Nourishing Our Joy & Happiness | Thich Nhat Hanh (short teaching video)

The fifth exercise is to generate,
to bring in a feeling of joy.

"Generating joy"

The sixth is generating happiness.

The seventh is
to recognize a painful feeling.

And the eighth is
to embrace a painful feeling.

So we are now in the domain...
in the realm of feelings.

And these four exercises are 
to help us to handle our feelings.

Of course there are painful feelings;
there are painful emotions.

And we, as practitioners, should 
learn how to handle a painful feeling.

If you don't know how to handle a painful 
feeling, you are not a good practitioner yet.

If there is a strong emotion,
painful emotion,

we should know
how to handle that emotion

like fear, anger, despair.

And this can be done
with the practice of mindful breathing.

But before teaching us
how to handle pain,

the Buddha proposed that
we learn how to generate...

a pleasant feeling, a joyful feeling,
a happy feeling.

And this practice helps us

because as 
a good practitioner you are supposed

to be able to bring in a joyful 
feeling whenever you like.

and this

with the practice of mindful breathing

when we focus our attention on our in-breath and 
breathe in we bring our mind home to our body

and we establish ourselves in the heart 
and in the here and now we might recognize

the many conditions of happiness 
that are already available

these conditions of happiness 
are in us and around us

more than enough for us to be joyful and happy 
in fact we are very lucky we still have many

conditions of joy and happiness available but 
because we get lost in the past and the future

in our worries and our fear that 
is why we do not recognize them

we believe that it is impossible to be 
happy now we have to go to the future

and look for some more conditions 
of happiness that's the way we think

but the buddha said very clearly 
that if you go home to the here and

now you recognize that conditions 
for your happiness are plenty already

and you can be happy right here right 
now and that is that teaching called

sukha vihara living happily in the present moment

sukha

too

vihara means lovely living sugar happy happiness

this rama present moment you can dwell you 
can live happily right in the present moment

this expression drista

is found four times in a discourse that 
buddha gave to a group of businessmen

you know that at the time buddha there was a very 
well-known businessman whose name is anata pinika

he is very appreciated by the people 
in his country the country of shahbasti

because he devote a lot of his time and 
money to to help the poor the lonely people

in the city and that is why people in the city of 
travasti gave him that beautiful name anata pinika

the one who take care of the destitute people 
of the lonely people orphans widows and so on

his real name is sudanta during one of his visit 
to the city of rajagraha he discovered the buddha

and became a student of the buddha and he invited 
buddha to come to his country and to teach

and when the buddha agreed he 
went home and bought a park

and off with intention to offer it to the 
buddha as a practice center just like magnolia

there was one time when anata pilika went 
bankruptcy bankruptcy but he did not suffer

because he had so many friends that came to help 
him restore his business and he had a great deal

of pleasure happiness serving the buddha the 
dharma and the sangha so one day he brought many

hundreds of his colleagues all businessmen to come 
to the buddha and buddha gave them that discourse

and in that discourse the expression living 
happily in the hand and now was repeated five

times i think the buddha knew that businessmen 
think a little bit too much about the future

about their success they don't have 
enough time to enjoy them here and

now they overlook the present moment they think 
they need more success in order to be happy

and therefore he gave that discourse gentlemen 
you can be happy right here and right now

and with the practice of mindfulness you can go 
home to the here and now and recognize the fact

that you are very lucky you have more than enough 
condition to be happy today is a french song

why do you have to wait you can be happy right now

and every every time we have a retreat

friends speaking for french-speaking 
people you always sing that song

so if we take a piece of paper and write 
down the conditions of happiness that we

already have we'll find out that one page is not 
enough two pages are not enough three pages are

not enough we have a lot of conditions 
of heaviness beginning with our eyes

since we have eyes still in good condition

the paradise of forms colors is available we 
just sit on the grass and enjoy the paradise

why do we have to run into the future 
looking for more conditions of happiness

we have more than enough and that is 
why to generate the feeling of joy

to generate the feeling of happiness 
is always possible at any time

and a good practitioner by going home to the under 
now can recognize the many conditions of happiness

and she can be happy all day long and 
make the people happy all day long also

because as a practitioner we can remind 
people that this is a time to be happy

and in this civilization many people are 
looking for happiness in the future elsewhere

and that is why this practice 
will help our society

so mindfulness mindfulness written in chinese 
is like this this is the present moment kim

and this is the mind

present moment my mind going home to the 
present moment means mindfulness similarity

in sanskrit and sati in bali

and mindfulness is the kind of energy that help us

to go home to the here and now and recognize 
conditions of joy and happiness that are

available

and in the sutra there is a depression that 
mindfulness is the source give birth to joy

and to happiness lives and healer

the joy and happiness born from mindfulness 
and that is why as a practitioner we can say

with confidence is mindfulness is a source 
of joy and happiness and mindfulness can be

generated by our practice mindfulness is not 
something we can buy in a supermarket and when

we have the collective energy of mindfulness we 
can nourish ourselves our family our community

there is another factor that can bring 
happiness and joy that is concentration

when you drink a cup of tea

you may choose to drink it with 
concentration mindfulness and concentration

when you are mindful your mind is with your body 
you are truly there you are real you become real

and when you become real and true something 
else will become real and true that is life

otherwise life will be only a ghost a phantom

and you are a phantom if your mind is not 
with your body if you are real and life

become real so the cup of tea part of life becomes 
real and you drink the tea in concentration

and you appreciate the tea you enjoy the tea

if you are not concentrated if you look at 
the television if you listen to the music

and then the d is lost so concentration 
can be an element a condition of happiness

and when we practice working meditation if we 
are really concentrated on every step we touch

the kingdom of god with every step and happiness 
becomes possible so mindfulness and concentration

are the two sources of happiness and you can 
afford to draw from happiness from these sources

and we can generate the energy 
of mindfulness and concentration

with our practice of mindful 
breathing mindful working

they would recommend another

another method

of generating joy and happiness 
that is the practice of letting go

releasing there are things that we use to

to see as essential to our happiness to our 
well-being to our security we cannot let them go

and maybe they are obstacle for our happiness

if we have the courage to let go 
and then happiness and joy will come

naturally

and you have to learn how to release these things

and you may like to take a piece 
of paper and write down these

the things that you can let go

one time the buddha was sitting with his monks 
having lunch together and the farmer came by

very unhappy he asked monks did you see my cows 
passing over here and what i said what cows

i had three cows and i don't 
know why this morning they all

they have all run away and i have two aggressive 
sesame seeds and this year the insect ate them all

they are venerable i think 
i'm going to kill myself

i have nothing left

the buddha said dear friend 
we have not seen your cows

crossing over here maybe you should go and look 
for them on the other direction and when the monk

when the farmer is gone the buddha 
turned to his monks and smile

and he said dear friends you are very lucky 
because you don't have any cow to lose

so if we have cows we know that maybe these 
cows are an obstacle for our happiness

we had to to write down the name 
of our cows on a sheet of paper

and see whether we can release them or not

because they may be an obstacle for happiness

our idea of happiness may be a cow we may 
believe that happiness is impossible until

i get that our happiness is not possible until 
i get rid of this you might have ideas like that

and that idea might be the main 
obstacle for for your for your happiness

you know the soviet indian was caught by an 
idea during 70 years the only way to make

the country strong is communism is marxism and 
anyone who voice an idea that is contradicted

to that will be put in prison and you might 
entertain an idea of happiness for 70 years

and wait to wait 70 years to 
release an idea is too long

so you may have been you may have entertained 
your idea of happiness for more than three years

it may be the obstacle of of your 
happiness so look at it again

to see whether it is a cow that you can

let go and if you can let go of that idea 
of happiness happiness will come right away

please call your cows by their two names

and have the courage

to let them go

so letting go is a good practice

it's not because we acquire more and 
more that you can be happy it is by

letting go that you become happier and happier

living in a crowded and polluted city

with 10 10 million people you suffer because 
of the noise of the dust of the pollution

but you don't have the courage to get out of 
the city for a weekend to go to the countryside

because you think that you are you 
have so many important things to do

but if you can get out of the city and then after 
one hour you come in touch with the rolling hills

the full moon the blue sky the beach the 
river and your happiness the happiness you

are experiencing now is too due to the fact that 
you have had the courage to leave the city behind

so to let go is one of the ways to 
generate joy and happiness and this

is the teaching of the buddha and the 
teaching is still relevant to our time