THE EYE OF THE BUDDHA

A 21 - day retreat in Plum Village

2nd - 21 June, 2000

Teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh

Tape 19, June 21, 2000

Questions and Answers III

Transcriber: Tenzin Namdrol
Side A

Dear Sangha, today is June 21st, 2000 we are in the Upper Hamlet, Dharma Cloud
Temple, and today is the last day of our twenty one day retreat The Eye of the Buddha.
This morning we have time for questions and answers. I would like first to invite a
question from the Sangha, direct.

Q: Thay, you said that the third type of nutriment is desire or volition and I can
understand how we can choose the edible food and sensory impressions. How can we
choose and change our volition?.

A: The question is about the third nutriment, the deepest desire in us. If you recognize
that the deepest desire in us may lead us to suffering then we have to change it and the
way to change it, the force that can help us change it is the practice of looking deeply and
that is the very aim of meditation because to meditate means to look deeply in order to
understand the true nature of what is. When we look deeply into the nature of our deep
desire we see that this deep desire has brought us suffering and is going to bring us a lot
of suffering and we don't want it any more. But we should have a desire because without
a deep desire our life will have no energy, no purpose and if we practice looking deeply
we see what can bring us happiness, well being and the happiness and well being of
many other people, then we will discover our real, deep desire. It may be already deep in
us. That deep desire may be already in us but because it has not had enough conditions
in order to manifest. It is like a channel 2 who is always there but because a channel 1
has been there for a long time, if you don't turn off channel 2 there is no chance for the
other channel to be on. So your wonderful deep desire is there, the desire to make the
happiness of the people, the living beings around and your own happiness. That desire
can be touched within you, it is not something that you have to take from the outside.
Too many of us to feel that we are on the right path, to feel that our daily life has a
meaning because we can help other people to stop suffering and to experience bliss,
happiness and joy a very rewarding kind of life. Our happiness is made of the happiness
of the other person and persons. It has been true. When you are able to make the other
person smile you feel wonderful. When you are able to help other people to stop
suffering you feel wonderful within you. First you think that it is for their happiness that
you act but in fact it goes back to you very quickly, it becomes your happiness.
There are many of us who are aware of the suffering around us and would like to be
something or to do something in order to relieve the suffering or to bring a meaning to
life, to bring joy to life and some of us are monks, some of us are lay practitioners, some
of us are doctors, some of us are social workers. We are animated by the same kind of
desire. To reach out and to help people and that source of energy can be very deep, very
strong in us. It makes us alive, it makes us able to get rid of the things that are not really
necessary. You can become a real Bodhisattva if we have that tremendous source of
energy in us. So looking deeply inside and around us that may touch the deepest desire
in ourselves. Another question?

Q: I am going to read my question because I am a little nervous. Dear Thay, my

brother carries within him a great deal of anger, so much that he has no control or
awareness of it. He is in denial of it when his family brings it to his attention. We
continually try to listen to him and let him blow off his steam. Over the years it has
gotten worse, he verbally curses strangers from a distance and his family to their face.
He is violent with his words, cutting down everything we say and do. My worry is for
the whole family as well as society and the effects of his words. The most I am
concerned is for my parents. They hold immense patience with him and they suffer from
both his words as well as their lack of skill to deal with him. So, I am wondering what to
do.

A: When we look at one person his happiness, his suffering, his way of acting and
reacting, we can see the environment, we can see the conditions that have come together
and have made him/her like that. This is very important. Why our brother has become
like that? He did not want to become like that. There must be causes and conditions by
which he has become like that, so looking deeply in order to see the deep roots of his
situation, his behavior, is very important. That deep root may be in us, those who live
with him, who gave him birth, and who interact daily with him. His deep roots may be
his friends, his school, his environment, his society. So, helping him is not just to tell
him what to do and what not to do but to try to understand him and to try to modify the
situation around him. The way we react to his behavior is violence, it can make that
violence worse and therefore we have to reflect on us to see whether we are patient
enough to him, whether we do have ways to help him or we just suffer, we just blame
him for being the way he is. I think if in the family there is one person who practices
looking deeply and who gets wisdom, then compassion will arise on that ground of
understanding and then that compassion and understanding will manifest in the way we
interact, we speak, we smile to him and that will have an effect right away on him. If the
other members of the family follow the same kind of practice the environment will
change and then he will change. Even if he doesn't want to change he will change
because all of us are affected by the environment.

I have a question here that can be answered in the same way. "Dear Thay, my daughter
is in her twenties and she is very lost, confused. She is addicted to romances, novels and
food. It is how she fills up her emptiness and loneliness. She does not want me to
interfere in her life and has made it clear that she does not want me to criticize her
lifestyle. She is compassionate to others and insecure about herself. I want to help her
relieve her suffering but I do not know how to without her feeling that I am interfering in
her chosen lifestyle."

When you read the question you can see right away some of the causes of the suffering.
In the question it is made clear that she is so compassionate to others and insecure about
herself. It means that there are qualities about that person, she is compassionate to
others but not to herself. Maybe she is a little bit too judgmental towards herself and the
cause may be from you, from the mother, because maybe the mother has been too
judgmental and that seed of mental formation has been transmitted to the daughter. She
feels emptiness and loneliness in herself. It means communication is not good between
her and her mother. So, the question is very revealing, you are responsible for her state
of being to some important extent and therefore the problem is not her problem, at least
her problem alone, but it is your problem. You do not know how to handle your
daughter, you don't know how to handle yourself. Communication is not there. You
used to criticize her, to interfere with her, she said, I have my life, I have the right to live
my life, you don't interfere, it reveals that interference had been there and
communication is difficult. Therefore we have to look back at ourselves and not to
blame the person and if we can start making changes in our way of being, our way of
interacting, and then we can help, we are the person to change. If we have enough
understanding and compassion in us surely the situation will change and the person will
change and when you look into the larger environment you may recognize that you are
the roots of the suffering of the person and we could do something in order to change
that. We can always ask other friends, other people to help her to be more patient with
him or with her. Sometimes in order to help a disciple of mine I can go directly to him
or to her and some other times I would ask a brother or a sister of hers to help. So there
are many ways, direct and indirect. We have to do everything we can do in order to
bring together enough conditions for helping a person. Again, this is possible only with
looking deeply and recognizing all the causes of the ill being.

Q: Dear Thay, I find that I am able to bring awareness of breathing to practice

mindfulness in certain activities such as walking, cleaning, chopping vegetables things
that can control the rhythm of the activities but there activities that I cannot coordinate so
directly with my breath I tend not to use my breath because it distracts me from the
activity. Is that good practice?

A: When you are talking it is very difficult to talk and breathe at the same time?
(laughter). As a writer you can practice mindfulness of writing also, and you can make
use of your mindful breathing. There are ideas and feelings that come up that want to
express themselves and you want to write them down. It is possible to practice mindful
breathing in order to recognize them and to write them down. You can still be yourself
in writing down something. There are people who allow themselves to be carried away
by their writing but it is possible to train ourselves in that. It is like walking. If we don't
know walking we are walked by the walk. We are the victim of the walk. But if we
know and we make a list (?) with sovereignty we are fully in control of the situation.
Writing a poem, writing an article is possible with mindfulness. When you write it is
like you are having a conversation with someone because writing is always writing for
someone or a group of people. The language should be appropriate. The idea should be
appropriate in order to produce the effect that you want, communication. Therefore, the
awareness of those who are going to read make the quality of your writing. If you write
to a child the language should be different. You say the same thing but the language
should be different. So, in the act of writing mindfulness can be there and you know
what effect it will have on your readers. Mindfulness of breathing may not be practiced
at that time but mindfulness can always be practiced. And when you are writing down
something another idea may come and you think that that idea may be important to
express also, but not now. So you recognize that a new idea has just come up and you
may like to record it on the margin of the page. You recognize it and you say, "I'll come
back to you later," that is mindfulness. And you go back to this sentence that you are
writing, always aware that you are writing for someone and would like to have an effect
on him/her, on them. After finishing the paragraph you might like to take one in breath,
you smile and then you reread the paragraph in mindfulness. We can always apply the
practice of mindfulness in our work. When you water the vegetable garden, when you
drive, even when you speak to someone you can always practice mindfulness of
breathing. Mindfulness of breathing is just one way to be mindful. We can apply other
exercises, mindfulness of walking, mindfulness of driving. There are practices that go
perfectly well with the breathing, but in the case that mindfulness should put more on the
other object then just follow the other object. Mindfulness is always mindfulness of
something. Mindfulness of breathing is just one object of mindfulness and it is possible
to train ourselves. To me mindfulness of breathing can be applied in most of the cases.
Sr. Jina, is there any….?

Q: Dear Thay, this question may follow on the previous question, "how can we know
that our meditation has really become deep?"

A: I would be more interested in the question, "how can we know that our meditation is
correct?" Deep is good, but correct may be better because sometimes it is deep but it is
not correct (laughter). To me you do it right when it produces in you the calm, the
concentration, the solidity and finally the freedom because freedom is very crucial for
true happiness. Meditation can be deep but you are addicted to some kinds of things, if
you depend on it and you are not free. It is said that the Dharma is something that can be
effective that, in here and the now, the Dharma is something that you can come and see
for yourself. So meditation is the Dharma, meditation should bring you relief and well
being, improvement of your quality of being right now, like when you practice mindful
breathing and if you feel uneasy, suffocated, suppressed, and then it is not correct. If you
do it correctly then one in breath can already change. You enjoy your in breath, while
breathing in you see that you are coming back to yourself, mind and body together and
you become really alive and present in the here and the now. It does not need ten years,
it takes only one in breath. And if you find yourself body and mind united, fully present,
fully alive it means that mindfulness has produced also concentration. You are not
distracted any more, you are not pulled away by the past, by the future, by your worries
and so concentration is there and concentration helps you to touch deeply what is there,
whether it is a mental formation or a physical formation: the sun rise, the sound of the
bird. Mindfulness contains within herself the energy of concentration and of course,
when you concentrate you have a deeper insight of what is there. It is like when you do
mathematics we have to be there in order to do it, it means mindfulness, and you have to
be concentrated. If you listen to the radio and watch television at the same time how can
you concentrate on your mathematical problem? You have to be there, to be mindful, to
be concentrated and then insight, understanding will come and insight has the capacity of
liberating you.

You may practice meditation as a way of escape. You want to sit there, you want to
ignore your difficulties your problems and you may be able to get into a state of mind
that is free from these disturbances. It is like a rabbit hiding himself in a hole and feel
that security for some time. But when the rabbit gets out of the hole he will encounter
the same situation, so that kind of cease fire is not really deep. That moment of escape is
not really deep. It may be possible in the beginning so that you may have some kind of
cease fire, a kind of rest, but if you continue, if you are addicted to it you cannot go very
far. If you are not able to cultivate more concentration and practice looking deeply there
is no liberation and you won't have enough strength in order to encounter and transform
the situation. Therefore, even if you feel security in that moment of meditation, that
cannot be called deep, this is only an escape, that is only a cease fire and we should go
much further. We have to confront the real situation in order to transform it. Meditation
is correct when you see the effect of nourishment and healing happening in your daily
life. Nourishment, healing goes together with transformation. You transform yourself
for a better quality of life and you have transformed other people around you in order to
help them to enjoy the same thing. And that I would call correct practice and deep
practice and you know by yourself, you don't need someone to tell you that your
meditation is correct because right practice brings solidity, freedom nourishment and
healing.

Q: This is a question about sexual craving. "Dear Thay, you spoke to us today so
eloquently about what to do when we feel violence and anger. Can you give us some
advice on what to do when we feel sexual craving? I think it would help many of us."
How to embrace that part of us that causes so much fear and suffering? (The question
was written down on Sunday).

A: I think there are a few things that can be said about this. First of all we have to
practice eating properly. We take only the exact amount of food that our bodies really
need. We never eat more. This is very important. The Buddha always reminded his
monks to eat with moderation, moderation of eating is in the Five Contemplations. In
fact the monks did not eat after noon time they waited until the next morning in order to
have another meal. Many of us in Plum Village do not have dinner. Our diet should be
proper. What we eat should be enough to nourish us, to make us healthy and we should
not eat more than that, this is very important. Especially we eat the things that can be
stimulating. It is not only with mindful breathing and looking deeply that we can deal
with the sexual energy, we have to do other things at the same time. First of all take care
of our habit of eating it is very important--eating and drinking. And with the Sangha this
practice will become easy but if you live alone you are tempted to eat more, especially
when you don't feel good within yourself you take refuge in eating so that you can forget
the pain, the sorrow within yourself. So it is very good to be in the Sangha and eat at the
same time. We are reminded every time that we should only take the right amount of
food. You know the bowl of the monk is called the instrument for the appropriate
measure so he remembers how much food to serve every time. If you want to practice
this you have to make a commitment to yourself and if possible do it together with other
people who have the same intention.

Second we have to be careful in consuming the so-called cultural items, the things we
read, the things we view on television have the effect of watering the seed of sex craving
in us. The seed is there, but if the seed of sex craving is watered every day several times
that would not be very helpful and now they sell these images, they sell the sounds. I
learned from a young man in America that with the telephone, only the telephone, you
can buy the sounds in order to be aroused on sex. Just telephone, no sights and the sights
are plenty even in the internet. Therefore, there should be a commitment, an awareness
on that and a determination not to be exposed, not to consume these sights and sounds
and stories and programs that water the seeds of craving or sex in us. In Plum Village we
don't watch television, we are free from all these programs. We don't have magazines
like Playboy (laughter) what else? and so on… We have books to read, we have videos
to watch but all these sights and sounds are aiming at helping us to have appropriate
attention (Sanskrit). This is very important. This is not for society alone, society should
be protected and our children should be protected and you who are educators think of it,
parents also. Then we should think how to channel our energies because if we know how
to exercise our bodies, how to do physical work every day and then a lot of energy will
go in that direction and will not go in the direction of sex. So mindful working in the
monastery, jogging together, things like that are very important and it is very easy to do
it together. In our hamlets we used to do jogging in the morning very early morning, all
of us, do fast walking and running before we go to the meditation hall. It is not possible
to do with the twenty-one day retreat but it is our practice to do fast walking and running
before we go to the meditation hall. We are very awake for the sitting and our energy
already can be expressed. Physical work is very important, it is part of the practice of
monks and nuns and when you come you are also asked to do physical work, that is also
part of the practice.

The other element is the Sangha, the Sangha is a wonderful element of protection. The
monks stay three to a room and they help each other. And when you are with the other
monks practicing there is not much chance that that sexual energy can express and
maintain because we are helped always to go back and to use our energy in the proper
direction because as a monk, as a nun, we know we have to study. We have to train
ourselves in order to be able to help people. Therefore we are reminded by each other to
go on that path. We need a lot of energy in order to do our studying and practicing.

Then, there is the element of compassionate ideal when you are tempted by the desire
you look at the person and say, I will create a lot of suffering to myself and to that
person, therefore I should be able to use my energy properly. I suggest we have a few
minutes break for a few mindful moments. Some of us have to go to the railway station.
We continue…
Bell

The monks and the nuns have a gatha to practice every time they feel sexual energy is
coming up, I would like to translate that to you: (Vietnamese) I vow to transform this
energy into the energy of Right Diligence. This energy is the sexual energy, as soon as
you see it coming up you take one deep breath and you read the first sentence: I vow to
transform this energy into the energy of Right Diligence". And you have two sentences,
one for the in breath one for the out breath. It means you recognize it as it is. You don't
fight, but you would like to transform it into another kind of energy, the energy of Right
Diligence, (Vietnamese) so that I can pursue on my path compassion because that is my
path, the path of compassion and love (Vietnamese) and that my career of Bodhisattva
(it can be a he or a she) could be realized as soon as possible. So breathing in and
breathing out, holding that energy and transforming it, that is the practice. We know
that we need very much the energy in order to study, to train ourselves in the Vinaya, in
the Dharma to transform us and then helping people. Many people wait for me, my
family needs miss me, there may be suffering and lack of harmony in my family. I
practice also for them. There is suffering in the world I should be able to be there for
them and so that kind of energy is born in you and you know what to do in order to
channel the energy into the direction, the direction of that ideal.

In Plum Village on New Year Day we use to practice prostrating, touching the earth. If
you are a lay person you are not allowed into the practice but in that practice all the
monks prostrate in front of the nuns and they promise to protect them to help them to live
fully the live of a nun. Before the touching of the earth, before the nuns they say, "dear
sisters among you there are those who are very young, at the age of our daughter, among
you there are those who are young like our younger sisters, there are those who are older
than us at the age of our big sister and there are also those of you who are the age of our
mother. We look upon you as our daughter, our young sister, our big sister and our
mothers. We know that in you there is the image of Avalokiteshvara the ideal of
compassion and loving kindness." They want to make the vow on this first day of the
year to protect ourselves, to protect you so that you can live fully your life as a nun. "We
vow to protect you by our practice of the precepts, our practice of the mindful manners
so that you can fully realize your vow of being a nun." And then they touch the earth
three times deeply and the nuns should sit very straight and practice breathing. After
that the monks will sit down and then it is the turn of the nuns who make the touching of
the earth. Before the touching the earth they say, "dear brothers, among you there are
those who are very young, at the age of our sons, there are those of you who are at the
age of our younger brother, bigger brother and there are those of you who are at the age
of our father and according to the teaching of the Buddha we should look upon you as
our son, our brother, our father and we would like to make the vow on this first day of
the year to practice in order to protect you, in order to help you to live fully the life of a
monk, realizing your ideal of compassion and understanding by practicing the precepts of
the nuns, by practicing the mindful manners in order to protect you, it means to protect
ourselves at the same time." The ceremony is always very moving because the
attachment between a monk and a nun can be a possibility and therefore we practice
preventive medicine, not only preventive medicine but I think that kind of practice can be
extended to the lay community.

There are many things in the monastic tradition that could be shared with the lay
communities and that practice and understanding came directly from a teaching of the
Buddha: "monks when you see a lady and she is very young think of her as your
daughter, protect her, think of her as your younger sister, protect her, think of her as your
mother, protect her and by protecting her you protect yourself." This is a very long time
practice.

Sexual misbehavior has created a lot of suffering and therefore we should learn deeply
why the practice is proposed by the Buddha and apply it not only to the community of
monastics but to the community of lay people, in the family circle and so on. If you are a
real Dharma brothers or Dharma sisters to each other you should come together and
discuss this issue because the happiness, the harmony in the community depends very
much in this correct behavior.

Q: There is a question: "Dear Thay, one of our beloved Sangha members does not feel
loved in their marriage and it seems is moving away from the marriage. There is a
perception of a potential involvement with another Sangha member." You see, you are
getting away from your partner, from your wife, your husband and you are moving to
another member of the Sangha. This will create unrest and difficulties in the Sangha.
"We are suffering, our families and our Sangha are so precious to us. Please help. How
can we be supportive and keep our commitment to do all we can to keep our families and
our Sangha from being broken? Thank you."

A: We can learn from the monastic experiences, we can apply all this into our practice as
a Sangha, we should know ways to help. When two people come together and make a
commitment they have seen the qualities in each other and maybe their way of life has
prevented them for this qualities to develop and the negative qualities have taken place
and hide away the good qualities. the practice is how to help the couple to rediscover
each other, to renew their commitment and our behavior turns off the other person. Our
behavior does not help the other person to bloom like a flower, the other person
continues to be tired like a flower without water and now we are looking for another
flower that is more fresh. Both of us have to practice. You practice in order to
rediscover your flowerness, your freshness it is very important and you practice in order
to help her/him to rediscover his flowerness, his freshness in the beginning. It is not
running after another that you can be happy. You create a lot of suffering for yourself,
for your partner and for the other person that you are running after and you make the
whole community suffer. So the Sangha has to come together and frankly discuss the
issue and offer concrete practice and not just, "you should not behave like that, you
should go back to your partner, you should not be involved with another," that does not
help that is not practice. We have a lot to learn and sexual misbehavior has destroyed so
many families so many couples, made so many children suffer. This is a very important
practice. We need permanent Dharma discussion to find out ways to protect ourselves,
protect our children and our families, our society and everything in the market seems to
aim at breaking this kind of happiness. the point that I have just mentioned should be
considered.

First of all eating, second consuming in terms of sensory impressions, the second kind of
food, edible food, sensory impression, the practice of physical body so that you can
channel the energy. Also channel the energy in the direction of studying and practicing
and helping other people and the issue of the Sangha. The Sangha is very crucial in
helping us to stay on the right path, the path of mindful sexual behavior and then the
element of the ideal, the practice of looking deeply and breathing in and out every
time/….

Side B

/… all these things have to be discussed and applied in our daily life. Another question,
please.

Q: First I would like to express my gratitude for all of the Dharma talk for these twenty
one days ___ My question has to do with the discussion on the language. My wife and I
have been married for twenty four years and we have too often been the couple you have
talked about yesterday. Last year we have learned that language and have been able to
talk to each other about our suffering and this has brought wonderful transformation to
our marriage. I was talking with 11-year old daughter yesterday through the telephone
and she is at a new camp and I asked her how it was and the story she chose to tell me
had to do with a little boy who she said was very wild and at one point he was throwing
things at her and she was very upset about this. In discussing it, in part because of the
Dharma talk yesterday, I had suggested that if he were to do this again she might want to
ask him if there was something that was upsetting him, or bothering him. If she asked
him if he was suffering he might not quite understand. So after I talked to her I began to
worry that maybe that would scare him more and he might want to do something to hurt
her. It seems _____ reflect back to somebody their suffering and _______ into
liberation but there are times _____ to frighten them._______ wandering if there was
some language, if we perceive that…. (not quite audible) Thank you.

A: How to look into the young man in order to see, to recognize the society, the
environment. Sometimes we don't have to talk to the boy because the boy is just a
product of the environment and talking to his environment, namely, father, mother,
society, teachers may be more useful. In order to help a person, it is not easy, we have to
understand the history of that person and the environment. I remember in Houston,
Texas, a lady came to me with her daughter and told me to help her daughter and after I
talked to the daughter I saw that the problem was not in the daughter, the problem was
with the mother. So it may be helpful to pay attention to the environment of the young
man and try to help. Even if you don't do anything or say anything to the boy the boy
will change in the future if the environment is changed. Looking for the non rose
elements in order to help the rose. This is one of the ways, please, meditate on that.

Q: How can we be aware of suffering and be happy at the same time (laughter)
A: There's the word compassion in English, it means to suffer with, to share the
suffering. The prefix "com" means together. If you are a doctor you have to see patients
every day with their suffering. But you know that you don't have to suffer with your
patients in order to be a real doctor. If the doctor suffers he cannot do anything for
his/her patients. If someone comes to you and criessss and you also cryyyy, how can you
help him or her (laughter). When day, when I was very young I looked at the Buddha
smiling and I said, "how can he smile like that? with a smile like that while around him
there is so much suffering?" it became a kind of koan for me as a young man but I
finally understood. If the Buddha cries also like all of us and suffers like all of us how
can he be helpful? The doctor should remain calm, the doctor should not suffer, but in
order to be like that the doctor should know that he can help. Suffering is there, but if
you know that you can do something to help then you don't have to suffer. If you are
drowned into the ocean of suffering you cannot help. So, if with the practice we get
insight, we get the right practice, the right methods of helping people, even if we are
aware of the suffering around us we don't suffer because we know that we are capable of
doing something and that is our happiness. That is the first aspect of the answer. Our
happiness is made of the opportunity to help people not to suffer and to smile. That is our
nourishment, the nourishment of Bodhisattvas.

If social workers, doctors and other compassionate workers can continue it is because
they get nourishment in their daily work. They see their life has a meaning, they see the
actual fruit of their work so they can continue for a long time. Compassion and joy as
food. It is like a lotus flower without the mud, the lotus flower cannot bloom beautifully.
Bodhisattvas are like that, if there is no suffering you can never have Bodhisattvas.
Bodhisattvas are those who engage themselves in the world of suffering and try to help,
that is why we have Bodhisattvas. Suffering helps us to grow, helps us to learn.

The second aspect of the answer is that suffering and happiness they inter are, it is like
the right and the left, the above and the below. If you don't know what suffering is then
you don't have real happiness. If you have not suffered because of hunger you cannot
experience the joy of having something to eat. Therefore, the experience of suffering
helps us to recognize happiness and well being when it is there. The young people who
don't know how to enjoy the situation of relative peace in the country, there are no
bombs falling, there is no killing going on in their city and their town. But if they see
countries, cities, destroyed by bombs and children running under the bombs and dying
every day they know they are very lucky to live in the city where the killing and the
bombing is not going on. So, holding a plate of food, seeing it is full of good things to
eat you are happy only if you know that it is possible that you are like in a situation of
many hungry people, holding your plate and waiting and waiting many days but you
don't have anything on it so you feel fortunate, you feel lucky and that has happiness and
you get a lot of joy during the time of eating. But that does not mean that you cultivate
egoism, you only care for your happiness because looking into the plate of food you can
have a mixed feeling. You are both happy and painful, you are happy because you have
something to eat, you are painful because you know there are those who are hungry at
this very moment. And that kind of pain, suffering is also food for your compassion.
You need some suffering in order to grow up as a human being, to grow into a
Bodhisattva. Therefore looking deeply into something you see the other things inside.

A bowl of rice is fragrant, tasty but if you look inside you see the rotten bones of tiny
living beings, the compost and other things. So, the joy of eating that fragrant bowl of
rice contains in itself compassion because we have the awareness that there are people
who do not have a chance to hold a bowl of rice like this and many people have sweat in
order to grow the rice. (Vietnamese) "Fragrant and delicious is the grain of rice, but
there is bitterness inside, suffering inside, hardship inside." So it is the suffering that
makes real happiness and it is the true experience of happiness that can help you to
understand suffering so suffering and happiness they inter are as elements. You cannot
really separate the two: this is because that is. It is like looking into the lotus flower, it
is very beautiful, very pure, immaculate, but you see the mud inside. Without the mud
there cannot be lotus flowers.

My dear friends I don't know whether you got this to put close to your (meditation) seat
(cushion) because I have the brothers and sisters to make one for each of you. Your
name and this is the seal of Plum Village, Plum Village Practice Center in archaic
Chinese in a seal. So I would like you to bring this home and keep it in your living room
or your breathing room or wherever you use to sit to practice sitting meditation. It would
be nice if you had your own cushion and you placed this in front of your cushion and you
have the impression that you are still in Plum Village sitting with the Sangha. Very nice!
Don't forget to bring home this. It will help you to continue the practice. It is one of the
elements that can help you to remember the practice. If you don't have one ask the
brothers and sisters to make you one before you go. It can be done quickly.

And then I would like to offer the image of a candle with a flame on the tip of the candle
and would like to see all of you as a candle with the light on the tip and that light is your
awakening, your mindfulness, your deep desire to do something for the world. We have
been here as a Sangha. We practice together, we live together, we develop a very
profound sense of community. We know that we belong to each other and our life has
become more meaningful because we have each other. We belong to the same Sangha.
So wherever we find ourselves we carry the Sangha within us and try to keep the flame,
the light of the candle alive. This is very important because the world needs light and it
is you who maintains the light alive. Your practice of mindful breathing, mindful
walking always goes back to the present moment to be more solid, to be more present, it
is very crucial for the world and we count on you to do that.

We know there are times when things are very difficult and the flame risks to be blown
out by strong wind but you can always light it back. You don't have to go back to Plum
Village to have your candle lit up again because in you there is the capacity of lightening
it up right there and we trust that that is your Buddha nature, your seed of mindfulness,
your capacity of being awake to the moment. This is a fact that no one can deny. So, if
it happens that the situation is so difficult and the flame goes out, please light it up again
by yourself, maybe with the help of another Dharma brother or sister but it is perfectly
possible that you can by yourself restore the light on the tip of your candle.
Your family, your community, your society needs you, needs light emitted from your
candle and we will count on you to keep that light alive. Because in each of us the
Sangha is alive. The Sangha is not just in that direction, in that part of the world. The
Sangha is within us and we can behave like a bee you go out retrieving sugar for the
Sangha and the Sangha is inherent in us. If we are capable of living our daily life like
that we continue to maintain that tremendous source of energy in us, the source which is
collective and that we have experienced in our twenty-one day retreat.

And if you have ____ expressing your happiness, your joy, your transformation during
the twenty one days that brought me a lot of joy, a lot of confidence in the Sangha. And
we know that everyone must be a Sangha builder because that is exactly what the world
needs the most. We shall do everything in order to keep in touch, to keep the
information flowing and our means for communication, like internet, e:mail, telephone
are not the only ways to do it. It is our daily practice that is the most powerful way of
communication. It is our daily practice that communicates the best in such a way that
can make the happiness of those who are close to us. They help each other tremendously
by doing so. We have the trust that when you go home you know how to maintain the
practice, how to keep the practice going on, how to apply the teachings of the Buddha in
our daily life, how to use the Buddha eyes in every circumstance. To take refuge in
Sangha it is a wonderful thing, without the Sangha I cannot be myself. I really take
refuge in the Sangha even if the Sangha still has some shortcomings but the Sangha is a
real jewel and no matter how large your Sangha it is a jewel. In this retreat we have
focused our attention on three issues, first the issue of disintegration, loneliness,
individualism, and we know that Sangha is the only answer. Sangha building is our
practice. The second issue is on fear of the future because many of us think that we have
only one future determined by our biological _______ technology, we don't know
whether we are capable of protecting ourselves. There are no breaks, there is no law,
there is nothing that prevents the course of self destruction by manipulating our own
chemistry of life but we have learned from the teaching of the Buddha that the
environment is absolutely necessary. If we know how to create the right environment
then we don’t have to worry much about our genes and we learn that the ten realms are
there in every realm. It is (up to) us to practice in order to turn on the realm that we
want. We don't want the realm of animals and hells to be turned on, that would be
destruction so that practice so that the realms of the Bodhisattvas will be turned on and
this is something possible, this is something that we have done during the twenty one day
retreat.

We did not need the kind of nutriments that make the animals and the hells, we have
learned how to consume the kind of food that will make us into Bodhisattvas with peace
and solidity. It is possible to do that everywhere. The Sangha is always there to support
us. The third issue is the issue of violence, a very big issue, we know that in the teaching
of the Buddha there are practices that help us to recognize, embrace and transform the
violence both individual and collective and therefore using our time and energy coming
together, looking deeply, finding ways to practice for us and for our society and then we
will have a lot of energy preventing us from being carried away by negative energies.
Today is not the end of the retreat, it is the beginning and you have to continue the retreat
wherever you are. A twenty one day retreat can be started in Canada, in Australia, in
Switzerland, in Holland, in North America, anywhere. It is you who will start the twenty
one day retreat, one after another. For our sake, for the sake of our Sangha, let us offer
our thanks, first of all to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who have given us the teachings and
the practice through the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara we have been protected by the
energy during the twenty one day retreat and let us also express our thanks to all the
brothers and sisters monastic and lay people who have worked ceaselessly for many
months in order to offer us this retreat. The names do not need to be mentioned but they
are there. Some of them are at the railway station, some of them are in the kitchen but
they are all Bodhisattvas, they get a lot of joy serving the Sangha. And all of us have
contributed to the happiness in the ______ of the retreat. I would like to ask the
monastic members of the OI and all monastics to come up and also the lay members of
the Order of Interbeing to come up in order to offer the chant expressing our gratitude to
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

Bell

Light a stick of incense

Chanting in Vietnamese

English
May the sound of this bell penetrate deeply into the cosmos
In even the darkest places
May the beings here it clearly
So that understanding lights in their heart
And without hardship they transcend the cycle of birth and death

French
Que le son de cette cloche pénètre profondément le cosmos
Même les régions lointaines sous le joug des ténèbres et de la peur.
Que tous les être vivants puissent entendre la voix de l'Éveillé
Que toute peine quitte leur âme
Que la fleur de la compréhension éclose dans leur coeur
Et que tous transcendent la souffrance et la mort.

Chanting in Vietnamese

Bell

By the sound of the bell

I feel the afflictions in me begin to dissolve
My mind becomes calm, my body relaxed
And a smile is forming on my lips
Following the sound of the bell
My breath guides me back to the safe island of mindfulness
In the garden of my heart flowers of peace bloom beautifully.

Au son de la cloche je sens en moi les afflictions se dissoudre peu a peu

Mon esprit est calme, mon corps détendu
Un sourire naît sur mes lèvres
Concentrée sur le son de la cloche
Ma respiration consciente me ramène à ma vraie demeure
Dans le jardin de mon coeur la paix éclôt comme une fleur

Chanting in Vietnamese

English
The universal Dharma door is already open
The sound of the rising tide is there
And a miracle happens
A beautiful child appears in the heart of a lotus flower
A single drop of this compassionate nectar
Is enough to bring back the spring to mountains and rivers
Homage to Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara

La porte universelle du Dharma est déjà ouverte

La voix de la marée montante se fait entendre
Le miracle s'est produit
Un bel enfant apparaît dans le coeur d'une fleur de lotus
Une seuls goutte de cette rosée de compassion
Suffit à faire naître le printemps et remplit nos montagnes et nos rivières
Hommage au Bodhisattva Avalokita.

Chanting in Vietnamese

So, let us enjoy our brunch and may the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha protect all
of us, all of you. We will see you again very soon.

End of tape