Healing relationships: The Practice of Beginning Anew | by Brother Bao Tang

Dear Thầy, dear community, dear friends.

I would like to take this opportunity to explain to you briefly how to practice Beginning Anew.

Beginning Anew is a practice

from Plum Village that can help us to re-establish and restore our relationship.

This is pretty much related to our perception because each of us,

we come from different backgrounds of life and different experience of life.

And sometimes when we come together, the wrong perception

can very easily manifest in a relationship.

And this can cause resentment and irritation inside the relationship itself.

And when we feel that resentment and irritation is building up,

we know that this is the right time for us to practice the Beginning Anew.

The Beginning Anew even it has four steps for us to practice.

But it is not a technique.

It is a way, a way of being mindful, a way of coming back to ourself so that we have enough calm

and peace to look deeply into how we speak and how we think in the relationship.

So the first step is to be able to water the good quality of the other person.

The second step is to be able to express our regret.

The third step

is to be able to express our suffering.

To be able to express our hurt feeling.

The fourth is to ask help, to ask support.

So the first part of.

Watering

flower of the other person it means.

We are able to recognize the good quality of the other person,

because when we feel irritated,

we cannot see the good quality of the other person.

If only when we can take care of our speech, when we get irritated and angry.

We take care of our speech by actually not speaking when we feel angry.

Instead, we come back to our breath.

We practice mindful walking in order to generate peace so that we have enough calm

and peace in our heart and space for us to re-look again

towards this person.

And at that time, probably we are able to see the good quality of the person

because when we have peace and calm, we may recognize that we have irritation.

We may recognize that we have anger.

And at this moment we have compassion towards ourself.

And that compassion can create space for us to look at the good quality of the other person.

And the second is also very important practice is to be able to express our regret.

Because we can see that in a conflict,

we also ourselves are being part of a relationship.

Because relationship needs

more than one person.

So we maybe also contribute to that situation.

And by taking time.

By having compassion in our heart, we are able to see that we also contribute to the situation.

And at this time, we can express our regret and we can express also our shortcoming.

Probably we are not able to

to direct our speech.

And probably, we speak out of our anger, we speak out of our irritation.

And that kind of speech contribute.

To the conflict.

And this is the time for us to express the regret that we have.

This is a time to express the regret that we had said in this way or in that way.

And the third part of the practice

is to be able to share our suffering, why we feel hurt.

We may recognize that in the past, in our life, we may have

some suffering that related to a certain event in the relationship.

And if we are able to look deeply and see a little bit clearer,

we can share this story, this suffering to the person related.

And this sharing may help the other person to understand why we suffer.

To express hurt is not

to expect someone to change

is not to expect that someone will not do it again.

But this is more to express ourselves that we suffer and to share

why we suffer so that we can give understanding to the other person.

Because when the other person can understand,

they also can love us.

They also can have compassion in their heart.

And then the relationship,

and then the conflict is easier to re-establish and to be restored.

So sharing our vulnerability is very important.

But also important to know where it comes from.

What experience in the past that make us suffer in the present moment.

And this is a very important information

that we may like to share to the other person.

And the fourth step will be easier to ask support

when we are able to share our suffering and to be understood.

So when we are able to express well ourself,

especially our suffering and we know that the other person

start to have compassion because we are able to offer understanding to him or to her.

So that the person also can give us support

by taking care of their speech, by taking care of their action.

But of course there is no expectation in that,

we just do our best to communicate.

And sometimes the person that you practice Beginning Anew,

that person may not be a practitioner.

So we need to have some skillfulness and we can even invite that person to drink some tea

and to invite that person politely, gently,

that we would like to communicate something to him or to her.

We may like to create an atmosphere where the mindfulness, energy and beauty

can be present.

So we may like to also prepare

flowers or some decoration on the table where we want to drink tea.

So after having drinking tea for some times

and we feel that there is calm energy, then we can start our sharing.

So while waiting for the appointment,

we may still have some resentment and we may still have some anger, probably.

And that moment, that period of time, we really need to take care of our speech.

So for conclusion.

Beginning Anew.

It's about being present.

Being present for ourself.

Being present for our emotion so that we have space to be able to share.

To be able to look at the other person a little bit deeper so that we have more understanding.

And after we have shared, we can invite also the other person to share.

What is in their heart.

If he is or she is a practitioner,

they may also practice this four steps.

Otherwise, they can just share what they feel and how they feel.

And from that sharing, we may also have more understanding.

Of the other person.

So this is something that we can do when we want to re-establish our relationship,

but also this is something that we can do to maintain and to cultivate a good relationship.

We don't have to do four steps all the time,

but we can also do the first step and the second step,

because recognizing a good quality of the others, we can always do that in a regular basis.

And every time when we recognize that we have done some unskillful things,

speak unskillful things, then we can also express our regret in the regular basis.

So dear friends,

Beginning Anew

is not a technique, but it's a way.

It's a way to be mindful, concentration and to have insight.

Thank you for listening.