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Consciousness as Food | Thich Nhat Hanh (short teaching video)

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    The fourth source of nutriment
    is called consciousness.
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    Consciousness as food.
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    [4. consciousness]
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    First of all our individual consciousness.
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    Each if us has
    our individual consciousness,
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    [mind] consciousness
    and store consciousness.
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    In our store consciousness
    there may be a dark spot.
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    Maybe we have been abused
    as a child in the past.
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    We have suffered quite a lot as a child.
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    And the memories of suffering
    are still there, very vivid.
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    It is in that corner
    of our store consciousness.
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    Also, that kind of suffering may have
    been transmitted to us by our parents,
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    our ancestors.
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    Many of us have the habit
    of going back to the past
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    and suffer again and again
    the suffering of the past.
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    We don't follow the teaching of the Buddha
    that the past is already gone,
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    we should be able to enjoy
    the wonders of life in the present moment.
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    But many of us cannot do that,
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    because the past
    has become a kind of prison.
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    We are caught and
    we go back always to the past
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    and we live again and again
    the suffering of the past.
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    There are films of the past
    projected in that dark corner.
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    And we go back day and night and
    watch the film of suffering in the past.
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    We need someone like a teacher or a friend
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    to try to take us out of
    that dark corner of our consciousness.
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    There are animals like cows and buffaloes,
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    after they have eaten grass they swallow,
    they have so many stomachs.
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    They chew, they swallow and then
    they bring it out again and chew again.
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    So we do exactly like that.
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    We swallow our suffering
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    and we bring it up again
    and swallow again and again.
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    That is not good food.
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    Not [good] consciousness as food.
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    The materials
    in our individual consciousness
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    should be recognized and transformed,
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    and should not continue
    to be a source of nutriment for us.
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    As a practitioner,
    we have to be aware of that.
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    We should stop consuming the past.
    Consuming the suffering of the past.
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    We should try to be
    in the here and the now.
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    Profit from the light and the beauty
    of the cosmos, of the earth
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    to nourish us, to make us strong
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    in order to transform and illuminate
    that corner in our consciousness.
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    You need a friend, a teacher, a sangha,
    maybe a psychotherapist to help you
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    to get out of that prison and learn
    to live deeply in the present moment.
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    To heal.
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    Then, there is
    the collective consciousness.
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    Collective consciousness
    can be very wholesome.
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    Like when we come to a retreat like this
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    and 1,300 people are breathing together,
    smiling together, walking together.
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    We produce a very wholesome
    energy of peace and joy.
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    That is a very good nutriment,
    very good food.
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    Last year, while giving a Dharma talk
    in Northern Germany,
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    I saw four young mothers sitting
    in the front row and nursing their babies.
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    Of course the babies
    did not understand the talk.
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    (Laughter)
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    But they inherited,
    they benefited from the peaceful
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    and loving atmosphere in the hall.
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    They were receiving
    two types of food at the same time;
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    the milk from their mother's breast,
    and the atmosphere of peace,
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    and the brotherhood and sisterhood
    generated by the practice in the hall.
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    So as a sangha,
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    we can produce that kind of collective
    wholesome energy of peace and compassion
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    that can help to heal
    and to transform.
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    That is why building a sangha
    is a very noble thing to do.
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    After the retreat,
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    maybe you'd like to go home with the
    intention, the volition to build a sangha.
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    To do walking, sitting, breathing,
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    to generate that collective energy
    of peace and brotherhood.
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    Many people in the neighborhood
    can come and inherit from that.
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    But there are neighborhoods that are
    full of anger, fear, and hate.
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    The collective energy of anger
    and despair is so destructive.
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    If you happen to spend a few days in that
    neighborhood, you feel that you suffer.
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    And if you happen to settle
    in that neighborhood,
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    you should know that you have
    to pull out as quickly as possible.
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    Otherwise you will be like them; thinking,
    acting in a hateful way, in a violent way.
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    And your children will do that.
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    Not because we want to abandon
    the suffering people,
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    we have to take care of ourselves first.
    We have to pull out and heal ourselves.
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    If can go back with strength as a sangha,
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    we can help that neighborhood
    to transform.
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    We know that the collective energy of hate
    of anger, of fear is very destructive.
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    It leads to killing,
    it leads to committing suicide.
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    On the day of September 11th,
    I was in America
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    on a speaking tour.
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    We had to offer retreats and Dharma talks.
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    And I felt that collective energy of anger
    and fear in America. It is so dangerous.
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    So the first public talk I gave was
    3 days after September 11th in Berkeley.
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    4.000 people attended.
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    I asked all members
    of the monastic sangha to join me
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    and help the crowd to practice calming
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    because the feeling of anger and fear
    was so overwhelming.
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    We practiced breathing and calming.
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    We know that reacting with that
    collective consciousness of fear and anger
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    is very dangerous.
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    A number of days later,
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    I gave another talk at
    the Riverside Church in New York City.
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    And I encouraged the people to practice
    the same kind of practice of calming down.
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    When I boarded the plane
    to go to another city
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    I could feel the anger and the fear
    of everyone sitting on the plane.
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    The pilot tried to say something to cheer
    people up, but he did not succeed.
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    That is why
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    we should not allow ourselves to consume
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    that collective energy of fear,
    anger and despair.
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    It is not good for our health and
    not good for the health of our children.
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    If that neighborhood produces so much
    hate and despair and anger,
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    we should not continue to be there,
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    because if we do,
    we'll be like them, very quickly.
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    Our children also. That is why
    we have to learn to protect ourselves
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    and try our best to come back to help
    when we are stronger.
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    These are the four kinds of nutriments
    that the Buddha spoke about.
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    I have a friend who works in the faculty
    of nutrition in Harvard University.
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    She wrote a book, 'Savor',
    on eating, mindful eating.
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    I advised her to print the whole text of
    the [4 Nutriments] Sutra inside.
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    Mindful consumption is the way out,
    and this is a national problem,
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    it is a world problem,
    not only a family problem.
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    (Bell)
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    (Bell)
Title:
Consciousness as Food | Thich Nhat Hanh (short teaching video)
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
12:29

English subtitles

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