(Bell)
Dear Thay, dear Sangha
(SPANISH) At times I control a lot of anger coming up.
I keep it inside, but then it suddenly explodes.
I let it all out at once,
without knowing why and without being able to control it at that time.
When all my anger explodes
I hurt the other person and also myself a lot.
And then I do not have compassion for the other, because I'm not aware of it.
After I have calmed down and my anger has exploded and I let it out.
then I have compassion and I am aware that I made him suffer.
But in the moment I do it, I cannot do anything.
How can I do this?
Dear Thay, our friend is saying...
This is another question about anger.
She feels a lot of anger come up sometimes.
and she doesn't want to let it come out.
So she tries to keep it under control, she's pushing it down.
But then, at some point it explodes, it comes out
and she can hurt the other person.
She feels sorry to hurt the other person.
She feels compassion for the suffering she caused him.
And she wants to know how she can take better care of the situation.
Is she capable of seeing the suffering of the other person?
(FRENCH) Can she see the suffering in the other person?
And when?
Before or after the explosion?
I do see their suffering
but I still have the strong emotion come up.
What can I do with it?
To control is not enough.
To control may be to suppress.
Suppressing is not good,
because it is always there, you pin it down
but it is still there.
So suppressing is not good.
We have to transform.
And to transform you need compassion.
The only antidote for anger, violence is compassion.
There is no other way.
But how to fabricate compassion?
How to generate the energy of compassion?
That is the real question.
And in this retreat we have learnt to recognize the suffering?
Because the suffering in that person is
the cause of his action or of words that can make you suffer.
The anger in him waters the anger in you.
The violence in him waters the violence in you.
And that is why...we have to breathe in and out mindfully
and to look, to see that the other person is a victim
of his own violence, his own suffering, his own misunderstanding.
This is very important.
This is the teaching of the Buddha:
look at suffering and understand suffering.
When you understand your own suffering
you can understand the suffering of the other person.
Understanding suffering always brings compassion.
And only compassion can transform anger and violence.
There are those of us who think that we can...
we can take the block of anger out of us,
like doing surgery.
But you cannot do that with anger.
You cannot take anger out of you.
You can only transform it.
Anger can be transformed within into something else.
Anger can be transformed into understanding and compassion
And that is the work of the practitioner:
looking into the suffering,
your own suffering and the suffering of the other person,
and trying to understand the cause.
That is the way to generate the energy of compassion.
And when compassion is there it transforms anger.
You don't need to take it out.
There are those who try to take it out.
There are those who advise you to
take it out by the practice of so-called 'ventilation'.
It is like there is smoke in your room
and you want to ventilate the smoke to take it out.
And the way is to go to your room and lock your door
and to try to punch, to hit your pillow,
to hit for ten minutes, fifteen minutes.
And they believe that by doing so you may take anger out of you.
'I am aware that anger is there.'
'I want to take it out.'
Because they think it is safer to hit a pillow
then to hit the other person directly.
And they call it 'take it out of your system'.
But it does not work.
It does not work.
It may make your anger stronger.
It is like rehearsing your anger.
And they call it 'getting in touch with your anger'.
It's good to get in touch with your anger.
The Buddha also advises us to breathe in
and to go home and to get in touch with your anger
and embrace it tenderly and look deeply into your anger.
But in this practice of... pounding... the pillow
you don't really get in touch with your anger.
You are a victim of your anger.
You are not getting in touch.
You are not even in touch with the pillow...
(Crowd laughs)
even though you are hitting it,
because if you are really in touch with your pillow,
you will know that it is only a pillow.
(Crowd laughs)
It's funny to hit a pillow.
The pillow is innocent.
(Crowd laughs)
So if you cannot get in touch with the pillow
you cannot get in touch with your anger.
And if you continue like that
maybe one day, meeting him on the street, you may like to...
hit directly and you get in jail.
So this work does not seem to help you to get it out.
So according to this practice,
the practice that the Buddha recommends,
you have to come home and recognize anger
and try to hold it with the energy of mindfulness.
This is called mindfulness of anger.
Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something.
When I drink my tea and become aware that I am here and now drinking my tea
that is mindfulness of drinking.
And when I breathe mindfully, that is mindfulness of breathing.
When I walk mindfully, that is mindfulness of walking.
So when I come home to myself and recognize my anger and hold my anger
anger becomes the object of my mindfulness.
This is called mindfulness of anger
There are two energies.
First there is the energy of anger.
Then the second energy is the energy of mindfulness.
In order to have this energy
you have to practice breathing and walking mindfully.
And with the second energy, you recognize the first energy and embrace it tenderly.
You do not suppress it
but embrace it tenderly,
like a mother embracing her...
her suffering...baby.
And when the energy of mindfulness is embracing the energy of anger,
you suffer less.
It is like the sunshine embracing the lotus flower.
The lotus flower gets the warmth the energy, in order to bloom.
So when you use the energy of mindfulness in order to embrace your anger
you suffer less, you get a relief.
You suffer less.
And if you look more deeply you can identify the cause of your anger.
That may be a wrong perception.
That may be your lack of capacity to see the suffering of the other person.
And if you identify your wrong perception
or if you can see the suffering of the other person
suddenly that kind of understanding and vision makes compassion arise.
And when compassion arises,
that is a kind of nectar that makes you suffer less right away.
You get a relief.
And you can transform it.
And...
This...
This practice always works.
You know that in Plum Village, in the past we used to sponsor
groups of Palestinans and Israelis to come and practice.
And there is a lot of misunderstanding, anger and suspicion in each group.
And if they can stay for two weeks, transformation and healing can be possible.
We practice calming, releasing tension.
We practice getting in touch with the wonders of life in order to nourish us.
And we also practicing breathing
in order to recognize our suspicion, our fear, our anger.
And then we sit down and try to listen to each other
And we tell the other group about our own suffering, our own fear.
We use the practice of the fourth mindfulness training:
Loving Speech and Deep Listening.
You can tell them everything in your heart:
your suffering, your fear, your anger.
But you tell it in such a way that the other person, the other group
can understand you.
Help them to understand.
So during the time you speak, you do not condemn, you do not blame.
You just try to help them to understand how much you suffer,
you and your people and your children.
In that way you help them to understand your suffering.
And then it will be your turn to sit and listen to their suffering.
They will tell you
their suffering, their fear, their anger, their despair.
And you have to listen.
And during the time they speak
you may notice that they have wrong perceptions of you.
And you want to correct them.
But according to this practice you should not correct them.
Because if you correct them while they speak
you will transform the session into a debate.
That's not the practice of deep listening.
You say:
"Oh, they say wrong things because they have not seen the truth.
But I have the time to help them
to correct their perceptions in a few days,
because they will be there for another week.
So in a few days we will have a chance to tell them,
to give them the kind of information that can help them
to correct their perceptions.
But not now.
Now we have to listen,
listen attentively."
Listening like this is called 'compassionate listening'.
And if you know how to listen with compassion for one hour,
they will suffer less.
So we are practicing compassion.
We are giving them a chance to suffer less.
And that is the practice of the fourth mindfulness training:
listening with compassion in order to help other people to suffer less.
You may do it with your husband, your wife
with your son, with your daughter, with your father or mother.
And listen so that they have a chance to empty their heart.
That is compassion.
And after a week of practice we are able to remove many wrong perceptions.
We increase our mutual understanding.
And the two groups can sit down,
can hold hands to do walking meditation, and share a meal together.
Brotherhood, sisterhood is born.
So this is a very important practice.
And...
We believe that politicians have to learn this practice.
When they come to a peace negotiation,
they should follow the instructions of calming,
releasing,
recognizing suffering inside,
recognizing the suffering in the other person.
And if they spent one or two weeks practicing like that,
their negotiations for peace will be fruitful.
And I think that in schools of political science
students have to learn this kind of practice.
They don't need to be a Buddhist in order to learn it.
This is applied ethics that can be taught in every kind of school,
including elementary school.
Because children can learn the practice
and reconcile with their brothers and sisters
and reconcile with their parents
and even help their parents.
They are many retreats organized for young people, children.
And the children are transformed when they are able to see
the suffering in their father, in their mother.
And they come home after the retreat,
listen to their father and their mother
and help them to suffer less.
It's a miracle
It always happens in our retreats.
(Bell)