"Stop Waiting, Start Living": Public Talk in NYC, 2015.09.12 (Sr. Jina and Br. Phap Dung)

"Mindfulness: Stop Waiting -- Start Living"

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