(Bell rings) (Bell rings) (Bell rings) (Bell rings) Dear respected Thay and the whole community The sound is ok It's a little bit loud Today is the 27th of December the year 2019 We are in the Assembly of Stars Meditation Hall at Lower Hamlet. So welcome to Lower Hamlet for the Mindfulness Day I hope that everyone enjoyed Christmas time together. Are you happy with Christmas time at Plum Village? Yes, thank you. So, thank you for coming here to celebrate Christmas time together as a . . .with family as a spiritual family Christmas time is a time for us to go home to celebrate Christmas together so in that spirit I would like to share with you about going home. How we can go home to take care of ourselves. By breathing we can go home to our body and follow our breathing. It's simple to follow inbreath and outbreath. And we calm our inbreath and outbreath and we can smile to our inbreath and outbreath And we feel very peaceful when we enjoy our breathing. And then we are aware of our whole body and relax our whole body Calm our whole body When we are aware of our whole body we can feel the tension in our body and then we release the tension We can pay attention in that area And breathe with that area. And slowly, slowly you can feel relaxed And the Zen method we can be aware of our feelings. So what feelings come up in our mind we can be aware of them and smile to our feelings and calm our feelings. And also the same with our mind. So what comes up in our mind present in our body. We can be aware of our mind and calm our mind down and smile to our mind too. And when we can do that we feel at ease, we feel peaceful. We can manage ourselves, we can master ourselves and we can be free. The fact that our body and our mind relate to each other what happens to our body, it will happen to our mind and also what happens to our mind will stay in our body. So take care of our body in order that we can take care of our mind And to take good care of our mind, we can take good care of our body, and we feel at ease. You feel solid, you feel comfortable to our body to our feelings and to our mind. When we go somewhere for a long journey, and sometimes we are tired because of the long journey. And when we come home come back home, we feel at ease, we feel relaxed, and we don't want to go anywhere else. Lie down and relaxed, feel warm and feel cozy. And so we do the same when we go back home to our body. We also feel at ease, comfortable, relaxed, peaceful and solid. And we can be our home. And then, when we can be our home we can sustain our home to other people. When people come to us they also feel at ease. They feel peaceful, they feel relaxed. And they can take refuge in our self. Because our home now is very relaxed. Our heart is bigger. And we can be the place for other people to take refuge in. And first of all, for our beloved one. When your partner comes to you, they feel at ease. When your children come to you, they feel joyful, happy, peaceful. And then we can sustain our home to other people, for example, to our friends, to our colleagues, to our workers, to the people around us, to our Sangha. And then we can sustain our home to all people; to all humankind. And our home becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. It's never limited. We have to feel this before we celebrate the New Year. In Vietnamese tradition we prepare a lot for the New Year. And Vietnamese New Year, we call it. And we don't wait until the 1st of January to welcome the New Year. But we also call the last days of the year is like New Year, like the 26th new year (Vietnamese) 26th new year, 27th new year 28th new year, 29th new year 30th new year until the first day of the New Year. So we celebrate the new year before. We prepare a lot of things. We clean up our house. We plant a lot of flowers. We prepare a lot of food. We have the new press. Many things to welcome the New Year. So I would like to invite you to benefit the spirit at the Vietnamese New Year. We can go home to clean up our home. To prepare ourselves to welcome the New Year. To plant in our garden many kinds of flowers. And maybe in our home there is some garbage so we can throw it away. In order that our home can be spacious, our home can be clean, can be beautiful, and can be breathable for us to enjoy. So I would like to invite you to reflect on yourselves to see what kind of garbage that you want to throw away. There is some furniture some things that you store for a long time and it's accumulating a lot of dust. And maybe we never touch it, and we don't want to throw it away. And it occupies our home, our room and maybe for 10 years we don't touch it. So now we have to be brave to recycle them, to throw them away for our house to be spacious. So we do the same to see what kind of mind we have that prevents us to be happy, that prevents us to be free. And we take it, put it in a bag and bring it to the recycle area. So I, and to to throw the garbage sometimes we need the courage because we feel regret that we don't want to throw them away and sometimes we need the courage. And courage is one of the three powers that lead us to be happy, that lead us to be peaceful. And sometimes we call this power virtue. This power is not the power of money it's not the power of fame, it's not power of wealth, it's not power of position. But it's a power to lead us to happiness, lead us to be, peaceful. So I would like to write on the board the three powers. So the first power is compassion. And first of all, we have to have self-compassion. We have to love ourselves. We have to accept ourselves. We have the capacity to forgive ourselves. Sometimes we make a mistake and we feel regret and we suffer because of the regret. We don't have the capacity to forgive ourselves, so that is why we are not so free. So we have to have the capacity to forgive ourselves. We can practice to begin anew. We can do it in a different way. I remember that the first days when I came to Plum Village to become a nun I missed my family a lot and I also cried a lot. Especially I missed my Mom because I love her. But also because I felt regret that in the past I caused her a lot of suffering so it is why I feel regret. I was very stubborn; I didn't listen to her, and so it is why I feel regret. But with the practice I communicate with her and try to forgive myself. And I say to myself that I have to live wholeheartedly in this environment. So when I leave this place I don't feel regret. But when I left my home to become a nun, it was a good lesson for me It was a big lesson for me so wherever I am I live wholeheartedly in order that in the future I don't feel regret. Sometimes we suffer because we feel regret what we have done in the past or what we didn't do in the past that instead we have to do, so we try to live wholeheartedly in the present moment, and we don't feel regret later on. So we have the capacity to forgive ourself and to free ourself. And when we are free, we have a lot of space and we can bring joy and happiness to others. Like when I am free I can bring joy and happiness to my Mom. And I stopped (inaudible) communication with my Mom. And I become happy. So compassion first of all, you have to compassion, you have to be compassionate to yourself. Forgive yourself, and embrace yourself. Sometimes we cannot accept ourselves. We feel we are not good enough. We are not beautiful enough. And we become suffering. We are very clumsy. We have a lot of shortcomings. So imagine that we have a child who is not so beautiful, who is also very clumsy. She did a lot of mistakes, and the people disparage her. And she suffers a lot and she cries a lot. So what should we do as her mother? We should embrace her, and telling her that "you are ok." "You are beautiful already in my heart." Right? You don't want to yell at her anymore. You don't want to blame her. You don't want to punish her because she suffers a lot already. You don't want to make her more suffering. So we do the same with ourselves. We suffer a lot already. We don't want to make ourselves suffer more. And we are a mother of ourselves. To embrace our body, to embrace our feelings, to embrace our mind. As a mother, to embrace our child. And we can say to ourself, "You are ok." You don't want to become another person. You don't want to become another and you don't want to become another thing. And the mother is mindfulness. Mindfulness helps you to embrace yourself and calm down your feelings. Calm down your suffering Calm down your mind, until you feel release, until you feel relaxed. Then you have the capacity to help other people to do the same. The people that also have a lot of suffering and you can help them to go back to themselves. To accept themselves and to water the good seed inside of themselves. Sometimes we both lose something to make us suffer and we become angry with that person and sometimes we become hatred with that person. And we cannot forgive her or forgive him. And we cannot forgive him because the wound is still here in our body and in our mind. And every time we think of that person. give you hurt. You feel painful. So that is why we have to go back to our body to take care of the wound. By the breathing, relax our whole body, release the wound. And when you are healed you have the capacity to forgive. If not, there is no way to forgive. Maybe the first time it's easy to forgive. The second time it's easy. But when the person makes the same mistake and cause you suffering, it's really, really difficult. "Why do you keep repeating this thing again and again and again?" And so it is really difficult. And when you see that it's really difficult for you to forgive so it means that the wound is still here. But when the wound is healed, you can forgive them easily. And sometimes we don't need to say that "I forgive her." But forgiveness happens naturally, because the wound is gone. Sometimes they make a mistake and you wait for them to say sorry to you. "Why did you make a mistake with me?" "Why did you cause me this suffering?" "But you don't want to say 'sorry" to me?" And we only forgive her or him when they say sorry to us. But they didn't. Why do we have to wait until they say sorry to us to free ourself. We have to free ourself first not wait until they say sorry to you. Because maybe it's too late maybe they never say sorry to you. So please don't become the victim. We can overcome the suffering. And when we change, the people will change. But sometimes because of our habit energy we want that person to say sorry to us and they never did it and we suffer forever. So if we are wise, if we are smart So please . . . liberate ourselves as soon as possible. Don't wait for other people to change for us to be happy, for us to be free. So it is a way we love ourself. It is a way to take care of ourself. And by this way we can transform our wounds, our suffering, our obsession into joy and happiness. There is some (inaudible) that makes us to obsess. And we don't want to think of it because every time we think of it we suffer a lot. And we don't want to touch it. And when the times come you feel suffering. For example, if we have the wound happen during the Christmas time We feel very scared when the Christmas time comes. Right? Because we think of our obsession. We think about the haunting memory. And sometimes we run away from that time. We don't want to free to ourself. If we have the wound happen in the Christmas time we feel very scared when Christmas comes. If we have the wound in the new year we feel afraid and scared when the new year comes and we want to run away. But by the way to come back to ourself and heal the wound we can transform the obsession. We can transform the haunting memory. And it becomes the big lessons for us. We can do better, we can behave better in order that we don't create the same mistake again in the future. So, whatever happened if we are mindful, if we are aware of it, it becomes a big lessons for us. And we can do better. And by that way we have the capacity to begin anew, and also we have . . . we offer other people opportunity to practice beginning anew. And we look at other people with the new eyes We don't judge them, we don't prejudice with them, because they're already changed. And we always look at her past, we overlook his past. And sometimes she wants to change. She wants to change but we always look at her past so she doesn't want to continue to practice begin anew. So we understand ourself and we can understand other people. So it is the first power that you need to nourish yourself. And when the people come to you they feel embraced by us. They feel that they receive the forgiveness from us, and they feel peaceful. They can do beginning anew. They can be the start of a new person. And the second power is: Clever. Sometimes we call wisdom or insight. Sometimes we are caught. We are caught in something that we cannot overcome. But if we look deeply into the situation we can find the way out. And clever here is not the knowledge that you can find in the book or you can find in the DVD. You can't find in my talk. But this "clever" it comes from yourself. It comes from inside of yourself by your practice in the daily life. And all the lessons we learn (are) the same. You don't see (them) in the book. You cannot learn compassion when you open the book and you read it, no. But by the way we contact with the people, by the way we transform our suffering, so we have the compassion. We cannot learn the patience in the book. Or ways to deal with the situation during the day in your relationships then you learn the patience. So it is the same with clever, with insight, we never learn in the book. So it is not the knowledge that you accumulate while you (are) reading books or you watch a DVD. You go to the YouTube and search for what you need. But it's not the insight. But the insight comes from your experience. And it also comes from your peaceful mind. When you go home to your body, calm down your feeling, calm down your emotion, calm down your mind, so you can see things clearly. So it is the insight. And insight comes up quickly. It's like the thunder. It comes up naturally, quickly. So sometimes we have the problem and we don't know how to solve the problem. Try not to think but just go back to yourself. Let your mind become peaceful, and when you are peaceful enough the solution comes up. Of course we need the knowledge because if we don't have the knowledge maybe we don't kn.ow how to nourish it We don't know how to nourish the insight. For example, if we don't know how to breathe maybe we don't breathe properly. We if don't know how to calm down our feeling and our mind maybe we don't know how to do it correctly. So we have to learn how to do it. And then we know how to do it we have to put it into practice. We have to apply it. And then we have the insight. And sometimes we call it understanding. And if there is .no understanding there is no love We cannot love other people if we don't understand them. We may think that we love them but in fact we cause them a lot of suffering. As the parents we see our children as our treasured property. We do everything for them. Buy the new thing for them buy the new beautiful clothes for them, raise them up. Help them to go to the university, to have the good job, to buy the car for them. And you think that you have done everything for your children. But in fact, you don't understand them. You don't know what they want. You don't know their aspirations. And you may never have a chance to listen to them. So you may come back to have a good communication with them to understand your children. And when you understand your children you can bring them a lot of joy and happiness. So that is the insight, that is the understanding. And you see that your children are your continuation. You take good care of your children is to take good care of your continuation. Then your children can bring you to the future. So it is the insight And we have many kinds of insight. Impermanent insight. Non-self insight. Interbeing insight. So we have to learn about impermanence. We learn about non-self, we learn about interbeing, we learn about love, and we put them into practice in order that we have the insight. And the insight can liberate us. And the third power is courage. The courage to cut through afflictions. Sometimes we call courage sometimes we call "cutting through the afflictions" or sometimes we call "letting go." We have the courage to let go of our ideas. Sometimes the idea makes us suffer. We think that we are right and the people other people are wrong. So it is why we are with each other we bring disharmony in our family. I remember that when I was young sometimes my parents are with each other and my Mom thought that she's right and my father thought that he was right. And both of them were right. But I cannot ask the other people's ideas, other people's view. So it is why they cause each other suffering. And they make their children suffer. So we have to be courageous to let go of our ideas, even we think that we are right. But if it doesn't bring harmony in our family so we can bring it home oh sorry we can let it go. Because it doesn't bring happ.iness to each other So maybe we can contemplate to see what we need to let go what we need to cut through. And the first thing we need to cut through is our craving. So there are many kinds of craving. We are craving for food, for example. It can bring us a lot of suffering. It is very tasty, very delicious, but it's not good for our health. So maybe we can let go. We desire to have a car, a beautiful car. And we do a lot of work, we work hard to earn money to buy a car. But, in fact, that when we have the car we are not so happy. We accumulate more tension . . . stress. And when we are tense-ful and stressed we make other people suffer also. But we may not realize that. And somethings that we think that if we have them we are happy, but in fact that when we have them, we are not happy. So we have to look deeply to see what kind of desire we have that doesn't bring us happiness, but we think that it will bring us happiness. And we have to be courageous to let them . . . . go away. We have to let go. It is the same with the material things and spiritual things also. We have to let go. So . . . when we look deeply into the things and we can realize that maybe the simple life is the best for us. We don't need to have much things to be happy. We live simply, where we have time for ourselves, we have time for our beloved one. Sometimes we feel tense. We feel stressful but we don't have time to relax. We do thing after thing. And we think that when we finish these things we have opportunity to relax, to rest. But in fact when we finish one thing we have another thing to do. And we never had the chance to relax and to rest. And even when we go to the vacation, we also do a lot of things, arrange a lot of things, for us to relax, but in fact we accumulate more tension . . . in our body and in our mind. We want to have a big house but in fact that when we have a big house we are not happy. But if you have time you have everything. And people say time is gold, but our teacher says that time is our life. We have to enjoy our time as we enjoy our life. And the second thing that we want to cut through is anger, or hatred. Anger is a big thing that. we have to deal with Because of anger we also create a lot of suffering for each other. And when we are angry we think that we are right so it is why we're angry with other people. They did something wrong they make us suffer. Why they do like this? Why they say like that? and because of that we're angry with that. But the same method to go back to our home to our body and feel it. To take care of our body and feelings. We take good care of our anger. We embrace our anger, calm down our anger, and to free ourself. When I do sitting meditation I scan my whole body. Aware of my whole body from my breathing, to my face, my shoulders, my arms, my back, my legs, my fingers, my toes, my intestines, my liver, my heart. So I scan my whole body. And then I scan all members in the community. In my sangha, to see if I'm angry with anyone. And then I scan all the people with other hamlets with other sanghas. With my family to see if I'm angry, if I'm angry with anyone. And the moment that I feel I'm not angry with anyone I feel so happy. I feel so free. So just the fact that we are not angry with anyone, we're already happy. So you may do the same when you have free time. To think of yourself, think of other people and see if you are angry with anyone. And then the moment you feel that you are not angry with anyone, you free yourself. You liberate yourself, and you become happy, like you are the happiest person in the world. And the same with the other mind. If you have the jealousy, and when you do sitting meditation you also scan everyone in your family or in the community. And that moment you don't feel jealous with anyone, you feel so happy. And you can do like that with any kind of mind that bothers you, that makes you unhappy. And then you sustain the sitting meditation time, all of the day. Like when you do the work, when you cook in the kitchen, when you do washing, when you take a walk. So you sustain it and you also feel happy, and your happiness becomes huge. And all day long you feel happy. And if you can do for one day, you can do for the second day, the third day, the fourth day, a month, a year and maybe forever. And you can master yourself. So . . . anger or hatred is only ,one kind of mind but with every kind of mind you can do the same. And the third is ignorance. With the insight of wisdom we have to look deeply into things. We have to look deeply into the situation to understand the situation better. And when we understand the situation we can free ourselves. We suffer because we don't see things clearly. We know nothing. We're ignorant about things, about reality. So we have to cut through ignorance. We have to cut through ignorance in order that we can free ourselves. Sometimes we need friends to help us because we don't see things clearly. But we thought that we see things clearly. It is very dangerous s.ometimes we need help We can ask our friend who has experience in the practice to show us the way, to help us. In our community we say that the individual insight is not as good as community insight. So we need the collective insight to help us. So when we have the difficulty please ask for help. Because the (inaudible) is very dangerous. We think that they are wrong, and we are right. It's very dangerous, so please ask for help. So we go back to ourself go back to our home to see what kind of garbage that you want (to) throw them away by this kind of method. And what kind of flower you want to plant in order that we can welcome the new year. (Bell rings gently) (Bell rings) Sometimes we can we can let go of the big thing but we cannot let go of the small thing. And we turn the small thing into the big thing, the big deal. I don't know if you read the magazines New . . . . New York Times There is an article with the title "Is he ever going to put away that shirt?" It's very interesting. It is written by Brenda Chadowitz. She tells about the shirt of her husband. The shirt was left on the . . .upstairs in the hallway for many days and he didn't take it away. And when she saw the shirt she felt very irritated. She says that "Why, my husband didn't clean up, didn't take it away?" And she wanted to clean up she wanted to take it away. And it only took a few steps to take it, to put it in the cabinet. But she didn't do it because she didn't want to become the person who cleans up after him, to pick up after him. Because she has two children to take care of and she always cleaned up things for her children. Pick up after her children. So, it is why she doesn't want to pick up things after him. But everyday she became more and more irritated. And she told her Mom and her Mom said that because her husband is the doctor and he's busy so take it away. But she doesn't want to and she come to the therapy (Laughs) but it doesn't help. She told her friend it also doesn't help. And she remembered the moment that her husband did a lot of things. Clean up the house, throw the garbage, (inaudible). And there were some very difficult moments. Her husband comfort her, help her to go out of the fear of the suffering, of the worries. But still she still suffered because of that shirt. And she paid attention to that shirt to see if it's moved (Laughs) But it's difficult, huh? Day by day, for six minutes. (Audience laughs) And one day she saw it was gone. And she asked her husband "You took the shirt away?" And her husband said that "What . . . what kind of shirt?" (Gentle laughter) And he said "That shirt on the upstairs? And he said, "Yes" I cleaned up this morning I took them away. And I also took off the socks. And she asked "What kind of socks?" (Laughter) In fact the socks that she wants to wear when she do exercise She put the . . . aside and she didn't use it and she leave them there for many days. Maybe many months. But before that she so surprised why her husband didn't pay attention to the shirt. And she feel that it seemed that it like nothing but it has become a big deal for her. But when she realized that I think she feel free. She may laugh to herself. It is very human, huh? It's very mundane but sometimes it's very . . . I think that everyone, sometimes we share the same situation with her. Sometimes we can deal with the big thing but with the small thing. We cannot overcome it, and it causes us a lot of suffering. Why we have to worry until six months to liberate ourselves? Instead it can take few seconds to take it away and we free ourselves of six months. So maybe it is an invitation. That I would like to invite you to look deeply into yourself. To see what bothers you, what ties you up that allows you to be happy, to be free. And we don't worry until six months later to free ourselves. We don't worry until our husband took away the shirt for us to be free. We can do it because it's very little thing. Sometimes, there is something happen that we don't like it. Our mind attaches to that. Our mind goes right to the object. And it carries us away and it prevent us to be happy. So we have to go back to ourself and concentrate on our breathing. Concentrate on our mind, in our body, in order that we can stop thinking. We can stop directing our mind to the object that we don't like. We cut off the thing that prevents us to be happy. Direct our mind back to our body. And when we go back to our body, we also see clearly that we also have some mistakes. In the . . . Dhammapada Sutra (Vietnamese words) the Buddha also said that Easy seeing . . . . easy seeing are others faults. Hard indeed to see one's own. Like just one we know others faults but one's own faults, one hides. As the crafty gambler conceals his gambling scars. (Speaking vietnamese) So easy to see the mistakes of other people. But for our own it's really difficult to see it. So during the daily life if you only see the mistakes of the other people. So maybe our practice is strong, you have to go back to ourselves to see our mistakes. And the more mistakes we see, the better we are. Because we see ourselves clearly. Not because the more we practice the more mistakes we create but the more practice, the more clearly we see ourselves. And when we see ourselves clearly it's really easy for us to forgive other people. So mistakes are sometimes very precious. If you don't do mistakes maybe it's really difficult for you to forgive other people. But when you have the mistake it's easy for you to forgive other people. So it is why the Buddha always advises us to go back to ourselves to see ourselves clearly. And if we see ourselves clearly we can help other people to see themselves clearly too. Outside it's very beautiful Today we are lucky to have the sunshine so maybe . . . we stop here to enjoy the sunshine. (Laughter). But one more time, I would like to invite you to go back home the physical home, home here and home in your family. To clean up your home and to plant a flower in your garden to welcome the new year. And . . . of course we can plan.t many kinds of flowers And every kind of flower they need different water, different ingredients, different manure. So we can learn in order that we can plant good flowers. So we can do the same we can plant in the garden of our mind many kinds of flowers. Flowers of compassion, of love, of forgiveness. Of peace, joy, harmony, (unaudible) and then we can plant a garden. And sometimes our garden is not so clean. It's not so in order because we don't take good care of our garden. And it becomes wiry. And sometimes we go back to our garden and our garden becomes very dirty. And we become bored when we see our garden. And we worry we don't know where we can start. So if this is your situation, to smile to your garden. And we can be brave, we can be courageous. to take care of that And we look around to see in the garden if there are any trees still alive. So we can start from that tree. And we take good care of that tree and we enjoy that tree. And then from that tree so we can sustain to take care of other places in the garden. So it is the same with the garden of our mind. Sometimes we feel unease with our mind. But if we see that we still have the compassion. it's good already. If it's still alive we go back to take care of our compassion. And make it bigger, make it stronger. We can love, share our love to other people. Feel compassionate to other people. Feel compassionate to other's suffering, other people's suffering. And then we sustain to other trees, love, forgiveness understanding actual, and we make our garden become more beautiful. Become bright. So I wish you a safe trip home to take good care of your garden. To clean up your home, with joy and happiness to celebrate a new year. Wherever you are and enjoy the happy new year. Thank you so much for your listening. (Bell rings) (Bell rings) (Silence) (Bell rings) (Silence) (Bell rings) (Silence) (Light bell rings)