. And he showed up.
And he said,
he asked, I asked, 'Would you like to spend time with me?
Now I'm an adult'. And he said, 'You are too busy'.
(Laughter)
'You got too many things going on.
And I cause you all sorts of problems anyway,
so I don't want to cause you any more problems.
I don't want to take up your time.'
It was very fascinating to hear this response.
And actually, it gave me quite some insight into myself.
Because, of course, that is part of me.
So I share that because
it is part of our journey that we are on to
heal all the parts of ourselves.
Inside as well as outside. Inside we also have a kind of sangha.
Different voices.
And we also need to bring harmony to those different voices inside ourselves.
But when I was deciding to become a monk,
I remember
the Dharma teacher from the UK Martin Pitt,
he gave me that advice, he said, 'In making the decision,
check with your internal sangha, and make sure everybody -'
So it's a real sangha koan, a real decision.
Because there are these many voices in you.
Some of the voices of doubt, I had to say, 'Please, I hear you, but
we've touched something deeper than doubt at this moment',
and the doubt had to agree.
The Christians say, the doubting Thomas.
So,
isn't a fascinating journey, isn't it? The spiritual path.
And we do it together.
And somehow, being together as a community brings so much joy and insight,
it is so rich.
Some others are going away, going back to the real world.
I always find slightly ironic to use that term,
because it seems like out in the real world
is where people are busy, very busy, running away from reality.
Whereas the idea here in Plum Village is we touch reality
both in us and in nature.
But we go back out, and we want to maintain our practice.
One of the things we need to draw on is the connections we made here,
to keep them in our heart, and know
when we think we are isolated, and all around out there,
remember that is not true. Because the connections we make
that are real,
they are not subject to dissolving simply because we are in a different place,
they are non-local.
So we always remember the sangha has our back.
They are behind us.
People visualize it in different ways.
Connected with the Harvard study I mentioned,
loneliness is the biggest killer. That is a medical fact, that loneliness kills.
And we are so blessed that we don't -
We have so many conditions to not be lonely
through the practice of being there for ourselves,
and learning how to be there with other people and the connections we make.
The relationships we make.
Because even you can be in a relationship, you can be in a family,
you can be with many people, but, as the 14 year old boy,
in a boarding school, lots and lots of people.
They are not dissimilar to Plum Village's. Living in a dormitory,
sharing rooms. But I felt isolated and lonely at that particular time.
So it's not exactly that you are next to people
that you don't feel lonely.
It can also be that you can feel lonely even in Plum Village.
Again, if you
somehow are not in good relationship with what is going on in you.
And in those cases, where that is happening in Plum Village,
the encouragement is to stay.
And you may feel you don't have
your smile any more.
I'll always remember reading
Thay saying, 'The dandelion keeps your smile.'
You know, the flower you see on the lawn, it has your smile for you.
And like so in the sangha we can feel
not doing well, but we should try to become aware
that there is a lot of love
and care. People are giving us space, but they care.
And sometimes the care comes in a way we don't want,
maybe somebody comes into our space, and tries to shake us up a bit.
And we don't want that.
Maybe it wasn't so skilful of them.
But nevertheless we can recognize it as a good intention, as care.
So we may have taken different themes for this three month period,
as well. I know some of the brothers in Upper Hamlet were studying the Anapanasati
for instance.
Some brothers were studying the 40 tenets of Plum Village.
The Manifestation Only teachings was one subject I was engaged with.
And I think many other topics. But they all, somehow,
connect to the same point
of how to come into relationship with myself, to be there,
and really understand what is going on in my body, in my mind.
And see my nature of interbeing.
And Thay has said that even just practising the first 4 of the Anapanasati,
awareness of the breath, awareness of the body,
we touch all of the other aspects,
because of the nature of interbeing.
So in connection when we are just aware of our body,
as we really realize that, oh, here is my body
and I'm really get to be in my body,
experiencing it with the breath,
I also naturally become aware of my feelings.
They are part of what is going on,
and there is a correspondence in the body.
And also mental formations,
perceptions and consciousness.
I remember,
yes, we'll have one sound of the bell. Thank you.
(Bell)
I was just reflecting
that one of the earliest winter retreat
I can recall, I can't remember specifically which one it was,
but Thay said at the very opening talk of the retreat,
'This retreat is an opportunity
and we should practice to be there for every mental formation
as it arises.'
And this was,
I just remember being astounded by the possibility of that.
Every mental formation that will arise, I will be there,
and embrace, and take care, and recognize.
And I guess that was a very wonderful thing to set
as an aim for myself.
To try to be there for what is going on.
Always being aware what mental formations come and go
and watching the impermanence of them,
and watching them in relation to what is happening in me,
around me.
And in my interactions.
But we sometimes get forgetful and lost, so just like on the cushion,
we recognize and we have to keep coming back.
One of the themes of the three month retreat
has been the 14 mindfulness trainings.
And the ones that were left to me to share about
were concerning
right compassion and action, it has to do with right livelihood, reverence for life
and generosity.
So it is 11, 12 and 13.
The 14 mindfulness trainings,
Thay wrote them in 1964.
And it seems to me they are as relevant today
as they could ever had been.
They were written in the time of the Vietnam War.
And they have been revised.
So that we try to make them more and more relevant and skilful, appropriate
to our time and with the insight that we have.
Ethics
is a big subject, and in a sense,
the trainings, be they the 5 mindfulness trainings or the 14,
they are a contribution to what we hope is a good contribution to a global ethic.
And they do not need to be
religious or include Buddhist -
Kind of, things specific to Buddhism.
They can be put into the language that is for anybody can feel comfortable with.
But hopefully, they are universal.
They speak to the universal.
And they are about
they are about love,
they are about the actions and interactions
that come about when we are
coming from a place of true love.
True love we know has a number of ingredients.
True love has brotherhood and sisterhood,
kindness in it, loving kindness.
It has that friendship element.
Spiritual friendship, being there for each other.
True love also has compassion.
We really can have empathy for the other person,
but we don't get overwhelmed by the suffering,
so we can truly be there.
Even when somebody is suffering, we can maintain our stability
and be there for that person and help them.
True love also has joy.
Without joy, we can () so lone.
Joy is something very important.
And it arises from unusual places sometimes.
Sometimes it is the joy that comes when we are able to
be there with our suffering in such a way that we think, oh!
This is a kind of joy, because I get to be with -
I'm in the most important place, where I need to be.
And there is a sort of underlying joy to that,
even though you are maybe experiencing the suffering.
So I'm using that example to show joy doesn't always show up,
it's not always what we think in terms of excitement, joy,
although expressions of joy and smiles is also
very good.
I said to a brother before I came to the talk this morning,
'I need to have a laugh before I go.' I need to generate that joyful energy.
Sometimes we need to -
Sometimes I think of something funny just to generate that joy.
But the real joy coming from friendship,
from insight, from our mindfulness practice,
that is a very deep kind of joy. And we need that.
And then there is inclusiveness.
We include all that is in us and we take care of what is going on,
and we don't set up an internal battle field.
So even we see a part of ourselves is seemingly
causing us suffering, maybe doing something which brings us -
makes us feel ashamed, or it is a bad habit,
or we've spoken to somebody in a bad way,
we somehow have to still have compassion for that part of us too, and say,
Okay, I accept.
I accept everything that is there, I love and accept myself just as I am.
I know that there are causes and conditions
for why it is like this right now. Maybe I'm frustrated with myself.
I also accept my frustration with myself. Okay, I'm frustrated with myself.
So whatever is there, you say, Okay, I get it. If you are there,
you are there for a reason. And I accept you.
It doesn't mean we have to be again overwhelmed, or pushed,
but we accept and we smile to that. And we try to generate our stability
so we can be with that part of ourselves without being carried away.
And so too with our relationships with other people,
and when we get frustrated and upset with other people,
to have this capacity to include and to stay with, to be there for each other.
And there is
in the Discourse on Love, we are invited to extend our love to all beings
across the entire cosmos. It's very grand.
A new chant that Thay Phap Linh has been doing with a group of us
is on the CD, a new chanting CD.
I'm very embarrassed with the video they made to go with that, by the way.
I don't know if anybody saw it, but I got very self-conscious seeing myself,
To look like very, very sincere.
Anyway, on this chant,
there is the line, 'showing love and concern for
one and all as for our very own family'.
So bringing that spirit of being concerned for
anybody we meet
as if they were our own family. That is the spirit.
And it's not totally beyond our capacity.
We know when we are in a good place we can have that openness of heart.
There is a quote I heard about
a husband whose wife came back after being on a Buddhist retreat.
And the husband was asked, 'Sorry, have you seen any change in your wife
since she came back? - Yes, she is in love with the whole universe,
but nobody in particular.'
(Laughter)
And I think that meant
we have to be careful to just be in this place of thinking about
the grand love for everything, but then we don't actually apply it to
what is this relationship going on right now.
Yes, I can't deal with this one, but,
(Laughter)
I love - I feel so much for all the suffering in the world,
but I can't deal with you.
So that is also why a sangha is important.
We meet the - It is where the rubber hits the road, hits the real, we rub it.
The expression is, the chopsticks we use, to clean chopsticks
you get a bunch and you rub them all together,
rub and then clean them individually.
It is a good image.
Yes, I was going to share something.
I have emailed Christiana Figueres.
She is the lady that brought together 195 countries
for the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Do you remember her?
She has been to Plum Village quite a few times,
and she has spoken quite a few times to young Wake Up groups
that were here when we had a Wake Up retreats.
She has come with her daughter.
And she loves Plum Village.
But when she was doing the work,
I emailed her to just check if she was Okay that I share this story.
Because when she was in the middle of her work
of bringing together these countries
for the Paris, they call it,
is it COP 21? Yes.
COP 24 is going on right now in Poland.
So it is a momentous thing that she achieved, and it sets,
gave everybody quite a sense of Okay,
at least these countries coming together,
there is a certain sangha harmony in the world to take climate change
as an issue to really do something. And it was a great start that was -
In all of the other previous times, we couldn't get to the starting block.
So it was a wonderful thing she was able to achieve,
and she did it with Thay's teachings. And she practised listening.
She said that was the main factor that helped to get to that.
This listening to really understanding what was the situation,
what was the obstacles for these countries,
be they Saudi Arabia, China, etcetera.
But there was a period in that build up of five years leading up to
2015 Paris,
when she had a crisis, a personal crisis.
And she was in Bonn at that time, in Germany,
and she somehow, miraculously found out about Plum Village.
She knew nothing before about Plum Village.
And she knew she needed to go somewhere. She was very, very -
Yeah, in a crisis.
And she found the EIAB, our centre in Germany, it was close enough
and she made an emergency booking.
And she just went.
Nobody knew who she was. She said to us that it saved her.
It really saved her.
And that the Vietnamese sisters, with their kindness, that were there,
she was staying in the sister's place, they don't know what they did for me.
They didn't know who I was. She is a retreatant. What else do you need to know?
It's probably good sometimes we don't know who is here.
I may get scared.
(Laughter)
But it-
So just the simple kindness, and the joy,
was enough to support and get her back into a good place.
And then she was able to bring this amazing result.
Part of -
So we never know, it is part of the story.
We never know our simple connection to people, every action
we don't know what ripple effect there may be.
On the - On one level, we would just being here
and welcoming, and doing our thing, doing our practice.
But that can save somebody.
And it is just everybody, not just Christiana Figueres of course
that is important. Everybody, each person that comes
is precious that they come here and that we can support them.
And what we do for them, we also do for ourselves.
Another element of love is
trust.
Really knowing that we are there for each other.
So even we do have times when we bicker and fall out.
Finally we know that we are there for each other.
That is the important thing.
Sometimes we can't help, we get a bit angry, we say the words that we regret.
We are not perfect.
And in a sense, we shouldn't try to be too perfect.
Sometimes
it's when you lose it a little bit
that you get a real conversation with the person that you needed to have.
Sometimes life is messy like that. It is not always going to go perfectly,
with a loving speech. But we have as the background,
the basic intention is loving speech as the support for our community.
Without that we fail.
And listening, being there for each other.
And reverence is the other one,
which is also the name of one of the trainings that I was given.
Reverence is this quality of wonder, this quality of awe.
If we are to act for Mother Earth, we should be in love with Mother Earth.
We should have that sense of connection
which gives us a feeling of wonder and respect.
And that is
something I hope we all have and we all experience,
but when we are out of connection with Mother Earth,
we may realize I need to give more time,
like my 14 year-old boy said to me, 'Ah! But you are too busy!'
If we say - Just Mother Earth says, 'It seems you are too busy'.
I walked the other day, I had this sense,
I was walking around the lake at Son Ha,
and it was lovely and muddy.
And it was raining, and it reminded me of when I used to walk in Scotland,
it is often raining in Scotland.
But it is a kind of nice memory. And the Earth was there.
And it's like she said to me, 'I'm still here!'.
Like if you've gotten - I'm still here,
patient. I'm here for you.
The question is whether we make ourselves available.
So,
building our connection is so important. With Mother Earth.
It is -
For me in Scotland,
I had such a great feeling sometimes hiking in the hills there,
and I would sometimes
really feel like, oh! There is really a relationship, there is really -
It is a non verbal thing, but it really felt like connection,
like there was a -
And I also experienced that in Deer Park.
I sometimes experience it here but maybe a bit less. I don't know.
I think it is -
That is also my responsibility. Because it is also very beautiful here.
But sometimes I made very profound connections
and I think it was also because
there was a sense of wilderness,
when I would be really in the wilderness. I could touch it.
That is something we need a bit more of, a bit more wilderness in the world.
Since I was born,
half the wild animals have disappeared in terms of biomass.
This is the World Wildlife Fund's statistic.
But it is a very sad situation
that we are losing our wilderness, we are losing our wild animals.
And
this is
while I was very inspired to see this -
A couple that had a fairly sizeable part of big land in England,
and for 17 years they tried to do
the regular intensive agriculture and dairy on this farm.
But they couldn't make it a profit.
And then they came across this method, this idea,
this way to rewild their land
introducing old animals that used to roam.
In England there used to be all sorts of animals, and bisons,
and oryxes, and even lions used to be.
It was more like the Serengeti in England.
Or a kind of -
It's amazing when you study these things.
You find out that there were lions in Trafalgar Square, real ones.
So she set about rewilding, basically letting Mother Nature do its thing,
and introducing these animals that also added dynamism and shaped the landscape.
And then there would be water features naturally appearing
and it was a very muddy ground.
It was beautiful to see
the change from intensive agriculture to returning to this wilderness area.
And now I think she runs safaris.
It's actually right where my mother lives,
so I think I'm going to take my mother on a safari to see this place.
But the regeneration of the soil and the land by this,
contributes so much back to the health of the country.
I think we need to do more of that.
And they actually do make a living from the land as well.
If we continue the way we are going with the land use,
in the UK they estimate there will only be a hundred harvests left
because all of the top soil
and all of the richness of the soil is being depleted by the intensive farming.
So this rewilding thing is becoming more and more understood to be a good thing.
So, we look at the 14 mindfulness trainings these three months,
and we see that they all inter-relate. We have to practise them together.
They inter-are. They arise from the insight of interbeing,
and when we practise them we practise them with that spirit.
When we have the awakened kind of view,
naturally we want to go in this direction.
And we practise them from being right in the heart of life,
and also being in love, as I was describing.
So they are also an expression of love and insight.
When we look at the ones that are concerned with
reverence for life and generosity, and right livelihood,
we are also touching a lot of suffering. The damage to the environment,
the suffering caused by war and conflict, by exploitation and social injustice.
And it can be overwhelming when we touch this kind of suffering,
because it seems so vast.
And with the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
saying the next 12 years is very, very crucial
if we are to prevent catastrophic effects of climate change.
We have this - The aim would be
they propose to try to keep the temperature from rising too much,
keep to 1,5 C above the pre-industrial levels.
But the effort we need to do that, the transformation of society
going, switching all the way to renewables
it seems like a massive task.
Actually, technology-wise, we probably can do it.
I saw Elon Musk the guy that makes the Tesla cars saying that
quite easily, for instance China, because it has a lot of free land,
could meet all its energy supplies with solar easily, he said.
So I don't know, but he seems to know.
And I think - But when we get this kind of reports,
there is a sense of urgency that comes up.
And a sense of
we have to name it, there is fear that arises.
Maybe despair.
Because we feel like it is not possible.
And certainly the way the politics are, it doesn't feel so possible,
because the real problem seems to be that the politicians are not able to
take hold of the situation.
In Poland they met, the COP24,
and they couldn't agree to take on this report and act on it.
So if we can't rely on the politicians,
we have to come to a more regional level, perhaps.
And more local level, even in Plum Village we need to go solar.
We need to also be the change that needs to happen.
And we already do one of the main things that is recommended,
that can make a massive difference
to empower us as individuals and communities.
But if it is done at societal level all the better,
that is individuals to go vegan.
It's being said to be the plant based diet
is really the biggest contribution we can make as individuals
to reducing the amount of emissions of CO2.
It turns out that the -
The impact of the animal industry,
the livestock is huge. And it's not really surprising
when you consider the numbers involved.
70 billion animals a year.
Our human population is 7.6 billion, but 70 billion is 10 times that.
And it is rising. The demand is rising.
So we really need to bring it in the other direction.
I don't think that the meat industry will disappear,
but without a collective awakening and insight
which needs to be global,
but we do our part.
If you are a meat eater, and you come to Plum Village for say,
10 days, it is a rough calculation,
you save -
Suppose you are eating a steak every night,
I think you would.
But by coming to Plum Village and being eating a vegan diet,
for ten days you would save a ton of carbon dioxide.
That is how significant it is.
We do more by going to the vegan diet than for instance,
by changing our travel methods.
I was talking with a brother, joking about how do we stop Plum Village monks
the flying thing. Because we do fly to places.
But we are doing very good things. So we don't want to stop.
There is a trip going to Uganda in January.
They are going to be dealing with
some serious things going on there with violence in schools
and things like these. So we want to go.
And I was discussing, maybe we -
People that invite us should plant trees for every time monks and nuns go out.
And the brother said, ' Maybe the people invite us out,
they have to go vegan for 10 days'.
But we can get creative, we can look how can we become
zero carbon by 2025, Plum Village.
We can look. See what we can do.
But this sense of fear and urgency is very real.
And it generates a kind of energy,
even those who are already wanting to do something active,
which isn't always
sustainable. There may be anger and fear,
and () always helpful.
Because if we want to practice compassionate action,
we also have to include those who are currently doing harm,
and not excluding them from our compassion.
We know that actually this is a tragedy being played out.
And everybody involved is in the tragedy.
If you are on a flight, and the plain is going to crush,
sorry for this example, it just came to my mind.
But it doesn't matter if you are in a business class or first class,
you are too going to crush.
So everybody, even the ones that are creating that problem,
we would see.
We have to have compassion and there are always causes and conditions
why people are in that situation. And maybe with our loving kindness
as opposed to our anger,
we can touch their hearts.
Apparently, a brother told me that
there was a lawyer from the animal industry, a top lawyer,
he came to Plum Village,
and he spent time with him, and by the end of the time,
he didn't want to be a lawyer for the animal industry any more.
I don't know, I mean, just saying, you know?
You come to Plum Village, you touch some seed inside,
maybe that can be enough to touch the human heart.
I thought it was maybe good that I didn't get to meet him,
because I'd be
quizzing him about all sort of things.
It is better that he came and he just experienced like
nobody knew who he was, but he just got to touch
peace and touch happiness of real connection.
And he no longer wanted to be
defending something that he knew was causing harm.
But yes,
we know that
a big change has to happen. And it can be scary.
And we know that we don't know if we are going to make it,
in the sense of keeping everything Okay. Maybe it is not Okay.
And we have to face a lot of difficulties
in the future and some scary times ahead for ourselves, for our children,
for our grandchildren, for different generations we know
will experience unless we can act very strongly right now.
And this is only on the subject of climate change,
not to mention other subjects.
But this urgency feeling could be good, but we should put it into practice also.
I remember Thay when he was in Singapore, and trying to help the boat people,
and the story there was that
the authorities found out about what he was doing,
trying to help 700, 800 people in boats to go to Australia, I think.
And they told him he had to leave in 24 hours.
And at that time, the sense of urgency of what he could do came up.
And he knew the most important thing he needed at that moment was peace.
So he practised through the night walking meditation,
and he said to himself, 'If I cannot have peace in this moment,
then all the peace that I experienced
on the cushion, in the meditation hall, what does it mean?
I need it now.'
And from that, he wrote the calligraphy
'If you want peace, peace is with you immediately.'
Because right in the heart of the urgency, he was able to touch his peace.
And from that peace, he was able to act.
Act with compassion, act with lucidity, from a calm place.
So, because the situation is so urgent,
because the fear is there, we really need to practise.
And we need to come from a place of peace.
And act.
And, of course, we need to come from a place of love.
In terms of the mindfulness training on
suffering caused by war and conflict, somehow we are all touched by that.
And I also mention by way of example
Annie Nushann is a woman of Liberia who during the Liberian Civil War -
She was from a very poor society herself.
Her family was very poor, she had 10 children.
She was a refugee,
she was, I think, in the Ivory Coast during the civil war.
But she came back into the country by foot
there having being - Her house was burned down
and also so terrible things,
but she came back with this intention to call for peace in Liberia.
She became a big part of a movement of women
which included Muslims, and Christians. They got together.
And though they were poor,
they didn't have any resources, they had their voices and they chanted for peace.
And eventually they got international recognition
and were actually able to catalyse peace
after 15 years of civil war.
A seemingly endless situation.
And of course the peace work has continued after the war.
And she has done so many amazing actions.
And one of the recents I mention is because
she didn't know the practice at that time, but somehow, through her Christian roots,
going to church she got in touch with,
asked God for peace in her heart.
For courage
and peace.
And she went to face situations including boys with guns high on drugs,
and all sorts of situations where she was able to
meet them as a mother. That is what she would say,
'I went to them as a mother energy.' As a mother loves her only child
at the risk of her own life. So we cultivate boundless love
for each and everyone of us.
So she went with that spirit.
And she didn't experience fear.
In those times.
So it is another example of how, in a very crazy situation,
when we can touch non-fear and peace we are somehow also,
and there is compassion, we are somehow protected.
Let have one sound of the bell and then I'll wrap up.
(Bell)
So there is also the suffering caused by exploitation.
We are aware of the great poverty many people experience.
And just to mention the connection with the vegan diet,
if all of the land that is used to feed livestock
was to feeding people,
it could feed three billion people.
It is the land that can cover the whole of the European Union.
So, we think there is a pressure on the land
and also water resources.
Many aspects can be helped if we do this.
So I want to emphasize that.
When we go out, we maybe carry the light we've found.
We know that our actions are important.
Mother Teresa said, it is not that you do a great act of love,
like that heroic moment where you save the day,
Superman's suit on,
but she said, it is the small acts but with great love.
So the spirit of bringing a lot of love
into our actions of body, speech and mind.
And trusting that, and letting that lead us
so as we go out into the world, I'm not going to say the real world,
but as we go out from Plum Village,
remember the importance of
spiritual friendship, stay in touch in your heart,
and find a sangha.
Come back when you need,
and know that your actions make a difference.
Even you have one thought that is maybe
hopeless in some situation,
but you do it anyway.
But you do it from love
and from a sense of this is what I want, this is how I want to be.
Because ultimately it is
how we are is
the real thing.
If we -
We don't actually know the ripple effects.
So we somehow just really need to trust in love, trust in the practice
of coming from this place of non-fear and peace actions as we go out,
and know that we also need each other.
When we have each other actually we can do great things together.
And we do them with a lot of joy.
It is not like a chore.
Being vegetarian in Plum Village is easy,
and it can be delicious too, for instance.
So thank you for your practice,
thank you for your
taking care of yourself,
for understanding yourself and being seeing your interbeing nature,
seeing that the suffering of the other is not separate from your own suffering.
Thank you for your inclusiveness,
and your kindness, your non-fear.
(Bell)