Ending the Vicious Circle of Negative Habits | Dharma Talk by Thich Nhat Hanh, 2004.03.25

Thich Nhat Hanh offers this dharma talk at Deer Park Monastery during the Colors of Compassion Retreat on March 25, 2004.

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[bell rings]

[inaudible] is the name of a person

who knows how to listen very deeply

and to understand.

By listening deeply

she can

bring a lot of relief to people.

And the practice is called
the practice of compassionate listening.

The bodhisattva avalokiteshvara.

In Vietnamese, nam mo bo tat quan the am

Guanyin in Chinese.

With compassion in our heart

we can listen to the other person.

Even if the other person has a lot of suffering

has a lot of wrong perceptions,
a lot of anger, you can still listen to him or her.

And by doing so we help him or her
to suffer less,

The bodhisattva avalokiteshvara
is not exactly someone outside of us.

Every one of us has

the seed of compassion,

understanding.

And if we allow the seed of understanding and compassion in us to be watered,

the energy of compassion
and understanding will manifest.

And we shall be able to listen also with

compassion

and understanding.

So, during the time of chanting,

the collective energy of mindfulness
will be generated.

And it helps us

to water the seed of

compassion and understanding in us.

And the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara can

manifest

from us.

So, please enjoy, the chanting.

Bring the attention
to your inbreath and outbreath,

allow your body to relax.

And for the energy of the sangha
to penetrate

freely

into our body, you know,
into our mind

for our nourishment and healing

because the collective energy
of compassion in the sangha

bodhisattva has the power of healing.

In addition, we don't have to do anything.

Just allow the energy to penetrate

by the chanting.

We allow our body

to relax.

And we bring our attention
to the sound of chanting.

[bell rings]

[singing]

Dear friends,

whenever we hear
the sound of the bell,

we practice listening to the bell deeply.

Usually when someone

invites the bell to sound...

We don't say "hit" the bell,

we say

invite

the bell to sound.

...He or she should

wake the bell up first

with a half sound

like this

[bell rings].

That is a half sound.

But before he does that, she does that,

she has to practice
mindful breathing first

to prepare himself.

And there is a verse
for the bell master to use,

for breathing in and breathing out
and to make himself or herself

available to the bell,

qualified

as a bell master.

You just cannot pick up

the instrument and then make the sound
you have to prepare yourself.

So holding the...

May I borrow it?

...holding the stick like this

he will practice mindful breathing

a few times
in order to calm himself down,

to make him or her
into a real bell master.

And the verse is like this:

"Body, speech and mind
in perfect oneness.

I send my heart along
with the sound of this bell.

May the hearers awaken
from their forgetfulness

and transcend the path
of anxiety and sorrow."

That is a four-line verse

for you to breathe and to become

a real bell master.

"Body, speech, and mind
in perfect oneness.

I send my heart along
with the sound of this bell.

May the hearers awaken
from their forgetfulness

and transcend the path
of anxiety and sorrow."

And then you're calm,

you are fully aware,
you are fully present.

And now you can

invite the bell to sound.

You invite,
you offer half a sound

so that the whole community

become aware that a real sound,
a full sound is going to be heard.

And everyone stop thinking,
stop talking,

prepare themselves
to receive the full sound.

The voice of the Buddha

calling you back to your true home.

In a practice center,

the sound of the bell
is the voice of the Buddha from within

calling you back
to your true home.

And so the bell master
make a half sound

and allow you the time

to prepare yourself

for the reception of the full sound,
the voice of the Buddha.

You stop what you are saying.

You finish what you were saying
in a few seconds.

You stop your thinking.

Not only your talking
but you stop also your thinking.

You go home

to yourself,
with your inbreath.

And you enjoy breathing

to get prepared for the sound,

the sound as the voice
of the Buddha from within

calling you back
to your true home.

And then the bell master
will allow you the time to

for one inbreath or one outbreath at least
and then he or she will invite the bell

so that a full sound will be offered
to the whole community.

And then everyone

will enjoy

breathing in and breathing out
at least three times.

And when you breathe in,
you say: "I listen,

I listen".

And when you breathe out,

you say: "this wonderful sound
brings me back to my true home".

"Listen,

listen.

This wonderful sound
brings me back to my true home."

No thinking.

Just listening,

listening very deeply
to the sound of the bell

that will bring you back to your true home,
in the here and now.

And the one who speaks

stops speaking
and thinking about what to say next

and enjoy deeply his or her

inbreath and outbreath,

enjoy

his being in his true home.

That is the living dharma:

being in your true home.

And the one who listened to the talk
also stops listening

and enjoys

her inbreath and outbreath.

Very nourishing.

In Plum Village, in France,

not only we enjoy the sound

of the great bell within our center

but whenever the bell,
the church bell nearby

sounds we also stop
and enjoy the church bell.

Not only we enjoy the church bell,

but every time the clock
play the music,

every quarter of the hour,
we also stop

thinking, stop talking
and we go back to our breath

and we enjoy breathing in and out

whether we are in...

the dining hall or in the kitchen
we do the same.

So, the clock,
the music of the clock

is like

the mindfulness may help us
to come home

and to enjoy our home.

Also when you hear
the telephone ringing,

you practice.

You are supposed
not to run to the telephone.

You're supposed to stay
wherever you are

because the sound of the telephone
is also the voice of the Buddha

calling you back
to your true home.

Stay wherever you are
and go back to your inbreath.

Listen, listen.

This wonderful sound
brings me back to my true home.

And then after having

practiced like that two times,

you do walking meditation
to the telephone,

or you take the telephone out

and answer.

And if you are the one

who is called
or who want to make a phone call,

you prepare yourself

before making

the number.

You practice
going home to yourself.

And there is also a verse

for you to practice.

Verses, words
can travel

thousands of kilometres.

They are to bring about
more understanding,

"mucho" understanding.

I vow that
what I am going to say

will be

beautiful

like flowers and

embroideries.

I vow that
everything I'm going to say

will help with more mature
understanding and compassion.

And then,
now you are qualified

to make a phone call.

And when you hear

you hear the sound

at the end of the line,

you know that

the other person is listening

breathing in and out

and you know that you have a chance
to practice breathing in and out with her

so both of you

are breathing in and out mindfully
at the same time.

It's a very beautiful practice.

We call it telephone meditation.

And then, in Plum Village,

in the Deerpark Monastery also,

if we use the computer,

the computer is programmed
so that every quarter of the hour

there will be a bell of mindfulness,

so that you can stop your work
and go home

and enjoy your inbreath and outbreath.

And you know that when you call
Plum Village or Deerpark

you don't expect them to answer
right away after the first ring.

They are breathing in and out.

Listen, listen. This wonderful sound
brings me back to my true home.

And you enjoy

deeply your inbreath
and outbreath three times.

The bell master tonight

is a monk

from

New Zealand:

Marda Fabvian,

the field of the Dharma.

Enjoy

the mindfulness bell, enjoy your inbreath
and outbreath three times.

If you'd like to use
different kind of verses,

you might use the verse:
"I have arrived.

I'm home."

"I have arrived.

I'm home."

Or you might like to say:

"I listen,

I listen deeply".

This wonderful sound brings me back
to my true home.

Or you may say:

"Breathing in,
I feel calm

and relaxed,

breathing out,
I smile."

Calming.

Smiling.

Breathing in, I establish myself
in the present moment.

Breathing out, I know
this is a wonderful moment.

Calming,

smiling.

Present moment,

wonderful moment.

When you come home
to the present moment

with your inbreath

you become fully alive,
fully present.

You can touch

life in the here and the now.

You feel that you are alive.

You touch the miracle
that you are alive.

Because to be alive
that is the greatest of all miracles.

And with only one inbreath
you can touch that miracle.

That is why
you can say:

"Present moment,

wonderful moment."

If someone asks you:

"My dear friend,

Has the most wonderful moment
of your life arrived?"

He wants to know whether the most
wonderful moment of your life has arrived.

It would be a pity if
such a moment

does not arrive at all.

Then, you may have
the tendency to say:

"Oh, it does not seem
that it has arrived

that wonderful moment,

but I am sure that it will arrive soon,
sometime in the future.

That is our tendency to answer.

But if we keep living

like the way we have lived our life
in the past 20 years,

it will not arrive

in the next 20 years.

It might not arrive at all

that moment we call
the most wonderful moment of our life.

And for many, many of us,
that moment

does not arrive

at all

until we die.

The Buddha said:

"You have to make the present moment
into the most wonderful moment of your life."

And this is possible.

Because if you

are able to go home to the present moment
to the here and the now,

become fully alive,

become fully present,

you can touch all the wonders of life
within yourself and around you.

Everything belonging to you
is a wonder:

your eye, your ear, your nose,

your body, your mind.

And because you are not mindful,

you don't touch them deeply,
you don't know that they are wonders

until you die and you begin to regret
that you have not lived at all.

That is why our true home
must be sought in the here and the now.

It can be touched
in the here and now.

My true home

is not limited to...

...to a place,

to a time.

My true home is not Vietnam,

my true home is not France,
my true home is not America.

my true home is not Africa,

my true home is not the Palestine,

my true home is not Israel.

Although they don't

let me go back to Vietnam, I still have
my true home in the here and the now.

And maybe they are in vietnam
but they don't have a home.

That is why I don't feel

as a victim.

And I don't feel
that they are my enemies.

They are victims of fear.

They believe that if I go home

I will create an atmosphere of...

...of solidarity,

of friendship, of brotherhood

that may be threatening to their power.

And it is fear

that is an obstacle.

And I want to help them
to be free from fear.

They are not my enemies,
they are the ones I want to help.

They're objects of my practice
of compassion and understanding.

I have no enemies.

During the war,

during the Vietnam War

it was so difficult for us

to voice our concern...

Many of us, most of us
did not want the war.

The war put us in a situation
where brothers have to kill brothers.

And kill with foreign weapons

and ideologies.

Communism and anti-communism
imported

were imported.

Also weapons

used by the communists were imported.

Weapons used by the anti-communists
were imported.

They gave us

guns

and ideologies and urge us
to fight each other and kill each other.

We started a movement called

"Don't shoot your brother".

And our voice was silenced by

both sides

both warring parties.

We try to speak out.

We try to tell you, in a word,
that we don't want the war.

We don't want
the killing of each other

with foreign weapons
and foreign ideologies.

And yet we were forced

to do so.

So those of us
who practiced mindfulness,

understanding and compassion

we did not want
to accept the war.

We wanted

to reconcile.

And our voice was not

allowed to be heard.

Sometimes we had
to burn ourselves alive

in order to get
the message across.

*Vietnamese name*

a friend of mine

one day

he burnt himself.

And his picture

appeared in the international press.

I was in New York.

And I saw that picture
on the New York Times front page.

He's a friend of mine.

*Vietnamese name*

one of the first six members
of the Order of Interbeing,

my disciple,

she burnt herself
calling for reconciliation.

She went to the *Temple name"

very early in the morning

about two three o'clock
in the morning,

she put a statue of the Virgin Mary.

And *Vietnamese name"

she left behind
a set of letters

calling for

the President of North Vietnam,

the President of South Vietnam,

for everyone
to come together and stop

the act of killing each other.

And then she doused herself with gasoline
and she burnt herself.

*Vietnamese name"
is a very close

sister, close friend of sukkot uncle
sister jane come to emptiness.

I was embarrassed.

She left behind
a letter for me:

"Thai, don't worry,

peace will come.

Don't suffer too much,
don't worry."

She was about to die

but she tried
to comfort me, her teacher.

It's very, very difficult for us
to voice our concern

although we were the majority

in the country.

We didn't want the war.

My book of poetry,

peace poetry,

I like to call it peace poetry

rather than anti-war poetry:

"He was condemned by the North
and confiscated by the South."

So, when Cornell University
invited me to come

and gave a series of lectures,

I took the opportunity to go out

and to call for peace.

And in June the 1st

in the year

1966

I met Martin Luther King in Chicago.

Exactly one year before,

really one year before,

on June the first

1965, I wrote him a letter

explaining to him why
we had burnt ourselves.

This is not an act of suicide,

this is an act of love.

You want to transmit a message

but you have no other ways,

you have to burn yourself
in order for your message to get across.

So, the suffering of the monk who
burnt herself to get the message across,

a message of love and compassion,

is of the same nature of the act
of Jesus Christ dying on the cross.

Dying with no hate

no anger

only with compassion.

Leaving behind

a compassionate call

for peace,

for brotherhood.

So, exactly one year after,
I met him in Chicago.

We talked for some time

and then, after that,

we went out to meet with the press.

And that day he came out
against the war in Vietnam.

That is the day when

we combined our efforts

of working for peace in Vietnam

and fighting for civil rights in America.

Two years later I met him again

in Geneva

in a conference call opossum in terrace

organized by the World Council of Churches.

There're people like Linus Pauling

at the conference.

He [MLK] stayed
in the 11th floor.

I was on the 4th floor.
He invited me up for breakfast.

I was retained by the press,

I came up late.

And he kept the breakfast warm for me.
He waited for me.

I told him: "Martin, you know something,
in Vietnam they call you a bodhisattva".

[person in crowd] A what?

They call you a bodhisattva:

an enlightened being

trying to awaken other living beings

and help them go in a direction
of compassion and understanding.

I'm glad I had the chance to tell him

because a few months later
he was assassinated in Memphis.

We were in France

we had a bureau office

representing the Buddhist community
in Vietnam.

We wanted to represent the mass of people
who did not have a voice,

who did not have a chance to speak out.

So we live as a community

in Paris

and our office

in a poor quarter of Paris

number eleven

*street name".

And that quarters

were inhabited more by people

of Arab origin.

Every time I applied for a visa to go to America
it was turned down.

Automatically.

They didn't want me to come to America

because they believed that

I harm, I might be harmful,

I may be an obstacle
for the war efforts in Vietnam.

I was not allowed to go to America,

I wasn't allowed to go to England!

Every time I wanted

to go to America on a speaking tour,
I had

to write a letter

to someone like Senator McGovern

or Senator

Robert Kennedy

asking them to send me
a letter of invitation.

And the letter is something like this:

"Dear Thich Nhat Hanh, I'd like to know more about
the situation of the war in Vietnam.

Please come and inform me.

And if you have difficulties concerning the visa,
please telephone me at this number.

Only with such a letter that I could

have a visa

otherwise, it's no way.

I remember one day I flew from Japan
back to Paris

I did not have a visa

for transit

in Seattle.

I flew from Tokyo

to New York via Seattle
and then to Paris.

I want to stop in New York to meet
with a friend in the peace movement

Alfred Hassler,
of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

And when I landed in Seattle

I was locked in a place

where I could not see anyone.

I look around and see many pictures hang:
"Wanted" "Wanted" "Wanted"

They took my passport.

They didn't allow me

to be in touch with anyone.

And then,

when the plane is about to take off
they gave my passport back.

It's very difficult.

One day when I was in Washington DC,

I told you already

the Baltimore Sun

reporter came and informed me that

there's a dispatch from Saigon

informing the government
of the United States of America,

of France, of England

United Kingdom and of Japan

asking them not to honor
the passport of Thich Nhat Hanh

because he has been saying things
that are not helpful

to the war efforts against communism.

And in Vietnam

my books, my articles

my poetry was banned

by both the communists
and the anti-communists.

I risk deportation

and put in jail

because of what I had done:

calling for peace

and speaking

against the war.

It was my intention to

go only

three months

to give the series of lectures in Cornell

and then to make a tour

of America and Europe and go home.

I was

working with my friends
in a school of youth for social service

the Van Hahn Buddhist University
that I had founded in 1964.

All my friends,

co-workers were in Vietnam.

I didn't want to go very long.

I intended

to come here only for three months.

But it has been 38 years already.
I have not been able to go home 38 years.

And that is why I have been

sharing the practice

with friends in Europe, in America,

in other countries.

But because I have found
my true home

I don't suffer.

The truth is that during the first year
of my exile, it was difficult,

quite difficult.

Although I was already 40,

although I was already a dharma teacher

having many monks and nuns

as students, disciples

and yet I had not found my true home.

I can give very good lectures on Buddhism,
on the practice of Buddhism

But I

had not trully arrived.

Intellectually, I had a lot of Buddhism

I had been trained

several years in a Buddhist institute

and practiced since the time I was 16.

During the time I was a young monk,
I try my best to renew Buddhism,

update Buddhism so that it can respond

to the real situation of suffering.

Called Engaged Buddhism.

The kind of Buddhism that can offer you
the answers

to the burning questions of society

questions like war, social injustice,

political suppression, poverty,

violence and so on.

It was very difficult for me

during the first two years

because my intention was
to bring about informations to the world,

the kind of information
that were not available

to people because the warring parties
had all the mass media.

In speaking tour,

either I slept

one or two night in each city,

in America, in Europe,

in Australia,

and so on.

The whole time

when I woke up

at night I did not know where I was.

Very difficult, very hard.

And after,

I had to breathe in and out
and to find out where I was,

what city, what country.

And I dreamt of going home

to my root temple in central Vietnam
climbing a hill,

a green hill,

beautiful trees.

And half the way to the top of the hill
I woke up

and realized that I was in exile.

And the same kind of dream
repeated again and again.

I was very active.

I was making friends

with many people:

Catholic priests,

Protestant ministers,

professors,

young people,

children.

And my practice was the practice
of mindfulness. I try

to live in the here and the now
and touch the wonders of life in my daily life.

I survived by that practice.

The trees in Europe were so different
from the trees in Vietnam:

the fruits, the flowers, they're all different.
And the people also.

So I learnt to make friends

and play with German children,
French children,

African children,

British children.

I big friend with

Anglican priest, Catholic priest,

Protestant ministers and so on.

But thanks to that practice

I was able

to find my true home
in the here and the now.

And I stop suffering

and the dream
did not come back anymore.

People think that I suffer
when I cannot go back to Vetnam, but

that's not the case.

If I go to Vietnam,
that will be a joy.

To be able to offer the teaching to
the monks, the nuns and lay people there

and talk to the artists,

to the writers and others.

But if I cannot go,

I don't have to suffer.

I can meet with people, other people

in other countries,

like in China, in Korea,
in Japan, in Spain, in England,

in Canada

and so on.

And the formula:

"I have arrived,

I'm home"

is

the embodiment,
the expression of my practice.

It express my understanding
of the teaching of the Buddha.

It is

the cream of my practice:
I have arrived, I'm home.

And since the time I've found
my true home, I did not suffer anymore.

The past is longer a prison for me.

The future

is no longer a prison

for me.

I'm able to live
in the here and the now.

I'm able to touch my true home.

And I know that

the future

is available

through the present.

This is what I have found.

When you touch
the present moment deeply,

you touch the past.

And if you know how to handle
the present moment properly,

you heal the past.

Many think that the past is already gone,
you cannot do anything.

You cannot go back to the past
and fix things and repair things.

But according to this teaching
of the Buddha

the past is still there
with all the pain and suffering.

If you know how to come home
to the present moment

and touch the present moment deeply

you touch the past,

and you can heal the past.

And when you heal yourself,
you heal your ancestors.

And this is possible.

My ancestors have suffered in me.

I've also suffered.

And since I am able to

touch

the present moment deeply,
I heal myself

and I heal my ancestors
including my

parents,

my father,

my mother,

my brother, my sister,
my grandfather, my grandmother.

When I practice walking,

I generate energy of freedom

and solidity.

And I feel that all my ancestors

enjoy the freedom and the solidity
that I generate with the practice of walk.

Because, to me,

my ancestors are always alive in me,

fully present in me,
in every cell of my body.

And if I'm free, they're free.

If I heal, they heal.

When I take a step
with solidity and freedom,

all of them take the step with me.

And you have to take that step
with all your being.

full awareness, full concentration
in order for the step

to be a really solid,
to be free.

In order for you to be able to touch life,
the oneness of life in that moment.

That is healing and

nourishing.

So the act of making a step
is an act of freedom,

act of liberation.

You liberate yourself,
you liberate your ancestors.

It's an act of revolution.

Please, believe me.

You cannot make such a step unless
you invest entirely your body and your mind

100%

When you breathe in,

you bring

all yourself together,

body and mind.

You become one.

And equipped with that energy
of mindfulness and concentration,

you make a step

and you have inside that

this is your true home.

You are alive, you are fully present,
you are touching life

as a reality.

Your true home
is not an abstract idea,

it is as a solid reality
that you can touch

with your feet
with your hand

and with your mind.

The kingdom of God
or the pure land of Buddha

for me
they are not

abstract ideas.

It's something you can touch
in every moment, you can live

in every moment.

It is available
in the here and the now.

If you know
how to make yourself available

then the kingdom
is available,

the pure land is available,

your true home is available.

And nobody can

take away that true home.

They can occupy your country,
yes.

They can put you in prison,
yes.

But they cannot take away
your true home, your freedom.

So, it's very important
it's very...

fundamental, it's very basic

that you touch your true home.

And you'll realize your true home

in the here and the now.

And the energy with which
you can do so is mindfulness

and concentration.

And these are energies of the Buddha.

All of us have

the seed

of mindfulness and concentration in us.

This is a fact.

Because all of us
are capable of drinking

our tea mindfully.

When I drink my tea,
I want to really drink my tea.

I might like to breathe in
to bring my mind home to my body

and establish myself fully
in the here and the now.

You have to be there,

fully

and when you are there fully

the tea will be there for your fully.

If you are not there,
the tea is just

something like a...

ghost

not very real.

Mindfulness help you

to become fully...

present

and fully alive
in the here and the now.

It does not take long
it might take just one step

one inbreath.

And by making a step or breathing in
you bring your mind back to your body.

In your daily life

your body may be here

but your mind may be...

there.

They go in two different directions.

And you are in a state of distraction:

mind and body

are away from each other.

Your mind may be occupied,

preoccupied by
your project, your fear, your anger.

Caught in the past,
caught in the future.

But between your mind
and your body there is something:

your breath.

And as soon as you go home to your breath:
breathing in I know I am getting in,

and then your body and your mind
come together

very quickly.

While breathing in,
you don't think of anything

you just focus your attention
to your inbreath.

You focus.

You invest 100% of yourself into your inbreath,
you become your inbreath.

There is a concentration
mindfulness of your inbreath

concentration and your inbreath
that will make body and mind come together

in just one moment.

And suddenly you become
fully present, fully alive.

In the state of being

you pick up your tea

and the tea
become a reality,

not a ghost.

And when you drink your tea
you are just drinking your tea.

That's called "mindful drinking".

There's no thinking.

Just drinking, deep drinking.

You are real
and the tea is real.

And when you are real,
the tea is real, life is real.

And many people live

in a dream

because

they are not in the present moment,
they don't know what is

going on in the present moment.

But because you're able to bring
your mind back to your body

you are fully present and
you become aware of what is going on.

What is going on is that I

enjoy my tea

There is no thinking at all,
it's only

drinking of tea.

In that moment I live deeply
the moment of drinking my tea.

When I breath in,

I become fully aware of my inbreath.

My inbreath becomes
the object of mindfulness.

My inbreath becomes
the object of my concentration.

And that's why
my body comes home to my...

mind.

My mind comes home
to my body right away.

Then I become fully present.

Suppose you,
a group of people,

stand there and contemplate

a beautiful sunset.

If you keep thinking about the past

or thinking about the future

and your project,

you're are not really there
contemplating the sunset.

The sunset is not for you.

So if you practice breathing in and out
become and become

available in the here and the now
and this beautiful sunset is for you.

Breathing in I know the sunset is there.

Breathing out I smile
to the beautiful sunset.

In that moment,
life is real.

And you have your true home.

When you go back
to the present moment,

you might encounter
the wonders of life

that are refreshing and healing.
You might encounter

suffering,

violence,

hate,

fear,

discrimination.

And if you are a good practitioner,

you have enough mindfulness in order to

handle

whatever need to be handled.

Suppose anger is coming up
in you

as an energy.

As a practitioner,
you don't allow anger to be alone

in you.

Because if you let anger to be alone in you,
anger will cause a lot of damage

in your body, in your mind

and maybe around you.

That is why we practice
mindfulness of anger:

breathing in I know

anger is in me,

breathing out

I smile to my anger,

I embrace my anger.

You have a seed of anger

deep in yourself.

But you also have a seed
of mindfulness deep in yourself ,

you have a seed of compassion
in yourself.

When anger is touched,
when the seed of anger is touched,

it manifests in through

a kind of energy
called anger.

Suppose this is your consciousness.

It has two layers.

The lower layers co is called
store consciousness.

And the upper layer is called
mind consciousness.

You have a seed of anger here.

You also have a seed of joy,

of mindfulness,

of compassion, of non-discrimination.

You have a seed of anger, of despair,
of jealousy, of discrimination

in the depth of your consciousness.

But when the seed of anger

is left alone there,

in the store consciousness,

you don't water it, no one come
and touch it, you're okay.

You can laugh you,
you may have a good time,

but that does not mean that
you don't have the seed of anger in you.

As soon you hear
someone saying something

or doing something
the seed of anger in you is touched.

And it become a zone of energy

under the realm of mind consciousness.

In Buddhism

we call it a mental formation.

Anger is a mental formation.

In my tradition we speak of 51

categories of mental formations,

We have a seed
of discrimination in us.

We have a seed
of non-discrimination in us.

That is true.

If the seed of discrimination is watered
every day becomes very important.

And it doesn't allow the seed
of non-discrimination to manifest.

If the seed of anger

becomes stronger and stronger
every day, the seed of compassion

have less chance.

And that is why

every time a negative seed
is touched

and manifest

we have to take care of it.

That is why

I spoke about mindfulness of anger.

Mindfulness is the capacity of knowing
what is happening

what is happening is
anger has manifested.

So as a practitioner

you ask the seed of mindfulness
to manifest at the same time.

And if you are a diligent practitioner

the seed of mindfulness in you
is strong enough

and it's very easy for you
to touch and invite it to come up

and it come up
become a zone of energy.

Suppose anger is energy 1.

Mindfulness is energy 2.

Mindfulness is
mindfulness of something.

And here

mindfulness of anger.

Mindfulness here has

the following function:
recognizing

anger as anger.

Mindfulness of breathing:
breathing in I know this is my inbreath.

Breathing out
I know this is my outbreath.

Recognizing inbreath as inbreath,

recognizing outbreath as outbreath.

Recognizing drinking as drinking,

recognizing walking as walking.

That's the function of mindfulness.

So, the energy of mindfulness
generated by your breathing, your walking

has the capacity of recognizing
anger as anger.

Breathing in

I know

anger is in me.

Breathing out

I take good care of my anger.

Recognising anger

and embracing

anger.

This is an art.

This is a practice,

there's no fighting.

Mindfulness

is generated not to fight anger

but to recognize anger
and to hold anger

very tenderly.

That is Buddhist practice.

You do not transform yourself
into a battlefield:

the good fighting the ego.
That's not Buddhism.

Because you are mindfulness
but you are also anger

and mindfulness play
the role of a big sister,

holding the angry,
the suffering younger sister

and help her to transform.

A mother

is working in the kitchen

and she hear the baby crying.

She very much care for the baby.

So she stop,

walk in the kitchen
she put down

whatever she's holding
and she goes to the room of the baby.

The first thing she does is to pick her up
and hold her tenderly into her arms.

That's the mother.

She doesn't know
what's wrong with the baby yet

but the first thing she does
is to pick up the baby and hold her

mindfully.

We do the same thing as a practitioner.

Every time anger or despair come up,

we generate

the energy of mindfulness

in order to recognize

and to embrace tenderly.

Tenderly.

And if we know how to practice
mindful walking or mindful breathing

we continue to generate mindfulness.

And we

hand that energy
in order to recognize and to embrace.

And

we can bring relief

because

mindfulness as an energy

embracing anger as another
source of energy tenderly.

Big brother, younger brother.

Although the mother has not

realized what's wrong, but the fact
that she's holding the baby tenderly

can already bring a relief to the baby
and the baby may stop crying.

If the mother continue to hold
the baby tenderly with mindfulness

she'll find out what's wrong.

The baby may be hungry,

the baby may have

fever,

or the diaper may be too tight.

As a mother

she can find it out very quickly.

As practitioner

you can find out very easily

why this anger.

And you can see the roots
of that anger.

You find out the nature,
the root of that anger.

If the mother found out
what is wrong with the baby

she can fix the situation

very quickly.

If the baby is hungry,
she give her some milk,

if the diaper is too tight,
she just

undo it and do it again.

So, after having embraced tenderly

your anger,

you might like to continue

the practice of mindful breathing,
the practice of mindful walking

and look deeply

into the nature of your anger

and find out
what is the root of your anger.

Recognizing, embracing
and looking deeply.

Because mindfulness

is the kind of energy

carrying with her

the energy of concentration.

Wherever mindfulness is,
concentration is also.

When you are mindful of your inbreath,

you are concentrated in your inbreath.

When you are mindful of your tea,
you concentrate on the tea.

That is why

the more powerful mindfulness is,

the more concentration you get.

With that mindfulness and concentration,
you practice looking deeply

and you get insight.

And that insight
is going to liberate you

transform your anger.

There is a story

of a young boy

who used to come to Plum Village
every summer

with his younger sister.

And they practiced mindfulness
as children.

The boy had difficulty with his father.

He blamed his father.

Every time he fall down and get hurt
his father always shouted at him

instead of coming and help him.

So, his relationship with his father
was difficult.

And he vowed that when he grew up
he would not be like his father.

If he has children and then if

his child fell down and get hurt
he will not shout at him,

instead he'll come and try to help.

That was his determination.

One day, he was playing

in the Lower Hamlet of Plum Village

and her sister were playing
with another little girl on a hammock.

The girl fell down and get hurt

and the blood was

coming down .

Suddenly, he found himself very angry

He wanted to shout: "Stupid!
How could you do something like that?"

And because he had been practicing
mindfulness, he was able

to refrain from shouting

and he recognized

that he was exactly like his father.

Instead of trying

to come and help his sister

he had the tendency to shout at her.

He hate

what he has within himself.

So when he practice

mindful breathing,
he knew

that this is the continuation
of his father inside of him.

He's not different from his father.

And with that insight

he turned around
and practiced slow walking

when he had seen someone coming
to help his sister.

And during slow walking
he recognized that

he's a continuation of his father.

The energy of anger
has been transmitted by his father.

And if he does not practice

he's going to become
exactly like his father.

And he will treat

his children

in the future
in the same way.

That is called Samsara:

continuation.

And suddenly he had a desire

to go home and tell his father
that he has the same kind of energy

and he would invite his father
to practice with him.

And when that intention was born in him

his anger resentment towards his father
began to dissolve.

What kind of insight did he get?

He got the insight that

he is exactly like his father.
He has the same kind of habit energy.

That is why he wanted to practice and he see
himself as a victim of that energy,

victim of the transmission

of that habit energy.

And he saw that his father
also was a victim of that

transmission.

His father may have got it from

his own father.

And when he had that insight, his anger...

vis-a-vis father just...

stopped.

He got a transformation.

I think for...

a young man of 12
that is a remarkable

achievement.

It is inside
that transform our afflictions.

And mindfulness has the power

of recognizing, embracing,
looking deeply

getting the insight
that transform your depth,

that get you free.

Transformation

and healing and freedom.

And when a young man is liberated
the father in him is liberated

and the ancestors in him are liberated

and the circle around samsara.

What the young man realized

is that...

he's not a victim of his father,

he's a victim of that habit energy.

And his father also
is a victim of that habit energy.

And when you are able
to transform you,

you are in a situation
to help transform him or her.

The one...

that you have you have believed
to be your oppressor,

the source of your suffering.

And that is my my practice.

I do not have enemies.

Even...

they've created a lot of suffering,
a lot of injustice, they've tried to kill me,

to supress me.

But they are not my enemies.
They are those I want to help.

Because I have become free, I have
changed myself, I have transformed myself.

That's why...

I do no longer

see myself as a victim.

I know that if I can transform myself,
I can help transform them.

If you practice

and if you can transform
your mind, your heart

you become a boddhisatva.

And then...

you will be in a position
to help them transform

those

you used to consider as oppressors...

abusers.

Those you considered to be
the one who discriminate against you

trying to suppress you,
and kill you and so on.

They're also
victims of their own ignorance,

their own anger.
They don't know how to handle

their craving, their anger,

their violence,

their fear.

So the path...

is to transform yourself
into a bodhisattva

with plenty of

understanding, insight
and compassion

And when you have these energies,
you are free

and you are in a position of helping

other people to become free also.

This is the path...

shown to us by the Buddha.

And every one of us

has the seed of mindfulness,
concentration and insight

in himself or in herself.

You are able to cultivate
these three kinds of energies

for our own liberation and healing.

And we shall use the same kind of energy
to help the transformation and healing

of the world.

When you look up,

you see

a temple.

The temple is in your heart,
the lotus in your heart.

Underneath there was the word "smurty".
"Smurty" means mindfulness.

And then there is the word "samadhi".
It means concentration.

And there's the word "prashna",

that is insight.

And that is the kind of energy
that are in us

to be cultivated, to develop.

That is the energy
of the Buddha in us,

the energy of transformation

and healing.

During our retreat

we practice mindful breathing

mindful walking.

That is why

we are encouraged to use our time

for the practice.

If we talk a lot,
there will be no time to...

enjoy our inbreath-outbreath,
our walking.

There will be time when we
are encouraged to talk to each other:

dharma discussions.

We will be sharing our insights,

our way of overcoming our suffering.

And when we practice eating
our lunch, our breakfast,

we refrain from thinking.

We establish ourselves
in the here and the now.

We pay attention only
to the food that we eat.

When you pick up a piece of bread,

you do not think of the past,
of the future,

you just touch the piece of bread...

deeply.

And we are able to see
that piece of bread.

So, if you look deeply into the piece
of bread, you see everything in it.

The piece of bread you hold
in your hand is the body of the cosmos.

With a little bit of mindfulness,
you can see

that the piece of bread is an ambassador
form of the cosmos coming to you.

And if you can see the piece of bread

in its true nature,
and then you can put it in your mouth.

Don't put anything else in your mouth,
like your projects,

your fear, your anger.
It's not healthy. Just put the bread.

Just chew the bread,

mindfully, with joy.

Don't chew your sorrow, your anger.
It's not good for your health.

There's no thinking,

just...

the process of mindfulness
as chewing.

We take our time
to enjoy our breakfast

from time to time,
repose and smile.

The brother in front of you is you,

the sister on your left is you.

They all belong to the sangha.

And together we generate

the energy of mindfulness.

The collective energy of mindfulness
while walking, while sitting,

while eating,
will be powerful

and it will penetrate
into each of us.

We'll be healed by the collective energy
and nourished by the...

collective energy.

Alone in our living room

we can generate

the energy of mindfulness.

But compared
to the collective energy of mindfulness,

well,

it's not much.

Therefore, to be in a sangha

and to allow ourselves to be penetrated
by the collective energy

of mindfulness with sangha
is very important.

So, the coming together of a sangha
is a very important fact,

is a miracle.
And we should

profit from the opportunity,

allow ouselves to be transported
by the collective energy of the sangha,

allow the sangha to embrace our...

afflictions,

our pain, our sorrow.

The sangha is the boat

that help you to float
on the river of suffering.

Allow yourself to be

transported by the sangha
by the collective energy of mindfulness.

And while eating you enjoy

the time being with the sangha.

You smile to your brother and sister
in the practice.

You allow yourself to be nourished
by the collective energy of the sangha.

Every moment of our daily life

mindfulness help us to be
in the here and now.

And the real practice,
the true practice...

is to allow every moment of our life
to be a joyful movement.

That will be

possible thanks to the power
of mindfulness and concentration

generated by yourself
and generated by the sangha.

Tomorrow we shall have a...

mindfulness walk in the morning,
we shall be walking together.

We'll walk in such a way
that make the kingdom of God...

real, available in the here and now.

There're several of us
that are very used to the practice.

We'll walk together and generate...

the collective...

energy of mindfulness together.

And you wil see that the kingdom,
the pure land is available.