Dear friends,
please enjoy your breathing one more
time as we listen to the sound of the bell
With the inbreath, just feel refreshed,
breathing in fresh oxygen
breathing out, letting go
[three sounds of the bell]
With all respect to our beloved teacher
Thay and to our other brothers
and sisters who are with us, and with
the sangha and our friends here
This is a happy moment
we are surrounded by all my brothers
and sisters here
my sister Dieu Nghiem next to me
and the sangha is gathered
and on behalf of our teacher, who is in
San Francisco
we thank you for coming to support the
sangha
and being here with us this evening
Our teacher's deepest wish has always been
to build a community
a beloved community
as he shared his conversation with Martin
Luther King
that's our teacher's deepest wish,
is to form a family, a spiritual family
and so, tonight, sitting here among my
brothers and sisters,
I think this is one of the few times where we manifest like this
to, in a way, continue our teacher
as he is not physically here
So we thank you for coming together
This is something our teacher always gets
nourished by, and so do we
Tonight we, my sister Dieu Nghiem, she's
my oldest sister
she's asked me to share first so I will,
I tried to get her to share for us
this is the first time we're doing this,
She was supposed to represent the Dharma
and I was supposed to represent the
humor, I guess
just to let you know that that's,
I guess, the intention
tonight, just being together already,
I think we know how powerful it is
when people gather with the same intention
To learn, to open up, to really touch
something deeper
than what we normally do outside
I think that's the truth that I'm feeling
This e vening, the talk we're supposed to
share,
the theme, “Stop waiting and start living”
is quite American
When I found out that's what it was,
I was quite “wow, this is like a subtitle
somewhere” but it is
and I reflected on the theme of waiting
this morning we had a walk in the park
over here
and we sat in front of, I think, George
Washington, the statue,
and there were people protesting, voicing
support for the Syrian people, refugees
We sat there, I don't know how long
but it was very peaceful,
to be sitting there and supporting that
effort and acknowledging and being there
and contributing our peace,
and then sharing lunch
I had the chance to touch deeply
and be reminded that I was a refugee
myself, our family,
In 1979, our family escaped Vietnam on a
boat with maybe 200, 300 people,
and I was maybe six, seven years old
I touched that, sitting there in the park,
'cause we heard some of the voice and some
of the speech
we also know that this country is built
on that,
refugee, we all come from somewhere,
but not from this land, this continent,
most of us at least
so I feel grateful to be here and
reflected on our time where we were in the
refugee camp, my family,
and we were waiting for some
country to sponsor us
I find out later, as a kid I was just
playing around in the refugee camp,
throwing rocks and things,
we were on an island off of Hong Kong,
and, reflecting,
there was this huge warehouse,
maybe the size of this auditorium
and we were all, each family had little
spots, mats on the floor
and that was our waiting spot
until someone, some country or some place
sponsor us
and we were sponsored by a
Christian family in Oregon
for us to come over
and I think this is, there was a lot of
movement back then
between the Buddhist community and
the Christian community, to help
so many churches rose to the occasion
to gather and sponsor one family
and I remember another family that
sponsored us, the church actually,
is not just one family but I remember
it was many families from that church
and they each contributed something,
they bought a hous e for our family,
it was a two story house
they bought it and they filled it up with
furniture and food and everything
and I remember opening the cabinet full of
food and canned food and all kinds of food
and I couldn't believe how much food
was in that house
as well as toys, there was a room
full of toys
I think they collected from other
church members
and I remember opening the door and
seeing toys
and didn't know how to play some
of them I remember, 'cause it was so new
and the top floor was maybe 4 or 6 rooms,
there was many rooms and they wanted,
my mom and dad, there was four of us,
so they gave us each a room
I had a room, my sister had a room,
my brother had a room
even though they were little, they each
had a room
but we ended up staying in one room
my parents' room
in fact, I think my two brothers, and
I think I did too
we slept on this huge bed
you know, that's what we were used to
at the refugee camp
So that's, you know, sitting there in the
park today,
these memories of, of you know,
of having a place to come back to
and feeling grateful,
my mom kept in touch with our,
they call them sponsors
I never actually learned their names,
because around the house
they were just mentioned as sponsors
and this is a beautiful image
of people coming together
to help those in need
and this is what I remember around the
house growing up
my mom once in a while
would take a trip up to Oregon
and meet with our sponsor
and many other families
this is,
so the theme of waiting came up,
of waiting for a place to come,
to take refuge in
this is an important theme for me
'cause it's been a theme for
my whole family, my parents
as well as my grandparents, they
had to escape China after the revolution
and then my parents escaping (to) America
and then I guess my turn is, I kind of,
my turn is to escape America I guess
in terms of actually growing up in
Los Angeles, in the city,
confronting a lot of suffering
as well as a young person
in a way, becoming a monk, now I see,
another way of looking at it is taking
refuge or how shall I, a full-time refugee
I'm a full-time refugee now
and I'm always taking refuge
and this is a wonderful way to remind
myself, as I was sitting there in the park
What am I taking refuge in?
What am I waiting for?
Am I waiting for another sponsor,
another country?
And as I follow my breath, I realize that
what my teacher has taught me is
I take refuge in my breath
and taking refuge in the island
within myself
and the breath that saved me
once, when I learned from my teacher
what the power of the breath is
when you simply take an inbreath,
conscious inbreath, we become aware
of the inbreath coming in
when we breathe out, we let go
we let that outbreath penetrate
let it come from every cell of your body
feel the lightness as you breathe out
and I remember training like that,
sitting still
in the forest in France in our monastery
or in the bamboo grove
and I remember taking refuge in my breath
as I feel the breath into my body
every time we take a conscious breath
and we bring our mind to the breath
is a break from all of
the thinking, all the worries,
all the anxiety that we have,
that we're used to, we're so used to be
thinking and using our mind
and being constantly occupied
is always talking, a lot of
stimulation in our minds
and we don't know what it feels like
to actually just let it go
and just come back to the breath
When we come back to the breath
our minds come back to our body
return to our body
sometimes we are present, with our body
but our mind is somewhere else
and you can see that phenomenon
happening more and more
My brother and I, we walked the street
from Greenwich,
and sometime we come up and I see
all these shops, cafés, places
and place where people come to eat or
drink and I like to peek in there
and I've been finding that there is
a couple sitting there at the table
and it looks nice but they're both
you know, not present
I mean, they're present to their gadget
I think you're starting to see
that phenomenon
and so, this is our situation
This is the state that the coach of our
society is moving towards
This is something we need to look at,
there are wars and conflicts
between groups and nations
But we also need to look at where we're at
in the place we live, in our family
we have to look deeply and see: Are we
present? Are we present to ourselves?
Are we present to our loved ones?”
This is something I'm realizing
more and more
so when we come back to the breath,
it's a wonderful place for refuge
when we have a strong emotion
when we have something
that's coming up for us, difficult
we always have the breath to return to
take an inbreath
take an outbreath
take a break from that emotion,
take a break from that thought
(sound of the gong)
in
out
(sound of the gong)
In the monastery, when we hear
the sound of the bell,
we train to come back to our breath
I tell you now, and it sounds easy,
maybe you do it for a few minutes here
but I'm pretty sure, after this event,
you go outside,
and you go back to your habits and
tendencies to start thinking again
so the stopping, to come back
to the present moment
to be in touch with our body as it moves,
as it sits, requires training
So in the monastery, I remember in our
dining hall, we have a clock that chimes
I remember first being in Plum Village,
our monastery in France,
that it was difficult every time that
the clock chimed,
and I'm in the middle of a conversation,
like after lunch or something,
it was really annoying
and I always wonder, I always question
how did our teacher come up with this?
It's really a good hoop but
it was pretty radical
because, you know, the chime is
right there in the dining hall
and it was every fifteen minutes
And I remember trying to figure out
how to make it so it's a little longer
but I think, the brothers, I asked
permission and they didn't allow that
It was like an old one, it didn't
have options back then
but it was all fifteen minutes
but I remember, you're in the middle
of a conversation and it chimes,
and at first you're like “OK, you have
to do it” you know,
so you don't really enjoy it
and this is just from habit of not yet
used to a kind of clear thoughtless mind
you're used to always engage
and be in conversation
or always thinking of something,
you know, it's..
it requires training and I remember
I struggled with that in the beginning
so it's pretty typical for us
to have difficulty
but throughout the training,
as the years pass,
I begin to see more the value
of coming back to the breath
especially in meetings or,
we have gatherings
and a strong emotion will come up
and slowly I began to see
the benefits of taking a break
the delaying of continual thought,
having a pause
I began to see the benefit of that
so this is one of the refuges that I found
that slowly become more and more
deeper for me,
finding different ways that it helps me
So just take a break,
train yourself
I sometimes share with the young adults
during Wake Up school
that a restful mind, a clear mind,
a thoughtless mind,
it sounds weird, thoughtless,
you don't want to be thoughtless
but more and more I think
we will gonna want to,
to use terms like that, because
we're so always thinking
that we don't know what it feels like
and I tell the young people,
“do you know what it feels like
when you have a bad breath?”
You know? After a six hour, ten hours
plane ride you get off and you're like oh,
You know? You don't want to talk
to anybody, right?
And we were not born to brush
our teeth, you learn that,
and you learn what it feels like,
to kind of ...
it's something you learn, you don't want
to be near or talk to someone like that
so our mind is like that, our mind is
restless, is angry, it is full of tension
and we think that's the norm
So, I say this, because it's
a little graphic and visual
'cause it tells you, we're so used to
this being full of, you know, stuff
but the equivalent is restless,
angry, full of emotion
you don't want to be, what happens
I use it as an example, because young
people find it very easy to understand
so, training our mind to feel when
it's fresh, like a fresh breath
it requires some training,
it needs some effort
so sitting down, finding time,
once a day and so on,
to really find that refuge of a fresh mind
you know the word 'brainwash'?
I like to reuse that word, you know
people hate to be brainwashed, it's like
kind of like cultish and all that,
but actually, it's a nice term
think about it, brainwash
it means like your brain is full of stuff,
it needs a washing
You grew up in your family,
I think you know what I mean
(laughter) - sorry
she's going to save me after
(whispering) sister, can I use your clock?
Sure, but it's a little bit fast
(normal voice)
This is a training, to be up here,
for us to share with you,
and it's also a training for us
so, the topic of waiting,
I grew up in, educated in
California as an architect
and studied, and wanted to be good and,
you know, make a name for myself and so on
to have a house and two garages,
you know, the American dream
my mother and my father sacrificed a lot
for the children,
my two brothers and my sister,
they escaped with nothing
they had to leave everything
I remember giving away my toys
and I said why am I giving away my toys?
And I remember my dad
giving away his Honda
and slowly, our furniture,
we had to
but we had to do it secretively
so the neighborhoods don't know
we're going to escape one night
on a boat
and we left everything to come here
I remember there was a lot of push
from my mom especially,
to be successful and to make, you know,
and that's a dream for
all mothers and fathers
and I see as I grew up I saw there was a
lot of promotion and a lot of effort
to reach the diploma to become this
and that,
you know, all the awards and so on,
these stickers you get, I forget
what they're called, certificates
you get trained to be like
always be somebody
and then you become an architect,
you work in, and you look
you see whose office is closer to whose
and who's got the better project
that's the system I grew up in
and I was stuck in that
and also, growing up,
I had difficulties with my father
he struggled a lot coming over here,
losing everything
so for me, I had a lot of anger issues
with my father
I think this is something
that the practise helped me with
to learn to come back
and look at ourselves
and to really confront the suffering
that I was having as a young man
and it helped me become a little happier,
once the practise
helped me look at my father
and look at my relationship with him
to begin to understand him more
and to begin to understand
my own suffering
and this is what was
the benefit of sitting,
of silencing the mind a little
calming and having time to look deeply
at my emotions,
where I'm at,
and the goals I'm setting for myself
this helped me to understand more
of what true happiness was
once I was able to touch a little bit
of the root of my suffering
I was also able to touch,
so the things that I'm passing by
because of some future promise,
to become this, to become that,
always wanting more
and I think it's a kind of suffering
always thinking that you're lacking
and this is something that's kind of
underneath our culture a little bit
and with the practise,
I think it can help all of us to really,
to recognize,
“wow, I'm still alive”
there's my eyes,
my body is in good condition,
I'm healthy enough
my tooth-ache
my teacher shared with us
about the tooth-ache, it's very..
sorry, back to hygiene, but you know,
this moment is a Non-Toothache moment
it's kind of silly, 'what does that mean?'
but all you need to do is just reflect and
remember that tooth in the back,
remember when it was aching
and the gum was inflamed?
Just touching that,
even though it's not a great suffering,
it was suffering
and it reminds us like,
oh, how wonderful!
I don't have a tooth-ache now
And this is a practise, just like stopping,
to recognize the breath,
recognizing a thoughtless,
a mind that's clear
it's a training to actually be
present to this moment
to this present moment
and to recognize that wow,
the conditions are so many
I remember our teacher gave us homework,
to write down all the wonderful conditions
the happy moments in your life now,
and it's a wonderful exercise
and your loved one,
your brothers, your sisters
this is also something, we're there with
our loved ones, but we're not present
my brother made us some tea
before coming here
we were hanging out
at somebody's place
and he brought his tea-set and he made
one of my brothers, three of us, tea
and I recognized like 'wow'!
we haven't had tea for a while
and we sat there and drank tea together
so, to recognize that,
my younger brother is so sweet
he brought his tea material
and we'd just woken up from a nap
and the first thing he does is
make us tea
I was reading a book or something and
I closed it and we looked at each other
and we're drinking tea,
I mean, that sounds like really,
what does that have to do with
my happiness, my career?
but that moment actually is the building
block for the rest of ...
that's your living
so sometimes we put a lot of goals
and a lot of things that we want
but actually when we get there,
we want more
I give you an example, you have
a tea cup, you drink your tea
and you want to do the next thing, and
when you get to the next thing
you want to do, and so on,
and this is the way we've been trained
and this is where we're at as a coach
and we need to look
so when I say, I will become refugee
I mean, in my lifetime we'll see that we
will need, we will all become refugees
and it's a kind of different thing,
it's not about one nation and another
but we will all need a place where
we can escape a little bit of all that
online, and wifi, and you know,
all this stuff, it's everywhere now
and we have no time to be with ourselves
and to be present for our body
be present with the moment
to enjoy life as it is in the now
to be present with our loved one
and to be present with nature
this is where we're heading at
besides the climate change and all this
there's something happening to our culture
we're traveling around the world,
we see escalating faster and faster
and so, I hope you continue to train,
to find a refuge within
a refugee-camp within
we all will need that
and when you have a strong emotion
or when you need a break
you feel out of touch with
what you need to do
come back, everything you need,
everything you have is there
it's only from that place
that we can help change
where we're at as a society
as a human on this planet
we keep struggling, fighting that,
but we don't have this refuge,
then it will be difficult
my sister, Dieu Nghiem will continue
on this theme for us
please take a breath,
come back to that refugee-camp inside
we all need a refugee-camp
once in a while
(sounds of the gong)
There are times where I wonder
why can I not go back to my refugee-camp
or this place me that I like to call home
why can I not go back home?
What is preventing me
from going back home to myself
when my mind and body are in
the same place, I feel at home
I've been fortunate enough to always
have had a roof over my head
to have a home,
but I've not always been home
I'm not always home
I was reminded of this
as I walked to come here
and I see so many posters saying
“bring him home” the Martian
and I thought, when they bring him home,
will he be really and truly home?
Will he find his true home?
So I've reflected on that
my true home as my brother said,
brother Phap Dung, brother Embrace,
really truly home with ourselves
many years ago, there was a lady from
Austria that came to Plum Village
and at the end of her stay,
at the end of the retreat
we asked some friends to give some input,
how it had been for them
and this lady said
she came to Plum Village because
she had read somewhere
Thomas Morton's words that said
you can see Thich Nhat Hanh is a monk
by the way he closes a door
so she had come to watch us closing doors
we didn't know
maybe just as well
however, she must have
been impressed, because
she was scheduled to stay one week
and she stayed two
so, closing a door,
for me that became like a practise
how do I close doors?
I think we all have doors somewhere
that we can close
either where this is a swing door
so, open if you act
but closing a door or
opening a door by taking the knob,
turning it, or the handle,
and pushing it down
and pushing open the door
so it's very interesting to observe
how do we open a door?
And how do we close a door?
It's just a door
but it is a wonderful way
to bring us back to our home
to put our hand on the knob
to feel the knob in our hand, already
brings our mind back to our body
so I turn the knob
or I push the handle down
and I'm aware of
how much force I use to open the door
and to close the door
so if you don't have time
to sit, and breathe
maybe, since you're going
through the door anyway,
you can make that your practise
of going home
but coming home also is something else,
like coming home to that place
where it's quiet
I've noticed, here in New York
it's quite noisy, outside
and as I was walking,
I came here on foot
I thought, yes, it's very noisy,
but let me see
if I just let the noise be,
then, is it then quiet?
And I realized, I'm thinking
and sometimes I find,
even if there's no noise around me,
it's quite noisy inside
maybe the most noise is inside,
the outer noise not so much
and when I listen to this noise,
I see most is just unuseful thinking
not helpful at all
and then I think, ok, can I close a door?
Why am I thinking so much?
I've just come out of a meeting and
I carry things out of the meeting with me
I've already closed the door, right?
Physically, but in my head, no
why did she say this in that way?
Why didn't she flow along, etcetera
the meeting was closed, but not everywhere
I continued the meeting in my head
so, close the door, the meeting is over
close the door
and then, as I closed the door,
it's the same as opening a door
it means: new possibilities,
new challenges
and can I be there for the possibilities
or for the challenges
maybe we can close the door for a moment
with the sound of a bell?
Just close the door
and enjoy an in- and an outbreath
and just let the world be for one moment
(sound of the gong)
closing the door as we hear
a sound of the bell
or as we stop for a traffic light
closing the door when we leave the office
one retreatant came,
she would like to have a consultation
and she said, my problem is,
I feel I'm married
to my husband's business
she said, when he comes home,
he brings the whole business with him
and of course, when we come home,
there may be something that happened
in the office, we want to share,
but it was not just that, like something
shared, and 'this is how I feel about it',
it was all about the problems and about
the things, business, business, business
she said,
I think I'm married to a business
so when we closed the door of the office
and we go home
and then we open the door
of our apartment or house,
and we close the door behind us
and truly close the door,
then we can be truly present
for our loved ones
for our children, our partner
we can be there
we can share with them from our heart
and we can listen with our heart
and we can enrich each other's lives
I am of Irish and Dutch decent,
of an Irish mother and ad Dutch father
and it took me a while when I started to
we lived in Ireland and then
in the Netherlands
it took me a while to find out
where I belonged
I was kind of a little bit up-rooted
am I Dutch? Am I Irish?
Inside the house, it's Irish,
outside the house it's Dutch
where are my roots?
And, if we want to live,
we need to have roots
trees have roots
if you cut the tree from its root,
it won't continue to live
rivers have a source
if we cut the river from the source,
the river will stop living
so if we want to start living
we also need to nourish our roots,
our ancestors
so I would say, stop waiting
and start living
also in a way of, start celebrating life
celebrating our ancestors
our blood ancestors
our adopted ancestors
our spiritual ancestors
our land ancestors
to bring them, to reconnect with them
to be nourished by them
we cannot take our ancestors out of us
our youngest ancestors, our parents
they are our ancestors
we cannot say,
I have nothing to do with you
no, we have all and
everything to do with them
we are their continuation
all our ancestors are within us
connecting with them inside of ourselves
to recognize all their strength
they have transmitted to us
and also all the weaknesses
and to nourish their strength and
to take care of their pain and suffering
of the wounded child that was
in them as well
and that is now also in us
it's not just our child, our wounded child
when we say 'our',
we mean all our ancestors
so, to connect with our ancestors
in Plum Village we have Ancestors Festival
where we honor our ancestors
and where we express gratitude
to our ancestors
recognizing that we are their continuation
they are our roots
we all may like to look into our ancestors
and find ways to celebrate our ancestors
to celebrate our roots
in order to find stability
in order to find freedom
in order to be able to be truly there
and truly alive
for ourselves and for our loved ones
I know that in New York, you celebrate
St Patrick's Day much much bigger
than in Ireland I've ever seen
I think there are many Irish people,
here also
maybe also refugees
but staying connected to their roots
in this way, our roots are tradition
a tradition can be renewed, refreshed
but a tradition is also our refuge
and our root
so, celebrate
in Plum Village,
we celebrate also the Earth
we celebrate Spring, the Daffodil Festival
we celebrate Plum Blossom Festival
we have Full Moon Festival
the Solstice
they're roots we share all of us,
and we can celebrate together
let's celebrate a moment together
by just getting in touch with our roots
you can just close your eyes
and see our roots as the Earth,
we're part of the Earth
and everything that's in and on it
although we don't have roots like a tree,
we are rooted in the Earth
we have come from the Earth
the Earth is also our roots with
all and everything that's on the Earth
so, just for a moment,
connect with our roots of the Earth
with our land ancestors
our spiritual ancestors
our adopted ancestors
and our blood ancestors
(sound of the bell)
we, the monastics,
we're rooted in the Plum Village tradition
we celebrate every breath
we celebrate every step
whenever we walk, where we walk
we walk on the Earth with love
and with compassion
we walk as if we're kissing the Earth
with our feet, even here in New York
as I was walking, I was kissing the Earth
with my feet,
saying “dear Earth, we love you
I know we have covered you with stone,
with asphalt, with tarmac
with a lot of things
we love you
we're here for you
we want to be here for you
because you're here for us always
and this walking gave me stability
and gave me freedom
as I was aware of my steps
I felt the contact
between my feet and the Earth
I created some space
some space inside
I created some silence inside
space to be there
when our heart is small,
Thay says,
sometimes it's like a peanut
I think,
sometimes my heart is like a mung bean
there's no space, neither for myself
nor for anybody else
but walking like this, my heart opened
and there's space
there's space for everything I meet,
for everybody I meet in the street
and I can smile
so you walk like this, it's our root
in the early years, in the early 1990s
friends of Plum Village, practitioners,
they went to Vietnam
and they visited Thay's root temple
and as they were walking there,
they practised walking meditation
and a young monastic, a young novice
came up to them and said
“you must be from Plum Village”
and they said “yes, how do you know?”
and he said, I can see it by your walking
it's our roots, our spiritual roots
it's our walking, our breathing
our listening and our speaking
we listen to ourselves
with compassion to others
we speak lovingly
we learn how to truly love
how to truly love, how to offer compassion
how to be loving and kind
how to share our joy
and how to embrace each other
with equanimity
that is true love
and we learn how to be truly happy
as my brother already said,
not running after things
but to see that we have more than enough
conditions to be happy already
we do not need that other ice-cream
not the coffee,
although we had coffee before we came here
we can have coffee,
but it's not because we don't have
enough conditions to be happy
it's to enjoy the conditions
for happiness we have
so, celebrate our spiritual roots,
whatever our spiritual roots may be
discover the beauties
everything that contributes
to our own well-being,
to the well-being of the others
and the well-being of the world
and the Earth
celebrate, connect
and we can do this altogether
I think my brother wanted
to add something to this
I'm his souffleur
she's giving another chance
to share something
yes, please
so I'll take this opportunity
I'll stop being nice
our teacher, you know, he was a radical monk
he grew up in a time of war
he saw the French come
and the Americans come
this is what produced this practise,
this tradition
you know, the classic images of a monk
is not sitting in there,
praying and doing the gong
hoping that there will be a better world
that we can be reborn into
but he stood up
and he gathered the monastics
as well as his elder monks and venerables
and they went into the villages to help,
they actively
so this is what has moved our teacher
and now he's come to the West
and he's seeing that some of the roots
of why those wars happen,
and I just want to throw that out there,
just so
as we been around our teacher
he sees like, you know, what people ask
why are you guys speaking against war
and going out there?
like going to the warring countries
and doing what your teacher did
and there is a real teaching to it,
to ask and to keep that awareness
like, why is Thay teaching us to breathe
and smile, what is that?
Some people say that's like Buddhism,
right?
Like, what is that, you know?
There is a real challenge
for our community
as we struggle between engagement
and also taking, not losing ourselves
'cause the war starts when we're actually
we've lost our roots, lost our refuge
we are not happy with just being alive
on this planet
you're going to die,
the world will go on, you're going to die,
you know,
so our teacher teaches to really come
from a deeper,
of course you do the social change
you do these activities
but don't lose these deep moments
for yourself
and to do it together
and this is our teacher's challenge
to our next century
I think maybe some of you heard,
our teacher sharing about the last
century as a century of individualism
you know, everyone, me and my nation
and my people and so on
and it's caused a lot of stuff happen
so the teacher is really emphasizing
on the collective
and it's tough to be in the collective,
part of this community
you know, it's not easy
you have to conform and
you have to be like the rest
and kind of like, lose your identity
I just tell you some of the truth about it
it challenges every L.A. seed in me!
I want to go out there and
change L.A. you know,
and the brothers say, no,
you're going to go breathe and
walk in the woods
sorry my sisters and brothers
it's a challenge to be part of a community
it is, because it goes
against everything we know,
you know, I have rights,
especially when you're right
you have to just..
and this is the root of war
“I'm right”
and to live in a collective,
to live in a community
to live in a family, you know that,
that's a small little community there
in the family, around the kitchen
around the dining table
I was witness to that
because we're not able to let go and see
the 'come on, it's just'
so this is the training for us
to learn to let go of
our own ideas or notions
of what is right, what is wrong,
what is just
sometimes,
even fighting for a just cause,
we cause a lot of suffering
so we have to be careful
as we come together and help
and remind ourselves
to check in with each other
to see that 'hey, is this where we want to go?”
so this is a challenge our teacher has
for our community,
for our next
you know, he's famous for having said
our teacher has a saying that's pretty,
I haven't heard it anywhere
“the next Buddha will be your community”
that's very beautiful, you know
can you imagine that,
you don't look for somebody leading
and charging, and
oh well the Buddha will
probably do something
but the community that actually
deals with challenges, suffering
but it checks itself, it helps each other
there's a sense of love
and understanding, of septance
cause this is all the energy,
all the difficulties that we're facing
as a family as a group of people
as a work place right,
where you look, and your company
what are the most challenging things
at your work place
it's all about that,
people don't know how to work together
you have to let go
so the collective for us is a challenge,
how to learn these practises
so we don't lose our center,
our harmony within
and then working ways,
finding ways to build community
because to resist this other energy,
we need to do it as a community
and we need everyone to have
this kind of training so that you feel
I don't need another sweater,
just because it's a new season
or they change color on me again
sorry, I remember, it's brown season,
it's yellow season
you know, you got to change your whole
wardrobe just because they say so
so they know, I don't want to say 'they'
maybe some of us are in
advertising media now
but they know how the mind works
and if you don't know how your mind works
and if we don't come together
we're just, you think you're free
I'm sorry to kind of lay it out there
'cause this is our last chance
but this is what I've learned from my teacher
and I just wanted to share with you
we need to come together and really
resist all these temptations
these kind of temporary pleasures
these moments, right
more consuming, more stimulation, entertaining yourself
this is what is happening
we need to find ways to come together,
to resist
so, have a refugee-camp but do it together
that's the addition I think
my sister was inviting me to add
so not just you alone on the
island in a refugee-camp
but bring friends, make friends
come together and make that island, expand
and if we can do this together
here a little bit
and a little bit around the planet
I think, I'm pretty hopeful
and we need to keep that,
don't let it drag you down
we were at the Huffington Post
and we learned that they have a
department for Good News
yeah, that is pretty cool
and I asked them, so what do you guys do,
make stories up?
'cause I don't see any good news
in the news and they say, yeah, we shared,
they have a small team and actually
they look at stories out there, and
they try to find something positive
and they go do more research
and that's beautiful and
I was really moved,
there was like four or five in that
department, and that's their work
we need to do that, we need to do that
in our family, within ourselves
look, there's something
happening that's good for today
and accentuate it, do it in the family,
do it at your work,
please, do it in your work
it's tough to work at a hard place,
but do it there
and then create your work,
become a community
and then begin to come together
build a sangha
a sangha is just a group of people
coming together
to remind each other with the practise
so this is our teacher's deepest wish
to have a little bit around
every place for us
to remind ourselves and
remind others
thank you
I believe there's something
oh yes, we now open the mike
for any questions or any comment or
I think there's a microphone around,
I think there's some brothers and sisters
who'll come up here to join us to add a
different perspective
is there a mike around?
Yes, you can come up here if you'd
like to share or make a comment
oh, they have a mike right there
I just wanted to thank you
gratitude for sharing your love and your
light with us here,
and bringing your stories, your honesty,
your experience, your humor
really grateful for that, it's really
refreshing to embrace the reflection
we all know that we have within us
and to see a collective
as you say, this community that does exist
and I just wanted to say thank you,
I'm really grateful
and congratulations
sister Jang Nghiem and Phap Hai
have joined us
and they will take personal questions too,
so if you
yes, questions from the heart
hi, welcome, I'm actually new to the city,
I'm from Philadelphia
so I drove up this morning, three hours,
I took the back roads
and I go to Weltran Unitarian church and
every Sunday I'm blessed to have a quote,
like there is up on the screen,
by Thich Nhat Hanh
that leads us
into meditation for five minutes
all you need to enter heaven on earth
is one conscious step,
one conscious breath
and I really appreciate
this opportunity to be here with you
and my question, it takes me a long time
to get to my question, is
as you talk about refuge inside and
refuge in community,
I'm blessed to have a small community
that really is building on mindfulness,
it's probably the most rapidly growing
Unitarian church in the country which is
tremendous, because it's very open,
spiritually and we embraced
a lot of things, including
Thich Nhat Hanh's mindfulness
How can we, I'm sure everyone in this
room is from a different place,
in our society, in our jobs that are
not sitting mindfully all day long,
how can we bridge this experience into
the world of wifi and phones,
thinking of myself last night when I was
on my phone with my boyfriend
at the restaurant, how do we actually
try to do that more?
So, dear family, life's full of surprises,
I stood up to walk off the stage
to stretch my legs
and I was invited, is the kind
way to put it,
to be part of the question-
and-answer panel
so I'm very happy to be sitting here
and as I received that invitation
to be part of the Q&A-panel
I realized that as a practitioner,
the most central practise for me,
is to learn how to say 'yes'
not only to say yes with my mouth,
but to say yes to the experience
that I'm invited to have in this moment
to look at the places that I close down
or the ways that I try to manufacture
this moment into something
that I believe it should be
in our tradition, in the Plum
Village tradition, we practise
what we call 'Engaged Buddhism'
and we've all heard the stories about
going out to bombed out villages,
building schools,
doing flood-work relief work, we've done
all of those things
and we do all of those things
and yet, at its core,
Engaged Buddhism means,
choosing to engage in this moment,
whatever this moment is
as a moment of practise
we're coming into the Jewish New Year
and I'm thinking of somebody called Victor Franco,
who wrote in 'Men's search for meaning'
something that we also find to be true
in Buddhism as well
we can't always, or very often,
choose our circumstances
but as human beings
the one choice we truly have,
is the choice of how we respond
so when we say that we can't
sit all day mindfully, why not?
What does mindfully mean?
Does it mean we need to go to a
mountainside or go to a cave or a hut,
a nice retreat-hut somewhere
that was my view of what monastic life is
or life in the practise
and it's only ever happened once,
in twenty years
how do I use this moment as a moment
that I can be fully present in my body
with the experience that I'm having
with the person who's in front of me
Can I choose, when the phone rings,
to take an in-breath and an out-breath
bring myself back to my body and
pick up the phone
can I choose to, rather than
just run from here to the coffee-maker,
can I choose to take a few steps
with each breath, to arrive with each step
these are ways that it is possible for us
to bring the practise of mindfulness
to our daily lives
so our spiritual life is not something
compart mentalized to one side
that we do inbetween things
but it is actually our life itself
that's the invitation of Engaged Buddhism
to see what we can do, where we're
planted in this very moment
this is something that's possible for us
there are some of us, there are maybe
a few hundred of us in this room
we're all sharing the same space together
and yet, there are some of us in this room
who are thinking
oh, this talk was so interesting tonight,
it was so wonderful to hear from a half-
Irish, half-Dutch senior disciple of Thay
and our brother Phap Dung
there are so many interesting spirits
and then there's others who are thinking
I can't wait until this is over
why did I come here tonight?
This kind of thing
some of us are in heaven,
some of us are in hell,
who's right, who's wrong?
Now, I mean, some of you might think
it's a cheap shot,
but it really does depend on you, doesn't it
it really does depend on our mind
and the way we interpret things
so I invite you to look at that
I invite you to engage with that practise
and see if it's possible for you
to make just a small change
not ten small changes,
but a small change in your daily life
good luck
(sound of the bell)
I want to thank you for being here
and I'm really grateful for your
presence here
and your presence in the world
and I think about if there was
a beloved community of more people,
like in this room
how much empathy and how
much compassion
could really be present in the world
and you've in a way answered
what my question was but
someone like me, I feel overwhelmed
when I read the news
really overwhelmed by for example
what's happening to our brothers
and sisters in Syria
how do you balance being internal
and having compassion internally
and balancing that with being engaged
in the world
and something as small as
keeping up with the news
I could easily feel overwhelmed
and I know we have really beautiful
examples with Thich Nhat Hanh and
Martin Luther King
so we can reflect on their example
but how do you find that balance
when it's easy to feel overwhelmed
by the suffering and the violence
and the pain that we know that a
lot of people are dealing with
thank you so much
yes, that's a very important question
in terms of the amount of information
that we should expose ourselves to
the important thing is, maintaining
compassion in our heart
but more practically,
I think our human mind is not meant to
actually be constantly bombarded
with so much suffering
you hear it in your car or your subway,
you're driving here
you hear it in the morning,
you hear it while you take a break
in the afternoon you hear it,
I mean when I was driving in L.A.
an hour and a half to work in the
morning I listened to NPR
cause people said I should be informed
I have friends from Berkeley you know
so every time they come back
they always ask me to go to,
these picket things,
they were good
it was my way of my getting out of
my anger, now that I remember back
so, we put so high on a pedestal
'being informed'
you got to be 'up to date'
but how much more do you want?
I mean, you hear it in the morning and
then in the afternoon when driving back
it's the same news, but I keep hearing it
before I even get to work,
I'm already angry
I haven't seen that secretary yet
it's a good question, you have to know
how to take care of yourself
and question the 'being informed',
how much should you keep inflicting,
it's a scar you keep picking
ok, this is a balance you need to find,
each one of us
in our workplace as well as in society
we had a session, two days ago,
with news people,
it was at the Columbia University for
journalists at the Dart Center
where they take care of journalists
who have to go to,
conflicting sites or tragedy,
and then have to report
and then come back and
they can't handle it,
so this Dart center was formed
to take care of and bring more awareness
to the suffering that journalists face
as they come back
it's kind of like veterans
and I learned a lot from that
and the Dart Center is trying to bring
more mindfulness and wellness
to take care of the journalists
'cause after you see these images and
you've been in places like that
you see, the mind needs healing
it's kind of like, getting inflicted
and you know, that's journalists
but we ourselves as readers
we have take care of that as well
so be informed, be intelligent,
but know what you're doing to yourself
and what that is causing
because that can actually spill out to your
loved ones who had nothing to do with it
but because you keep watering the seeds,
in our practise we call,
we each all have a seed,
a seed of anger, a seed of discrimination,
a seed of blame and so on
and if these keep being watered,
you become immobile
you can't really be an activist
if you are not, like, solid
so this is something for us all
as we want to change
and help effect the world in a better way
we also need to take care and nourish
our happiness, our joy
so it's how you say,
pay attention to the mud,
but don't forget to also pay attention
to the flower, to the lotus
that's also there
so we keep reading books on negativity,
and it makes you really,
you can't move and your mind becomes tight
and you start actually
causing others suffering
in a way that's toxic
so, nothing is lost, everything you read,
everything you come in through the sens,
the eyes, the things you hear, the conversations I used to have with my friends
they didn't make me happier,
they actually made me more angry
and sometimes anger is useful
but as my brother or my sister shared
one time, maybe 5%
but I'm still trying to figure
how much of that energy
you know, I know, there's a,
sometimes it's useful to speak out
but how can we do it in a way
that has a little bit more understanding,
more compassion
more of that sense of
embracing the other person rather than
so this is what happens
when we get informed
and it's over our limit
we actually start to cause more
trouble than helpful
and this is each one of us through the
practise of taking care of ourselves,
nourishing ourselves with good news,
nourishing ourselves with moments
of actually recognizing
taking a walk in the park
recognizing, hugging a tree
watching, you know, sitting there
in front of a flower and feeling,
recognizing that flower
so these are things that I found helpful
in my practise in terms of engaging the
world as we travel and we hear people
suffering
you know, I have to take a walk in nature
after a consultation or something,
I can't do consultations six right away
'cause my mind is no longer present
for the third person
I mean, it looks like I'm there
but it's too much for me
so I'd only do one, and then I go take
a nap or I go walk in nature
and this is just the truth of our mind
we're not meant to actually
know everything that's happening
around the world
I mean, the internet now, you think, oh,
we have access, but,
look what it's doing to you
you have access but you're like,
you're afraid, and you're suspicious,
you're fearful
and this, you cannot help the world
in that state of mind
so please take a look at your, at the balance,
we need balance in terms of information
we have one last question
may we listen to one sound of the bell
(sound of the bell)
breathing in
everything we need is here and now
breathing out
we let go
this moment, without expectation
(sound of the bell)
Hi there
you know, it's kind of intimidating
talking to you guys
but what I love in the nature
of how you spoke today
was that you're still embracing
that whole studentness about you
'cause sometimes when people that don't
live in the kind of environment
that you live in
I guess I'm speaking for myself but I
have talked to a few other people
there's a way that we can feel not
as spiritual or not as worthy
and what I love what you brought here was
that you're still learning
and that you're still figuring it out
and that you're still on your journey
and that's really inspiring to hear
because some of us are a little bit
further back in the road on the journey
one of the things I do is I go into
companies, into the dark, deep scary
territory of corporate America
and I try to bring
a tiny bit of mindfulness with me
but what you've inspired me to do today
is, to take it further
you know, some of the little teachings
or some of the things you said
like, and I love what you said about
how being right is the root of war
and how we can bring a little bit of
non-violence to how we talk
to each other every day
by not trying to be so right
and trying to be more compassionate
trying to be more vulnerable,
which you guys exhibited today,
the vulnerability of showing
that you don't know it all
you're still a student,
you're still on your journey
so I want to thank you for that
and to let you know
there are warriors out here,
working for the same cause,
we might not look the same way
that outfit would definitely make me look
a lot chubbier and that would really
annoy me
but, you know, we're out here
warriors on the front line,
with you and supporting you
and loving you from our place,
so thank you
Hi, thank you for being here tonight
I've been exploring the value of mindfulness
in organizations and I was wondering if you
could speak a little bit more about the
benefits that you see
to bringing mindfulness into workplaces
and I'm particularly interested in
how it might help to build trust
For me, being a monastic is
something I always wanted to do
but in another way this,
I agree with my brother,
there's challenges
so when I entered the community
you know, I love to do art,
to sing songs and write poetry
but I've always been asked to do things
that is out of the ordinary
you know, is not my field, is not my,
I feel like it's not even my capacity
but recently, the sangha invited me
to join the finance team and
to work with all these figures,
and it's not what I imagined I would do
so I think the practise of mindfulness
just helps me to just be present
and to take things as they are
and not to have expectation or
to have to struggle with it
at first I struggled a lot,
but I feel like
when I can just come back to my breathing
just to be what it is, I can just let it go
and whatever comes, I learn from it
and I build my experience on it
so I think that in the workplace,
we can apply mindfulness
for instance, when I am working
on something that is very challenging
for my brainwork
then I just take a deep breath
and come back and smile,
and take a break
and we have the time-out on a screen
or a bell of mindfulness that we
install into the PC or the computer
and we just take a break, you know
you close your eyes and breathe
and then smile
and I find that also working in a team
or in a group is very helpful
because I see that I have my brothers and
sisters who have experience in finance
and they have all kinds of experiences
and when we come together,
we really make things work
without, you know, one having
to think too hard
so I think that try to learn from the
experience of the others
and be mindful, be open
and, you know, things can
become easier that way
rather than taking on everything
on ourselves
and also create a space for nurturing
brotherhood and sisterhood
in our monastery, at Blue Cliff,
when we have finance meeting,
I'm always the team-master
I make sure, I prepare tea and bring some
snacks and cookies or some healthy snacks
and then we start the meeting that way
we don't just start by saying
'ok, what's the agenda'
of course somebody will say that,
but I always do the tea part first
and it's so light and nourishing and then
people feel like, oh, there's a connection
you are here for being together, it's
not just about trying to work something out
or trying to go forward with the result,
so I think that teamwork and nourishing
brotherhood, sisterhood
and to build the energy of mindfulness,
to share that together is very helpful
thank you