"Go Home and Heal Yourself" | Thich Nhat Hanh (EN subtitles)

Dear Sangha, today is December 16,

2012.

We are in the Upper Hamlet's
Still Water Meditation Hall,

Plum Village France,

in the Winter Retreat 2012-2013.

Roughly 5 or 6 years ago,

in 2007,

Thay received a reporter

from

TIME Magazine

in

Pháp Vân Temple in Saigon (Vietnam).

She had interviewed Thay

a few times actually.

That year, Thay came back to Vietnam

to hold days-long Grand Requiem Masses
(also called “Great Ceremonies of Healing”)

to pray for those who already died

in the Vietnam War.

After the interview,

she asked, “Thay,

is there anything you want to share

with the readers

of...

of TIME Magazine?

You’ve already shared with me all you want
to share, but is there anything

special you want to share on this occasion?“

I followed my breathing

and I said, “Yes.”

After pausing for a few seconds,

I said,

“Go home

and heal yourself.”

Go home.

Please go home.

And take good care of yourself, heal yourself.

It means, “Stop doing this and that,
here and there.“

That answer moved her deeply.

So deeply

that she decided not to write up a piece

about that day's interview.

She didn’t write about the interview
she had with Thay that day.

She boarded a flight to go back
to the US to take care of herself.

“Go home

and take care of yourself.”

That’s the

message from Thay

to those

who

read her magazine.

However, she didn’t understand deeply

what Thay meant to say.

She thought she had to abandon everything

and buy a flight ticket to go back to the US

in order to go home.

But when Thay said "go home,"
it means something different.

Something deeper.

We don’t need to buy a flight ticket

bound for the US,

or

Germany, or

India,

or the Netherlands, in order to go home.

It's because, in the Plum Village
teachings, home...

is located in the present moment,

right here and right now.

For so long, we’ve been
going around in circles,

looking

for happiness.

We think

there’s many things we have to do.

We cannot stop.

And because we can never stop,

the process of healing can never take place.

If you keep doing things,

then healing is not possible.

If you keep searching,

looking for something,

if you’re always trying to do something,

then healing

would not be possible.

That’s what Thay meant to say.

"Go home" here means

stop searching,

stop going around in circles,

make sure we arrive at the present moment,
that we're truly home in the present moment.

Every step

that we take

in our mindful walk practice

is already powerful enough

to take us home.

We don't need to buy any flight tickets.

Every step brings you home

to the here and now.

It's because our true home

is located in the present moment,
in the here and now.

In order to come back

to this true home...

Each mindful...

step

can

immediately bring us back to our true home.

We don’t need to buy any flight tickets.

The same with each breath.

If in each breath there is mindfulness,

well,

one in-breath is enough for us to go home

to the present moment,

to our true home.

Each breath taken mindfully like that

brings the mind back to the body,

for the body and mind to be in oneness,

for the body and mind to be established

in the present moment,
in the here and now.

With that, we feel

we've truly arrived,

that we're truly home.

There’s nothing to do,
there’s nowhere to go.

Only in such a case

can the healing process begin.

Our society

is in a state of ill-being,

and each of us, to a certain extent,
is also in a state of ill-being.

Each of us has to know
how to take care of our own healing

if we want to do our share to contribute

to the healing

of society.

Perhaps you’ve heard

of the Newtown mass shooting

happening just yesterday

in the US.

A 20-year-old guy,

who to all appearances
looked kind and gentle,

went mad, and turned the gun
on his mom and killed her.

Then he headed out for an elementary school

in Newtown,

and shot

and killed

probably 26 people.

20 of them were young children.

Very young and little.

That’s ill-being.

But it’s not the ill-being of one person,

it’s the ill-being of the whole society.

What can we do to heal that?

We have many medical centers,

many hospitals,

many psychotherapists.

But are we able to treat the ill-being of our time

like despair,

ill-will,

having no direction in life?

Poor that young, 20-year-old man.

He had no way out,

feeling nobody understands him,

the wounds

in his soul were too deep.

Perhaps that young man

didn’t kill out of ill-will

but because

there was no peace in his heart.

How can you have ill-will for children

only 7 or 8,

so adorable

and innocent like angels like those?

How can you bring yourself to turn
the gun on and kill such little ones?

At lunchtime, we will eat in meditation

and send peaceful energies
to these little ones.

But we have to know that this is...

the ill-being of our time.

If we really want

to heal our society,

we have to know how to heal ourselves first.

According to the practice that
we’ve learned here in Plum Village,

healing will never take place
if we never really stop,

if we fail to find our way back
to our true home.

And our true home is on the island
of mindfulness within ourselves.

Once we've truly arrived there,

there's no more going around in circles.

We have the opportunity to
take care of and heal ourselves,

including our body

and our soul

– where deep wounds are left to us

from past lives,

i.e. from many generations
of our blood ancestors.

When we do mindful movement exercises
like raising our arms,

if we're...

firmly rooted

in the present moment,

we’ll see that these movements are not

to bring us a desired state of health.

We’ll see that

while raising these arms,

our parents,

our grandparents, our blood ancestors

and our descendants,
are raising these arms with us.

We don’t see ourselves as having
a separate self-entity from them.

It's not that a separate self-entity
is raising these arms.

Actually, while raising these arms, all
of our ancestors, grandparents, parents

– even our children and grandchildren,
though they haven't manifested yet,

are participating in the raising
of these arms with us.

If, while raising these arms,
we're dwelling in joy,

awakening, and happiness,

realizing that having a body

is such a great miracle,

realizing that our being able
to raise these arms

is such a great miracle,

we'll feel the joy of being in touch
with the miracles of life.

In us, all our ancestors,

our friends,

our parents, our children
and grandchildren,... will also

feel this joy

of being in touch with the miracles of life.

But we can only feel the joy
of raising these arms

when we are present in the moment.

We raise these arms not aiming for
a desired state of health in the future.

It’s to enjoy

and to relax,

because when raising these arms this way,
we've arrived, we're home.

In Vietnam, there are at least
two meditation teachers.

While Teacher Thanh Từ teaches...

"Being mindful that the mind has many
wrong perceptions, I don't follow it”,

Teacher Nhất Hạnh teaches
“I have arrived, I am home.”

“I have arrived, I am home”
is a practice in our tradition.

In each breath, in each step,

we have to arrive and feel at home.

Brushing our teeth, rinsing our mouth,

or urinating,

we practice "I have arrived, I am home."

No place for hurrying.

Find joy

while doing all of these things.

While brushing your teeth, brush
in such a way that you feel joy in your heart,

you feel alive in the present moment.

You don’t

get it done to do something else.

That’s our practice.

The same with urinating – urinating
is such a great happiness actually.

The same with defecating.

For what reason do you have to hurry
to get it over with?

The same with walking to the meditation hall.

You don’t need to be in such a big hurry.

Once you reach the meditation hall,
you’ll sit and breathe the same anyway.

So on your way to the meditation hall, each
step is already a step taken inside the hall.

And that’s our Dharma door.

Don’t say, “I can’t do it!”

It’s well within your power and ability.

It’s so easy.

Not only is it so easy,

but it also brings so much joy

in no time at all.

So when taking a step,

if we can successfully arrive and
be firmly rooted in the present moment,

we’ll touch the miracles of our own body,

of life.

We're no longer being pushed by this energy
that makes us go around in circles,

that makes us abandon the present moment
in search of a future happiness.

At that moment,

there’s deep and total relaxation.

With this deep relaxation,

with this peaceful dwelling in the present moment,

healing or guérison

will

instantaneously begin.

Healing

will take place in every moment

of our daily life.

Every minute,

every second, is healing.

Every breath is healing.

Every step is healing.

That’s what "going home" is.

It doesn’t mean you buy a flight ticket

and sit on the airplane to get home.

Even when you’ve already
purchased the flight ticket,

waited

for 10 hours to board the flight,

gone to the airport,

caught a cab home,

entered your room, shut the door
behind you and lied down,

it’s not certain that you're at home.

You may probably exclaim,
"Home sweet home" at first. But...

within a few days, you no longer feel...

it's "home sweet home."

You want to go somewhere again.

You haven't had a home yet, your true home,

because you don't know how
to practice what the Buddha's taught,

which is, our true home
is located right on the...

island of mindfulness within us.
We have to go there.

So, that reporter understood

Thay, but not deeply.

That's why after that interview,

she didn't write about it.

Instead, she purchased a flight ticket
to go back to the US immediately.

I don't know if she could heal herself

if she didn't know
what "go home" really meant.

Yesterday, down at Sơn Hạ, Thay wrote,

"Go home

and heal."

This "home" doesn't mean
the house we're living in,

whether that house is in the US, in Germany,

or in Thailand.

Our true home is right here and right now.

Be at home, here and now.

And that's the mindfulness practice.

While driving your car,

you don't rush.

In each moment you're driving your car,

you've already arrived and been at home.

The same with taking a walk.

And from the parking lot

to your office,

each step is...

your home.

This way, each step and each breath have

the power to heal.

The Buddha's teaching of

"I have arrived, I am home" has been
applied in Plum Village for over 30 years.

If someone asks, "What do you

learn and practice in Plum Village?"

you can simply say,

"In Plum Village, we only learn one thing,

'I have arrived, I am home.' "

This is not a theory.

This is a way of living.

And some of us

have attained the fruit
of "I have arrived, I am home."

When we see them walk,

stand, sit, and eat, we can tell this person
has truly arrived and been at home,

that they have inner peace and happiness,

that they have

satisfaction

in the present moment.

They no longer want

to search for anything else.

They no longer want to go around in circles.

So the fruit that we can attain

is the fruit of "I have arrived, I am home."

We can never lie about it.

If we haven't truly arrived and been at home,
people can immediately tell.

If a person has arrived and been at home,
dwelling peacefully in that fruit of our practice,

we see that person has
inner peace and happiness,

fulfillment and satisfaction,

also called plénitude.

That person is someone who is being healed
and has already been healed.

You don't need

to learn many things.

You only need to learn

these two words,

"Arrived" and "Home."

Make sure we can do it.

But it doesn't mean that you're only happy
when you've done practicing it.

While training yourself to do this,
you already have happiness.

In each step and in each breath,
there's always contentment and joy.

Contentment and joy is
washing the vegetables.

Contentment and joy is
cutting the carrots.

Contentment and joy
is brushing the toilet.

Because we see that
everything is a true wonder.

That's how it is in Zen.

How miraculous it is

to chop wood,

carry buckets of water,

and cook for the sangha.

Miracles lie in such simple things.

We have freedom.

We've already arrived and
been at home, so healing...

is a reality taking place in every moment.

For that reason, every time we

feel we don't have peace in our body,

every time we

feel we don't have enough peace in our soul,

we should practice this Dharma door.

This Dharma door

is simple enough for us to
learn and put into practice.

We have a sangha

to support us

because our fellow practitioners,

whether they're male or female,

old or young,

are practicing "Arrived - Home" to have peace
and happiness in the present moment.

Some

have succeeded at this practice.

Just looking at them, we can already tell.

It gives us confidence

that we can do the same.

If you practice this in earnest

in three days,

you will see something change.

True home

is each step.

True home is each breath.

Healing

takes place in each step.

Healing takes place in each breath.

We do this for ourselves.

We do this for our family.

We do this for the little ones
who were brutally killed

the day before yesterday

in

Connecticut.

It's because, who are those little ones?

Those little ones

are our children,

our grandchildren,

our selves.

Our society

is having ill-being.

And each of us is more or less
having ill-being, too.

That's why we should take care
of the healing within ourselves.

But in order to heal,

we have to come through the Dharma door
of "I have arrived, I am home."

As a Buddhist, you practice this way.

As a non-Buddhist, you also practice this way.

Otherwise, you'll always go around in circles,

always searching and
never having the ability to heal yourself.

With that, how can you stand a chance
of healing the world, the society?