(Half bell)
(Bell)
Dear Thay, dear Sangha,
I suffer a lot from my father...
He is...
It is difficult for me...
to see him...and...
it has almost become dangerous.
I don't want to see him anymore
and I have given him several chances to change
I have been forcing myself to go
now I can't.
And my question is:
Do I still have to try and change him,
and try to go to him
even though it is making me very tired?
Dear Thay, our friend said that
he has a lot of difficulties with his father.
It has been very difficult for him to see his father
and he feels that it has even become dangerous
and he has tried to force himself to go
to give his father many chances to change,
to transform,
but he feels that it has not been successful.
He feels that he cannot force himself to go anymore,
but he is asking Thay if he should to continue to try
to bring his father to transform, to change,
to push himself to try to help his father to change
In order to find the right answer,
we have to look first,
look more deeply,
to see the relationship between us and the other person,
whether you are son and father,
or whether you are daughter and mother,
or you are partner and partner.
And if you have difficulty with the other person,
and if you want to change him or her,
the first thing we should do is to look deeply into ourselves
and into that person
to realise....
to see the relationship, the connection.
Usually, we think that...
the other person is outside of us.
And that is not right view.
In this case,
we think that the father is outside of us
and we need only to change the outside and not the inside.
We need to see that our father is in us.
Our father is present in every cell of our body.
We have our father in us.
We are the continuation of our father.
And it may be easier for us to change our father inside of us first.
And we can do that 24 hours a day.
We don't need to go and see him,
talk to him in order to change him.
The way we breathe, the way we walk,
can change him in ourselves.
Invite him to walk with us,
to sit with us,
to smile with us.
And then the father inside of us will change.
Otherwise, you will grow up and behave exactly like him now.
There are many children who hate their father,
who promise that when they grow up,
they will not act and say things like their father.
But when they grow up,
they will act exactly like their father.
And they will say things exactly like their father.
That has happened many times, always.
So you hate it,
you don't want to do it,
you don't want to say it,
and yet you will do exactly like that,
and you will speak exactly like that.
And that is what we call in Buddhism, "Samsara", going around.
You continue your father,
not only with your body,
but also with your way of life.
So that is why when you encounter the Buddhadharma,
you have a chance.
You have to change your father in you first.
And when you have been able
to change the father inside of you,
he will not go to Samsara again.
You will not transmit that kind of habit to your children.
So you end the round of Samsara, going around...
recycle...
recycling...
And when the father inside has been transformed,
the transformation of the father outside will be much easier.
That is my experience.
I have fellow monks who are difficult.
(Laughs)
They are dignitaries in the church, in the Buddhist church.
They are very conservative....
....conservative...
They didn't allow transformation to take place in the...
in the community.
You know that in order to serve society,
you have to renew your community.
Whether your community is Christianity
or Buddhism or Islam or Judaism, right?
And many of us are eager to renew our tradition,
to serve our society and human beings better, right?
But there are so many conservative elements in the church.
So that is true in my case also.
But I noticed this very early. I said:
We have...
They are in us.
We have to change ourselves first.
So if you are a partner,
and your partner does not change.
Don't think that your partner is just outside of you.
Your partner is inside of you.
Even if you have divorced him or her.
Yesterday I received a question:
"Can we reconcile, can we begin anew with the one whom we have divorced?"
And this is exactly the question we have to answer
Because even...
In the beginning you believe that after the divorce,
then you can be yourself entirely,
and you can take him out of you completely.
That is wrong.
(Laughs)
You can never remove himself from you.
You can never remove herself from you.
No way!
So before you attempt to do something with the other person outside,
try to help him transform inside.
try to help her transform inside.
And...
with this practice,
we can succeed in transforming ourselves
and become a model.
We become fresh.
Our way is exactly the way we want him to be
So by speaking, by acting, by living,
you begin to change him.
You don't change him by talking
maybe talking cannot change him.
But your way of reacting, your way of acting, reacting,
your way of responding,
will help change that person.
Because he has also his intelligence,
and he can notice that.
And...
You know that...
to succeed in the work of changing oneself,
and changing the other person,
you also need a Sangha, you also need friends to support you.
That is why we have to take refuge in the Sangha.
We have to know how to make good use of the collective energy of the Sangha
to support our transformation and healing
and to help us transform the other person.
Don't be too eager to transform him right away.
We have to accept him as he is first.
We have to accept her as she is first.
And after acceptance, you feel much better already.
And you begin to change him inside of you.
This is a very deep practice.
And since our friend has been coming to Plum Village every year
and practiced with us since he was a small child,
I believe he can do it.
And we try to support him to do it.
Never lose our hope.
And...
the way not to lose our hope,
is to make progress everyday, by the practice, daily practice.
Thank you for asking the question.
It is very good.
(Half bell)
(Bell)