Breathing in, breathing out,
I am blooming as a flower,
I am fresh as the dew,
I am solid as a mountain,
I am firm as the earth,
I am free
I am Joanna Macy
and I want to introduce
four people tonight
I want to introduce a fighter,
a poet, a philosopher,
and a teacher brother.
Actually, it was the fighter
that I met first
before I ever saw him.
I was anguished and desperate
working in the anti Vietnam war movement
in the late sixties and seventies.
And a book came into my hand
Vietnam, a Lotus in a Sea of Fire
and everything was there.
The passion and the insight,
and such tremendous courage.
The next one I met was the poet
and that was when I saw him face to face.
It was June 1982 and
a special session on disarmament
at the United Nations.
There was a pre-conference
on the religious bases for
peace in this time
and disarmament
and there were many religious leaders
and church leaders there.
And you can kind of imagine
what that was like.
And what did I see, but this guy,
come in in a brown coat,
and he, he just stood there.
He didn't have sheafs of paper.
You remember that, Thay?
You just stood there.
And then reached into pockets, and said,
"Well, many important things have been said here.
"I don't think I can add anything,
"but I did write a poem on my way here."
And then he read it.
"Call me by my true names"
That's all he did.
And so I bow to the scholar
who teaches the mind,
helps us to look deeply.
And lastly, of the four, of course,
there is the teacher,
the meditation teacher,
and I think maybe most of you
have met him or know him
in that guise. In that role.
Maybe it was the first time you spoke
in Berkeley. I had prepared things to say
about you, and you said,
"Don't introduce me. Introduce the people
"and the audience to me." So I did.
I said, "Thay, these are my American
"brothers and sisters that live
"where I live, in Berkeley, California".
And I spoke of their concerns with their
moral responsibilities and with the
quality of their coffee in the morning.
[Laughter]
Since that time, you've come so often.
You have met so many of my brothers
and sisters that I think you maybe
know them better than I do.
And you've come, and not only have you
seen us and known us,
but you've helped us to see ourself.
To see reaches in us that we didn't
maybe know were there.
And all coming from something so simple,
The great gift of the miracle of life,
that we can pay attention.
Breathing in, I see you, Thich Nhat Hanh,
Breathing out, I smile.
Thank you Joanna.
My dear friends, I like to describe my practice,
my teaching, as the practice of arriving,
of going home.
There is a beautiful poem that we use
to practice arriving and going home.
It is like this.
I have arrived. I am home,
in the here and the now.
I feel solid. I feel free.
In the ultimate I dwell.
And of course, in my practice
mindful breathing with that poem.
When you breathe in, you practice arriving
I have arrived.
And when you breathe out,
you practice being at home.
I am home.
You may enjoy doing that several times,
and then you switch into
"in the here and the now".
It means, "I have arrived in the here.
"I am home in the now."
"I feel solid." That is when you breathe in.
"I feel free." That is while you breathe out
At first you may feel
that you are not so solid.
But if you continue the practice
you get more solid.
And you get freer.
And then the last line is,
"In the ultimate I dwell."
To me, it is very important to go home,
to arrive.
In order to make peace with ourselves,
with our society,
and with the people we love.
Sometimes we suffer a little bit too much,
and we want to go away,
to run away from home.
We have the impression that at home
there is only pain and suffering,
deception
and we go and take refuge
in something else.
Maybe in the past or the future,
or in our projects.
Even projects for social change.
Learning to go home, to arrive,
is important.
We go home to the present moment.
We go home to the here and the now.
Sometime we don't want to go home
because we have the impression
that it is not pleasant.
Back home there is things like violence,
fear.
Back home there is things like Haiti,
Somalia. We won't forget.
Going home, we are afraid of touching our fear
of touching the war within.
Sometime we find ourselves
at war with another person.
Maybe with our family,
with our society,
with our traditions.
But we may learn that
when we are at war with someone else,
there may be war within us.
And that is why
we don't want to go home.
Of course, there is war
within and around us.
But there is something else.
There is also peace and joy.
And you should learn to go home
in order to touch the joy and the peace
within us and around us.
And this is very important.
Because all of us need to be nourished
to be stable,
in order to be able to go further
to do something for the people around us.
I know many of you are very dedicated
to the cause of peace, of social justice,
but many of us feel, at times, lost,
angry, despair.
We are overwhelmed by the tremendous
suffering that is there around us
and even inside of us.
We need a source of energy,
a source of peace, of joy
in order to counterbalance
because we know that
if we do not have some amount
of peace, of joy, of happiness,
then we can't do anything.
We cannot continue.
The practice of arriving helps us
to touch the peace and the joy within
in order to get nourished.
And that practice will help us to generate
the energy of mindfulness
that will help us to touch the war
within and around us.
Because touching the war without strength,
without the energy of mindfulness,
may be dangerous.
We will be overwhelmed by it.
We will be shocked by it.
And therefore, before we learn to touch
the war within and around us
we should cultivate
the energy of mindfulness.
And that kind of cultivation
could be realised when
we learn to go home
and touch the peace and the joy in us.
[Bell]
In the Buddhist tradition
we usually talk about our consciousness
in terms of seeds,
in terms of bijas. 'Bijas' means 'seeds'.
We have seeds of peace,
of joy, of happiness.
There are seeds of war,
of anger, of despair, right within us.
There are seeds of peace and joy
and loving kindness within us
that need to be touched.
We should learn to touch them by ourselves
We should need our friends to come
and help touching them.
This is the practice.
I always encourage my friends
to begin the practice by touching peace.
Touching the positive seeds within us
and touching the positive seeds within
the other person.
It's pleasant.
It helps nourish each other.
And we know that touching,
the deepest kind of touching,
is with the energy of mindfulness.
And in Buddhist meditation,
to generate the energy of mindfulness
to touch peace is very crucial.
We are encouraged
not to touch the war first.
We are encouraged not to touch the pain
the despair, the suffering first.
And touching peace, we can do
as individuals
we can do as a community,
we can do as a nation.
And it is pleasant.
I may like to touch my eye
with the energy of mindfulness.
I have the energy of mindfulness
which is generated by
the practice of mindful breathing.
Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
That is the practice of touching your breath
and that practice is called 'mindfulness of breathing'.
Now I use that energy of mindfulness to touch my eye.
Breathing in, I am aware of my eyes Breathing out, I smile to my eyes.
When I touch my eyes with the energy of mindfulness like that,
I find out that my eyes are still in good condition.
If I touch my eyes deeply, I realise
that having eyes in good condition is wonderful too.
Without my eyes, without the ability to look and see things,
I would suffer very much.
You only need to open your eyes and look
and you see many wonders of life around us.
The blue sky, the beautiful sunset
the face, the eyes, the smile of your beloved ones.
You touch these things, these people, with mindfulness
And you realise that to be alive, to be able to look at them deeply
is happiness.
Happiness is something simple.
When you have mindfulness and you get nourished by that kind of touching,
when you touch the eyes with mindfulness
you know that your eyes are the condition of peace and happiness
and joy for you.
You know peace is there.
When you notice that there are trees dying you know that it is a negative thing.
Touching these things, you suffer.
But when you touch beautiful trees that are still alive, healthy,
you realise how wonderful to still have them around us.
When you touch these beautiful trees, you get nourished.
And you make the vow to do whatever you can,
in order to protect them, to keep them alive.
So touching peace is to give peace a chance.
Let us practice this exercise of touching together.
Let us touch our heart.
Breathing in, I am aware of my heart.
Breathing out, I smile to my heart.
When I touch my heart deeply like that I know that my heart is there,
and it is a good news.
My heart is a condition of peace and well being and joy for me.
But if I don't touch, I may cause harm to my heart,
and I don't get happy.
My heart has been working hard day and night to keep me alive,
to give me well-being,
to pump the blood to irrigate every cell of my body.
And when I touch it deeply like that I feel thankful to my heart
My heart is a living thing.
And when I touch it with my mindfulness, my loving kindness, my heart will feel it.
It feels very comforted by my touching.
And if we touch our heart deeply like that we would know what to do
and what not to do in order to support our heart.
We would know what to eat, what not to eat.
what to drink and what not to drink in our daily life
in order to be of support to our heart.
We find out that smoking is not a very friendly act
directed to our heart.
We know that drinking alcohol is not a friendly act directed to our heart.
And if we continue touching like that we stop smoking, drinking alcohol,
and we protect the peace, the well being, and the joy within us.
We may spend a lot of time thinking of other things.
We may not have enough opportunity to go back
and touch the conditions of peace and well being inside.
We live in forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness is the opposite of mindfulness.
We live our daily life in such a way that we destroy the peace, the stability,
the joy in our body.
We bring elements of war into our body.
Mindfulness is the capacity to be aware of what is happening in the present moment.
If we eat mindfully, if we drink mindfully,
if we do things mindfully so they are under the light of mindfulness,
we know what to do in order to bring the elements of peace and joy
to our body and to our feelings.
We know what not to ingest in order to prevent the toxins, the poisons
to enter our body and our consciousness.
And it is possible that we practice that together.
"If you love me, please help me to be mindful, and please help to touch
"the positive, healing and refreshing elements within me.
"Touch my peace and joy, my seed of joy.
"Touch the seed of loving kindness in me.
"Touch the seed of happiness in me.
"Please do not touch the seed of anger in me.
"Please do not touch the seed of despair and violence in me.
"I will suffer, and you will suffer too."
So if we might like to practise together.
Sometime we suffer a little too much and we blame the other person
as the cause of our suffering.
Our partner. Our son. Our daughter. Our parents.
We blame them. We consider them to be the cause of our suffering.
In fact, they do suffer like us too.
And our enemy is not the other person.
Our enemy is the seed of despair, anger, frustration, fear, in every one of us.
You are not my enemy.
I want you to practice with me in order to transform the seeds of suffering
in me and in you.
Because we all suffer the same thing.
But if partners suffer, we should try not to look at the other person
as the cause of our suffering.
We should bring together our intelligence,
our talent, our mindfulness, in order to work for the transformation
of the negative things in both of us.
The tension that exists within us prevents us from helping each other.
Since we know that we are victims of the same kind of suffering,
why don't we come together?
And my ideal practice is that when we come together,
we practice touching the positive things first
We practice looking deeply in order to see the seeds of peace, of joy,
of talent, of happiness in ourselves and in the other person.
We recognise each other's value because everyone has his or her own talent
and strength and positive values.
Everyone has jewels within himself or herself.
Looking deeply into the other person, in order to recognise these jewels,
and tell him, and tell her. Appreciating these values is a very wonderful practice.
[Bell]
Maybe we can do this exercise.
We sit and practise breathing in and out
and identify the positive seeds in the other person.
And then to tell the other person that we have seen them.
We appreciate them. And we would like to help watering these seeds
so that they become more important.
And that is the kind of practice that you should begin first.
After some time, the flowers in us will grow.
And the garbage in us will diminish.
When the two warring parties come to a peace conference,
they always begin by accusing each other,
touching the negative things in each other first.
They could make the tension more important.
I suggest that a third party should be there
and practice what we would call, in Buddhist tradition, 'flower watering'.
A third party may be presiding over the first meeting,
and begin to talk about the positive things of each side,
the values, the jewels, and the tradition of both sides,
so that the other side will be aware of them
and it will have more respect, more appreciation of the other side.
We have the tendency to believe that the other side is worth nothing.
It is only bandits.
Let us imagine that the PLO and the state of Israel coming together
and practice that.
Because each nation, each tradition has values, has jewels within it.
That even the people within the group do not want to touch
because they are so angry, they are so busy.
And that is why there is war even in the inside of each party.
Each side.
It's true that in the PLO, many people don't agree with each other
as to how to handle the problem.
The same thing is true with the people in Israel.
People may have different kinds of ideas and they force each other.
The practice I offer is that each side go back to their own roots and values
and practice touching these beautiful healing, refreshing elements
within their tradition, their culture.
And after that, each side will restore the balance
will breathe more easily, will have more harmony within.
And then it will be much easier to talk with the other side.
The same thing is true with two persons.
When two persons are in a conflict
the fear, the frustration is too big.
It's difficult for them to reconcile, to make peace.
The practice of touching peace, touching the positive elements within us
will be very helpful.
There are many seeds, positive, wonderful,
that have been transmitted to us by our ancestors.
It may be that during our lifetime
we are not capable of touching these beautiful seeds.
We only allow people to water the negative seeds in us.
And that is why it is so important to go back to our roots,
to go back to ourselves, and touch these beautiful seeds.
And then we may do it together. We may help each other.
[Bell]
In the realm of our feelings there may be also a war on.
Feelings opposing each other.
We suffer. We don't want to go home.
But each feeling is a manifestation of a seed in us,
the seed of anger, the seed of fear, the seed of distrust.
But there are other seeds in us that are more positive.
It is very important for us to practise touching these seeds
so they will produce wonderful, refreshing feelings
in order for us to be nourished.
In the teaching of Buddhism,
we have all kinds of seeds deep in our consciousness.
And when these seeds are watered, are touched,
they will bloom in the upper level of our consciousness
as mental formations.
Fear is a mental formation.
Joy is a mental formation.
Mindfulness is a mental formation.
Despair is a mental formation. Hope is a mental formation.
Loving-kindness is a mental formation.
In forgetfulness, we don't know how to touch these positive seeds.
We allow ourselves and the people around us
to touch our negative seeds.
Then our mental formations will be of negative nature.
And they will destroy us.
Because when a negative seed manifests itself
on the upper level of our consciousness,
the seed will be strengthened at the base.
If we get angry for two hours, during these hours
the seed of anger keeps growing to be more important.
And therefore it will be very important to learn how to touch the positive seeds.
Seeds of joy and peace.
Suppose you have a sister who has the talent of flower arrangement.
And if your sister is not so happy you may try to touch the seed
of flower arrangement within her.
You say, "My sister, it has been a long time you did not offer us a
"flower arrangement. You know, every time you arrange flowers,
"you make the whole family happy.
"How wonderful to have a pot of flowers arranged by you!"
That is flower-watering practice.
You tell the truth, because you realise that that seed is in her.
First she may not have a reaction.
But maybe, half an hour later, she will take a pair of scissors
and she will go to the garden and try to find a beautiful branch of flowers.
And during the time she goes around like that, she waters by herself
the seed of flower arrangement, the seed of happiness in her.
And if she spends half an hour arranging the pot of flowers,
she also continues to practice watering her seed of happiness.
It is not so difficult.
We practice watering the positive seeds by ourselves.
And we will help water the positive seeds in the other person.
And she will help also to do the same kind of thing.
In a relationship we should learn that practice.
It's easy. It's pleasant. It's very healing.
After having practised for a few weeks
touching the positive things with your energy of mindfulness,
your mindfulness has become more important.
And with that energy you might begin touching
the unpleasant things within you and in the other person.
Suppose someone comes and says something that makes me angry.
I know now how to practise taking good care of my anger.
I wouldn't say anything or do anything yet.
I know that the most important thing now is to take good care of my anger.
Breathing in, I touch my anger.
Breathing out, I am taking good care of my anger.
My anger is an energy.
My mindfulness is another kind of energy.
The energy of mindfulness is embracing the energy of anger
in a most tender way.
That is a practice called, "mindfulness of anger".
We don't try to suppress our anger.
We practise embracing our anger. We know that our anger is us.
Mindfulness holding anger like a mother holding a baby.
And if you know of mindful breathing
you can nourish the energy of mindfulness to be there
in order to take good care of your anger.
If your mindfulness is not strong enough, a friend of yours can help you.
One friend, two friends who know the practice
may like to sit close to you hold your hand,
breathe in and out mindfully and help you to touch your anger
with her or his mindfulness.
You feel stronger in the presence of someone like that.
You know that when your little boy or little girl is agitated,
if you hold his or her hand and you breathe in and out calmly
and if you ask him or her to breathe calmly
the two kinds of energy will be combined.
And you'll be able to calm, to stabilise the child very easily.
So when we practise touching the negative things in us,
the despair, the anger, the frustration,
if we feel that our energy of mindfulness is not strong enough,
and then we ask a friend, the one who we trust,
to sit close to us, and we practise together.
That is what we call practising in a sangha.
Sangha means a community of practice.
If you practise alone, it will be more difficult.
But if you practise among other people, who practise the same
you get the support.
You help your brothers and sisters when they need you,
and they will help you when you need them.
[Bell]
In the Buddhist tradition we always consider the community of practice
as a jewel.
I take refuge in my sangha.
Sangha means the community of practice.
Sometime you lose your practice but the sangha will always rescue you,
help you to restore your practice, until your practice becomes strong
so that you can help other people also.
Taking refuge in the sangha is not a matter of belief.
It is a matter of practice.
And you might like to transform your partner, your parents,
your son, your daughter into your sangha.
It is possible to do so if you practice well enough.
You become more pleasant, more smiley and you'll be able to convince him or her.
You may give a book or a tape on the practice.
And if you are able to convince a friend or a partner to the practice,
you get supported by that person.
Anyone of us would need a sangha.
If you are a social worker, if you are a doctor,
if you are a therapist, if you are a politician,
if you are a teacher, well, you all need a sangha
to get supported.
Sangha building is very crucial for our survival.
I have arrived. That's what you practice when you breathe in.
Whether in a position of sitting or walking.
Make a step, breathe in, and say, "I have arrived."
Don't be afraid of going home.
Because, going home, you learn touching the most beautiful things at home.
Home is in the present moment.
"I have arrived. I am home."
"In the here and the now."
Because it is only in the here and the now that you can touch life.
Of course, life, there is suffering in life.
But there are many wonders in life.
If you do not go back to the present moment,
how could you touch the beautiful sky,
or the beautiful sunset,
or the beautiful face of your child?
If you do not go home, how could you touch your heart,
your lungs, your liver, your eyes, in order to give them a chance?
Going home, you will be able to touch the wonders of life,
the elements that are refreshing, healing and beautiful.
That is very important.
When you practice sitting meditation, you practice arriving
in order to touch many wonderful things.
First of all, the fact that you are alive.
The fact that you are alive is a miracle.
"Breathing in, I know I am alive."
"Breathing out, I know I do not miss my appointment with life."
Your appointment with life is in the present moment.
And if you don't learn how to arrive, to go back to the here and now,
you miss life.
Everything that is wonderful must be touched in the present moment.
In a discourse called, "The Discourse on the Better Way to Live Alone",
the Buddha taught us that we should not get lost in the past.
We should not get lost in the future.
We have to go back to the present moment,
and observe, and live deeply, life in the present moment.
That is the most ancient text on how to live in the present moment.
The present moment contains the past.
The present moment is made of the past.
And if you touch deeply the present moment
you touch the past.
The past is still available.
And the damage that was caused in the past can be repaired also
because the past is there, deep in the present moment.
If I touch the present moment deeply, I touch also the past
and I can transform it.
The future will be made of the present moment.
There's no use worrying about the future.
The best way to take care of the future is to take good care of the present moment
If you do your best to handle the present moment,
you have done everything for the future.
That is why, to practice arriving home in the here and the now is very important.
Maybe, in the beginning you might have the impression that home is not so sweet.
But with the energy of mindfulness, you will find your home sweet.
And if it happens that you have to touch the unpleasant things at home,
you know that touching them with mindfulness will help to transform them.
Our despair, our anger, our irritation,
when touched with the energy of mindfulness,
will be transformed.
And that is why touching the positive things
in order to get nourished
and to cultivate the energy of mindfulness
is very crucial in the beginning.
After that, our energy of mindfulness will be strong enough
to allow us to touch the more, the negative elements
within and around us.
And we do it together also.
[Bell]
In the practice of Buddhist meditation, we learn to touch our body as a river.
Because our body always changes.
We learn to touch our feelings as a river.
And we learn to touch our perceptions as a river too.
The Buddha taught us that most of our suffering comes from our wrong perceptions
It's very important to use the energy of mindfulness
and touch deeply our perceptions.
Our perceptions are very often wrong.
And because of that, we accuse the other person.
We accuse other people as the origin of our pain,
our suffering.
In fact, our wrong perceptions are the cause of our pain.
Walking in the twilight, we may mistake a piece of rope as a snake.
And we scream, we run off.
That is a wrong perception.
That kind of perception is very usual in our daily lives.
That is why it is so important to practice and generate
the energy of mindfulness, in order to go back
and touch our perceptions.
The Buddha said, most of our perceptions are wrong.
At least, they have elements that are wrong in our own perceptions.
The purpose of Buddhist meditation is described as the practice of calming,
stopping, concentrating, in order to look deeply into the heart of things.
If you don't stop, if you don't calm, if you don't concentrate,
you have no energy for looking deeply.
The first part of the practice is called samatha. Stopping, calming, concentrating.
And that can be done with sitting, breathing mindfully.
The second part of the practice is called vipashyana. It means deep looking.
And these aspects of the practice help you to discover
the true nature of what is.
And the insight you get will be able to liberate you from your own suffering.
So misunderstanding is the root of our suffering.
And when we misunderstand, we accuse the other person
as the root of our suffering.
The practice, according to the practice you have to help each other.
You have to come together and deal with your real enemy,
wrong perceptions.
And in each of us there is a habit that is the cause of so much difficulties.
I know of a French lady who left home at the age of seventeen,
who went to England and lived because she was so angry at her mother.
She wanted to forget France, to forget her mother.
But thirty years later, she touched a book on Buddhism,
and she had the desire to go home, and reconcile with her mother.
The desire to go back and reconcile was very strong in her.
And that desire, that willingness, is strong also in the person of the mother
So both sides wanted to reconcile and to make peace.
But every time they met, there was an explosion of anger on both sides.
Because the seed of suffering had been cultivated for a long time.
It has become a kind of habit energy that dictate both of them.
The willingness to reconcile is not enough.
The willingness to make peace is not enough.
We need to practice.
So I asked her to come to stay in Plum Village for a few - where I stay
and practice - to come to Plum Village and stay for two months for the practice.
She practiced walking meditation, sitting and breathing,
eating in mindfulness, drinking tea in mindfulness,
flower watering.
The energy of mindfulness cultivated by that daily practice,
she used to touch the seeds of anger
and to touch the habit energy of reacting like a machine
every time the seed of anger is watered.
And I advised her to write a letter of reconciliation
from time to time, to her mother.
Write it in mindfulness.
During the time of writing that letter, her seed of suffering and anger
was not watered by her mother.
Her mother was not there, so it was much easier to write
a letter of reconciliation.
And to write such a letter is also to practice deep looking
into herself, and into the person of her mother.
A number of months later, she was transformed.
And the letter that she wrote, her mother read, one after one.
And during the time reading this letter,
she got the effect of flower arrangement,
her values were recognised.
She restored the balance.
These things, you can do.
We all can do.
[Bell]
Before I continue, I would like to invite you to breathe in and out a few times,
and then tell you how to stretch, imitating a palm tree.
[Bell]
In our daily life, we are often distracted.
Our body may be there but our mind is not there.
So we are not really present.
Our beautiful child may be coming, our beautiful little boy or girl,
may be coming, smiling her beautiful smile.
She wants to get some of our attention.
But since we are caught in the future,
in our projects, or in our regrets,
we are not available to our child.
And our child is not available to us.
Life is not possible.
That is why, a few mindful breathing may help us to go back
and to become available to our child, to life.
And mindfulness of breathing may help you to be present in order to encounter life.
If you love someone, the greatest gift that you can make to him or her
is your presence.
If you are not there, how could you love?
And therefore, the most meaningful declaration, when you are in love, is this
"Darling, I am there for you."
Your presence is very important for him or for her.
And that cannot be bought with money.
That could only be practiced by mindfulness.
So breathe in and breathe out mindfully, and make yourself available
to your beloved one.
That is a practice of mindfulness.
"Darling, I am there for you."
When you are there, the energy of mindfulness is there,
and that energy helps you to recognise the presence of the other.
If you are not there, how can you recognise her presence? Or his presence?
That is why mindfulness is the energy that helps you to recognise the presence
of the other. "Darling, I know that you are there, and I am happy."
So you embrace the person you love with the energy of mindfulness.
That is the most nourishing thing for him or for her.
Otherwise she will die slowly.
You are there, but you are not really there.
Your presence is not true, not real because you are not mindful.
If the person you love does not get your attention,
your mindfulness, she dies slowly.
Especially when the person you love suffers,
your presence is most important to her, or to him.
That is why, when you see the person you love suffer
you have to make yourself available right away.
"Darling, I know that you suffer."
"I know that you suffer, and that is why I am there for you."
That is the practice of mindfulness.
And you know how to do it.
You might use sitting, walking, breathing.
All these practices aim at making you available, present.
And if you yourself suffer, you have to do the same thing.
You have to practice being there, by breathing in and out,
holding your suffering with your mindfulness.
Then you go to the person you love and trust and tell her, tell him,
"Darling, I suffer. Please help."
These are very simple words to say.
If your love is true, you should be able to tell him or tell her that you suffer
and that you need her help, or his help.
If you cannot go to him or her, and say that something is wrong
in your relationship, your love is not true enough.
In true love, pride does not have a place.
Pride should not prevent you from going to him or to her
and to tell him or her that you suffer and you need him or her to help.
We are rooted in each other.
I need you in order to survive.
One day, in the Upper Hamlet of Plum Village,
I happened to see a young lady walking alone.
And I had the feeling that she is not a human being.
She was like a ghost.
I knew right away that she was one of the hungry ghosts of our society.
Coming from a broken family, coming from a society
that does not recognise you, that has made you suffer.
Coming from a tradition that is not capable of nourishing you,
communicate to you.
In the past twelve years, I have met several hungry ghosts like that.
They are without any root.
They don't believe in their family.
They get angry at their parents.
They get angry at their society.
They get angry at their traditions.
They want to leave everything behind.
And they go around looking for something to belong to.
Looking for something beautiful.
Something rooted, something true to believe in.
Many of them have come to practice centres like Plum Village.
It's very difficult to help these people.
They have no roots. It's very difficult for them to absorb the teaching
because they don't trust easily.
You have to do your best in order to earn their trust before you can help.
Our society is organised in such a way that we produce tens of thousands
of hungry ghosts everyday.
They have not received love from their parents, their society,
their tradition.
Nobody has understood them. That is why they are very hungry
of love and understanding.
And they are looking for something to believe in.
And hungry ghosts, even if they have a big belly like this,
they have a very tiny throat,
as small as a needle, it is described in the sacred text.
Hungry ghosts have a throat that is as small as a needle.
So even if you have a lot to offer,
it is very difficult for them to absorb.
Even if you have plenty of food, plenty of water, plenty of love,
to offer, it is difficult for them to absorb
because nobody has understood them, nobody has loved them,
they suspect everything, they suspect everyone.
We have helped a certain number of hungry ghosts like that.
We know that it is difficult.
We know that we need each other in order to help.
We have to recognise our society in such a way that we
stop producing more hungry ghosts.
It is very important.
We should practice looking deeply in order to be able to understand
these hungry ghosts, and not to continue to blame them.
Because they have not received any understanding,
and therefore, any love.
[Bell]
Each person, in order to be happy and stable
should have at least two families.
The first is the blood family
in which father and mother represent the youngest generation of ancestors.
If your parents are happy with each other,
they'll be able to transmit to you the values of your ancestors.
The love and trust that are in them in the form of seeds.
And you have roots in your blood family.
If you are on good terms with your parents you are connected with your ancestors
through your parents.
But if you are not on good terms with your parents, you get disconnected
with all your ancestors.
You become a person without roots.
And you can become very easily a hungry ghost.
The other family is the spiritual family.
You also have ancestors.
And if the people who represent your traditions are not happy enough,
if they have not been lucky enough in order to receive the jewels
of your tradition,
they would not be able to transmit them to you.
They could not be able to understand you and your needs.
They could impose on you things you don't like.
Communication between them and you is not possible.
You suffer, and you want to get away from your own traditions.
And if you are in bad terms with your rabbi, with your pastor,
with your priest, you get disconnected with your spiritual ancestors.
And you become a hungry ghost.
And having so much suffering within yourself,
you make the person you love suffer.
And if you have children, you make them suffer also.
And they too will become hungry ghosts.
That is why it is so important to practise looking deeply
to find out what is wrong with our family.
What is wrong within our blood family.
What is wrong within our spiritual family.
The practice of mindful looking may be very helpful
in order for you to understand your parents
and the people who represent your tradition.
If your parents cannot embody the values of your ancestors,
if your priest, your rabbi, your pastor cannot embody the values
of your tradition, there must be causes.
We have to look deeply.
And when we are capable of looking deeply,
the insight will come, and that will help us to accept,
to have compassion.
And going back home to help our parents.
To help our rabbi, our priest, our pastor,
will become possible.
There is a young American who came to Plum Village
and told me that he was so angry at his father, to the point that even after his
father's passing away, he still could not reconcile with him.
And I helped him, by the teaching of the emptiness of transmission.
Emptiness of transmission is a way of looking deeply in order to recognise
that you are one with your parents.
You are only a continuation of your parents.
Getting angry at your parents is to get angry at yourself.
When we talk about transmission,
we talk about the one who transmits,
we talk about the object transmitted,
and we talk about the receiver of the transmission, three things.
When you have a chance to take a shower,
when you take a shower, you have a chance to look at your body
as the object of transmission.
And you think of your parents as the transmitters.
Your body, your consciousness, as the object transmitted.
And you are the receiver of the transmission.
But looking deeply, we see that three of them are empty
of a separate self.
The question we ask is, what did your parents transmit?
And if you practice looking deeply, you see that
your parents transmit themselves to you.
Your body, and all the seeds that you carry within your consciousness,
are your parents.
They did not transmit anything less than themselves.
All the seeds of suffering, all the seeds of happiness and talent
they received from the ancestors, they have transmitted everything to you.
So the transmitters and the transmitted one and you are also one
with the object transmitted.
So you cannot escape the fact that you are only the continuation
of your father. You are your father.
And to reconcile with your father, is to reconcile with yourself.
There is no other way.
That young man, he put a picture of his father on his desk.
And put a little lamp. Every time he goes to his desk,
he would look in the eyes of his father, and practise breathing in and out.
And to touch the fact that he is his father.
He is only a continuation of his father.
And he realised the fact that his father was not capable of transmitting to him
the seeds of love and trust that lie deep in his consciousness.
Because he did not have the capacity to do so.
He was not helped by anyone to touch these seeds
in order to get nourishment.
And of course, the seed of trust and love in him was covered up by
so many layers of suffering.
And when you have become aware of that, you can forgive
you can understand.
There is a wonderful guided meditation on the five year old boy
that we used to offer to hungry ghosts who come to Plum Village.
"Breathing in, I see myself as a five year old boy. Or girl.
"Breathing out, I smile to that five year old boy or girl, who is me."
And that you practise for one or two weeks.
A five year old boy or girl is always very vulnerable.
Very fragile.
A stern look may already hurt him or her.
A shout may already hurt him or her.
That is why we are very fragile when we are five.
And if you see yourself as a five year old boy like that,
And if you breathe out and smile to you
the smile will be the smile of compassion.
Understanding.
I suffer because, as a five year old boy, I was deeply wounded.
And two weeks later, I could give him the other half of that practice.
"Breathing in, I see my father as a five year old boy.
"Breathing out, I smile to the five year old boy that was my father."
Maybe you have not imagined that your father could be
a five year old boy, but he was a five year old boy.
He had been a five year old boy.
And if you are capable of breathing in and seeing your father
as a five year old boy,
you would see that he is also fragile.
Vulnerable.
Easily to get hurt.
And he may be like you, the victim of your grandpa.
And practise like that.
Smiling to that five year old boy with compassion.
One day you will understand that your father is also a victim.
That is why he was not capable of nourishing himself
with the seed of love and trust.
And if you don't practise, that seed of love and trust in you
will remain very small.
And tomorrow, when you have a child
you will do exactly like your father.
The wheel of samsara.
And many have profited from that exercise.
They have gone back to help their own parents.
And through their parents, they get connected again
with their ancestors.
And the same practice can be directed to your tradition.
Your spiritual family.
If you understand, by the practice of mindfulness,
you may discover that there are values in your own tradition.
I always tell my students that the equivalent of mindfulness
could be seen in the tradition of Judaism and Christianity.
And when you have practised mindfulness in a Buddhist centre,
you may discover that these jewels are also in your own tradition.
And you are urged to go back in order to help out,
to rediscover these values for your own nourishment
and the nourishment of your children.
Because, a person without roots cannot be a happy person.
Getting back and touch our roots and rediscover the positive seeds
the jewels within our tradition, blood or spiritual,
is a very important practice.
And the practice of mindfulness can help.
[Bell]
My dear friends, it's 9.30.
I like to ask Sister Chan Khong, True Emptiness
to offer you a song on mindfulness practice.
Thank you for being there, mindful.
[singing in Vietnamese]