Short Teaching: Three Steps to Make Your Heart Bigger | Thich Nhat Hanh (English subtitles)

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So how can we...

practice

when the other person

is full of anger and hate,

when they're not nice to us,

when they betray us,

when they're not faithful to us?

They once promised us this and this,

but now they treat us like that and that.

They've hurt us till we can't take it anymore.

So now, how are we supposed

to handle this?

That's the question.

We've been in pain.

There are days we stay up all night.

Our heart feels like it breaks into pieces.

It's because that person

is not nice to us.

Their words show that

there's no love, gratitude,
nor appreciation in their heart.

They betray us and are unfaithful time after time.

And our heart

bleeds.

And we've been in pain
because of them for years.

So what are we supposed to do now?

The answer is we have to practice like the earth.

It's because

our heart is still small,

our heart can't contain that person yet.

That person is also someone in pain.

They need

help

rather than

punishment.

When someone hurts us,

we tend to have the idea of punishing them

and giving them really hard times
to release our rage.

We tend to believe that when that person
suffers a great deal, we'll suffer much less.

That's how

we normally go about this.

"I'll make you suffer, ruin your life, and hurt you
back so you'll regret it for the rest of your life

because... how dare you?"

That's the heart and mind of all beings.

That's the mind of those

whose hearts

are as small as an orange.

A heart as small as an orange can't
contain something the size of a mountain.

Pains as big

as a pomelo,

an orange can never

contain.

With our heart the size of an orange
but our pain the size of a pomelo,

how can we contain it?

That's why we 'craquer'.

That's why we break down and collapse.

So the most important thing is to make our heart

bigger and bigger every day — until
it's much bigger than a pomelo,

so it can contain the pomelo.

We should keep in mind

the image of putting a fistful of salt in
a bowl of water that the Buddha uses.

Because the bowl is so small, the water
becomes so salty it can't be drunk.

But when throwing the same
fistful of salt into a river,

because the river is wide-open,

people can still use its water to drink,

bathe themselves,

and cook.

Likewise, we should make our hearts bigger.

"But dear respected teacher,

dear respected Buddha,

how can I make my heart

bigger?

It's still so small. Of course, I want it to be big

but seems like it doesn't want
to get any bigger at all."

On hearing that, the Buddha says,

"We should train ourselves
to meditate and look deeply.

We should train ourselves
to have right understanding."

So the first way to go about this
is understanding.

Understanding, or "hiểu" in Vietnamese.

Sometimes we use the word "prajñā".

Sometimes we use the word "insights".

Sometimes, we use the word
"awakening" or "enlightenment".

But these are all big words.

"Understanding" is much simpler.

Understanding what?

First off,

we have to come to see for ourselves

many things — but there are
three most important things.

The first one

is "Because our heart is still small,

we're still in pain, we still suffer."

In someone else's case,

because their heart is quite big,
they don't suffer at all.

We suffer because of the reasons
that mainly come from our end.

The second

is "The other person is also in pain."

Fact is, when people are happy,

they don't make others suffer.

Just look around and see for ourselves.

We'll come to see
when someone is truly happy,

no matter where they are, they don't
make those around them suffer.

One makes others suffer

because their heart is too full
of suffering and pain.

Such a person tends to say something

that shows no love, no gratitude,
no appreciation in their heart.

It shows betrayal.

It provokes people into argument.

Or they tend to do something cruel.

It's because, in their heart, there's too much
substance of suffering and bitterness,

too much substance

that is

toxic and poisonous,

too much substance

of attachment,

blind desires,

anger, hate, resentment,

jealousy, or ignorance.

So whatever they say,

it hurts.

Whatever they do,

it causes pain.

So looking at this person, we see that they...

deserve our love and compassion
more than anger and hate.

And this is called "understanding"
— right understanding.

The other person is someone who's in pain.

Because of that, they spill it over
onto those around them.

The same with us.

If all we have in our heart
is suffering and bitterness,

we'll spill it over onto those around us.

That's why we have to learn to have happiness.

But happiness... As we all know
when coming to Plum Village,

happiness is very simple.

While walking,

standing,

sitting, eating,

or doing our dishes,

if we allow our heart and mind to be free
from afflictive thoughts, to be at peace,

to be in touch with the wonders
of life in the moment,

very naturally, we have happiness right away.

So, learn to live peacefully and happily.

We see that some Brothers here

live very peacefully and happily.

We see that some Sisters here
live very peacefully and happily.

We see that some lay practitioners

live peacefully, happily, and free from afflictions.

And they've helped countless people.

We can aspire to also live in the same way.

They are bodhisattvas

who help others.

Everything they say

is to help others

rather than hurt others.

Everything they do

is not to hurt the other person's feelings

or make them suffer,

but to rather

soothe the other person's pain.

We can aspire to do the same as they do.

When we train ourselves
like this for one week,

two weeks, or three weeks,

naturally our heart...

feels light and free — it's getting bigger, it starts
to dawn on us many things we fail to see before.

The third one is to practice.

"To practice" here

means to live in such a way
that we can bring joy,

happiness, and peace to ourselves

and, at the same time, to other people.

One day is twenty-four hours.

How have we

spent those twenty-four hours so far?

Or have we been living on autopilot,
like a programmed robot, all day long?

Washing our face,

rinsing our mouth,

putting on our shirt or robe,

putting on our shoes,

eating,

driving,

working,

eating again,

and going to sleep.

Some people live on autopilot, going
through their life like a programmed robot,

completely unhappy.

Meanwhile, there are those
who live very happily.

Twenty-four hours is even a bit too few for them

because they can make every hour
happy, joyful, and pleasant the same.

They make their brothers, sisters,
and friends happy.

They bring joy, happiness, and well-being
to others as well as themselves.

You don't need money
to make someone happy.

All it takes is giving

the other person a smile from the heart,

looking at the other person with eyes

of compassion and uncriticalness,

or expressing your care, however small.

That will already be enough
to make someone's day.

Everyone can do this, even young ones.

We have flower-freshness.

We have warm smiles.

We have very loving eyes.

We have our hands, which we
can use to help — however small,

to soothe and relieve people from their suffering.

Making someone happy is something
we can do many times a day.

But we have to learn how to do it first.

Like, on waking up,

let us

ask ourselves this question, "What...

can I do today to make that person's day?"

As soon as we wake up,

as a second nature, we
ask ourselves that question.

"That person" can be our mother,

our father,

our spouse or partner,

our daughter or son,...

That person may be in pain

so think, "What should I say to them today,

what should I do today,

for them to be happy?"

Then we keep that list of things in mind and
that day, we try our best to do them one by one

— do at least one in the morning,

and do at least one in the afternoon.

Do at least two every day.

Two things that you can do
to make others happy.

It's because when they're happy,
naturally, there's happiness in us.

We have a chanting text that goes, "(We aspire)
to bring joy to one person in the morning

and to ease the pain of one person
in the afternoon." See?

Very simple.

A day going

without us doing at least two such things

is a day we make no progress
in the practice whatsoever.

It's a day we don't practice mindfulness,
understanding, and love at all.

In the morning, we help
at least one person suffer less.

In the afternoon, we bring joy
to at least one person.

If we're a practitioner of understanding and love,

we practice like that.

If we're better at this, we can
make more people happy.

If we bring joy and happiness to two,
three, or four people in the morning,

and if — after helping one person suffer less,

we help two, three, or four more people
suffer less in the afternoon,

we are already bodhisattvas,

we are already an arm of the Buddha.

It's such a great joy

to be an arm of the Buddha.

To be only a finger of the Buddha
can already bring us great joy.

Why not be one?

Why live on autopilot?

That person has so much pain,

so much worry,

and so much sadness and affliction.

We do something or say something

that helps that person

to suffer less,

worry less, and grieve less.

In order to do that, we have to use our wit.

That's why if we want to practice
love and compassion,

in Thay's opinion, we have to have a notebook.

Because love's a matter of practicing to offer our
best to someone — not receiving or indulging.

If we say,

"It's so sweet, I love it,"

that's not love.

That's just indulgence for our own good.

Let's say

when we eat an ice-cream,

if we say, "J'aime les glaces,"

that's not love. That kind of 'aimer' is not love.

It's not love at all.

The 'aimer', the love, we're talking about
is something completely different.

True love is different than that.

We can only have true love when there's
mindfulness, concentration, and understanding.

The other person is in pain and we help them
suffer less — that's the 'aimer' we're talking about.

Meanwhile, that love for ice-cream is not love.

It's not real love.

It's funny that

you love ice-cream,

and you love Coca-Cola.

It's very odd.

It's not love.

When you eat too much ice-cream
or drink too much Coca-Cola,

it doesn't do your body any good. It's harmful.

It only does harm,

it's not...

it's not love whatsoever.

So

Thay suggest that,

if we're practicing mindfulness, understanding,
and true love, we have a notebook.

On waking up, we tell ourselves,
"Today, the 18th

of July, 1999.

I decide that I'm to make someone
happy in the morning,

and I'm to make someone else
suffer less in the afternoon."

If we can help many people this way,
it means we're really good at this.

But two is the minimum number.

Make sure we can do it.

Before going to bed, we turn
to that diary page again

and reflect on whether we've
succeeded at this or not.

Probably we're more successful

in the afternoon than in the morning.

With that, we'll sleep very well.

But to do that, we have to really
understand the other person first.

Understand what has hurt them,
what difficulties they have,

or what their aspirations are,...

That person can be our son.

That person can be our daughter.

That person can be our husband,

our wife,

or our spouse or partner.

They can be our mother or...

our elder brother.

That person has suffering and pain.

Who doesn't have suffering and pain?

If we can see that,

having compassion for them, "Poor soul", whatever we say or do will bring great relief.

Now we're taking a break for half an hour.

After that, we're going to return
to listen to another talk in English.

Today children get to listen to a whole talk,

from the beginning to the end.

How great is that.

Adults are only allowed to listen
without participating. [Thay smiling]

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