My dear friends, suppose someone
is holding a pebble and throws it in the air and the pebble begins to fall down
into a river. After the pebble touches the surface of the water, it allows itself
to sink slowly into the river.
It will reach the bed of the river without
any effort. Once the pebble is at the bottom of the river, it continues to rest.
It allows the water to pass by.
I think the pebble reaches the bed of the
river by the shortest path because it allows itself to fall without making any
effort. During our sitting meditation we can allow ourselves to rest like a pebble.
We can allow ourselves to sink naturally without effort to the position of sitting,
the position of resting.
Resting is a very important practice; we have to
learn the art of resting. Resting is the first part of Buddhist meditation. You
should allow your body and your mind to rest. Our mind as well as our body needs
to rest.
The problem is that not many of us know how to allow our body and
mind to rest. We are always struggling; struggling has become a kind of habit.
We cannot resist being active, struggling all the time. We struggle even during
our sleep.
It is very important to realize that we have the habit energy of
struggling. We have to be able to recognize a habit when it manifests itself because
if we know how to recognize our habit, it will lose its energy and will not be
able to push us anymore.
Ten years ago I was in India visiting the ex-untouchable
community of Buddhists. A friend who belonged to the caste organized the trip
for me. I was sitting on the bus, enjoying the landscape outside, contemplating
the palm trees and the vegetation. Suddenly I turned and I saw him looking very
tense. There was no reason why he had to be tense like that. I thought that he
was trying to make my visit pleasant and maybe that was the reason he was so tense.
I told him, "Dear friend, I know that you want to make my trip pleasant,
but I am already very happy. I've already enjoyed the trip. So why don't you sit
back, smile, and relax?" He said, "Okay," and he sat back and he
tried to relax.
I was pleased and I turned my face toward the window again
and I enjoyed the palm trees and other things. But just a few minutes after when
I looked back at him he was as tense as before. He was not able to relax, to allow
himself to relax. I knew that he belonged to that section of the population that
had been struggling for many thousand years. He was discriminated against. He
had suffered so much, his ancestors and himself and his children. So the tendency
to struggle has been there for many thousand years. That is why it was very difficult
for him to allow himself to rest.
We have to practice in order to be able
to transform this habit in us. The habit of struggle has become a powerful source
of energy that is shaping our behavior, our actions and our reactions.
When
an animal in the jungle is wounded, it knows how to find a quiet place, lie down
and do nothing. The animal knows that is the only way to get healed-to lay down
and just rest, not thinking of anything, including hunting and eating. Not eating
is a very wonderful way of allowing your body to rest. We are so concerned about
how to get nutrition that we are afraid of resting, of allowing our body to rest
and to fast. The animal knows that it does not need to eat. What it needs is to
rest, to do nothing, and that is why its health is restored.
In our consciousness
there are wounds also, lots of pains. Our consciousness also needs to rest in
order to restore itself. Our consciousness is just like our body. Our body knows
how to heal itself if we allow it the chance to do so. When we get a cut on our
finger we don't have to do anything except to clean it and to allow it the time
to heal, because our body knows how to heal itself. The same thing is true with
our consciousness; our consciousness knows how to heal itself if we know how to
allow it to do so. But we don't allow it. We always try to do something. We worry
so much about healing, which is why we do not get the healing we need. Only if
we know how to allow them to rest can our body and our soul heal themselves.
But
there is in us what we call the energy of restlessness. We cannot be at peace
with ourselves. We cannot be peaceful. We cannot sit; we cannot lie down. There
is some energy in us to do this, to do that, to think of this, to think of that,
and that kind of restlessness makes us unhappy. That is why it is so important
for us to learn first of all to allow our body to rest. We have to learn how to
deal with all our energy of restlessness. That is why we have to learn these techniques
of allowing our body and our consciousness to rest.
I would like to offer
you some instructions about walking meditation. The first thing we shall do early
tomorrow morning is to practice walking together, which we call walking meditation.
Walking meditation means to enjoy walking without any intention to arrive. We
don't need to arrive anywhere. We just walk. We enjoy walking. That means walking
is already stopping, and that needs some training.
Usually in our daily life
we walk because we want to go somewhere. Walking is only a means to an end, and
that is why we do not enjoy every step we take. Walking meditation is different.
Walking is only for walking. You enjoy every step you take. So this is a kind
of revolution in walking. You allow yourself to enjoy every step you take.
The
Zen master Ling Chi said that the miracle is not to walk on burning charcoal or
in the thin air or on the water; the miracle is just to walk on earth. You breathe
in. You become aware of the fact that you are alive. You are still alive and you
are walking on this beautiful planet. That is already performing a miracle. The
greatest of all miracles is to be alive. We have to awaken ourselves to the truth
that we are here, alive. We are here making steps on this beautiful planet. This
is already performing a miracle.
But we have to be here in order for the miracle
to be possible. We have to bring ourselves back to the here and the now. Therefore
each step we take becomes a miracle. If you are able to walk like that, each step
will be very nourishing and healing. You walk as if you kiss the earth with your
feet, as if you massage the earth with your feet. There is a lot of love in that
practice of walking meditation.
The Buddha said that the past is gone and
the future is not yet here. Let us not regret the past. Let us not worry about
the future. Go back to the present moment and live deeply the present moment.
Because the present moment is the only moment where you can touch life. Life is
available only in the present moment. That is why walking meditation is to go
back to the present moment, in order to be alive again and to touch life deeply
in that moment. In order to be able to touch the earth with our feet and enjoy
walking, we have to establish ourselves firmly in the present moment, in the here
and the now.
In walking meditation, we walk like a free person. This is not
political freedom. This is freedom from afflictions, from sorrow, from fear. Unless
you are free you cannot enjoy walking. I would like to propose to you a short
poem that you might like to use for walking meditation:
I have arrived. I
am home.
In the here. In the now.
I am solid. I am free.
In the ultimate
I dwell.
You might like to take two steps and breathe in and say, I have arrived,
I have arrived. And when you breathe out, you take another two steps and say silently,
I am home, I am home. Our true home is really in the here and in the now. Because
only in the here and the now can we touch life. As the Buddha said, life is available
only in the here and the now, so going back to the present moment is going home.
That is why you take one step or two steps and you awaken to the fact that you
have arrived. You have arrived in the present moment.
If you are able to arrive,
then you will stop running-running within and running without. There is a belief
in us that happiness cannot be possible in the here and the now. We have to go
somewhere. We have to go to the future in order to be able to really be happy.
That kind of thinking has been there for a long time. Maybe that feeling has been
transmitted to us from our ancestors and our parents. That is why we have to wake
up to the presence of that habit energy in us and to do the reverse. The Buddha
said that it is possible for us to be peaceful and happy in the present moment.
That is the teaching of trista dharma sadha vihara. It means living happily right
in the present moment. When you are there, body and mind united, you have an opportunity
to touch the conditions of your happiness. If you are able to touch these conditions
of happiness that are already available in the here and the now, you can be happy
right away. You don't have to run anywhere, especially into the future.
When
we practice walking, we might be aware that we have strong feet. Our feet are
strong enough for us to enjoy running and walking. That is one condition for happiness
that is available. When I breathe in and I become aware of my eyes, I encounter
another condition for my happiness. Breathing in, I am aware of my eyes. Breathing
out, I smile to my eyes. This is an exercise, a very simple exercise to help you
realize that you have eyes which are still in good condition. You need only to
open your eyes to see the blue sky, the white cloud, the luxurious vegetation.
You can see all kinds of forms and colors just because you have eyes still in
good condition. Your eyes are another condition for your happiness. We have so
many conditions like that for our happiness and yet we are still unhappy. We still
want to run away from the present moment, hoping we'll find some happiness in
the future.
Breathing in, I'm aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to
my heart. That is another exercise. When you practice like that you touch your
heart with your mindfulness. If you continue a minute, you realize that you still
have a heart that functions normally. It is wonderful to have a heart that still
functions normally. There are people who don't have a heart like that and their
deepest desire is to have a heart like you. So conditions for happiness may be
more than enough for us to be happy, but we are not able to be happy because of
that tendency to run away from the present moment.
To take an in-breath, to
smile, and to touch the conditions of happiness that are available, is something
that all of us can do. Because of that we can stop and establish ourselves in
the present moment. That is the teaching of living happily in the present moment.
Please train yourself to make the present moment, the here and the now, into your
true home. That is the only home that we have. That is the only place where we
can touch life. Everything we are looking for must be found in the here and the
now. In that way walking meditation can be a great pleasure and can be very healing.
Do you have to make any effort to practice walking meditation? I don't think
so. It is like when you drink a glass of orange juice. Do you think that you have
to make an effort in order to enjoy the orange juice? No. Walking is like that.
To really enjoy a glass of orange juice, you have to be there one hundred per
cent mind and body together. If you are there, mind and body firmly established
in the present moment, then a glass of orange juice will become a real thing for
you. You are real; therefore, the juice is real. And there life is real. Life
exists. Life is deep during the time you drink your orange juice.
When you
contemplate a beautiful sunset, do you have to make any effort? I don't think
so. You don't have to make any effort in order to enjoy a beautiful sunset. You
need only to be there, to be there mind and body together. But if your body is
there and your mind is in the past or in the future, then the beautiful sunset
will not be there for you.
There is a kind of energy that helps you to be
there body and mind together. That energy is called mindfulness. Mindfulness is
the capacity of being there body and mind united. When you drink your orange juice,
drink mindfully and you will enjoy your juice because you are really there one
hundred per cent. If your body and mind are united when you contemplate the beautiful
sunset, it means that you are mindful. Mindfulness helps you to be there in order
for the beautiful sunset to be there too. While you walk, if you allow yourself
to be there mind and body together, then walking will become mindful walking;
it will be healing, refreshing and nourishing.
To meditate means first of
all to be there, to be on your cushion, to be on your walking meditation path.
Eating also is a meditation if you are really there, present one hundred per cent
with your food. The essential is to be there. So please when you practice walking
meditation, don't make any effort. Allow yourself to be like that pebble at rest.
The pebble is resting at the bottom of the river and the pebble does not have
to do anything. While you are walking, you are resting. While you are sitting,
you are resting. If you struggle during your sitting meditation or walking meditation,
you are not doing it right. The Buddha said, "My practice is the practice
of non-practice." That means a lot. Give up all struggle. Allow yourself
to be, to rest.
I sit on my meditation cushion. I consider it to be something
very pleasant. I don't struggle at all on my cushion. I allow myself to be, to
rest. I don't make any effort and that is why I do not get any trouble while sitting.
While sitting I do not struggle and that is why all my muscles are relaxed. If
you struggle during your sitting meditation, you will very soon have pain in your
shoulders and back and things like that. But if you allow yourself to be rested
on your cushion you can sit very long, and each minute is light, refreshing, nourishing
and healing.
It is not sitting in order to struggle to get enlightenment.
No. Sitting first of all is for the pleasure of sitting. Walking first of all
is for the pleasure of walking. And eating is for the pleasure of eating. And
the art is to be there one hundred per cent.
When I was a novice I learned
how to light a stick of incense in mindfulness. You see, when you light incense
you think that the purpose of lighting incense is to have the incense pervading
the Buddha's home. But lighting the incense is just for lighting the incense.
You pick up a stick of incense mindfully and you enjoy that, because it is by
itself an act of meditation. During the time you pick up the stick of incense
you are mindful, you are concentrated, you are real, because your body and your
mind are together. And the stick of incense is real. When you strike a match,
you do the same thing. During the time you strike a match, you only strike a match.
You don't do anything else. You don't think of other things. You are perfectly
mindful of striking a match. You are concentrated on it, and you enjoy the act
of lighting the incense.
When you hold a stick of incense, it is the same.
When I stick it into the incense burner, I put my left hand on my right hand.
That is the tradition. Everyone in the Buddhist tradition lights incense in that
way. The stick of incense is very light; one hand is enough in order to hold it.
Why do you have to put your left hand on your right hand? Because it means that
you are doing it with one hundred per cent of your body and your mind.
Be
there truly. Be there one hundred per cent of yourself. In every moment of your
daily life. That is the essence of true Buddhist meditation. Each of us knows
that we can do that, so let us train to live each moment of our daily life deeply.
That is why I like to define mindfulness as the energy that helps us to be there
one hundred per cent. The energy of your true presence.
Breathing in-in the
here, in the here. Breathing out-in the now, in the now. Although these are different
words they mean exactly the same thing. I have arrived in the here. I have arrived
in the now. I am home in the here. I am home in the now.
When you practice
like that, you practice stopping. Stopping is the basic Buddhist practice of meditation.
You stop running. You stop struggling. You allow yourself to rest, to heal, to
calm.
And after a few minutes of practice you might switch into doing the
third line-I am solid, I am free. This is not auto-suggestion. Why? Because if
you have succeeded in arriving in the here and in the now you are much freer.
You are free from the past, from the future, from your worries, from your fear.
And you become much more solid; your steps become more solid and you become more
solid in your body and in your mind. Solidity becomes a reality after a few minutes
of arriving, of being home.
Solidity and freedom are two characteristics of
nirvana. Nirvana is not something abstract. The Buddha said we can touch nirvana
with our own body. So while you practice walking meditation you can begin to touch
nirvana already with your body and your spirit. When you feel you are a little
bit more solid, a little bit more free, then you begin to touch nirvana with your
body and spirit. Solidity and freedom are the true base for your happiness and
well being. No happiness, no well being, is possible without solidity and freedom.
The last line of the poem is wonderful. In the ultimate I dwell. In the ultimate.
In the ultimate. I dwell. I dwell. The ultimate here is the true foundation of
your being.
Let us visualize the waves on the ocean, several waves appearing
on the surface of the ocean. Some waves are big, there are those that are small,
and each wave seems to have its own life. A wave may have ideas like, "I
am a wave. I am only a wave among many waves. I am smaller than the other wave.
I am less beautiful. I last less than the other wave." Ideas like that. A
wave can be caught in jealousy, in fear, in discrimination.
But if the wave
is able to bend down and touch the water within herself, it will realize that
while it is a wave, it is at the same time water. Water is the foundation of the
wave. While waves can be high and low, more and less beautiful, the water is free
from all these notions. That is why if we are able to touch the foundation of
our being, we can release our fear and our suffering.
Touching the foundation
of our being means touching nirvana. Our foundation is not subjected to birth
and death, being and non-being. A wave can live the life of a wave, but a wave
can do much better than that. While living the life of a wave, a wave can live
a life of the water. The more our solidity and our freedom grows, the deeper we
touch the ground of our own being. That is the door for emancipation, for the
greatest relief.
Throughout his tour, Thich Nhat Hanh addressed the specific
issues of Americans in a series of question and answer periods. Here is a selection
of his responses to questions on leading a spiritual life in the modern world.
Stress
and Work
-- How do you maintain mindfulness in a busy work environment?
--
At times it seems there is not even enough time to breathe mindfully. This is
not a personal problem only; this is a problem of the whole civilization. That
is why we have to practice not only as individuals; we have to practice as a society.
We have to make a revolution in the way we organize our society and our daily
life, so we will be able to enjoy the work we do every day.
Meanwhile, we
can incorporate a number of things that we have learned in this retreat in order
to lessen our stress. When you drive around the city and come to a red light or
a stop sign, you can just sit back and make use of these twenty or thirty seconds
to relax-to breathe in, breathe out, and enjoy arriving in the present moment.
There are many things like that we can do. Years ago I was in Montreal on the
way to a retreat, and I noticed that the license plates said Je me souviens-"I
remember." I did not know what they wanted to remember, but to me it means
that I remember to breathe and to smile (laughter). So I told a friend who was
driving the car that I had a gift for the sangha in Montreal: every time you see
Je me souviens, you remember to breathe and smile and go back to the present moment.
Many of our friends in the Montreal sangha have been practicing that for more
than ten years.
I think we can enjoy the red light; we can also enjoy the
stop sign. Every time we see it we profit: instead of being angry at the red light,
of being burned by impatience, we just practice breathing in, breathing out, smiling.
That helps a lot. And when you hear the telephone ringing you can consider it
to be the sound of the mindfulness bell. You practice telephone meditation. Every
time you hear the telephone ringing you stay exactly where you are (laughter).
You breathe in and breathe out and enjoy your breathing.
Listen, listen-this
wonderful sound brings you back to your true home. Then when you hear the second
ring you stand up and you go to the telephone with dignity (laughter). That means
in the style of walking meditation (laughter). You know that you can afford to
do that, because if the other person has something really important to tell you,
she will not hang up before the third ring. That is what we call telephone meditation.
We use the sound as the bell of mindfulness.
And waiting at the bus stop you
might like to try mindful breathing, and waiting in line to go into a bank, you
can always practice mindful breathing. Walking from one building to another building,
why don't you use walking meditation, because that improves the quality of our
life. That brings more peace and serenity, and the quality of the work we do will
be improved just by that kind of practice. So it is possible to integrate the
practice into our daily life. We just need a little bit of creative imagination
to do so.
The Benefits of Silence
-- Could tell us about the benefits of
silence and how we could bring that home with us from this retreat?
-- Many
of us have realized in the last few days that silence can be enjoyable. We realize
that there are many things that we do not have to say, and that then we can reserve
the time and energy to do other things that can help us to look more deeply into
ourselves and things around us.
If you are pushed by your habit energy to
say something, don't say it. Instead, take a notebook and write it down. A day
or two later, read what you wrote, and you might find out that it would have been
an awful thing to say. So slowly you become master of yourself, and you know what
to say and what not to say.
I remember one time I proposed to a sister that
she practice silence. She was an elder nun and she had a few negative seeds in
her that prevented her from being happy. She was just a little bit too hard on
the other sisters. I proposed to her that she was a very talented person, very
skillful in many things, and she could make many people happy if only she knew
how to be silent and to say only things that needed to be said.
I proposed
to her that she use only three sentences for three months. She could repeat these
three sentences as many times as she wanted (laughter) and I told her that if
she practiced that for a week, she would feel happiness right away. The first
sentence was, "Dear sister, is there anything I can do to help you?"
(laughter) The second sentence was, "Did you like what I did to help you?"
The third was, "Would you have any suggestion that I can do it better?"
(laughter) If she could say that, she would make many people happy and the happiness
would go back to herself very quickly.
In the family we can practice silence.
We can ask the other members of the family to agree that we will practice silence
for three days or for a week. It is very beneficial. There will be a transformation
after the period of practicing silence.
Letting Go of Suffering
-- Why do
we cling to our suffering?
-- Many of us are not capable of releasing the past,
of releasing the suffering of the past. We want to cling to our own suffering.
But the Buddha said very clearly, do not cling to the past, the past is already
gone. Do not wait for future, the future is not yet there. The wise people establish
themselves in the present moment and they practice living deeply in the present
moment. That is our practice. By living deeply in the present moment we can understand
the past better and we can prepare for a better future.
Today I attended a
Vietnam war veterans' discussion, and my heart is still heavy. The condition of
the war veterans-their heart, their mind, their body-do you think that they will
ever be emotionally healed in this lifetime? I think if they practice with all
their heart and they are determined to relieve the past, they will be healed.
We cling too much to the past; we have to face the future. We have to stand
on the ground of the present moment. The war in Vietnam was just a war. There
are many wars still going on and we continue to create victims of war and war
veterans. The number of American soldiers who died in Vietnam was something like
55,000. Every year the number of people who die in car accidents in America is
exactly that number, 55,000. So there is the equivalent number of dead people
caused by alcoholism and unmindful driving. This is another war. The toll is as
huge as the damage inflicted by war, and every time a person dies because of a
car accident, it creates many war veterans in the children who lose their mother,
the mothers who lose their son.
If we stick to our suffering we can never
stand up for healing and prepare the future for our children and their children.
I would say to the Vietnam war veteran, okay, you did kill five children. We know
that. But here you are, alive in the present moment. Do you know that you have
the power to save five children today? You don't have to go to Vietnam or southeast
Asia. There are American children who are dying every day; they may need only
one pill to be saved from their illness.
If you know how, every day you can
save five children from dying. Why do you let yourself get caught in guilt and
become paralyzed year after year? Why don't you make a bodhisattva vow to use
your life to work for the safety of many children? Did you know that 40,000 children
die in the world every day just because of the lack of food and nutrition? You
are here; you can do something. Why do you let yourself get caught in the past?
You can save children in the here and now. You can use your life in a very useful
and intelligent way. You can very well transform that negative energy into a positive
energy that empowers you and makes life meaningful.
Relationships
-- When
I go home, I return to my husband who is a hunter. He goes into our beautiful
woods to shoot birds. He brings them home to show our seven-year-old twins, who
want to be like daddy. What can I do to stop him from this habit of killing?
--
If you do not know how to be patient, how to care, how to use loving speech, you
cannot help other people to change. But if we have the energy of compassion and
loving kindness in us, the people around us will be influenced by our way of being
and living. Reproaching them, shouting at them, blaming them, can never help them.
Only our love, our patience and our loving speech can help. And if we are in a
situation where our own skillfulness, our own compassion, is not strong enough,
we could need the support of our dharma brothers and sisters in order to do the
job.
Abortion
-- What are your views on abortion?
-- I am inclined to
devote more of my time and energy to preventing the situation from happening than
to what happens when you have to decide whether you have to do it or not to do
it. If we prepare ourselves in such a way, then the problem will not present itself
to us, and we don't have to make a decision between abortion or not abortion.
In the last 2500 years we monks and nuns have helped a lot in limiting the population
of the planet (laughter). And if you'd like to join us (laughter), it's never
too late.
Media Saturation
-- In regard to television news and newspapers,
how can we balance not taking in toxins with not closing our eyes to suffering?
--
Myself, I want to be informed about what is going on in the world. I want to be
informed, but that does not mean that I have to listen to the news three times
a day. I think there is some kind of vacuum in us we want to fill up; that is
why we buy so many newspapers and magazines and why we view so much television.
We do not need that much information. I think maybe five minutes daily is enough.
Sometime we can survive several months without any news bulletins. And you have
friends who can tell you what is important that has happened.
Space and Freedom
--
Can you please elaborate on what is space inside of us? Why is this good? I feel
lonely sometimes. This feels like emptiness or space inside, but it does not feel
good.
-- Space here does not mean loneliness. Space here means freedom because
you are not busy inside-you don't have a lot of worries, fears, projects, things
to think about. That is space. Space here is the basic condition for you to enjoy
life. If you are preoccupied with so many things, you don't have that condition.
One day the Buddha was sitting in the wood with thirty or forty monks. They
had an excellent lunch and they were enjoying the company of each other. There
was a farmer passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He asked the Buddha and
the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said they had
not seen any cows passing by.
The farmer said, "Monks, I'm so unhappy.
I have twelve cows and I don't know why they all ran away. I have also a few acres
of a sesame seed plantation and the insects have eaten up everything. I suffer
so much I think I am going to kill myself.
The Buddha said, "My friend,
we have not seen any cows passing by here. You might like to look for them in
the other direction." So the farmer thanked him and ran away, and the Buddha
turned to his monks and said, "My dear friends, you are the happiest people
in the world. You don't have any cows to lose. If you have too many cows to take
care of, you will be very busy.
"That is why, in order to be happy, you
have to learn the art of cow releasing (laughter). You release the cows one by
one. In the beginning you thought that those cows were essential to your happiness,
and you tried to get more and more cows. But now you realize that cows are not
really conditions for your happiness; they constitute an obstacle for your happiness.
That is why you are determined to release your cows."
We have to ask
what is really essential to our happiness. We believe that things are essential
to our happiness, but we have to look again. Many of us have cows, many cows that
prevent us from being happy. That is why we have to learn to release our cows.
Also there are many cows inside, so many preoccupations! Many things to worry
about, to be angry about, and there's no space at all inside.
How can you
be happy in such a state of being? That is why to release the cows around us and
to let go of these preoccupations inside is a very essential condition for happiness.
That is the space we are talking about when we practice. I am space; within and
out. I feel free. Freedom is the real foundation of happiness. Sometimes if you
don't know how to love, love will deprive you of your freedom and deprive the
person you love of her freedom. That is why space is so essential in relationship.
There is a beautiful poem praising the Buddha: "The Buddha is like the
full moon/traveling in the vast sky of emptiness." Because of that freedom,
the happiness of the Buddha cannot be measured by our mind.