WEBVTT

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(Bell)

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(Bell)

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(French) Dear Thay, dear Sangha,

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Here you say 'Be yourself, be beautiful'.

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But...

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Nature is really beautiful,

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but men and women,
physically,

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I don't think that it is always like that.

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For example,

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I cannot understand how you do

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when you are in front of us meditating,

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to be so sure of yourself physically.

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How do you know, for example
that your nose is not going to run.

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The human body is...

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I don't think it is so good

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if you don't wash yourself,
shave yourself and so on.

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It is not so beautiful.

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If you don't cut your hair,
you are not so beautiful.

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I don't understand how do you manage

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to feel so well physically.

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In front of us.

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How do you manage
to be so comfortable,

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to feel so beautiful in front of us.

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I don't understand.

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(Laughter)

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(Sister) Can you say it also in English?

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Here in Plum Village,
we say 'Be yourself, be beautiful'.

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When I look at most of the girls,

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I find them really beautiful.

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But when I look at people,

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sometimes I don't find them beautiful.

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So I don't understand why you say
'Be yourself, be beautiful'.

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Sometimes we are not beautiful.

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That is why we are here.

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We use make-up, for the women,

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we take care of our appearance, etc.

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I don't find myself so beautiful.

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(Sister) Our friend asks

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how are people to feel beautiful
and be in front of many people.

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Beautiful in this body.

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(Sister) To feel comfortable
in his own body.

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So confident in his body.

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(Sister) The microphone?

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(Man) I don't understand how you do
to be so confident in your body.

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Because my body always makes me flush.

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(inaudible)

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Interesting question.

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(Laughter)

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We agree with each other
that Mother Earth is beautiful.

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Right?

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She knows how to preserve her beauty.

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She does not need cosmetics.

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And yet she knows how to transform.

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She has the power of transformation

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and healing.

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We have to learn from her.

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To me, Mother Earth is a real bodhisattva.

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A very beautiful bodhisattva.

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Having a lot of virtues,

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like non-discrimination.

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Mother Earth does not discriminate.

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Mother Earth does not say,

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"You are beautiful,
you are not beautiful.

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I am beautiful,
I am not beautiful.'

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Mother Earth never says
'I am beautiful.'

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She is beautiful, but she never says
I am beautiful.

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(Laughter)

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If we practice well enough,

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we will see that we ourselves
are children of Mother Earth.

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You cannot deny it.

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Buddhas, bodhisattvas, saints,

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even terrorists,

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are children of the Earth.

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Right?

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As children of the Mother Earth,

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we carry Mother Earth inside of us.

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Right?

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Mother Earth is not only outside of us,

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she is also inside of us.

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If you look into yourself,
you see Mother Earth.

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You carry Mother Earth.

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If Mother Earth is beautiful,

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we are beautiful.

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There should be no complex.

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(Laughter)

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If Mother Earth is beautiful,

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we are beautiful also.

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The problem

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is whether we know
how to preserve our beauty.

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If Mother Earth has no discrimination,

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we have to learn

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non-discrimination as a virtue.

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This person is beautiful,
that person is not beautiful,

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I am beautiful enough,
I am not beautiful enough.

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That is discrimination.

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Since we have a lot of discrimination,

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we have a lot of fear,

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we are afraid
that we are not beautiful enough.

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We have no confidence.

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The problem is

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that...

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whether we know
how to preserve our beauty,

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and preserve the virtues

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that our beautiful Mother has.

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I think that
the teaching of the Buddha on love

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is very crucial,

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very helpful.

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Mother Earth is very loving.

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Very compassionate.

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Loving kindness

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and compassionate.

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She loves without discrimination.

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She does not prefer
one species over another.

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Can we do that?

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Mother Earth has a lot of compassion.

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She is able to help us heal

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if we know how to go back to her
and surrender to her.

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We can get the healing from Mother Earth.

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Our practice of Touching the Earth

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as our practice of walking meditation

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is to help us to go back to the Earth

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and get the healing that we need.

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Even the Buddha
practises Touching the Earth.

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There is a mudra called bhumisparsha,
'earth touching'.

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The Buddha is touching
the Earth with his hand.

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He is in connection with Mother Earth.

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We, humans,

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we lose that kind of contact
with Mother Earth.

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We are alienated
from Nature, from Mother Earth.

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That is why we become sick.

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Because of that lack
of non-discrimination, equanimity,

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we begin to suffer.

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We think that we are
more beautiful than someone else,

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we believe that we are
less beautiful than someone else,

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or we believe that
we are equally beautiful.

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This kind of complexes
make us suffer a lot.

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If we try to buy cosmetics,

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if we do plastic surgery,

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it is because we don't have confidence.

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We don't know that
we are beautiful like that.

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We think that in order to be beautiful

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you should be like that,
like this, like that.

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You have a notion of beauty.

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But for Mother Earth,

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non-discrimination is the way she looks.

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If we learn that way of looking,

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we can see that everything is beautiful.

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A swan is beautiful,
a horse is beautiful,

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a monkey is beautiful,
a frog is beautiful.

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A flower is beautiful,

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a grass blade is also beautiful.

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Everything is a wonder,

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everything is beautiful.

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Not only the lotus is beautiful,
but the mud is also beautiful.

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That is the mind of non-discrimination.

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You know that in Plum Village
we have the practice

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that has been invented for the children,

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the pebble meditation

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about beauty and freshness,

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and solidity and freedom.

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The children get four pebbles
and practise.

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The first pebble represents a flower.

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'Breathing in, I see myself as a flower.'

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You are born as a flower
in the garden of humanity.

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Look at the babies,
they are very beautiful.

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They are all flowers.

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Their face is truly a flower.

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Their tiny hand is a flower.

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Their tiny foot is a flower.

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The child is beautiful
when she sleeps,

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the child is beautiful when she plays.

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We, adults, we have lost
our beauty and freshness

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because we don't know
how to preserve that beauty.

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We cry too much.

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And our eyes are not limpid
and beautiful any more.

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We have many wrinkles
because we worry too much.

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Practising 'Breathing in,
I see myself as flower,

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breathing out, I feel fresh'

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is to restore your flowerness,
your freshness,

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that you have lost.

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Many of us have lost
some of our freshness and beauty.

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Beauty understood
the way Mother Earth has.

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If you are not fresh,
not natural, not beautiful,

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you are not happy,

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you have not much to offer
to the person you love.

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So the first pebble represents beauty,

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a flower, freshness.

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Breathing in, I see myself.
I do not imagine.

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I don't need to imagine

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because I am a flower
in the garden of humanity.

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I can restore my freshness, my beauty,

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even if I am over 80 years old.

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(Laughter)

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All persons can be beautiful,

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can be fresh also.

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Our practice of meditation
has to do with this.

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The second pebble represents a mountain.

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'Breathing in,
I see myself as a mountain,

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breathing out, I feel solid.'

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Solidity is part of
the beauty of the Earth.

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When you are not stable,
when you are not solid,

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people cannot count on you.

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Happiness is not possible
if you are not stable,

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if you are not solid.

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So to breathe like that is
to restore solidity, stability,

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and not to allow the past,
the future, the worries,

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to pull you away.

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You are solid.

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You are solidly established
in the present moment.

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Solidity is a part of...

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is a very important element of happiness.

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The third pebble represents peace, calm.

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Breathing in, I see myself as still water,

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peaceful, reflecting things as they are,

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not distorting.

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And if you are peaceful,

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not disturbed by anger and fear,

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then you are beautiful.

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That is what makes you happy,

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and that is what you offer
to the person you love.

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If you are not peaceful,

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you don't have much to offer him or her.

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Peace is possible with the practice
of mindful breathing,

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mindful walking,

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mindful embracing our sorrow, our fear.

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Peace is possible.

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And then the last pebble is freedom.

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'Breathing in, I see myself as space,

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breathing out, I feel free.'

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The moon is beautiful
because she has a lot of space around her.

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There will be a full moon in a few days.

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And we can practice
contemplating the moon together.

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So if we are free from worries,
fear, and anger,

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we are beautiful. We are happy.

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We are truly beautiful.

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And when you look at a person,

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if you see that person has freshness,

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has solidity, has freedom,

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you see real beauty.

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A person like that
does not need cosmetics.

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A person like that does not need
plastic surgery.

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And people like to come
and sit close to that person.

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If you have that kind of peace in you,

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that kind of space, freedom in you,

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that kind of solidity in you,

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you have confidence.

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If you don't wear lipsticks, powder

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and a good, expensive dress,

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you are beautiful anyway.

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Confidence comes from that.

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That is why the sentence

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'Be yourself, be beautiful'

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is to encourage people
not to seek beauty from the outside,

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not to have a complex

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and to be yourself
as a child of the Earth.

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Then you have true beauty.

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(Bell)

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(Bell)