An Aspiring Buddhist

Busy Times

2010-06-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since my last post, and much has happened, but i haven't been in much mood to write. On January 15 i had a son. His name is Phil, and he is now 5 months old. I am working again, but not for SWCA. I couldn't handle traveling away now that Phil is here, so i work for ACR doing archaeology locally. Phil may not understand the words, but he gets to listen to lots of Dharma talks, and I include him in my practice. He's a pretty easy-going baby. He likes daycare, hanging out at home watching me tidy up, cook and do dishes, and going shopping on the weekends. We went out garage sale-ing today. Now he's taking a nap. Anyway, i did want to share a link. I've been listening to sets of talks from retreats and have found a few i like. I'm only posting this one, though. It is the 2009 Insight and the Art of Equinimity lead by Steve Armstrong and Kamala Masters, with Deborah Ratner Helzer. I like most of all the talks and guided meditations here, and have been listening to them over the past couple of months.

Why not enlightenment?

2009-10-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

When i think about the practice, and my practice in particular, the question of enlightenment comes to mind. One fruit of practice is enlightenment, yet i am in no hurry to get there. If i was, the path of renunciation would make much more sense than the life of a householder. One explanation that comes to mind is that i wish to avoid navel-gazing. When one practices for enlightenment the question of whether enlightenment, or perfection, is possible. This is an issues i don't want to spend much time pondering. I leave open that i don't know the answer, that at this stage of practice i might not even recognize perfection if i was looking at it, so who am i to address the issue whether or not perfect enlightenment is possible? Instead, i wish to get to know the world around me, the world of Samsara.

The first noble truth, the truth of dukkha, (the stress, pain or suffering of existance), is to be comprehended. I have heard it said that this means dukkha must be experienced. We don't need to go out in search of dukkha, we don't need to create more suffering to experience it, we just need to be open to what is there. I find the life of a householder makes it possible for me to practice in this way. So i stay engaged in the world, with my family, friends, work, home, possessions, and pets. And i form attachments, the way i got attached to Verna, a dog i recently lost. And i enjoy my attachments. I enjoyed my time with Verna, taking her to classes, teaching her tricks, spoiling her with treats, watching her play with Zeke, snuggling on the sofa, playing Superdog (tossing her onto the bed), and spending time with her.

If i hadn't adopted Verna, i wouldn't have worried about losing her. If i didn't enjoy my time with her, i wouldn't have gotten attached, and wouldn't have experienced sorrow when i lost her. But would that have made me more enlightened? That question makes me think of a talk i listened to by Ajahn Chah, where he was talking about some of the wrong views he held. He said that, early in his practice he thought he needed complete silence to attain enlightenment, so he would put cotton in his ears so he would hear anything. But if it was true that to cut off the sense of sound would lead to enlightenment, then deaf people were enlightened by nature of their being deaf, so it wasn't by cutting of the sense of sound that one becomes enlightened.

Renunciation is tricky. In a Q&A section with Ajahn Chah he says that the path of ordainment is the fastest path to enlightenment because it enables one to devote all of their energy to the practice. He says it is possible for a householder to attain enlightenment, though it is harder and takes longer because their energy is scattered, and beyond that he doesn't say much else. Sometimes we try to renounce, to let go, in order to avoid experiencing dukkha. We think, like Ajahn Chah did with sound, that enlightenment means not to experience dukkha, and so by renouncement we stop experiencing dukkha and become enlightened. But Thich Nhat Hahn says this is not so (in a talk given on 11-26-2006, but the link i used is now broken). He compares this kind of practice to a rabbit hiding in its hole to feel safe, and says if one who is ordained practices in this way the happiness found won't last long. It will last maybe three or four years, then one will become tired of it and want something else, they may be temped to leave the Sangha and the practice entirely. Instead we need to practice more deeply, in a way that we can experience, and transform, the dukkha in our lives.

In my life as a householder my energy is scattered. I need to think about things like where am i going to live, what will i wear, and what will i eat. I spend time looking at houses and apartments and shopping for food and clothes, and in the process i am exposed to sights and sounds that create desire for more possessions. As i acquire things i get bills, and need to find a way to pay for the things i want, so i need to find a job and spend time at work. Throughout all of this i am surrounded by people, some of whom are agreeable, some of whom are not. Sometimes i have to do things, (like cook), when i would rather do something else (like take a nap). These experiences stir up feelings with have the potential to push me around. Somebody says something unkind and i am tempted to brood over it, getting angrier the more i think about it. Having to spend my time working and shopping and cooking and cleaning, and then choosing to spend time with my husband or dogs or just playing or relaxing seems to cut into time for practice. And living with someone leads to compromises. On my own i choose not to watch TV. On his own my husband can (and does) spend hours watching Netflix. When we're together, do i insist he be like me, and give up the Netflix? Do i let him watch all he wants, and spend my time doing other things, apart from him? Do i watch shows with him, so we have some time together? (I do a bit of all three, suggesting we not turn on the TV until later in the day, leaving him be if he wants to watch more than i do, and watching a movie or 2 with him after dinner.) When it comes to formal practice, the time i spend seems short. Most days i spend just 15 minutes sitting, some days i spend only 5 minutes, and some days i don't sit at all. I listen to Dharma talks, sometimes one or two a day, but i don't listen to talks every day at this point. Sometimes i listen to the Suttas, some days i read, but again, my practice is scattered, and consistency isn't my strong suit. So how does the practice benefit me?

Many years ago i had a dog, Zeus. I got him for my birthday, maybe when i was 8 or 9 or maybe even 10. I spent a lot of time with him. I taught him to climb a ladder, so he could play on the playground with me and climb up to the top bunk (I had bunkbeds, and i slept on the top bunk). I'd get him to climb a ladder and sit on the roof of the house. When i went to college i left him with my parents, but I'd bring him to visit for weeks and as soon as i graduated i found a pet-friendly apartment and took him back. Six months after i graduated Zeus got very sick. He had kidney problems, and his kidneys were failing. For what felt like weeks i was a wreck. He could barely stand up, and I'd go to work, and worry that I'd come home to a dead dog. I didn't know what to do. Finally, i got to a point where i realized there was nothing i could do, and that he was just lingering, and my parents came with me when we took him to the vet to let him go. I don't remember how long he lingered for, and sometimes i am left wondering if i waited too long to let him go.

From the outside, my experience with Verna may look similar. After her surgery, when we began to realize how serious her condition was, there was a lot of sadness. I couldn't talk much about her. We tried what we could to help her get better, even though we knew she didn't have much time. We waited until she couldn't walk and had been sick constantly for a whole day before we finally let her go. But there were differences. I was sad, but i wasn't a wreck. I couldn't talk about her condition, but i could function at work. I took her out, while she could enjoy it still, and said she was in the "make a wish foundation for doggies." (Sometimes i make up elaborate stories in my head. I try to keep a sense of humor about this trait.) I sat vigil with her, listening to talks or reading while in the same room with her and just letting her rest. The sadness was different. There wasn't the same sense of hopelessness or being lost. There was a confidence. I knew we wouldn't be ready to let her go until she couldn't walk, and that when the time was right we would know it. And even on that last day, she still responded to our concern. I am not left wondering if we let her go too soon; she was clearly in pain, even though her eyes would brighten when we talked to her. I am not left wondering if we waited too long, for the same reason i know we didn't let her go too soon, because even though she was in pain, she still loved us and still brightened when we talked to her.

That same confidence has crept into other areas of my life. I can be a chronic worrier. I sometimes joke that if i have nothing to worry about, i worry that i am not worrying enough. There are still aspects of my life i worry about, often regarding social situations or particulars activities. But on the whole i don't worry so much about the path my life is following. I might worry more that this is simply arrogance, but there are other benefits i feel. In particular, i don't feel so pushed around by my emotions, especially anger. I find i am less likely to say things i regret later. This aspect of the practice reminds of the acrobat simile, which is one of my original inspirations to practice. I find that practicing mindfulness in general, as well as mindfulness of the breath, helps me to calm down and slow down, so that i have time to think about the implications of my actions. Sometimes i still choose the wrong action, but having the chance to pause first means that i don't feel pushed into it, and can watch the effect and feel the effect more fully than when i would act without pausing first. Compared to enlightenment the fruits of greater confidence and not feeling pushed by emotions that i have gained from my practice may seem small. Still, it is enough to keep me inspired to continue practicing.

Mixed Bag

2009-10-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened since my last posting. When I left off it was still summer, and sometime after my last posting, around July, Barrett and i went camping. Since that trip i have thought about writing an post called "Metta and Fishing Don't Mix," but i haven't been able to get my thoughts in writing. It's around then that i stalled on posting anything to my blog.

In the meantime i have been continuing my practice. I still only practice sitting 15 minutes a day, and only most days a week. My main goal remains to make meditation a habit, and to start again when i slip. I also listen to Dharma talks on a regular basis, have added some new talks to my collection, and have been listening to some old talks by Thich Nhat Hanh i hadn't listened to in a while.

My life as a householder is full. As a householder i spend much time on relationships, domestic stuff, and outside work. I can't say i haven't had time to write, but there is much that has happened on the home front that i feel is worth writing about. Work this summer has been sporadic, and I've had weeks of time off at a time, followed by days or weeks out of town. Currently i am away from home working in the field. This is probably my last long travel session for the near future. Today we are rained out, and since i am in a hotel room and have fewer distractions than i do at home, i decided it was time to organize my thoughts. I'll start with some updates from the home front.

Happenings At Home

Love and Loss My most recent big happening was on the sad side. September 19 Verna, one of my beloved dogs (Zeke is my other), passed away. Early in September she began rejecting some foods, odd behavior since she is a real chow-hound. After a visit to the vet, and some surgery, she was diagnosed with lymphoma, a very aggressive form of cancer that is treatable (with good success rates) in dogs, but can only be treated through chemotherapy. Chemotherapy was not an option for my husband and i (i also suspect that by the time Verna was diagnosed the cancer was in an advanced stage), and over the next few weeks we watched the disease progress. By Friday, September 18 Verna was sick all the time, not eating but still throwing up, and by Saturday she was unable to stand up on her own. We realized it was time to let her go. That evening we buried her near in a tree in a field we used to take her to run. Her death came as a surprise, and offered many opportunities to reflect on love and clinging, suffering and compassion, death, rebirth and the deathless, and how short and precious life is.

And Baby Makes Three In the meantime, we continue to prepare to welcome a new life in January. One of my goals is a natural childbirth (drug-free, though in a hospital). I don't want it to be purely an exercise in endurance, gritting my teeth and relying on willpower. I think of child birth like running a marathon, hiking a steep trail to enjoy the wonders of nature, or the thrill rides at an amusement park, with the adrenaline rush and butterflies that go with them. In other words, i think of it as something that contains moments not traditionally thought of as pleasant, but yet something that many people find enjoyable. I also think of birth as something that requires a combination of preparation and relaxation. To that end i am experimenting with self-hypnosis, through self-study course called Hypnobabies. The course involves a workbook (I read the whole thing even though you are supposed to read a chapter a week for 5 weeks), and listening to a series of CDs to practice the techniques. I'm not quite following the program as directed, but i try to listen to at least one of the two daily tracks 5 or 6 days a week. Lately I've been listening early in the morning, while i am still drifting in and out of sleep. Some of the stuff is kind of corny, but I've heard good things about the program, and so i don't worry so much about the corny stuff and just focus on what does work for me. Hard to say how the program works, but so far there's a lot i do like, even if i think some of it is corny.

Its Never too Late to Learn Something New I've also decided it's time to learn Spanish. This has been on my to-do list for a long time. I'm not pushing myself too hard, especially since I'm really bad with language. I sometimes joke that i have enough trouble with English. Anyway, i found some Spanish children's stories, with translations, that i listen to now and then. Some i have in English and Spanish, some just in Spanish. I am finding that i am getting better at picking out familiar words, and figuring out the meaning for some of the words, although this is happening quite slowly. I'm not really sure how much i am learning, but I'm having fun, so it's an easy habit to keep up.

Updates on the Practice

Metta and Fishing I used to practice Metta meditation a lot, but since that camping trip my Metta practice tapered off. While we were camping we went fishing. I'm an omnivore. I eat an occasional vegetarian meal, but i also enjoy eating meat and fish. As a person who eats meat, the do not kill precept is something i have struggled with before. I don't entirely understand why it is there, especially since Buddhism is so accepting of death as a part of life. And yet, i have a hard time killing. I can kill mosquitoes and other biting and stinging bugs pretty easily, but i also save pillbugs, worms, and millipedes on the bike trail Zeke and i walk. So on this camping trip Barrett and i go fishing, and i feel bad just putting the worm on the hook. Then i catch a fish, and feel guilty for reeling him in. I would try to kill the fish myself, but the last time i did i couldn't hit the fish hard enough, and felt bad for torturing the fish, and i can barely watch as my jusband kills and guts the fish. But i do enjoy cooking and eating the fish. The whole episode got me thinking about life and death, and how we kill every time we eat, even if we're eating plants, so why is vegetarianism encouraged. But i also see that eating vegetarian is better for the environment, and compassion for all living beings is natural, too. There were too many thoughts for me to process, and i never could sort them all out, so i decided to leave the issues be and focus on listening to more of the teachings, until i reach a point where i am comfortable coming back to the issues.

Ajahn Chah While i have a good collection of Dharma talks on my mp3 player, and i like listening to talks repeatedly, i felt it was time to expand my collection. So i spent some time searching for new talks, and listening to talks to find ones i liked enough to listen to again and again. One thing i wanted to add was some talks by non-western teachers. It was a challenge to find good talks by non-western teachers, but i found a nice set of talks given by Ajahn Chah. These talks are translated, first Ajahn Chah speaks, then the translator interprets for us. I like this format, but i like listening to foreign languages in general. I've only listened to some of these, and only a few times, so i don't have much to say about them, but i did like what i heard enough to add the collection to my library.

Sutta Reading I also wanted to look for teachings directly from the Buddha, not just commentary, and there is a small collection of sutta readings on the web. I added a few of these to my library. I like listening to the suttas better than reading them, and that may make sense since these were originally passed down orally. These are also fairly short, so its easy to make time to listen to them. Among my favorites are, The Heartwood of the Spiritual Life, The Simsapa Grove, At Sedaka (The Acrobat), and The Adze Handle.

The Satipatthana Sutta Series And I also added some new (to me at least) talks from a teacher i already listen to, Joseph Goldstein. These are all part of a series on the Satipatthana Sutta. Actually, i mentioned this series in my last post. Anyway, the series is rather long since it was recorded over a time span of years, but since the Satipatthana Sutta is a classic, and since it is still a little hard for me to grasp, I decided to go ahead and give these talks a try. I haven't listened to them all, but i do like the ones I've listened to. Among the ones I have listened to are Parts 7, 8, and 9 (Mindfulness of the Body), Part 10 (The Four Elements), and Parts 20, 21, and 22 (The Five Aggregates).

Links Related to Today's Posting

Hypnobabies
Hypnobaby Birth Stories

BookBox Stories

Ajahn Chah Dharma Talks

Sutta Reading

Joseph Goldstein, The Sattipatthana Sutta Series

Back into Practice

2009-07-18T16:43:00.000-07:00

Life happens. For a while I have been overwhelmed by the business of daily life. Things have slowed down over the past week, and I have begun practicing regularly over the past few days, but finding time to write takes me a little while longer.

The first thing I'd like to announce is, I'm pregnant. The nausea and fatigue that come with early pregnancy hindered me more than I expected. For a short while I worked long days, and during that stretch I worked, slept, and ate as much as my stomach let me (which wasn't as much as I would have liked). At that point I got out of the habit of morning meditation, though I still listened to my favorite Dharma talks. By the time I got home (work sometimes means travel and living in a hotel room for days or weeks) my parents were in town for a visit (from across the country), with my niece and nephew. It was a busy week, I spent most of my time with my parents, even spending the nights at the camper with the family. It was fun, but tiring. They left a couple of weeks ago, around July 7, but it took me a week to remember to make time to meditate. Work is feast of famine, so for the past couple of weeks I've had a lot of free time. I've been using that time to catch up on housework, get in some exercise, and start clearing out clutter and rearranging furniture. I've also been using that time to listen to more talks.

Lately I've been taking in the Satipatthana Sutta Series by Joseph Goldstein. It's a long series, with 44 talks given over a period of five years. I figure that many people in the audience may have heard only the talks from the retreat they attended, so it isn't necessary to go strictly in order, though I try not to jump around too much. I haven't really found the answers I'm looking for in the talks, but that's because often what I want to know is "how do I get enlightened faster" and "how do I stop difficult emotions from arising." Having my parents visit for a week brought up old issues, most of which are still unresolved, and I find myself reacting in ways that aren't wise. Then I feel critical of myself and my own actions/reactions, while at the same time I feel like I'm not wrong, but I still feel like someone is at fault. The coming arrival of a new little one adds a layer of complexity to the mix, as I compare my goals as a future parent with my parents history. Still, there are no easy answers. The main thing I get from the Satipatthana series is to come back to mindfulness of the body as a place to strengthen my mindfulness, and trust in the process. I'm also trying journaling as an awareness practice. I'm not writing a narrative so much as making a list of things about myself -- what I think, what I do, how I feel -- as a way of seeing what my habits are and how I contribute to events, for better or for worse.

Overall I'm excited about the coming arrival of the little one, early in January. The quiet, contemplative life was never something I pictured for myself. I like being a householder and practicing as a lay practitioner. I like the give and take of relationships and feel I learn a lot from others, though sometimes I get overwhelmed. I enjoy spending time with my niece and nephew (she's 5, he's 2), and believe I can learn a lot from children, while they also learn from me. Over time I hope to strengthen my mindfulness so that I can be a more mindful parent, but for the moment I like to think I'm practicing meditation for two, meaning that I like to believe meditation benefits the little one, too.

Thoughts and mindfulness

2009-06-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

The mind is a powerful thing, and this is not always to our advantage. The Buddha compared taming the mind to taming a wild animal, and for those who spend time learning to tame their minds, this makes sense. For myself, i have found a number of habits I've developed that i have a hard time changing. Habit may not be the best word. For example, in conversations and in writing I've been known to get talkative, to say lots, and to seem very comfortable. But then, after some time, i have tendency to replay the conversation, or rewrite whatever i wrote, over and over and over, in a somewhat compulsive way. And the more i rehash, the less comfortable i get. I start to feel like a fake. I regret whatever it was i said or wrote, and i start to withdraw. Often i won't reread stuff i wrote, i avoid being around people i talked to, and sometimes i stop checking my email. Its not rational, and logic hasn't solved the issue. I can tell myself not to worry what people think, i can give myself reasons not to worry, but the anxiety doesn't go away. Does this have anything to do with my practice? I don't know. I didn't start meditating to fix my anxiety issues. However, mindfulness practice helps me become more aware of my tendency to replay past events, and to focus on not getting caught in rehashing the past. Of course, i still get caught and sometimes i don't realize until later what happened. There's a reason its called practice, though i like to think I'm improving.

In the meantime i am continuing my morning meditation. I can't claim to be consistent. Typically i practice 4-5 days a week, not necessarily the same days each week, and time is anywhere from 5:30 - 10 am depending on what time i get up, if i start reading something first, if i decide to eat or brush my hair first, etc. But just remembering to sit quietly for a few minutes more days than not is progress for me. Anyway, I'm taking my own advice and practicing with the metta phrases without any prompts. Its interesting the thoughts practicing metta brings. When i practice metta for myself i feel selfish, i think i need to open up more and practice for others. Then i start thinking i need to do more for others, volunteer my time, be more generous. I start to think i don't do enough, that i'm too stingy, and that i already have too much stuff and want too many things. Then i catch myself and think that i'm judging myself too harshly again. But i don't really buy that, because i'm still caught in thinking all of the judgements are true, and that believing anything else is just an excuse not to change.

I like the metta meditation for a variety of reasons. One is that chain of thoughts i just wrote out. The phrases bring up these thoughts, which i think is actually beneficial. Another is that the phrases, the use of words, focuses my mind better than just the breath does. And a third reason is that on occasion the phrases work. There's a feeling that accompanies them, something that can't be described in words all that well, even if it just lasts for an instant. I've also found compassion meditation works to evoke this feeling. If i lose focus, if i just say the phrases mechanically, then nothing really happens, but i find it is possible to use the phrases to bring out the feeling to match the words. I've heard the metta practice can be very transformative, but at this point i still take that on faith. I figure the only way to find out is to try the practice for myself, which is what I'm doing.

Regular Practice, Irregular Writing and Metta Meditations

2009-05-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

I guess when i started this blog i thought i would post a bit more regularly. It turns out that probably won't be the case. I like keeping my life both full and making time to slow down, so while i make mindfulness practice and Dharma talks a regular part of my routine, writing about my practices sometimes falls by the wayside.

Lately I've been trying to make sitting meditation more a part of my daily practice, by practicing sitting quietly for a short time (15 minutes) in the morning. I tend not to do anything on a regular scheduled basis (the time I show up for work varies, the times I eat, go to sleep, etc. all vary), and some days i wake up and have time to spare in the morning, other days i wake up and have just enough time to get ready at a relaxed pace, but no additional time to spare. So it takes effort for me to consistently get up early enough to have that extra time to sit. I'm keeping the sitting time short to make it easy to do regularly, and hope to lengthen the time as my practice strengthens.

In making time to sit quietly i find i have been practicing metta meditation less. I don't really have any good reason for this. Usually i practice metta using guided meditations, but i could practice metta just as well using my quiet sitting time. It's just that i like my guided metta meditations, and they're too long for my new morning routine. When i started practicing metta meditation it was sporadic, whenever i found a half hour to 45 minutes to sit. So I'm trying an experiment. I clipped a longer metta meditation to make two short 15 minute versions (one has more quiet time than the other). I'm going to try using the meditations some days, and just sitting quietly on others.

Metta meditation works well for me. I get sucked into thoughts easily, so having phrases to focus on focuses my mind a little better than breath meditation does. I can also be very judgmental, and metta seems to help counteract that. I also like guided meditations since i lack a live teacher or group. I've heard its easier to practice when around others who are also practicing, and the recordings seem to provide a similar experience.

At first the idea of the metta phrases (May all beings live in safety, May all beings be happy, May all beings be healthy, etc.) sounded really corny, but after listening to some teachers explain the concept i warmed up to the practice. Below are some talks and metta, and some guided meditations i use.

Ajahn Vayama
Guided Metta and Q & A This is the meditation i used to make the short versions. I've made 15, 20, 30, & 45 minute meditations based on this track.
Narayan Liebenson Grady
Guided Metta I This meditation focuses on metta for oneself. I like the explanation of how & why to practice metta.
Guided Metta II This meditation focuses on self and benefactor.
Guided Metta III This meditation brings in the friend and neutral person. I like the intro for the neutral person.
Guided Metta IV This meditation brings in the difficult person and metta for all beings.
Guided Metta V Expands on Guided Metta IV.
Guy Armstrong
Metta Near and Far Enemies
Metta and Concentration
These are two Dharma talks I like that discuss aspects of the practice of metta meditation.

Staying Grounded

2009-05-04T16:12:00.000-07:00

Its been awhile since i have had much time to collect my thoughts. As the weather gets nice work picks up, and i have been traveling, first to North Dakota, and now to Montana. Work days have been long, 10 or 11 hours, and time for writing and meditation has been short. I have been away from home, living in motel rooms, for days or weeks at a time. When i get home i want to spend time with my husband and dogs, clean the house, do some laundry, eat food cooked on a real stove (not a microwave), and just relax. At times like these, when i feel my energy and/or desire to practice formal meditation wane, i rely on mindfulness practice and the Dharma talks to keep me going.

The first thing i do is not turn on the TV. TV drains my time and energy, and reinforces the three unwholesome roots of greed, aversion, and delusion. The next thing i do is set the alarm clock early. I want to be able to start the day mindfully, and that means i need to be able to take my time. Even if i don't make time to sit formally for meditation practice i like to be able to sit still and just follow my breath, sometimes only for one or two breaths at a time. I like to be able to make breakfast, even if its just microwaving a bowl of oatmeal, and eat mindfully (eating slowly is a challenge for me, it is something i have to concentrate on, and even then eating slowly for me is eating quickly for some). Sometimes i listen to a Dharma talk in the morning. The evening is similar. I like to have time to change out of my field cloths (I work outdoors), lean back quietly, listen to my breath, enjoy the boredom, feel the restlessness, make dinner (lately that means beans and rice), eat, listen to a dharma talk, and get to sleep early.

Feeling the restlessness and enjoying boredom are more important to me than they sound. Often i don't want to sit still, i want to get up, to do something, play a game, watch TV, make a plan, call someone. By not doing these things i have a chance to feel the deeper feelings that drive the restlessness. It gives me a chance to feel the unwholesome roots in myself. That sounds much more negative than it is. For me noticing greed, aversion, and delusion in myself is a gentle practice. I practice metta to accept the parts of myself i don't like, the grasping, pushing away, and tuning out, and in doing so i find myself becoming more tolerant of the parts of other people i don't like. That doesn't mean that i happily get along with everyone i meet (I still struggle with right speech and tend to nit-pick in ways that are not beneficial), but it does mean i don't take my feelings so seriously.

Its not about logic. I don't try to figure out why people do what they do. People do what they do because they want to be happy, yet are often mistaken about what brings happiness and so do the very things that make them suffer. The Buddha taught us that. But knowing that on an intellectual basis brings little comfort. Instead i need to feel that difficulty myself, feel the feelings i don't want to feel, and realize on a deep level that not only do i not want to feel these feelings, but that nobody wants to feel these feelings, and i don't want anybody to feel these feelings. Yet people do experience difficult conditions. Pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, and fame and disrepute are a part of life, and we can't limit ourselves to just having the good parts. When i can feel these things on a deep level the compassion grows in a way that is very hard for me to put into words.

Sitting quietly, listening to my breath, practicing metta, letting myself feel both the good and the difficult are important, but the Dharma talks are equally important for me. Life as a lay person means i am subject to worldly conditions and obligations that keep me from having the time to sit until i achieve a breakthrough. Instead i rely on the insight of others and the power of faith. Faith, as i understand it, is a starting point, something that grows as we test it. Much of my previous paragraph comes from what i have heard listening to talks by Guy Armstrong, Jack Kornfield, Narayan Liebenson Grady, Sally Clough Armstrong, and other Dharma teachers. These talks both inspire me to keep going (or begin again, as the case may be) and give me ideas, such as the idea that people want to be happy, to test against my own experience.

By listening to the Dharma talks, and by pausing to listen to my breath and body throughout the day, i can compare what i hear about how things are with what my experience of how things are is. This is key to staying grounded, and helps me to use the busyness of daily life as an opportunity to practice, not an obstacle to practice.

Learning to Enjoy the Practice

2009-04-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

When i first started exploring Buddhism i listened to a lot of talks by Thich Nhat Hanh. I gave that talks names that reflected the themes i heard: enjoying practice, patience, breathing, eating mindfully, ancestors, refuge, stillness. In one talk (a talk give on 12 10 2006 that was once available online, but no longer appears to be available) Thay (thay is the Vietnamese word for teacher, and is the name Thich Nhat Hahn uses to refer to himself, it is also a name his students and friends call him by) talked about the importance of enjoying practice, and obstacles to enjoying practice. He talked about the breath, the body, and mind, and how the three are connected; when we calm the breath, we calm the body, we calm the mind. He talked about how we get pushed around by our habits, so that we think we just want to relax and do nothing, but when we have the time to relax we feel a need, something internal, to get up, move around, or somehow distract ourselves from our thoughts. The way he said it was that the body doesn't enjoy sitting; there is some kind of energy, an agitation, preventing the body from enjoying the sitting. This energy is in the body, but it isn't limited to the body, because the mind, the body, and the breath are linked.

When i found a talk i liked i would listen to it over and over again. This was one of the talks i listened to repeatedly. The talk connected with me because the experience he described, being pushed by habit energy, was something i had experienced. I wanted to be still, but when i sat down I'd start thinking, and bounce back up to do something, even if that something wasn't important, even if that something was playing solitaire or freecell on the computer, even if i didn't really enjoy whatever it was i was doing. It was easy for me to believe that the three are linked because i can feel how thinking makes we want to move, how movement and exercise can affect the breath, and how thoughts can affect the breath. I've noticed myself gasping or sighing over a thought. I could also feel how the breath affected the body, how when i calmed my breath it calmed my body. And so i could believe that calming the breath could calm my thoughts, and calming my body could calm my thoughts, even though i hadn't had this experience as often.

Thay talked about how the practice, sitting quietly, should be something enjoyable, because it means we are free. Part of it is that we have the time to enjoy having nothing to do, but he also talked about having freedom from the past, freedom from worries for the future, freedom from feeling like we have to much to do. This was a different kind of freedom, an internal freedom, one that no one else can give us. The way he talked about freedom made it sound very appealing and desirable. At some point in the talk there were translation problems, so he had to take a break while the translators figured things out. While waiting he said "well ... we have the time to sit," not upset at all about the break in his talk. The way he talked, i felt like i could hear his freedom, he wasn't pushed to give his talks, to make a point, to convince people his views were right. It inspired me to use that short pause to practice sitting and breathing and stopping and enjoying stopping whenever i listened to that talk. Even though it was only a short time, not even five minutes, it was enough to get me started, enough to start changing my habits.

While Thay spoke of enjoying practice as something easy, something natural, something that began right away, he also spoke of learning how to sit. He made it clear that we need to learn how to enjoy sitting. Anybody can enjoy sitting, and we can enjoy sitting right away, but we still have to learn how to enjoy sitting. For reasons i can't quite explain this didn't sound contradictory to me. In a sense i experienced it. I would sit and breath mindfully and for an instant i would enjoy it, and then i would feel the restlessness and want to get back up. Thay explained this by saying that your worries, your fears, your anger are obstacles to enjoying practice. The way i interpret this is that these emotions generate energy, and that energy manifests itself as restlessness. Thay also said you are capable of being mindful. There are obstacles, yes, but there are also supporting conditions. We need to be able to recognize the supporting conditions. I interpreted this as practicing gratitude, focusing our attention on the good things in our lives.

Because Thay described experience i had had, and because he not only described the outcome of practice in a way that sounded appealing, but also seemed to demonstrate though his own presence that these outcomes were possible, it inspired me to continue practicing even if i didn't always see the results right away.

The idea of practice as just that, something you do over and over, sometimes getting it right, sometimes getting it wrong, but making that effort to get it right more often than you get it wrong, is not something unique to the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. I've heard it from other teachers, too. Below are links to talks by Joseph Goldstein and Narayan Liebenson Grady that talk about the importance of practice when it comes to mindfulness and meditation.

Narayan Liebenson Grady: Training the Heart
Joseph Goldstein: Instructions for sitting and walking meditation

Cultivating Right Intention

2009-04-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

One of the core Buddhist teachings in the Noble Eightfold Path. It is the fourth of the Four Noble Truths, the path that leads to freedom from suffering. Right Intention is part of the Noble Eightfold Path, along with Right View, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. The Buddha taught that intention was as important, or more important than, action. Right intention, combined with an clear understanding of how things are, leads to good actions. If we misunderstand things, or if our intentions are wrong, it comes out in our actions. This is why Right View and Right Intention are so important in the Path.

My early practice of walking meditation, mindfulness, and listening to Dharma talks was focused mainly on building my desire to practice; it was months before i actually started practicing sitting meditation. I'd put on Dharma talks all night, so that whenever i woke up I'd hear bits. I didn't worry about whether or not i listened to talks mindfully or in a way that fostered mindfulness. I'd put on talks while doing the dishes, folding clothes, painting the house, or even playing solitaire or freecell. I didn't worry about giving talks a fair chance; I'd put on a talk for five minutes, and if it didn't catch my attention I'd switch to another. I didn't watch TV, so it was easy to listen to talks for 2 or 3 hours a day. On weekends or days i didn't work it was easy to listen to talks for 6 or 8 hours a day, and some days i listened to talks for even longer.

Sometimes i thought i was doing things wrong - i should sit quietly and listen mindfully, i should be more open, i should listen to a whole talk before judging, but Buddhism teaches the importance of acceptance, which includes accepting our imperfections. As Thich Nhat Hanh would say, mindfulness of distractedness is mindfulness. So i practiced being mindful of how distracted i was, accepting myself as i was, and focused on talks that inspired me. Sometimes i did practice sitting quietly and listen to the talks. One way i did this was to practice drinking tea slowly and mindfully while listening to the talks.

Thich Nhat Hanh liked to call the monastery bell the bell of mindfulness. He said that whenever you hear the bell it is important to stop what you are doing and put all of your attention in the present moment. Anything could be a bell of mindfulness, he talked about using stop signs as a bell of mindfulness while driving, and so i used the talks as a bell of mindfulness. I'd put on a talk while doing the dishes to remind myself to wash the dishes mindfully. Thich Nhat Hanh described the practice of washing dishes mindfully in some of his books and talks. The important thing is to remember the principal of emptiness, what he calls interbeing. The way i practiced mindfulness while washing dishes was to remember that i had dishes to wash because i had food to eat, and the dishes i washed were my own dishes, that i was washing the dishes in a sink of warm water because i had running water and a water heater, and that while it is easy to take these things for granted, even now in many parts of the world running water, and hot water, are luxuries not everyone has access to. In this sense doing the dishes was a privilege, not a chore. I didn't have to rush through doing the dishes to get to do something more fun, i could use the time washing dishes to be grateful for all i had. In this way i practiced what learned listening to the talks, and the practice helped me change my perspective to one i believe is more beneficial.

Listening to Dharma Talks was, and still is, an important part of my practice. Through the talks i absorb bits of the teaching. I believe i have learned more about Buddhist practice listening to talks than I have from books, articles, or essays. But it is not an intellectual understanding of the talks that is most important to me. At times where i don't feel like I'm getting anywhere the talks remind me why i continue to practice, they inspire me to keep going forward, even if i sometimes forget where i am going. Some talks have specific suggestions for practice, focusing on mindfulness of action, mindfulness of thought and feelings, awareness of the breath, or other ways to focus the mind. Other talks describe things we experience, the pleasant and the difficult. And other talks remind me why i practice, what i hope will happen, where the path will take me.

Here are some talks that have inspired my practice:

Narayan Liebenson Grady

Sacred Idleness
Illuminating the path
The Possibility of Stopping
Training the Heart

Jack Kornfield

Quiet the Mind, Open the Heart
The Wisdom Characteristics of Life
The Bodhisattha

Freedom: The Seal of the Emperor

2009-04-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

When i left off i (March 31) was talking about my experience in transforming a difficult situation. The Jataka story and description of mindfulness practice inspired me, but at that time my habit energy was very strong. I felt restless, unable to sit still. My mind wandered, and the same thoughts repeated themselves over and over. So how would i begin practicing? The answer was in that same talk ("Transforming Negative Habit Energies" reprinted here, March 31). Near the end of the talk Thich Nhat Hanh described the practice of walking meditation. It was something i felt capable of practicing, and the way he described the practice inspired me. While i didn't feel ready to practicing sitting, walking meditation was something i could do.

I didn't need a lot of space to practice walking. I practiced indoors, in the living room, walking in a figure eight pattern. Sometimes i used the phrase "I have arrived," other times i imagined my foot was a seal, a rolling stamp that had to be pressed down firmly and evenly. As my foot touched the ground from heel to toe i imagined the word "freedom" was imprinted on the ground, letter by letter. Sometimes i walked with my difficult emotions. I would name my feelings as i became aware of the, "hello frustration, hello disappointment, hello desire," and experience the feelings without trying to change them or act on them.

My practice of walking meditation was far from perfect. When i was talking about my practice someone asked if i walked slowly, like Thich Nhat Hanh. I had to admit that i did not. At times my walking was more like pacing, something Thich Nhat Hanh might describe as walking "as though chased by a hungry ghost." I suppose in a sense i was being chased by a ghost. Even while focusing on my breath and coordinating my breath with my steps, feeling the sole of my foot touch the ground, and leaving the mark of freedom in my footstep my mind still wandered. But walking fostered mindfulness of the body, as i noticed that the more my mind wandered, the faster i walked. As Thich Nhat Hanh has said, mindfulness of forgetfulness is mindfulness. Or in other words, when you become aware of how much your mind wanders that awareness itself is mindfulness. And so, that is how i was able to get a foothold into mindfulness practice.

As i became aware of the speed of my walking i began to slow down. And as my walking slowed, so did my thoughts.

Below are some excerpts from the talk I used to guide my practice.

"Walking in walking meditation is walking just to enjoy walking. You don’t have any desire to arrive anywhere. Walking and not arriving, that is the technique. And you enjoy every step you make. Every step brings you home to the here and the now. Your true home according to this teaching is the here and the now, because only in this moment, in this place, called the here and the now, can life be possible.

Taking one in-breath, taking one out-breath, you make two steps, two beautiful steps, and with every step you say, "I have arrived." That should not be a statement, that should be a practice. You have to arrive in the here and the now, and make a strong determination to stop and not to run anymore. You have run all your life already, now is the chance to stop. You walk in a way that can introduce you to the Pure Land of Buddha right away, that can introduce you to the Kingdom of God right away. The Pure Land is the Land where you don’t feel the need to run anymore…and with one step you can enter it. Also the Kingdom of God is the kingdom of peace, and when you arrive in the Kingdom of God you don’t feel you have to run anymore, if you feel that you need to run more, then you are not there yet. That is why with one in-breath you practice: "I have arrived, i have arrived" …and please don’t just make the statement, you have to really arrive. Allow yourself to sink deeply into the here and the now, because life is possible only in the present, life is available only in the present moment, and you know that you have the capacity to touch life in the present moment, the here and the now.

We have lost our freedom. We have lost our sovereignty. We are not free anymore. We allow ourselves to be pushed and pulled away from the here and the now. Now we have to resist, we have to recover our sovereignty, we have to reclaim our freedom, and we have to walk like a free person on earth. Freedom here is not political freedom, it is freedom from the past, from the future, from our worries and our fear. Be free, and each step like that can help us, can free us. And the Sangha is there, surrounding you and supporting you in making the step. Many of us here are capable of walking like that. Many of us have been trained for five years, seven years, ten years, in order to be able to walk like that. We resist, we don’t allow ourselves to be carried away anymore. We want to be free, because we know that without freedom, no happiness, no peace, will be possible.

Invest one hundred percent of yourself into making that step: "I have arrived. I have arrived." And your foot will become the foot of the Buddha, because the Buddha always walked like that. And by touching the earth with your foot, you produce the miracle of being alive. You make yourself real and the earth real, and such a step is highly nourishing and healing. You are protecting yourself from the habit energy that is always pushing you to run and to get lost. Je suis chez moi. Je suis arrivee. The practice should be very strong, determined. Bring all your attention down to the soles of your feet. Don’t stay over here, bring all your attention to the soles of your feet, and touch the earth as though you kiss the earth with your feet. Like the seal of an emperor on a decree, walk as though you imprint your solidity, your freedom, and your peace on the earth. When i look at your footprint i can see the mark of solidity, of freedom, in it. We have to reclaim our liberty. Liberty, emancipation, Vimukti, that is the practice—to free ourselves from that negative habit energy."

Hell

2009-03-31T18:00:00.000-07:00

When I started studying Buddhism, before i began practicing, i was in the midst of a personal crisis, so perhaps it is no surprise that one of the teachings that spoke to me was on Hell. Yes, there is a Hell realm in Buddhism (there is also a heaven realm). This particular story was a Jataka tale, that is a story about the Buddha's past lives. Buddha is a name bestowed on Siddhārtha Gautama by his followers. It means, the Awakened One, but it is said that it took the Buddha many lifetimes to achieve this awakening. Before he was the Buddha, he was a Bodhisattva, a Buddha to be. And the Jataka tale that spoke to me was about a lifetime when the Buddha was in Hell. It may seem odd to think that the Buddha, the fully awakened one, could have spent time in Hell before his awakening, but that is one of the things that drew me into Buddhism.

One of the key teachings in Buddhism is the teaching on impermanence. Impermanence is one of the three characteristics, along with emptieness and unsatisfactoriness, that are the mark of all things. There is no eternal soul, no eternal salvation, or eternal damnation, in Buddhism. Indeed, the Buddha taught that there are two types of wrong view, the view of eternalism and the view of annihilationism (It 49; 43-44; discussed in In the Buddha's Words, Bhikkhu Bodhi, pp. 189-190). Hell is not a place where bad people go to suffer indefinitely. There is no supreme being in Buddhism who judges and sorts people. My understanding of the teachings is that Hell is place we choose to go to, often because we are unaware that that is where we are choosing to go. Buddhist teachings are open to interpretation, so while some people believe the Buddhist Hell is a place you may go when you die, others see it as a state of mind we experience while alive, and others believe it is both. Again, my understanding is that these are all valid interpretations of the teaching.

Given the teachings on impermanence it is not really surprising that i learned of this Jataka tale in a transcription of a Dharma Talk by Thich Nhat Hanh titled "Transforming Negative Habit Energy." There were several things the talk that connected with me. In the talk Thich Nhat Hanh spoke of Hell as a state of mind, a state of mind that creates pain in suffering in ourselves and those we love. This was something that i could believe. I could also believe that anger creates suffering. I had reached a point where i had a lot of anger, and no longer wanted to justify that anger, because i felt how the anger hurt not just the target, but also hurt me. Thich Nhat Hanh also talked about habit energy, and how habit energy pushes us to say and do things we don't want to say or do. The idea of being pushed by habit energy struck me because that was how i felt; I said things i didn't want to say, did things i didn't want to do, and didn't feel like i had control over what i said or did. The idea that there was a way out of this, that by being mindful i could transform that energy, brought hope. The idea that i could transform a bad situation, to learn from it, was important. Some people say everything happens for a reason. I don't know that i believe that, but if we can turn the bad into good, does it matter if things happen for a reason? To me, it was more important to make the best outcome than to figure out why things happened the way they do. And so the talk gave me hope, which inspired faith, and while i still felt like i was being pushed by my habit energy, that pushing began to weaken enough for me to begin practicing to transform it. How did i practice? I'll talk about that in a future post.

I looked for a link to this talk, but couldn't find it, so I'm posting a copy here. The full version is in the post below this one. Below are some excerpts from the talk that struck me.

"In that life of his, he [the Buddha] hit the bottom of suffering, because that Hell was the worst of all Hells. With him there was another man, and together they had to work very hard, under the direction of a soldier who was in charge of Hell. It was dark, it was cold, and at the same time it was very hot. The guard did not seem to have a heart. It did not seem that he knew anything about suffering. He did not know anything about the feelings of other people, so he just beat up the two men in Hell. He was in charge of the two men, and his task was to make them suffer as much as possible.

One afternoon, the man who was the Buddha in a former life saw the guard treating his companion so brutally that something in him rose up. He wanted to protest. He knew that if he intervened, if he said anything, if he tried to prevent the guard beating the other person, that he would be beaten himself.

That impulse was very strong in him, and he could not stand it anymore. He turned around, and he faced the guard without any heart, and said, "Why don’t you leave him alone for a moment? Why do you keep beating him and pushing him like that? Don’t you have a heart?"

When the guard saw him protesting like that, and heard him, he was very angry, and he used his fork, and he planted it right in the chest of the Buddha. As a result, the Buddha died right away, and he was reborn the very same minute into the body of a human being. He escaped Hell, and became a human being living on earth, just because compassion was born in him, strong enough for him to have the courage to intervene to help his fellow man in Hell.

The other fellow saw the Buddha die. He was angry, and for the first time he was touched by compassion: the other person must have had some love, some compassion to have the courage to intervene for his sake. That gave rise to some compassion in him also. That is why he looked at the guard, and he said, "My friend was right, you don’t have a heart. You can only create suffering for yourself and for other people. I don’t think that you are a happy person. You have killed him." And after he said that, the guard was also very angry at him, and he used his fork, and planted the fork in the stomach of the second man, who also died right away, and was reborn as a human being on earth. Both of them escaped Hell, and had a chance to begin anew on earth, as full human beings.

What happened to the guard, the one who had no heart? He felt very lonely, because in that Hell there were only three people and now the other two were dead. He began to see that these two were not very kind, or very nice, but to have people living with us is a wonderful thing. Now the two other people were dead, and he was alone, utterly alone there. He could not bear that kind of loneliness, and Hell became very difficult for him. Out of that suffering he learned something: he learned that you cannot live alone. Man is not our enemy. You cannot hate man, you cannot kill man, you cannot reduce man to nothingness, because if you kill man, with whom will you live? He made a vow that if he had to take care of other people in Hell, he would learn how to deal with them in a nicer way, and a transformation took place in his heart.

At that time, the door of Hell opened, and a bodhisattva appeared, with all the radiance of a bodhisattva. The bodhisattva said, " Goodness has been born in you, so you don’t have to endure Hell very long. You will die quickly and be reborn as a human very soon."

I have been in Hell, many kinds of Hell, and I have also noticed that even in Hell compassion is possible. With the practice of Buddhist meditation, you may very well prevent Hell manifesting. And if Hell has manifested, you have ways to transform Hell into something that is much more pleasant. When you get angry, Hell is born. Anger makes you suffer a lot, and not only do you suffer, but the people you love also suffer at the same time. When we don’t know how to practice, from time to time we create Hell in our own families.

Dear friends, the energy that pushes us to do what we do not want to do, to say what we do not want to say, is called habit energy, the negative habit energy in us. Vasana is the word in Sanskrit. (Sounds of Thay writing on the board.) It is very important that we recognize that energy in us. This energy has been transmitted to us by many generations of ancestors, and we continue to cultivate it. It is very powerful. We are intelligent enough to know that if we do this, if we say that, we will cause damage in our relationship. Yet when the time comes, when we find ourselves in that situation, we say it or we do it, even though we know it will be destructive. Why? Because it’s stronger than we are, we say. It is pushing us all the time. That is why the practice aims at liberating ourselves from that kind of habit energy.

Our joy, our peace, our happiness depend very much on our practice of recognizing and transforming our habit energies. There are positive habit energies that we have to cultivate, there are negative habit energies that we have to recognize, embrace and transform. The energy with which we do these things is mindfulness. Mindfulness is a kind of energy that helps us to be aware of what is going on. Therefore, when the habit energy shows itself, we know right away. "Hello, my little habit energy, I know you are there. I will take good care of you." In recognizing it as it is, you are in control of the situation. You don’t have to fight it; in fact the Buddha does not recommend that you fight it, because that habit energy is you, and you should not fight against yourself. You have to generate the energy of mindfulness, which is also you, and that positive energy will do the work of recognizing and embracing.

Every time a negative energy is embraced by the energy of mindfulness, it will lose a little bit of its strength as it returns as a seed to the lower level of consciousness. The same thing is true for all other mental formations: your fear, your anguish, your anxiety, and your despair. They exist in us in the form of seeds, and every time one of the seeds is watered, it becomes a zone of energy on the upper level of our consciousness. If you don’t know how to take care of it, it will cause damage, it will push us to do or to say things that will damage us and damage the people we love. Therefore, generating the energy of mindfulness, to recognize it, to embrace it, to take care of it, is the practice. And the practice should be done in a very tender, non-violent way.

A practitioner is someone who has the right to suffer, but who does not have the right not to practice. People who are not practitioners allow their pain, sorrow and anguish to overwhelm them, to push them to say and do things they don’t want. We, who consider our selves to be practitioners, have the right to suffer like everyone else, but we don’t have the right not to practice."

Dharma Talks:
At the time I listened this talk by Thich Nhat Hanh often:
11 26 2006 p1, 11 26 2006 p2

since then I have also found this talk by James Baraz
2006-03-27 Transforming Suffering Into Happiness

and this talk by Narayan Liebenson Grady
2008-05-05 Acceptance And Transformation

Reprint of Thich Nhat Hanh "Transforming Negative Habit Energies"

2009-03-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh on August 6, 1998 in Plum Village, France.

Transforming Negative Habit Energies
© Thich Nhat Hanh

My dear friends, today is the 6th of August, 1998, and we are in the Upper Hamlet. We are going to speak English.

Today I would like to speak a little bit about Heaven, or Paradise, and Hell. I have been in Paradise, and I have been in Hell also, so I have some experience to share with you. I think if you remember well, you know that you have also been in Paradise, and you have also been in Hell. Hell is hot, and it is difficult.

The Buddha, in one of his former lives, was in Hell. Before he became a Buddha he had suffered a lot in many lives. He made a lot of mistakes, like all of us. He made himself suffer, and he made people around him suffer. Sometimes he made very big mistakes, and that is why in one of his previous lives he was in Hell. There is a collection of stories about the lives of the Buddha, and there are many hundreds of stories like that. These stories are collected under the title Jataka Tales. Among these hundreds of stories, I remember one very vividly. I was seven years old, very young, and I read that story about the Buddha, and I was very shocked. But I did not fully understand that story.

The Buddha was in Hell because he had done something wrong, extremely wrong, that caused a lot of suffering to himself and to others. That is why he found himself in Hell. In that life of his, he hit the bottom of suffering, because that Hell was the worst of all Hells. With him there was another man, and together they had to work very hard, under the direction of a soldier who was in charge of Hell. It was dark, it was cold, and at the same time it was very hot. The guard did not seem to have a heart. It did not seem that he knew anything about suffering. He did not know anything about the feelings of other people, so he just beat up the two men in Hell. He was in charge of the two men, and his task was to make them suffer as much as possible.

I think that guard also suffered a lot. It looked like he didn’t have any compassion within him. It looked like he didn’t have any love in his heart. It looked like he did not have a heart. He behaved like a robber. When looking at him, when listening to him, it did not seem that one could contact a human being, because he was so brutal. He was not sensitive to people’s suffering and pain. That is why he was beating the two men in Hell, and making them suffer a lot. And the Buddha was one of these two men in one of his previous lives.

The guard had an instrument with three iron points, and every time he wanted the two men to go ahead, he used this to push them on the back, and of course blood came out of their backs. He did not allow them to relax; he was always pushing and pushing and pushing. He himself also looked like he was being pushed by something behind him. Have you ever felt that kind of pushing behind your back? Even if there was no one behind you, you have felt that you were being pushed and pushed to do things you don’t like to do, and to say the things you don’t like to say, and in doing that you created a lot of suffering for yourself and the people around you. Maybe there is something behind us that is pushing and pushing. Sometimes we say horrible things, and do horrible things, that we did not want to say or do, yet we were pushed by something from behind. So we said it, and we did it, even if we didn’t want to do it. That was what happened to the guard in Hell: he tried to push, because he was being pushed. He caused a lot of damage to the two men. The two men were very cold, very hungry, and he was always pushing and beating them and causing them a lot of problems.

One afternoon, the man who was the Buddha in a former life saw the guard treating his companion so brutally that something in him rose up. He wanted to protest. He knew that if he intervened, if he said anything, if he tried to prevent the guard beating the other person, that he would be beaten himself. But that something was pushing up in him, so that he wanted to intervene, and he wanted to say: "Don’t beat him so much. Why don’t you allow him to relax? Why do you have to stab him and to beat him and to push him so much?" Deep within the Buddha was a pressure coming up, and he wanted to intervene, even knowing perfectly well that if he did, he would be beaten by the guard. That impulse was very strong in him, and he could not stand it anymore. He turned around, and he faced the guard without any heart, and said, "Why don’t you leave him alone for a moment? Why do you keep beating him and pushing him like that? Don’t you have a heart?"

That was what he said, this man who was to be the Buddha. When the guard saw him protesting like that, and heard him, he was very angry, and he used his fork, and he planted it right in the chest of the Buddha. As a result, the Buddha died right away, and he was reborn the very same minute into the body of a human being. He escaped Hell, and became a human being living on earth, just because compassion was born in him, strong enough for him to have the courage to intervene to help his fellow man in Hell.

When I read this story, I was astonished, and I came to the conclusion that even in Hell there was compassion. That was a very relieving truth: even in Hell there is compassion. Can you imagine? And wherever compassion is, it’s not too bad. Do you know something? The other fellow saw the Buddha die. He was angry, and for the first time he was touched by compassion: the other person must have had some love, some compassion to have the courage to intervene for his sake. That gave rise to some compassion in him also. That is why he looked at the guard, and he said, "My friend was right, you don’t have a heart. You can only create suffering for yourself and for other people. I don’t think that you are a happy person. You have killed him." And after he said that, the guard was also very angry at him, and he used his fork, and planted the fork in the stomach of the second man, who also died right away, and was reborn as a human being on earth. Both of them escaped Hell, and had a chance to begin anew on earth, as full human beings.

What happened to the guard, the one who had no heart? He felt very lonely, because in that Hell there were only three people and now the other two were dead. He began to see that these two were not very kind, or very nice, but to have people living with us is a wonderful thing. Now the two other people were dead, and he was alone, utterly alone there. He could not bear that kind of loneliness, and Hell became very difficult for him. Out of that suffering he learned something: he learned that you cannot live alone. Man is not our enemy. You cannot hate man, you cannot kill man, you cannot reduce man to nothingness, because if you kill man, with whom will you live? He made a vow that if he had to take care of other people in Hell, he would learn how to deal with them in a nicer way, and a transformation took place in his heart. In fact, he did have a heart. To believe that he did not have a heart is wrong—everyone has a heart. We need something or someone to touch that heart, to transform it into a human heart. So this time the feeling of loneliness, the desire to be with other humans, was born in him. That is why he decided that if he had to guard other people in Hell, he would know how to deal with them with more compassion. At that time, the door of Hell opened, and a bodhisattva appeared, with all the radiance of a bodhisattva. The bodhisattva said, " Goodness has been born in you, so you don’t have to endure Hell very long. You will die quickly and be reborn as a human very soon."

That is the story I read when I was seven. I have to confess that at the time I read it I did not understand it fully. Nevertheless, the story had a strong impact on me. I think that was my favorite Jataka tale. I found that in Hell, there can be compassion. It is possible for us to give birth to compassion even in the most difficult situations. In our daily lives, from time to time, we create Hell for ourselves and for our beloved ones. The Buddha had done that several times before he became a Buddha. He created suffering for himself and for other people, including his mother and his father. That is why, in one of his former lives, he had to be in Hell. Hell is a place where we can learn a lesson in order to grow, and the Buddha learned well in Hell. Do you know what happened after he was reborn as a human? He continued to practice compassion, and from that day on he continued to make progress in the direction of understanding and love, and he has never gone back to Hell again, except when he wanted to go there and help the people who suffer.

I have been in Hell, many kinds of Hell, and I have also noticed that even in Hell compassion is possible. With the practice of Buddhist meditation, you may very well prevent Hell manifesting. And if Hell has manifested, you have ways to transform Hell into something that is much more pleasant. When you get angry, Hell is born. Anger makes you suffer a lot, and not only do you suffer, but the people you love also suffer at the same time. When we don’t know how to practice, from time to time we create Hell in our own families. When we went to school, our teachers never helped us to deal with these difficulties. He or she did not teach us how to transform Hell into something better, like Paradise. But when you come to a practice center like Plum Village, the brothers and sisters who live here will be able to tell you how to prevent Hell manifesting. If it happens that Hell is there, what can you do for Hell to be transformed into an atmosphere of calm, of coolness, of joy?

Today I would like the young people to learn more about this practice of transforming Hell into something that is more pleasant. You know that the practices of mindful breathing, of mindful walking, of smiling, are very important. You think that you can walk—of course you can walk. You think that you can breathe—in fact, you breathe every day, all day and all night. You think that you can smile. Yes, but the smile here is a little bit different, the breath here is a little bit different, the walking here is a little bit different. We call it mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, and if you master these methods of practice, you have instruments to transform Hell into Heaven.

Hell can be created by Father, or Mother, or sister, or brother, or yourself. You have created Hell many times in your family, and every time Hell is there, not only do the other people suffer, but you also suffer. So how to make compassion arise in one of you? I think that is the key of the practice. If among you three or four people, there is one person who has compassion inside, one person who is capable of smiling mindfully, of breathing mindfully, of walking mindfully, she or he can be the savior of the whole family. He or she will play the role of the Buddha in Hell, because compassion is born in him first, and that compassion will be seen and touched by someone else, and someone else. It may be that Hell can be transformed in just one minute or less. It is wonderful!

When you are in school you learn a lot of writing and reading and mathematics and science, and many more things, but you don’t learn these kinds of things. I think that the monks and the nuns, the brothers and sisters here at Plum Village, can tell you how to practice in order not to allow Hell to manifest; and when Hell is already there, what to do and what not to do so that Hell will not continue, but will be transformed into something wonderful. Joy and happiness are possible, and if we are able to learn a little bit about the practice of mindfulness, we will be able to make life much more pleasant in our family, and also in school and society.

Tomorrow I will tell you another story. This is the end of your Dharma talk, and when you hear the little bell, please stand up and bow to the Sangha before you go out to continue the Dharma discussion. The topic will be "How to Transform Hell into Heaven." Have a good day!

(Bell)

Dear friends, the energy that pushes us to do what we do not want to do, to say what we do not want to say, is called habit energy, the negative habit energy in us. Vasana is the word in Sanskrit. (Sounds of Thay writing on the board.) It is very important that we recognize that energy in us. This energy has been transmitted to us by many generations of ancestors, and we continue to cultivate it. It is very powerful. We are intelligent enough to know that if we do this, if we say that, we will cause damage in our relationship. Yet when the time comes, when we find ourselves in that situation, we say it or we do it, even though we know it will be destructive. Why? Because it’s stronger than we are, we say. It is pushing us all the time. That is why the practice aims at liberating ourselves from that kind of habit energy.

I remember one day when I was sitting on the bus in India, with a friend, visiting untouchable communities. I was there to help bring Buddhist practice to our friends who belong to the Ambedkar Society. I remembered that one day in Nagpur, five hundred thousand untouchables formally received the Five Mindfulness Trainings, because they wanted to liberate themselves from their situation of being oppressed, and they needed spiritual strength, spiritual practice. But after their leader, Dr. Ambedkar, died, the movement did not go on with energy. So I tried to come and help.

That friend of mine was sitting on my right on the bus. We went to many states in India to offer days of mindfulness and public lectures and retreats. The landscape was beautiful, with palm trees, temples, buffaloes, rice fields, and I was enjoying what I saw from my window. When I looked at him, I saw that he looked very tense, and was not enjoying it as I did. He was struggling. I said, "My dear friend, there is nothing for your to worry about now. I know that your concern is to make my trip pleasant, and to make me happy, but you know, I am happy right now, so enjoy yourself. Sit back, smile. The landscape is very beautiful." He was very tense. He said, "Okay," and he sat back. But just two minutes later, when I looked back at him, he was as tense as before. He was still struggling, struggling and struggling. He was not capable of letting go of the struggle, that struggle that has been going on for many thousands of years. He was not capable of dwelling in the present moment and touching life deeply in that moment, which was my practice, and still is my practice. He was an untouchable himself. Now he has a family, a beautiful apartment to live in, a good job, and he does not look like an untouchable, but he is still one, because he still carries all the energies, the suffering of all his ancestors in the past many thousands of years. They struggle during the day, they struggle during the night, even in dreams, and they are not capable of letting go and relaxing.

Our ancestors might have been luckier than his, but why do many of us behave very much like him? We do not allow ourselves to be relaxed, to be in the here and the now. Why do we always try to run and run, even when we are having our breakfast, even while having our lunch, while walking, while sitting? There is something pushing us, pulling us, all the time. We are not capable of being free, in order to touch life deeply in this very moment. Your depression, your illness, is an outcome of that kind of behavior, because you have never allowed yourself to be free. You make yourself busy all of your life, you believe that happiness and peace is not possible in the here and the now, that it may be possible in the future. That is why you take all of your energies in order to run there, hoping that someday in the future you will have some happiness or some peace. The Buddha addressed this issue very clearly. He said, "Don’t get caught in the past, because the past is gone. Don’t get upset about the future, because the future is not yet here. There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment. Go back to the present moment and live this moment deeply, and you’ll be free."

The Buddha said that living happily in the present moment is something possible: drsta dharma sukha vihari. Drsta dharma means the things that are here, that happen in the here and the now. Sukha means happiness. Vihari means to dwell, to live. Living happily in the present moment is the practice. But how to liberate ourselves in order to really be in the here and the now? Buddhist meditation offers the practice of stopping. Stopping is very important, because we have been running all our lives, and also in all our previous lives. Our ancestors, our grandfather, our grandmother, had been running, and now they continue to run in us. If we don’t practice, then our children will carry us and continue to run in the future.

So we have to learn the art of stopping, L’arret. The Chinese word for stopping is zhi (sounds of writing), and if you go to China you’ll see a lot of these signs on the street. It means "Stop." If you are a driver, you have to understand that. That is exactly the word used in the scriptures: stopping. Stop running, stop being pushed by that habit energy. But first of all you have to recognize that there is such an energy in yourself, that is always pushing. Even if you want to stop, it doesn’t allow you to stop. At breakfast time, a number of us are capable of enjoying our breakfast, a number of us are capable of being together in the here and the now. Just yesterday I had breakfast with two novice monks. We did not have fancy things, but I looked at the two novices and I said, "It’s wonderful that we are having breakfast together. It’s a most wonderful thing, a most joyful thing. Do you think that there is something more wonderful than just sitting together and having our breakfast together, one teacher and two novices?" One novice offered me a broad smile. He understood. Not only did he understand my statement, but he understood the reality that happiness was real, because we were capable of being together, recognizing the true presence of each other. In that moment life was real. But many of us, while having our breakfast are not really there. We continue to run. We have a lot of projects, we have a lot of worries, we have a lot of anxieties, and we cannot sit like a Buddha.

The Buddha is always sitting on a lotus flower, very fresh, very stable. If we are capable of sitting in the here and the now, anywhere we sit becomes a lotus flower—whether that is the root of a tree, the grass, a stone bench—any of these things becomes a lotus flower for you to sit on, because you are really sitting, you are really there. Your body and your mind together, you are free from all worries, from all regrets, from all anger. Though each of us during sitting meditation has a cushion, the cushion can be Hell, the cushion can be Heaven, the cushion can be a lotus flower, the cushion can be thorns. Many of us sit on the cushion, but it’s like sitting on thorns. We don’t know how to enjoy the lotus flower.

A few years ago Mr. Nelson Mandela, the president of South Africa came here, for his first official visit, to meet the French president, and the press asked him what he would like to do the most. He said, "What I want to do the most is just sit down and do nothing. (Laughter.) Since my release from prison I have not had that pleasure, I always have to do something. Therefore my deepest desire is to be allowed to sit down and do nothing." In our Sangha here, there are three youngsters who came from South Africa. One of them has become a monk, and two of them are still lay practitioners. They enjoy the practice, and I usually tell them, "Please, sit for your president. If he cannot sit down, then you have to sit for him. Every day we have three occasions to sit, and if you know the need of your president, and of many people in your country, then you would like to sit for them, and sit in such a way that peace and joy become possible." Sitting is not like hard labor, sitting is the enjoyment of stability, of peace, of dwelling in the present moment. We have to recognize the habit energy every time it manifests. It always dictates our behavior, pushing us to do and say things, so we have to practice mindfulness, in order to recognize it every time it is manifested.

A young man from America came here for the summer retreat about ten years ago. He enjoyed his three weeks of practice in the Upper Hamlet, he enjoyed walking and sitting and breathing and cooking, and so on. One day we organized a ceremony called the Thanksgiving Ceremony. Because we also have our own way of celebrating thanks giving – to our parents who brought us to life, to our teachers who show us the way to live happily in the present moment, to our friends who support us in difficult moments, and to all living beings in the animal, vegetable and mineral realms. That day we practiced being aware of their existence, and lived in such a way as to be grateful for their support.

That young man was asked by his fellow Americans to go to Ste. Foy la Grande to do some shopping, because each national group had to cook something very special from their country, in order to place it on the collective altar of ancestors. If you were a Chinese person, then you would cook something Chinese, something very special in your country. When he was in the market shopping, suddenly a kind of energy came up, and he suddenly became restless, and hurrying. He lost his peace and his beauty. During the three weeks in the Upper Hamlet he never behaved like that, because he was among his Sangha, and everyone was practicing walking and sitting and doing things in a relaxed way, learning how to live in the present moment. The practice in the Upper Hamlet was strong, and he found himself in a Sangha that was practicing well. That is why he enjoyed that kind of freedom, that kind of stability, that kind of joy. Now he was alone in the market, and suddenly he felt himself rushing, feeling restless, and trying to do things quickly in order to go home to the Upper Hamlet. But because had already been practicing for three full weeks, he was able to recognize what was going on within himself. He had a kind of insight: he saw that that was the habit energy of his mother, because she was always like that, rushing, hurrying, agitated, restless. At the moment when he got this insight, he went back to his in-breath and his out-breath, and he said, "Hello, Mommy!" and that feeling of restlessness and hurrying just disappeared. He knew that he was not surrounded by brothers and sisters of his Sangha, and that alone in Ste. Foy la Grande he had to use his mindful breathing as his Sangha. From that moment on he continued the practice of mindful breathing, and he stayed stable and joyful and peaceful the whole time he was shopping. When he came back here he told us the story.

So that negative habit energy that pushes us may have been cultivated by us during the past many years, but it may also have been transmitted to us by our mother, or our father, or our ancestors. And that is our heritage.

(Bell)

Our joy, our peace, our happiness depend very much on our practice of recognizing and transforming our habit energies. There are positive habit energies that we have to cultivate, there are negative habit energies that we have to recognize, embrace and transform. The energy with which we do these things is mindfulness. Mindfulness is a kind of energy that helps us to be aware of what is going on. Therefore, when the habit energy shows itself, we know right away. "Hello, my little habit energy, I know you are there. I will take good care of you." In recognizing it as it is, you are in control of the situation. You don’t have to fight it; in fact the Buddha does not recommend that you fight it, because that habit energy is you, and you should not fight against yourself. You have to generate the energy of mindfulness, which is also you, and that positive energy will do the work of recognizing and embracing. Every time you embrace your habit energy, you can help it to transform a little bit. The habit energy is a kind of seed within your consciousness, and when it becomes a source of energy, you have to recognize it. You have to bring your mindfulness into the present moment, and you just embrace that negative energy: "Hello, my negative habit energy. I know you are there. I am here for you." After maybe one or two or three minutes, that energy will go back into the form of a seed, in order to re-manifest itself later on. You have to be very alert.

Every time a negative energy is embraced by the energy of mindfulness, it will lose a little bit of its strength as it returns as a seed to the lower level of consciousness. The same thing is true for all other mental formations: your fear, your anguish, your anxiety, and your despair. They exist in us in the form of seeds, and every time one of the seeds is watered, it becomes a zone of energy on the upper level of our consciousness. If you don’t know how to take care of it, it will cause damage, it will push us to do or to say things that will damage us and damage the people we love. Therefore, generating the energy of mindfulness, to recognize it, to embrace it, to take care of it, is the practice. And the practice should be done in a very tender, non-violent way. There should be no fighting, because when you fight, you create damage within yourself. The Buddhist practice is based on the insight of non-duality: you are love, you are mindfulness, but you are also that habit energy within you. To meditate does not mean to transform yourself into a battlefield, the right fighting the wrong, the positive fighting the negative. That’s not Buddhist. That is why, based on the insight of non-duality, the practice should be non-violent. Mindfulness embracing anger is like a mother embracing her child, big sister embracing younger sister. The embrace always brings a positive effect. You can bring relief, and you can cause the negative energy to lose some of its strength, just by embracing it.

(Thay draws on the board.)This circle represents our consciousness, and the lower part is called the store consciousness. In French we usually translate this as le trefonds. The upper part is called the mind consciousness, usually translated as le mental. In the soil of the store consciousness, many kinds of seeds are stored: the seed of love, the seed of understanding, the seed of forgiveness, the seed of despair, the seed of anger—positive and negative, they are all kept and preserved in the store consciousness. And every time one of these seeds is touched or watered, it will manifest itself up here in the mind consciousness as a zone of energy, "energy number one." That maybe your fear, your jealousy, your despair, your depression.

A practitioner is someone who has the right to suffer, but who does not have the right not to practice. People who are not practitioners allow their pain, sorrow and anguish to overwhelm them, to push them to say and do things they don’t want. We, who consider our selves to be practitioners, have the right to suffer like everyone else, but we don’t have the right not to practice. Therefore, we have to do something, to call on the positive things within our bodies and our consciousness, to take care of our situations. It’s okay to suffer, it’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to allow yourself to be flooded with suffering. We know that in our bodies and our consciousness there are positive elements that we can call on for help. We have to mobilize these positive elements to protect ourselves and to take good care of the negative things that are manifesting in us.

What we usually do is to call on the seed of mindfulness here to come up, and manifest also as a zone of energy, which we will call "energy number two". The energy of mindfulness has the capacity of recognizing, embracing, and relieving the suffering, calming and also transforming. In every one of us the seed of mindfulness exists, but if we have not practiced the art of mindful living, then that seed may be very small. We can be mindful, but our mindfulness is rather poor. Of course, when you drive your car, you need your mindfulness. A minimum amount of mindfulness is required for your driving, otherwise you will get into an accident. We know that every one of us has the capacity of being mindful. When you operate a machine, you need a certain amount of mindfulness, otherwise, un accident de travail (an industrial injury). In our relationship with another person, we also need some amount of mindfulness, otherwise we will damage the relationship. We know that all of us have some energy of mindfulness, and that is the kind of energy we need very much to take care of our pain and our sorrow.

Mindfulness is something all of us can do. When you drink some water, and you know that you are drinking water, that is mindfulness. We call it mindfulness of drinking. When you breathe in, and you are aware that you are breathing in, that is mindfulness of breathing, and when you walk, and you know that you are walking, then that is mindfulness of walking. Mindfulness of driving, mindfulness of cooking…you don’t need to be in the meditation hall to practice mindfulness. You can be there in the kitchen, or in the garden, as you continue to cultivate the energy of mindfulness. That is the most important practice within a Buddhist practice center: you do everything mindfully, because you need that energy very much, for your transformation and healing. You know you can do it, and you will do it better if you are surrounded by a community of brothers and sisters who are doing the same things as you are. Alone you might forget, and you might abandon your practice after a few days or a few months. But if you live permanently with a Sangha, then you will be supported, and your mindfulness will grow stronger and stronger every day, thanks to the support of the Sangha.

For those of us who practice mindfulness as an art of daily living, the seed of mindfulness in our store consciousness becomes very strong; and any time we touch it, we call on it for help, then it will be ready for us, just like the mother who, although she is working in the kitchen, is always ready for the baby every time the baby cries. So our mindfulness is there so that we may recognize, because mindfulness is defined first of all as the energy that helps us to know what is going on in the present moment. I drink water, I know that I am drinking the water. Drinking the water is what is happening. I walk mindfully, I make steps mindfully, and I know that I am making mindful steps. Mindfulness of walking: I am aware that walking is going on, and I am concentrated in the walking. Mindfulness has the power of bringing concentration. When you drink your water mindfully, you are concentrated on your drinking. If you are concentrated, life is deep, and you can get more joy and stability just by drinking your water mindfully. You can drive mindfully, you can cut your carrots mindfully, and when you do these things mindfully, you feel that you are concentrated. You live deeply each moment of your daily life, and we all know that mindfulness and concentration will bring about the insight that we need.

If you don’t stop, if you don’t become mindful, if you are not concentrated, then there is no chance that you can get the insight. Buddhist meditation is to stop, to calm yourself, to be concentrated, and to direct your looking deeply into what is there in the here and now. The first element of Buddhist meditation is stopping, and the second element is looking deeply. Stopping means not to run anymore, to be mindful of what is happening in the here and the now. (Sounds of writing.) Mindfulness allows you to be in the here and the now, with body and mind united. In our daily lives, it happens very often that our body is there, but our mind is elsewhere, in the past or the future, or caught in our projects, our fear, our anger. Mindfulness helps bring the mind back to the body, and when you do that you suddenly become truly present in the here and the now. So you can define mindfulness as the energy that helps you to be fully present. If you are fully present, with your mind and body truly together, you suddenly become fully present and fully alive. It is that energy that helps you to be alive and present. You can bring mindfulness to yourself in many ways: by just breathing, by walking, by looking, by cooking, by breakfast-making…because you can use breakfast-making as an exercise to bring body and mind together.

I’d like to define mindfulness as the practice of being there, body and mind united. The practice of being fully present, the practice of being fully alive. You have an appointment with life—you should not miss it. The time and the space of your appointment is the here and the now. If you miss the present moment, if you miss the here and the now, you miss your appointment with life, which is very serious. So learning how to go back to the present moment, to be fully present, to be fully alive, is the beginning of meditation. Since you are there, something else is there also: life. If you are not available to life, then life will not be available to you. When you stand there with a group of people, contemplating the rising moon, you need to be mindful, you need to be in the here and the now. If you allow yourself to get lost in the past or the future, the full moon is not for you, it is for other people who are there. So if you know how to practice mindful breathing, you can bring your mind back to your body, and you can make yourself fully present and fully alive, now the moon will be for you. That is why I said that if you were there, something else would be there also: life.

Mindfulness helps your stopping to be realized. You stop running because you are really there. You stop being carried by your habit energy, by your forgetfulness. And when you touch something beautiful, with mindfulness, that something becomes a refreshing and healing element for you. With mindfulness we can touch the positive things, and we can also touch the negative things. If there is joy, mindfulness allows us to recognize it as joy, and mindfulness helps us to profit from that joy and allows it to grow, and to help us in the work of transformation and healing.

There are elements within us that have not gone wrong. There are elements around us that have not gone wrong. And the first task of meditators is to be able to touch and to recognize these positive elements, because they have the power of nourishing and healing. If you are a psychotherapist, you might like to try this with your clients: instead of talking about what goes wrong, you begin to invite him or her about what does not go wrong with you and around you. Sometimes we are too weak and too sick to embrace only our negative elements. Before a surgery is done, a doctor will examine the patient to see whether that person has enough strength to withstand the surgery. If the person is too weak, the doctor will try, through nutrition and other means, to help the patient’s body to strengthen before the operation is done. We so the same thing here. If that person suffers so much, we should not begin by talking about what is wrong.

Our body and our consciousness is like a garden: there may be a number of trees dying in that garden, but that does not mean that the whole garden is dead. Maybe the majority of the trees are still vigorous, beautiful. That is why you should not allow the negative to overwhelm us, because there are still many things that work well within our bodies and our consciousness. The therapist should help his or her client to develop the ability to identify these positive elements within him or her, and around him or her. And the therapist, of course, has to be able to do that for himself or herself, and become a co-practitioner. The therapist can invite his client for a walking meditation session, and during that session, he will try to put his client in touch with the positive elements within him or around him. In the Buddhist practice this is very important. Mindfulness is the energy we generate, and first of all we want that energy to help us get in touch with the positive things—joy and happiness.

Last week we studied the discourse on the sixteen exercises of mindful breathing, the Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing, and we saw very clearly that the Buddha was very compassionate. Among the sixteen exercises of mindful breathing, six of them have the purpose of helping us to contact the positive aspects of life within and around us. That is why meditation can be described as food, nourishment for us. Mindfulness is the kind of energy you cultivate with the practice of walking, breathing, sitting, eating, cooking, and so on. We should not waste a minute in our daily lives. We can use every moment of our daily lives to generate more energy of mindfulness.

In Plum Village, when you go to the kitchen, you will see that people in the kitchen are practicing. That group of people knows that today is their turn to cook for the community, and they know that it is possible to make the cooking for the community into a practice, and the motivation is love, the motivation is the willingness to practice. We can begin before starting the work of cooking, they always offer incense, and they do some chanting, so that they will remember that the whole process of cooking is a practice. They don’t talk. From time to time they have to communicate in order to coordinate the work, but they do it mindfully.

From time to time I will go to the kitchen, and if I see a monk or a nun or a layperson doing something like cutting carrots, I will stop by and contemplate, and look. I will stay there for a number of seconds, breathing in and breathing out, and my presence close to that person is sometimes very helpful. That person might be losing himself in thinking, but with me standing there, then he will come back to his mindful carrot cutting very quickly. Sometimes I may ask, "My dear friend, what are you doing there?" Usually the monk or the nun or the layperson will look up at me and smile, and that is enough. Because they know that my presence and my question does not necessitate an answer. And if you were to say, "Thay, I am cutting carrots," that would be the worst answer, because I am there, and I see you cutting carrots. You don’t have to tell me. My question is, "Are you enjoying it as a practice?" That is why you can answer like this, "Thay, I am doing nothing," or "Thay, I am breathing," or you don’t say anything at all and you smile. So the presence of a Dharma brother, the presence of a Dharma sister, is to help you to go back to the here and the now and to enjoy your practice of being mindful. Cutting carrots may be very joyful, breathing also, walking also. While you do these things, you realize stopping. You don’t run any more, you are with whatever is there in the present moment. You are wholeheartedly with the carrot.

(Bell)

We should invest one hundred percent of ourselves into the business of carrot cutting. Nothing else. You have to cut the carrot with all of yourself. While cutting the carrot please don’t try to think of the Dharma talk, just cut the carrot in the best way that you can, becoming one with the carrot, becoming one with the cutting. Live deeply that moment of carrot cutting. It is as important as the practice of sitting meditation. It is as important as giving a Dharma talk. When you cut the carrot, just cut the carrot with all your being. That is mindfulness. That is to produce your true presence to become fully alive. The practice is not difficult, especially when you are surrounded by a Sangha where everyone is doing the same. You are cutting carrots, he is sweeping the ground in the meditation hall—you are both practicing the same thing. If you can cultivate concentration, and if you can get the insight you need to liberate yourself from suffering, that is because you know how to cut your carrots.

Cleaning the toilet, you have to do it in the same spirit: invest all of yourself into the cleaning, make it into a joyful practice. One thing at a time, do it deeply. The purpose of the practice is to cultivate the energy of mindfulness. The energy of mindfulness will help us to live each moment of our lives deeply, help us stop running, help us touch what is wonderful, refreshing, nourishing and healing in us and around us. There are many wonders of life that are available in the here and the now, and without mindfulness we would neglect them, we would ignore them, we would not know how to profit from them. It is like my eyes. Breathing in, I am aware of my eyes; breathing out, I smile to my eyes. That is an exercise: mindfulness of eyes, smiling to eyes. When you embrace your eyes with your mindfulness you recognize that you have eyes, still in good condition. It is a wonderful thing still to have eyes in good condition. You need only to open them to enter the Paradise of colors and forms. Those of us who have lost our eyesight know what it feels like to live in the dark, and our greatest desire is for someone to be able to restore our capacity to see things. I have lost my Paradise of forms and colors because I have become blind. Now you give me back my eyesight, I feel as though I am in Paradise again, the Paradise of forms and colors. Sit on the grass and just open your eyes. The blue sky is for you. The white clouds are for you, the trees, the children, the grass, and the loving face of your beloved one. Everything is available to you because you have eyes still in good condition. Most of us don’t appreciate our eyes because we are not mindful. We may think that everything in us goes wrong, but that is not true. There are millions of things in us that have not gone wrong, yet we only place our attention on what goes wrong. That is not wisdom. Touching the positive is important, and if you cannot do it by yourself, because your practice is not strong yet, then rely on the brothers and sisters to help you do so; or the therapist, like the teacher, can help you to do this. But the therapist, like the teacher, has to be able to do it for herself, for himself, first, in order to be able to help another person to do so.

The orange is sweet. If you eat the orange in forgetfulness, being caught in your anxiety and sorrow, the orange is not really there. But if you bring your mind and body back together, produce your true presence, become fully alive, and begin to peel the orange, you will see that the orange is a miracle. The orange is not something less than a miracle. If mindfulness is there, then sitting there peeling an orange is a wonderful thing. I have conducted orange meditation sessions where we spent half an hour just eating an orange. And if you can bring the elements of stability and freedom and concentration into it, then eating an orange is a very wonderful thing to do. It may be the most important thing to do with your life. Like eating breakfast with your disciples. Peel the orange. Smell it. Look at the orange to see the orange blossoms, and the rain and the sun that have gone through the orange blossoms. The orange tree has taken several months to bring this wonder to you. If you don’t have mindfulness, the orange is not something precious; you are not there, really there, so the orange is not really there. When you are truly there, fully alive, you will become a miracle yourself. In fact, you are no less than a miracle. To be alive, to be still alive, and to be there, is the greatest miracle. But without mindfulness we cannot touch that miracle, and we continue to complain and to complain. If you are there, the orange will be there too, as a miracle, and the contact between you and the orange brings true life. Just put a section of the orange into your mouth, close your mouth mindfully, and with mindfulness feel the juice coming out of the orange. Do you have the time to do so? What are you using your time for? Are we using our time to live, or to worry, or to make plans?

So mindfulness is the energy that helps us to be really there, to touch the wonders of life that are there, for our own nourishment and healing. Of course, there are negative things within in us and around the world. Mindfulness will help us to recognize them as existing, and, embrace them, bringing them some relief. If you continue to look deeply into the nature of your pain, of the pain of the world, insight will come about how that pain has come to be. Insight always liberates us, and there will be no insight if there is no mindfulness and concentration. So mindfulness produces your true presence, produces life, and helps us with nourishment and healing. Mindfulness helps bring relief. Every time we embrace our pain and our sorrow with our mindfulness, we can always bring relief to ourselves.

When the "energy number two" embraces the "energy number one," it begins to penetrate it. With the continued practice of mindful breathing or mindful walking, the energy of mindfulness continues to be there to embrace and take care of the energy of anger or distress. When you cook potatoes, you have to keep the fire under the pot alive for about twenty minutes. The same thing is true with the practice of embracing our pain and anger. You know that the energy of pain and anger need to be attended to, and so mindfulness should continue to be generated as an energy. In a practice center you learn how to maintain that energy alive; continued mindful breathing and continued mindful breathing are among the practices that keep mindfulness alive. With that energy you can continue to embrace your pain and sorrow. It may be that after ten or fifteen minutes your pain and sorrow will go back to your store consciousness a little bit weaker, your habit energy will go back to the store consciousness as a seed, a little bit weaker. The next time it manifests itself again, you will do the same kind of practice, always embracing and looking deeply into it. You don’t need to fight it.

(Bell)

With our mindfulness we can make things more beautiful. If you are really there, fully present, then the wonders of life will reveal more of themselves to you. The more you are mindful, the more you are concentrated, the wonders of life will continue to unfold, to reveal themselves to you. The enjoyment you have will grow. That beautiful sunrise, that full moon, that orange, all these things will reveal themselves to you fully if you are truly present, if you are truly alive. That is for your nourishment and healing. As for the negative elements, you don’t have to know the nature of your pain, your conflict yet. You don’t have to do that in the beginning. You only have to recognize the existence of the pain, the sorrow and the conflict in you. You identify it as the pain, the anger, the sorrow, the conflict, and just produce the energy of mindfulness and embrace it. Stay with it, attend to it with all of your tenderness, your kindness, and take good care of your suffering. Don’t try to run away. You run a way because you are too afraid. You are too afraid because you have nothing to protect you and to help you. If you know how to enjoy your practice of mindful walking, mindful breathing, mindful tea drinking, then the energy of mindfulness in you is strong enough for you to embrace and recognize that pain and that sorrow. You also have your Sangha, the brothers and sisters in the Dharma are always there to support you. The collective energy of mindfulness is what we experience when we become part of a practicing Sangha. If you know that during the time of your suffering, you already have a friend capable of understanding, a friend who has some solidity and freedom sitting close to you, you will feel much better. You will feel as though you can stand your suffering, you can look at it, you can embrace it, because your friend’s energy, his stability, his freedom are elements that can help you to be a little bit more stable, freer, so that you can embrace your own pain. That is why the existence of practitioners close to you is a very important element.

During the first week of our Summer Retreat, I emphasized the fact that we have to create a place where what you touch can be positive, supportive of your practice. You have to create a Sangha also. A Sangha is a community where many people know how to live deeply in the present moment, there are people who know how to smile, how to enjoy walking and sitting, and if you bring yourself to that environment you will feel better right away. You are initiated into the practice, you are supported by the practice of other people, and very soon you can see the process of nourishment and healing begin. I said that the therapist should be an architect, someone who can create an environment for continued practice. Sometimes you can help that person to suffer less, but if you put him or her back in his or her environment, the same thing will happen again and again. That is why creating a Sangha, a space where you can be nourished, where you can be supported for a long time, is very important.

In the Buddhist practice, a good teacher is always a teacher that has a Sangha. A teacher without a Sangha cannot do much. And the Buddha had a good Sangha. He was an excellent Sangha builder. The king of Kosala told the Buddha that every time he saw the Sangha, he had confidence in the Buddha. So the Sangha is a part of the teaching and the practice. It is thanks to the Sangha that transformation and healing become possible. I think that in therapeutic circles, the doctors and the therapists also need a sane and healthy space, and a Sangha of people who are capable of being happy, of enjoying mental health, physical health, so that the person brought into that environment can feel safe, and can feel the process of healing and transformation taking place right away. So the therapist also needs a Sangha, and an environment without that environment and Sangha, he or she cannot go very far.

I would like to offer you an exercise of mindful walking. It is very important. You practice stopping while you are walking. If you are capable of stopping during the time of walking, then you will be able to stop during the time of breakfast eating, toilet cleaning, or breakfast making. Your depression, for instance, will not go away, until you know how to stop. You have lived in such a way that depression has been possible. You have been running all the time, and you have never allowed yourself to rest, to relax, and to go deeply into your daily life. That is why the depression has come to be. Learning how to walk is what you can do now. You can do it in Plum Village, and when you go home, arrange things so that you can do it every day.

Walking in walking meditation is walking just to enjoy walking. You don’t have any desire to arrive anywhere. Walking and not arriving, that is the technique. And you enjoy every step you make. Every step brings you home to the here and the now. Your true home according to this teaching is the here and the now, because only in this moment, in this place, called the here and the now, can life be possible. The address of the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas, and the Zip Code, is "here and now." (Laughter.) The address of peace and light is also "here and now." You know where to go; and every in-breath, every out-breath, every step you make should bring you back to that address.

Taking one in-breath, taking one out-breath, you make two steps, two beautiful steps, and with every step you say, "I have arrived." That should not be a statement, that should be a practice. You have to arrive in the here and the now, and make a strong determination to stop and not to run anymore. You have run all your life already, now is the chance to stop. You walk in a way that can introduce you to the Pure Land of Buddha right away, that can introduce you to the Kingdom of God right away. The Pure Land is the Land where you don’t feel the need to run anymore…and with one step you can enter it. Also the Kingdom of God is the kingdom of peace, and when you arrive in the Kingdom of God you don’t feel you have to run anymore, if you feel that you need to run more, then you are not there yet. That is why with one in-breath you practice: "I have arrived, I have arrived" …and please don’t just make the statement, you have to really arrive. Allow yourself to sink deeply into the here and the now, because life is possible only in the present, life is available only in the present moment, and you know that you have the capacity to touch life in the present moment, the here and the now. It is wonderful that you are still alive, it’s wonderful that you are making steps on this beautiful planet, but our daily life does not allow us to touch that at all. It is like the orange, it is like the beautiful sunset, but we do not allow ourselves to be touched by life with all its miracles. So every step you make is to arrive in the here and the now, your true home is here and now, and everywhere you make a step, you find your true home …"I have arrived, I have arrived," and then make two more steps, "I am home, I am home. I have arrived, I have arrived, I am home, I am home."

We have lost our freedom. We have lost our sovereignty. We are not free anymore. We allow ourselves to be pushed and pulled away from the here and the now. Now we have to resist, we have to recover our sovereignty, we have to reclaim our freedom, and we have to walk like a free person on earth. Freedom here is not political freedom, it is freedom from the past, from the future, from our worries and our fear. Be free, and each step like that can help us, can free us. And the Sangha is there, surrounding you and supporting you in making the step. Many of us here are capable of walking like that. Many of us have been trained for five years, seven years, ten years, in order to be able to walk like that. We resist, we don’t allow ourselves to be carried away anymore. We want to be free, because we know that without freedom, no happiness, no peace, will be possible.

Invest one hundred percent of yourself into making that step: "I have arrived. I have arrived." And your foot will become the foot of the Buddha, because the Buddha always walked like that. And by touching the earth with your foot, you produce the miracle of being alive. You make yourself real and the earth real, and such a step is highly nourishing and healing. You are protecting yourself from the habit energy that is always pushing you to run and to get lost. Je suis chez moi. Je suis arrivee. The practice should be very strong, determined. Bring all your attention down to the soles of your feet. Don’t stay over here, bring all your attention to the soles of your feet, and touch the earth as though you kiss the earth with your feet. Like the seal of an emperor on a decree, walk as though you imprint your solidity, your freedom, and your peace on the earth. When I look at your footprint I can see the mark of solidity, of freedom, in it. We have to reclaim our liberty. Liberty, emancipation, Vimukti, that is the practice—to free ourselves from that negative habit energy.

I have arrived, I am home. This is already an insight. Make the Buddha’s insight into your own insight. It is not an intellectual concept. But you are awake; you get the enlightenment that life is available only in the here and the now. That is why you have made a strong determination to go home. Your true home is in the here and the now. Only that insight can help you to stop running. You practice arriving with every step you make. "I have arrived; I am home." If your freedom is not perfect, if your stability is not perfect, if you are still pulled back and forth by that habit energy, then look at the brothers who are walking in front of you. Feel that the sisters are walking behind you, and on your right a sister, on your left a sister, all of them doing the same thing: bringing the Pure Land, bringing the Kingdom of God into the here and the now, and you will profit from the collective energy of the Sangha. Back home you cannot profit from that, and here there is an opportunity to allow ourselves to be carried by the boat of the Sangha, to be penetrated by the energy of the Sangha, so that we can make the step. And of course we can make it.

"I have arrived, I am home." Repeat breathing in and out and making steps until you are firmly established in the here and the now, recognizing that this is your true home, until you get the feeling that it is wonderful to be in the here and the now. To allow ourselves to run as before would not be wise at all. Then you will use the next sentence, "In the here, in the now." In fact it is the same thing. Different words, but the same thing. That home is called here and now. When you breathe in, "I am in the here, in the here." And breathing out, "In the now, in the now." Again, the words should not be an obstacle, the words should only help you concentrate and to keep your insight alive. It is the insight that keeps you home, not the words. So please don’t be satisfied with words. It is like the bell: everyone hears the bell, but for a number of us, when we hear the bell we hear the voice that is deep within ourselves; and when we hear that bell, we make peace, stopping, joy and freedom possible. The words are like the sound of the bell; they should be able to produce the insight, the stability and the freedom that we need so much.

You may like to enjoy "I have arrived, I am home," for a few minutes, and when you thing that you are good at it, you may move to the next line, "In the here, in the now." And then: "I am solid, I am free." This is not autosuggestion; if you have succeeded in arriving at home, dwelling really in the here and the now, you already have the elements of solidity and freedom, which are the foundation of your happiness. The Buddha said that the two characteristics of Nirvana are solidity and freedom. Imagine someone who has no solidity, no freedom. That person can never be happy. So walking like that is to cultivate freedom and solidity, which will bring us well being and happiness.

The last is: "In the Ultimate, I dwell." This sentence requires a little bit of explanation. You have heard, of course, of the two dimensions of reality, the Ultimate dimension and the historical dimension. To represent the two dimensions of reality, we may use the images of the wave, and water. Looking at the dimension of the wave, the historical dimension, we see that the wave seems to have a beginning and an end; the wave can be high or low compared to other waves; the wave might be more or less beautiful than the other waves; the wave might be there or not there; it might be there now, but later not there. All these notions are there when we first touch the historical dimension: birth and death, being and non-being, high and low, coming and going, and so on. But we know that when we touch the wave more deeply, we will touch the water. The water is the other dimension of the wave. It is called the Ultimate dimension.

We know that in the historical dimension we can talk in terms of life, death, being, non-being, high, low, coming, going, but in the Ultimate dimension, all these notions are removed. If the wave is capable of touching the water within herself, and if the wave can live the life of water at the same time, then she will not be afraid of all these notions: beginning and ending, birth and death, being or non-being; and she will get the solidity and joy brought to her by non-fear. Her true nature is the nature of no-birth and no-death, no beginning and no end. That is the nature of water. All of us are like that wave. We have our historical dimension. We believe that we begin to be at a certain point of time, and that we will cease to be at a certain point of time. We believe that we are now existing, and that before our birth we did not exist. All these kinds of notions, we get caught into these notions, and that is why we have fear, we have jealousy, we have craving, we have all these kinds of conflicts and afflictions within us. Now if we are capable of arriving, of being more solid and free, it will be possible for us to touch our true nature, the Ultimate dimension of ourselves. In touching that Ultimate dimension, we really get free from all these notions that have made us suffer a lot. This will be made clearer later on. For the time being just enjoy making steps with these two words.

(Bell)

In the French version of the poem, we have something different: «Je prends refuge en moi-meme. Dans la Terre Pure, je m’etablis.» We can translate this into English as: "I take refuge within myself. In the Pure Land I dwell." If you walk like this, you are already in the Pure Land; you are already in the Kingdom of God. I have been in crowds of two or three thousand people practicing walking meditation together. It is very powerful. Everybody just makes one step, wholly concentrated. It is wonderful: the energy is very powerful. During the time of walking, we don’t think of anything, we don’t speak, we just touch the earth mindfully and deeply. There are those of us who don’t need these words in order to be able to concentrate, but it is very helpful to make use of these words in the beginning of the practice. They help us to be concentrated, to be in the here and the now.

It is good to begin your practice of walking meditation with the Sangha, to get the support. Please arrange it so that during your day you have many chances to do it alone. You can ask a friend to go with you, or you can even take the hand of a child and walk with him or her. In Plum Village many of us begin by signing a contract with a staircase: that is, you make a vow that you will always go up or down that staircase very mindfully, with very solid steps. If it happens that halfway up you realize that one of your steps has not been very solid, you will go down, and begin again. And if you succeed in that, then wherever you go you will be able to dwell in the present moment. You can sign a contract with a particular distance separating your tent and a certain tree, perhaps three or four meters, and you make a vow that when you walk that distance that every step will be solid and mindful, otherwise you will go back and do it again. It is a wonderful way to learn how to live every moment of your daily life deeply, resisting being carried away by your habit energy. Let us try, now, after the Dharma talk, walking together in that spirit. Use your feet to walk, don’t use your brain. Use your feet and walk. Walk in such a way as to make the Pure Land available here and now. Walk in such a way that joy and life are possible right here and right now.

(Three bells)
(End of Dharma talk)

Dear Friends,
These dharma talk transcriptions are of teachings given by the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh in Plum Village or in various retreats around the world. The teachings traverse all areas of concern to practitioners, from dealing with difficult emotions, to realizing the interbeing nature of ourselves and all things, and many more.
This project operates from 'Dana', generosity, so these talks are available for everyone. You may forward and redistribute them via email, and you may also print them and distribute them to members of your Sangha. The purpose of this is to make Thay's teachings available to as many people who would like to receive them as possible. The only thing we ask is that you please circulate them as they are, please do not distribute or reproduce them in altered form or edit them in any way.
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Where to begin ...

2009-03-30T15:39:00.000-07:00

As I start writing this post, I'm not sure yet where I want to go, what I want to say, who my audience is, or how long I'll stay interested in this project. Perhaps I'm looking for a way to connect with others who share an interest in Buddhism. As I've studied and practiced I've come across resources and techniques I'd like to share, and have had thoughts and ideas I want to discuss. As a lone practitioner I find myself looking for a Sangha to practice with. Perhaps I'm looking for a way to sort though my own thoughts. My thoughts travel fast, sometimes they're gone before I can even put them into words. While I'm starting this blog to write about my journey into Buddhist practice, I doubt I'll limit myself to thoughts on Buddhism. But as of yet, I really don't know what the future brings.

I describe myself as an aspiring Buddhist for a couple of reasons. Mostly I do so because I'm just not comfortable calling myself a Buddhist yet. I don't have any formal training, and I'm a lone practitioner. Most of my study is from books and Dharma talks I found online. I'm still new to practice; I started studying seriously sometime during the summer of 2008, and started practicing meditation (irregularly) sometime around January 2009.

Since beginning my practice has gone though a number a changes. Some times I favored reading, other times Dharma Talks, and have I tried a couple of different meditation techniques. Some times I prefer one teacher over another. Part of me wants to fill in all of the gaps on how I got from where I was in my practice to where I am, but I can't put all of my thoughts on the subject into words. Perhaps the story will come out in time. As of right now, I like listening to talks by Narayan Liebenson Grady. I also like talks from Jack Kornfield, Guy Armstrong, and Sally Clough Armstrong. But in the beginning I listed mostly to Thich Nhat Hanh, and later on James Baraz, and Joseph Goldstein were also strong influences. As far as practice goes, I've just begun making time for sitting meditation on a semi-regular basis over the past 2 months or so. I still use training wheels. That's my term for guided meditations. On occasion I sit in silence, but I still find that very challenging. Early on I practiced walking meditation, and on occasion I still practice walking meditation. I also like to practice mindfulness whenever I can. I consider listening to be a form of meditation, when I make the effort to listen mindfully (which I don't always do), and try to practice mindfulness in my daily life, while doing dishes, eating, or whatever else it is I happen to be doing.

Early on, while reading Thich Nhat Hahn and listening to his Dharma talks, I was interested primarily in Mindfulness practice. Listening to his talks I slowly absorbed parts of the suttas (or sutras, in sanskrit) and teachings on the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Four Brahmaviharas, the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, the Factors of Enlightenment, and other core teachings. While I often have a hard time explaining the teachings, or articulating what they mean to me, I find these teachings shape my perception of how things are, influencing how I understand things and how I make decisions. While my early interest could perhaps be described as secular, I find myself moving into a more devotional direction. I think Bhikkhu Bodhi describes my feelings when he says "the warm current of religious feeling that runs through Early Buddhism, [is] always present just beneath its cool and composed exterior. This religious dimesion makes the Dhamma more than just a philosophy or an ethical system or a body of meditative techniques." (In the Buddha's Words, p. 384)

There are many aspects of Buddhism I'd like to write about, but for the moment, I feel I've said enough. I'll leave my musings on some of the teachings, as well as my own evolution as a practitioner and favorite resources, for another day.