(Half-Bell)
(Bell)
Dear Thay, dear Sangha
I have a question:
Sometimes deep down in my soul,
I feel crazy, really powerful energies.
That's something I can't really control.
It feels like...something really deep inside...
so shiny, so deep, so strong.
And I haven't been able at all to control these energies in my life.
And it takes me in places and situations where I cannot control anything.
Really extreme.
Because that energy is so strong. Sometimes I feel a victim of that energy.
For example, if I want to know something about the world,
I go travelling, and I let that energy guide me
and I arrive at some places where there is war or pretty extreme things.
And I'm not ready to accept that, but I have my answer.
My energy gives me that answer.
I know it's complicated (laughs).
And now I want to be with the theme of my own powerful energy that I have.
I wish that my soul... I want to be one...
I want to direct that energy in one precise point.
I feel so small to do that, because the energy is so huge.
I feel like that energy is all reversed in me.
And I don't know how to direct it as a human being in society,
to a big, clear point, like doing something...
something really concrete.
I try to do mindfulness during that, and try to breathe deeply
and let things come.
But I want to know if Thay has some advice about that.
I hope I am clear (laughs). Thank you.
Can you repeat?
Sum up?
Our friend says that she has some very deep
and very powerful energy inside her
and sometimes she feels that
she is at the mercy of this energy.
It makes her do this and that
and sometimes maybe not in the best direction for her.
And she wants to have more mastery of the energy.
She wants to be able to have a more conscious choice about the direction
and to focus the energies to do something concrete and positive.
And she's trying to practice mindfulness and breathing with it
but she still feels that she is not quite able to master the energies.
That energy can be very strong
and maybe our mindfulness
is not powerful enough
and we want to control...
But the practice of Plum Village is
not to control.
Because if you want to control,
you are suppressing somehow
what you want to control
Mindfulness is only to recognize it as it is,
without trying to control.
First of all, we use mindfulness
of breathing and walking
to recognize that,
to say hello to it.
Do not try to control,
to suppress.
And we should know that that energy
may have been transmitted by our father,
our mother, or our ancestors.
That is what we have received also from
our ancestors and from our society also.
So we want to understand
the source of that energy,
where it came from.
So we are interested in recognising
and understanding it rather than
to control it.
And that energy may be a habit energy,
a habit that has been formed during
many generations,
longer than the period from our birth until now.
That habit, that pattern of thinking
of talking, of acting may have been there
very long already.
So, we have inherited it from our parents
and our ancestors.
What we have to do is to recognize and
accept it as it is
And if we know how to accept them as they are,
we feel better right away,
Do not be eager to control.
To recognize, that is called simple recognition.
Breathing in, I recognise it.
And when you recognise it as it is,
it cannot push you to do things
you do not want to do anymore.
You don't have to remove it.
You don't have to control it.
You don't have to suppress it.
The fact that you recognize it as a habit
can already bring you a lot of freedom.
Twenty years ago there was a young American
practitioner in the Upper Hamlet.
One day he was asked by the brothers to go
shopping for the community.
We were celebrating Thanksgiving.
Groups of people belonging to different
nationalities were supposed to cook a dish,
to offer to the altar of ancestors.
The group of Americans wanted to
make Pumpkin Pie which is something
very American.
And the group of Italians would cook an
Italian dish.
And we will place the offerings on the
altar of the ancestors.
During the ceremony we get in touch
with our ancestors inside of us.
So the young man was sent by the Sangha to
the town nearby to do some shopping.
Afterwards he told us that
when he went to Saint Foy La Grande
doing shopping, suddenly he saw that he was
trying to do the shopping quickly
in order to finish,
eager to do it quickly and to
finish what he was supposed to do.
But during the few weeks before
he did not have that kind of feeling,
because he was staying at the Upper Hamlet
and was embraced by the collective energy of the brothers.
doing everything slowly, mindfully
and enjoying it.
So during these two weeks he was doing very well,
walking, sitting, cooking,
with the brothers in the Upper Hamlet.
He was able to do it slowly, with mindfulness.
Everything went well.
But when he was sent to Sainte Foy La Grande,
he was on his own.
He was not guided and embraced,
supported by the collective energy of mindfulness
That is why he lost himself
The old habit energy came back and pushed
him to do the shopping quickly to
get it over
And suddenly he remembered that, he recognized that,
that energy of being in a hurry
and he suddenly realised that,
that's the way his mother used to be.
She was always like that.
So the moment when he breathed in and
recognized the habit energy, he said:
"Hello Mother"
"I know you are there, with your habit"
Suddenly he became calm again
and he continued to do the shopping
mindfully and joyfully again.
So it means that that habit energy
once recognized, cannot push you anymore
to do what you don't want to do,
to say what you don't want to say.
Because many of us are victims of that kind of habit
There are things we don't want to say
There are things we don't want to do.
We know that saying that, doing that
will bring suffering to us and to
the other person.
We know that very well.
We don't want to say or do that.
But when the situation comes,
the habit energy pushes us to do it or say it.
And after we have done it
after we have said it,
we regret it.
We beat our chest, pull our hair and say:
"I already knew that I should not do that,"
"I should not say that, but why did I do it, did I say it?"
So I promise myself that next time when
this situation presents itself,
I will not do like that,
I will not speak like that
and you are very sincere..
And yet when the situation comes
you'll do exactly the same,
again, again and again.
That is the habit energy.
The practice of Plum Village is to use
mindful breathing, mindful walking
to recognize that energy.
Don't try to control it.
Don't try to destroy it.
Just smile to it and say:
"Hello there!"
"My old friend, I know you are there".
"You cannot push me to do it anymore".
"You cannot push me to say it anymore".
So simple recognition brings you freedom
and if you continue like that
your habit energy will transform
slowly, slowly.
If there are good energies, good habit energies,
we can help them to grow.
And if in our lives we have a purpose,
if we have a good volition, a desire,
to transform ourselves and to help people
to suffer less,
if we know exactly what we want to do,
then we nourish that kind of willingness.
And if we keep that intention alive,
we remind ourselves of that intention everyday
and then the other kind of energies can be
used to nourish this kind of intention.
That is a kind of nourishment,
a kind of nutriment, called volition,
good intention.
So a person with a good intention to...create
a good energy for himself, or herself and
for the world,
she will be able to make use of
every kind of energy in him or in her
in order to serve that purpose
So the answer has two aspects:
the first one is to recognise
and the second one is to channel it into
the direction we want it to serve.
(Half-Bell)
(Bell)