Tangerine Meditation with Sister Hien Nghiem and Brother Phap Huu | iPause 3 21 Awareness

Stanford University Hello, everybody.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for joining us.

And we're so excited to be able to see you all on the screen.

We have a wonderful big screen in front of us.

My name is Sister True Dedication and I'm here with Brother Phap Huu, the abbot of our monks community here in Plum Village, France.

So we're in our afternoon.

Most of you I imagine are in your morning.

And it's truly wonderful, wonderful to see all your faces.

So this morning, we will start with a wonderful grounding meditation that Brother Phap Luu will lead.

And then we will enter into our tangerine meditation.

So I hope you are all beautifully equipped with the necessary props,

ideally a tangerine or an orange and if not, perhaps any other piece of fruit, a banana or an apple,

or failing that some other kind of snack, perhaps nuts or a bar or something.

So something you can really savor in your mouth.

So without further ado, we will begin with our wonderful practice this morning.

Thank you for joining us.

Thank you friends for joining us.

Let us allow ourselves to sit comfortably,

and I will guide us into a meditation that will connect us to our breathing.

So first of all, just become aware of our posture as we're sitting.

If we're on a chair, we can sit upright with our two feet solid on the ground.

And if we're on the floor, if we're on a cushion or on a bench,

also just to sit in a posture that is comfortable that allow ourselves to be upright but relax.

In our tradition, sitting meditation is not to arrive anywhere at a destination such as enlightenment,

but it is more to feel alive, to be.

So you can also place your arms, your two hands rested on each other, let the fingers curl up, relaxing our shoulders.

And you can close your eyes if that would help with the concentration,

and just to be focused on my words as I guide us to the meditation.

So in this very moment, just become in touch with the sensation of the body,

feeling your shoulders, your head, your upper body, your lower body, your two feet.

And if we need to move a little just to feel that center, that can be helpful also.

And when we are steady, allow ourselves to just be still.

And now allow ourselves to bring our attention, our awareness to the breath.

As I breathe in, I recognize this is my in-breath.

As I breathe out, I recognize this is my out-breath.

Very simple, identifying in and out.

Breathing in, I'm in touch with my in-breath.

Breathing out, I'm in touch with my out-breath.

I feel the in-breath entering into my body and I feel my out-breath.

In and out.

As I breathe in, I can feel my abdomen, my tummy rising.

As I breathe out, I can sense my abdomen falling.

I am one with the in-breath as I breathe in, rising.

One with the out-breath as I breathe out,

my abdomen gently's falling.

In-breath, rising.

Out-breath, falling.

And as I breathe in, I bring my awareness to my whole body.

As I breathe out, I relax my body,

aware of my face, aware of my neck, my shoulders, my two arms, my hands, my fingers.

Aware of my back, my chest, my stomach.

Aware of my hips, my legs, my feet.

And allowing my body to rest in this moment with each in-breath and out-breath.

With the in-breath, I calm my body.

With the out-breath, I care for my body in this very moment.

Today, I have 24 brand new hours before me.

What a gift.

May I enjoy each moment of this 24 hours as a treasure.

I don't take for granted this moment.

Breathing in, I'm aware of my stable posture.

Breathing out, I enjoy the stable posture.

Enjoy sitting and not doing anything.

One with the breath, one with the body.

In, enjoying the posture.

Out, enjoying the sitting.

As I breathe in, I arrive into this moment.

The moment of the here and now, solid and firm.

Breathing out, I feel at home in this moment.

Home in this presence of stability, freshness, calm and space.

Breathing in, I'm in touch with the stillness inside of me, around me.

Breathing out, I enjoy the stillness that is present

by my mindfulness of breathing, mindfulness of presence.

I listen.

I listen.

This wonderful sound of the bell guides me home to the present moment.

I listen.

I listen.

This wonderful sound of the bell brings me home to the very here and now.

[Half Bell]

[BELL]

Dear friends, thank you so much for practicing mindful breathing with all of us.

I hope you felt connected by just being in this dimension of stillness

that we generated together through Zoom.

How wonderful technology can be.

Today, we have an opportunity this morning to practice the meditation together.

In meditation, we always have two wings that guides us.

The first wing is learning to stop, learning to pause.

And the second wing is looking deeply, having time to reflect.

And we always say that we want to be mindful, but we have to be mindful of something.

We have to have an object for us to be mindful of.

And our practice, in Plum Village, which we have been,

we have inherited the teachings from our Zen Master teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh.

He has taught us that Buddhism has to be applied into everyday life and Buddhism has to be a living, a living practice.

And this is what we have inherited from him.

So each day when we practice, we always want to bring the teachings that we learn from the talks, from the books,

sharing and have moments in our daily life that we can apply it into our own experience.

We always say the Dharma, which is the teaching, is for us to come and see and experience for each and every one of us.

So this morning I invite us to experience together, to reflect on a tangerine.

This meditation, we use it as a, it's a Dharma door for us to first teach the children.

Once a year, we have a family retreat and we welcome many families and allowing them to bring their children to us.

And we will set up programs for the children to be with monks and nuns.

And we will teach them how to apply mindfulness into their own life.

And believe it or not, they're actually quite experts of being in the present moment.

And they're quite good at being very attentive as long as you can guide them.

And as long as it is joyful, fun and engaging.

Talking too much is not helpful to be with children.

But we also realize that we all have an inner child inside also that we want to nourish.

And we all notice that also we as adults, we also have neat moments where we can be in touch with life.

When we come and we sit to be with the breath,

we have an opportunity to be in touch with what is happening in our mind.

We can see the mind running towards the past, running towards the future, the projects,

and the mind, the breath becomes this bridge to bring it home to the body.

And in our daily life, we eat, we walk, we talk, we share, we work.

And for us, all of those activities are opportunities for meditation.

Meditation in our path, it doesn't belong on a cushion, on a mat, in a monastery,

but it can be applied in every moment, in every direction of life.

We can be in touch with the practice.

So I invite us, let us all hold our fruit, our tangerine in our two hands, our banana, our apple,

and just feel this fruit, feel this tangerine, be present with it, really look at it.

And you, you're established in this very moment and you recognize the tangerine is in your two hands.

And when we look deeply at the tangerine,

we can ask the tangerine, where did you come from?

Did you come from outer space and just manifest?

But if you listen and look deeply at the tangerine,

the tangerine is saying that it has come from the whole cosmos to be present for us.

As a meditator, we have this eye of looking deeply.

When we are in touch with the tangerine,

we can start to see not just the tangerine,

we can see the tree that helped produce the tangerine.

We can see the leaves, the blossom, the flower,

that are all part of the manifestation for the tangerine to be.

Looking more deeply, we can see the clouds in the tangerine, the rain.

We can even touch, be in touch with the sun,

the sunshine, the rays that come to nourish the tree year round,

to nourish the fruit when it starts to be present

for the tangerine to slowly ripen all that day and month, continuous moments.

And the tangerine may ask us, I am here for you, but are you here for it?

So in this moment, let us take a mindful in-breath and out-breath,

and allow ourselves to see the tangerine as the tangerine.

We are not being caught by our projects, our ideas, but we see the tangerine as it is.

I can say that this is a miracle of life.

All of the conditions that have come together for the tangerine to be present.

Isn't that a miracle?

We can even feel and smell the fragrance by just pinching a little bit of the skin,

how fragrant it can offer the scent.

And when we can smell it, we feel more alive.

We can be in touch with the wonders of life.

And the tangerine now say, I am here.

You are here.

I want to offer you my full presence.

I allow you to view my inner self.

Let us mindfully start to peel the tangerine.

And we do this with care and love.

Each time I peel, I can be thankful and grateful for the presence of Mother Earth that is present in this tangerine.

You can imagine this is your first time seeing a tangerine.

And Brother Phapoo is explaining to you what it is.

My tech team is all smiling and giggling.

We have this new eye.

We don't see the tangerine as just a fruit to eat and to taste the sweetness of it,

but we see it more than that.

How beautiful it is, how wonderful it has so many different, how do you say this?

Segments.

Segments.

Easy for us to gently break off,

so that we can see the beauty of the tangerine in its true form,

from the skin to the fruit inside.

And I would like to invite us to take one segment before we eat and we put it in our mouth.

We can now feel the moisture, the texture of the tangerine.

And in this moment, I am connected with the tangerine.

I see you outside, but in just a few more moments,

you will become one with me.

You will become a part of me.

And the tangerine is not afraid.

It's not afraid of not existing because the tangerine will continue into us.

And when we eat the tangerine, we invite you to chew it at least 20 times

to really taste the texture, the taste of the tangerine, the sensation,

if it's sweet, if it's sour, and allow it just to manifest in our mouth.

Sisters, brothers, friends, please enjoy your tangerine.

With this awareness, mindfulness, our presence with the tangerine,

we can truly enjoy the tangerine.

We're not eating our projects, we're not eating our worries,

but we are truly there with the tangerine.

And with this awareness, we are grateful for the tangerine.

And with gratitude, food always tastes a little bit better.

So enjoy the next slice altogether.

Please continue to enjoy your tangerine or your fruit.

I would like to share a little bit more while we enjoy eating.

Our practice in our monastery, when we eat,

we don't see that eating is just a mean of life,

but it's truly an opportunity to be in touch with life because each piece of bread, each bowl of rice,

broccoli, carrot, when we are there for it, we can see the whole cosmos that is present.

And eating then becomes a very sacred moment,

that can become a part of our daily life.

Eating meditation is very joyful,

if you know how to enjoy eating.

And when we practice eating as a community or as an individual,

we truly allow ourself to nourish our body with awareness

of the whole cosmos that is present,

nourishing our body, nourishing our well-being.

And with this awareness, it can give us gratitude in our daily life.

It nourishes our gratitude, our gratefulness.

And what we choose to eat can also nourish our compassion.

So when we eat food that... for us we're vegetarian,

so that allows us to nourish this connection to life and nourish idea that we want to protect life.

As the theme of this week is taking care of Mother Earth, taking care of ourselves.

How do we see? By being present, by being alive,

what is our interconnection with nature,

with the climate, with life all around us?

And we call this interbeing.

We see that we are here, but everything that revolves around us is also our responsibility.

So what we eat, what we drink,

if we are mindful of it, we can make more mindful choices so that we can nourish our compassion,

nourish our gratefulness and our connection to life.

And that's... therefore eating this way when we savor,

we feel and we taste the juice that's coming out mindfully.

We savor every second, every moment of the tangerine, of the fruit, it becomes spiritual.

And so for you at that moment that you're eating with this mindfulness, that becomes a sacred moment.

That becomes a moment of practice.

And you may not be in the monastery, you may be at your office, at home, at school,

and you're practicing and nobody needs to know.

We call that the ninja practitioner.

We're in disguise, but nobody knows that we are fully present, we are fully alive.

I've had the opportunity to follow Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, my teacher,

as his personal attendant, assistant for more than 15 years.

And I've had, as his attendant, I've had a chance to eat with him almost every day.

And this is how I see he nourishes his balance.

When he eats, he just eats.

He doesn't allow himself to be caught in distraction,

to be carried away by so many projects.

He doesn't allow the eating to become a meeting.

He really tells us when we eat together, we enjoy eating.

And then after that, we can talk.

So his, you know, his name, Nhất Hạnh, it means one action.

And Thay teaches us if we know how to do each action with our full presence,

we will offer the best we can in each moment.

So that is how we learn to approach life.

And that's how we learn to enjoy each piece of fruit,

spoonful of fruit when we have this opportunity.

So today, today is just the iPod session, is just to start off our mindfulness session together.

I hope when you eat lunch or dinner today,

you allow yourself just some five minutes of truly presence.

I know sometimes it's more difficult to have 30 minutes of this fully present.

I want to be very realistic.

I know some of us are very busy and we have to go on.

But don't take for granted these moments, because 24 brand new hours

is for us also how to take care of that 24 brand new hours.

So please don't miss these opportunities.

Our teacher always tells us you always have an appointment with life.

That appointment is in each moment and it's whether you make that commitment or not.

But that moment will always be there as long as we can center ourselves

and we can bring ourselves home to be there for that moment,

whether it is to enjoy the tangerine, enjoy a cup of tea, a cup of coffee,

whatever it may be, that can be a moment, a moment of presence.

Wonderful.

Thank you so much, dear brother Pháp Hữu.

I hope you're all feeling that you've just eaten sunshine and cosmos and rain and time.

And it's wonderful to really enjoy a piece of food very deeply.

And it's a great medicine for the moments when we feel lonely,

because we realize that loneliness can sometimes just be an idea,

because the whole of Mother Earth is there to nourish us, to give us the fuel we need.

She's come together in a miraculous way in every moment when we eat food.

And it can be very powerful even when we're in the middle of a city and we feel very alone.

We can feel the presence of Mother Earth giving us her love, her care, her nurturing

through one plate of food, through one piece of fruit.

She's saying, my child, I'm here for you.

You're not alone.

This is my offering for you.

We have a few minutes.

And if you have any questions, we would love to respond to your questions.

I wonder, I think perhaps the easiest may be to do so in the chat,

or to raise a hand if that feature is activated in Zoom.

Oh la la.

She's giving it to me because she thinks I'm busier than her in daily life.

So this is my own experience.

I also thought that I can multitask and multitasking would offer me...

more ways to complete things in my daily life.

But I find that multitasking makes me worry more.

And actually, it also distracts me more because I am so,

I'm trying to be everywhere.

And when I catch myself in this moment and I just remember my teacher's name, which is one action,

and he tells us that if you do it, the one thing that you're supposed to do with your full attention,

you would do it with wholeheartedness and you will finish it faster than when you are doing two things at once.

And it's just to see that this idea of trying to do everything at one moment is actually, it's an illusion.

It's actually, and I think this is a meditation day you can also reflect.

And from my own experience, it helps me also to not get lost in my own energy of pushing.

So that's why meditation is always important to know when to pause also,

because the more I push myself and the more I'm trying to achieve so much,

sometimes I find out I don't achieve much because it's just this idea, I start to procrastinate,

I start to be in the mind more than actually the doing.

So I remember one time a child asked Thay in a Q &A, kids asked the best questions to a Zen master.

He said, Thay, I like mindfulness, but it's so slow.

I don't think I can accomplish much in my life.

And the whole audience laughed and even Thay laughed.

Thay means teacher, and that's what we called our teacher.

And Thay looked at the child and said, do you think Thay hasn't accomplished anything in life?

And the whole audience was laughing at it.

And then it was a real moment of just realizing that no, Thay has actually done a lot.

And what Thay said is because Thay did each thing with full mindfulness and one thing at a time that each thing,

that Thay did was with his full presence, his full aspiration, and it is his legacy.

So in a different way to seeing it is that each project, each thing that we would like to accomplish,

if we can give it more of the full presence of ourself,

it will bear our signature and it will be more fulfilling with really also connected to our aspiration.

And it won't be something very shallow.

So in a way, so please reflect on this.

And I hope that you can see the joy of also doing one thing at a time.

Wonderful.

And we'll wrap it up.

Yeah, we'll wrap it up.

Is there anything, Tia, you might like to share before we close here?

Thank you, Brother Pháp Hữu and Sister True Dedications.

Thank you so much for your wisdom.

Thank you, Tia.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you for being with us.

Everybody is so wonderful to connect in this way.

Thank you all so much.