Every two years I go to Italy and offer a retreat. I bring with me many monks and nuns to help me. And retreats organize in Italy, and take place not very far from Rome. So many people like the practice of mindfulness, and there are a lot of children in the retreat. So every time I go to Italy I am surrounded by many children. We practice joyfully together. I enjoy walking with them and sitting with them.
One day I gave them some homework to do. I had a bag of corn seeds and I distributed to each child one grain of corn. And you’re supposed to bring that grain of corn home and plant it in a small pot, and you remember to water every day.
And when the grain of corn has become a plant of corn, a young plant of corn of two or three leaves, you come and ask the plant of corn one question. And you ask, “My dear little plant of corn, do you remember the time you were a tiny seed?” And you wait for the plant to answer. You listen very carefully, and you can hear the answer of the young plant of corn. It may say something like, “Me? A tiny seed? I don’t believe it.” In fact, the young plant of corn has only been there for ten days or two weeks but it has already has forgotten that it used to be a tiny seed of corn.
So you have to remind her, you have to help the plant of corn to remember. And you tell her something like this, “My dear little plant of corn. It’s me who has planted the grain of corn in this spot, and I have watered it every day, and you have come from that seed.” Maybe in the beginning, the plant may not believe you. But you have to be patient. You have to help the plant to remember, and the plant will remember. It will accept, that at one point in history it was a little seed.
And you who are a practitioner of meditation, when you look at the plant of corn you can see the grain of corn inside. You know longer see the form of the grain of corn but the grain of corn has not died. You can no longer see the grain of corn but you know very well that the grain of corn has not died. If it had died, there would be no plant of corn available. So you know very well, so you can help the plant of corn to understand.
“Dear little plant of corn, when I look at you I still see the grain of corn that has become you now.” It’s always alive. It may be a little bit hard for the plant of corn to realize that - but that is the truth. That the plant of corn is only a continuation of the grain of corn. And the grain of corn is always there inside of the grain of corn although you don’t see it in its former appearance. That is meditation. When you meditate you can see things that other people cannot see.
When you look into a plant of corn, you can see the grain of corn inside. And we know very well that a plant of corn is a continuation of the grain of corn. You cannot take the grain of corn out of the plant of corn. If you do, there is no plant anymore. So everyone of us whether we are a little girl or a little boy. And do you know something? In the beginning, you were also a very tiny seed in the womb of your mother and much smaller than the seed of corn.
Everyone of us begins with being a very tiny seed and we don’t remember. We need a friend in the dharma, we need a teacher to remind us that in the beginning we were a very tiny seed planted by our father in our mother. In fact, half of the seed is from our father and half of the seed is from our mother. And then that seed continue to sprout, to multiply itself and to become a tiny living being in the womb of our mother. And we stay there in the womb of our mother for about nine months. And it was very comfortable in there.
And so when we look at the plant of corn, we can see the seed of corn. So when we look into ourself we can see the seed that the father has planted, that your mother has planted, that later became us. The same thing is true with the plant of corn. You can no longer see the seed of the grain of corn in the plant of corn - but it is always there. We are the continuation of our father and our mother like the plant of corn is the continuation of the seed of corn.
We believe that our father and our mother are outside of us - that is not true. And most of us believe our father is outside of us, our mother is outside of us. But in fact they are inside, also. Your father is in every cell of your body. Your mother is in every cell of your body. You cannot take your father out of you. You cannot take your mother out of you. Because you are a continuation of your father; you are a continuation of your mother.
In fact, father is both inside and outside. And the father inside is younger. We carry our father inside into the future. So when the father outside dies, he does not really die. He lives on in us, and we bring our father into the future. Our father is not going to die. It’s like a seed of corn.
When a plant of corn is manifested, you don’t see the seed of corn anymore but you cannot say the seed of corn has died - no. The seed of corn continues on in the plant of corn. So each of us carries our mother and our father in us, and we bring them into the future. And if we live a happy life, a beautiful life, our father and mother in us will be more beautiful also. And thanks to the practice we can make our father and mother in ourselves more beautiful than in the past.
So I invite all of you to meditate on this. And get rid of the idea that father and mother are only outside - that is a wrong perception. Your father is inside. Your mother is inside. You have both of them in you. And you carry them always with you, and you will bring them into the future. During sitting meditation, I like to talk to my father inside. One day in sitting meditation, I told my father inside, “Daddy, we have succeeded.” And if people if they hear that they will be surprised. Succeed in what? That morning when I practiced sitting meditation I felt so free and so light, I did not have any desire, any craving anymore. I was feeling so free from desire and craving, so I was very light. So that is why I wanted to share this with my father.
And I also talk to my mother, because I know that my mother has not really died. She continues on in me. When I practiced walking meditation in India with a group of a few thousand people, on the largest boulevard of New Delhi I invited my mother to walk with me. I said, “Mommy, let’s walk together. These are my feet, but they are also yours. My feet are the continuation of your feet. So let us mother and son enjoy walking in New Delhi.” So my mother was walking with me, mother and son walking very peacefully and happily together with thousands of other people. I also invited my father to walk with me, and later on I invited my brother and my grandmother. I invited the Buddha to walk with me, and my teacher to walk with me. And the walk was so wonderful. We walked together. I know that I carry in me not only my father and my mother, but all of my ancestors. And also I carry the Buddha, because the Buddha and my teacher they are my ancestors also.
We have blood ancestors, and we have spiritual ancestors. These ancestors may be Buddha, or Jesus, or Mohammed. And you have them inside of you. Don’t think that they are outside. Our blood ancestors and our spiritual ancestors are all inside of you. And when you walk with insight and with mindfulness all of them walk with us. And as we make a happy step, all of them enjoy walking and making happy steps. If you walk in the Kingdom of God, all of them walk in the Kingdom of God. If you walk in Hell, this means when you are very angry, in despair, and hateful you are walking in Hell and your ancestors have to join you - that’s not nice. Let us choose to walk in the Kingdom of God or in the Pure Land of the Buddha so that our ancestors have the chance to enjoy also.
I have met with teenagers, young people. Some of them are angry at their father or mother. They cannot talk to their father. Communication is impossible. There is no communication possible between son and father, mother and daughter. There is hate, there is anger that blocks communication.
And there was a young man who said, “That person? He is not my father. I don’t want to have anything to do with him.” So he was angry at his father at the point to where he did not want to have anything to do with his father. But if you look deeply into him, you can see that he is made only of his father. His father is fully present in every cell of his body. He cannot take his father out of him, that is the truth. And yet he made a very funny statement, “I do not want to have anything to do with that person.” Nonsense (laughter). So when you get angry at your father you get angry with yourself because you are a continuation of your father.
Suppose the plant of corn got angry at the grain of corn - regrettable (laughter). So if there is a feeling of fear, separation and anger we have to breathe in and out and reconcile with our father inside, reconcile with our mother inside, in order to have peace.
You cannot have happiness and peace if you are in conflict with your father, or your mother. Because your father and your mother are inside of you.
And everything you do in order to bring freedom and joy and happiness and forgiveness to you, you offer your father and mother the same thing; and you are a very kind son, a very kind daughter because that’s the best way to repay the debt to your parents.
In Plum Village, France, where we live and practice there are hundreds of monks and nuns and lay people. In summer we organize four weeks of practice called “Summer Opening”, and you know something, children come from all over the world representing more than fifty countries. They don’t speak the same language but they play together, they walk together, they sit together - very joyfully. And every summer they ask their parents instead of going to the beach or to the mountains for the holidays, they want their parents to come to Plum Village. In Plum Village they have a lot of friends, and people in Plum Village, children and adults, in Plum Village are very gentle because they know how to practice mindful breathing, mindful walking, calming our anger so both adults and children are happy in Plum Village. I hope that one day you may come to visit us in Plum Village.
Wake-Up Organization of Young People
But today here, in Vancouver, in this dharma hall this is Plum Village already because everybody is calm, everyone is nice, and you can very well set up a Plum Village here in Vancouver for people to come and practice. And the young monks and nuns of Plum Village have set up an organization called, “Wake Up,” comprised of young Buddhists and non-Buddhists who want to organize and create a society that is more peaceful, that is more compassionate. Today you may like to ask them about the Wake Up movement where the young people join each other and practice sitting, walking, chanting, singing, dancing in such a way that makes brotherhood and sisterhood prevail. And they learn how to transform their anger, their suffering, their discrimination.
Buddha is Not a God...
You know that the Buddha is not a God. The Buddha is a human being like us. When he was young he suffered also. He wanted to practice in order to transform his suffering. Finally, he succeeded and became an awakened person full of compassion and understanding. And we all are his friends. We can learn a lot from him - how to be peaceful, how to be joyful, how to transform anger and hate. So let us consider the Buddha not as a God, but as a friend, a brother, a teacher. And I always talk to the Buddha, always hold the hand of the Buddha to do walking meditation.
When I hold the hand of a child to walk, I know that this is also a Buddha to be, because the child that is holding my hand has also the seed of compassion, understanding and love in him or her. So I practically take the hands of two tiny Buddhas in order to enjoy walking meditation. I learned that in this retreat, children have learned a lot. They have learned how to to pebble meditation, they have learned how to be a bell master. We adults, we have to try to catch up with you.
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The Noble Eightfold Path (cont’d)
Dear friends today we continue with the Noble Eightfold Path. This one represents Right View, Insight, Enlightenment, Wisdom. This one Right Thinking, Right Speech. In the 5 Mindfulness Trainings we learn that Right Speech goes together with Deep Listening; Loving Speech and Deep Listening.
Right Speech
Right Speech is speech that is free from discrimination, and hate, separation.
When the father sees himself in the son, and when the son sees himself in the father they know that they are not really two persons - they are the continuation of each other. The son is a continuation of the father in the direction of the future, and the father represents the continuation of the son in the direction of the past. Thanks to the father the son has access to all ancestors. And thanks to the son the father has access to the future. They are linked. And if both of them see the interconnection, the non-duality of the two - there is no discrimination, there is no separation. Understanding, mutual understanding then becomes very easy. And that is why Right View is the foundation of Right Thinking and Right Speech.
Right Speech is what you say that goes in the direction of nondiscrimination, non-separation that has understanding and compassion. This practice of Right Speech and Deep Listening is a wonderful instrument to restore communication.
In Plum Village we used to sponsor groups of Palestinians and Israelis to come and practice with us. It is very difficult to get visas for Palestinians. We had to work very hard with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to get visas for them to come and practice with us.
In the beginning it’s always so difficult for both groups to look at each other, to accept each other. Because one group considers the other group as the origin of their own suffering. And we have asked a number of monastic members and lay members of the community to take care of these two special groups because we have many other groups.
And the first thing we do when they arrive is to help them with the practice of calming down, because there is a lot of emotion of anger and fear. So the practice of total relaxation using exercises proposed by the Buddha in the Sutra of Mindful Breathing to connect with the body, to release the tension in the body, to recognize and embrace a feeling of pain, anger and despair is very important, very crucial. We practice with them, we lend them our energy so that they can succeed in calming down the tension in their body and the pain in their mind. And the practice of relaxation and sitting and walking is very important to do so. After a week or so, we begin to initiate them to the practice of Deep Listening and Loving Speech - putting the 4th Mindfulness Training into practice.
So many of us sit with them. Those of us who have the capacity to be peaceful, to be mindful, to be concentrated. The number of us should be big enough in order to create a good energy atmosphere. So we practice with the bell, breathing, sitting, walking. And then we ask the Palestinian group to express themselves, and the Israeli group and others to just listen. We give instructions on how to listen.
The Practice of Deep Listening
The purpose of Deep Listening is to allow the other person, the other group of people to have a chance to speak out. Maybe no one has ever listened to them, and you may be the first person to listen to them. You may be the first group of people who has the capacity to sit quietly and to listen to them. We are convinced that if we know how to listen, then one hour of deep listening, of compassionate listening can bring them a lot of relief - they can empty their heart. And maybe this is the first time that anyone has listened to them.
In psychotherapy we call it empathic listening. In the Buddhist tradition we use the expression, Deep Listening, Compassionate Listening - it means that you listen with only one purpose; to allow him or to allow her to speak out and to suffer less. Therefore during the time the other person speaks even if there are a lot of misunderstandings, wrong perceptions, bitterness, accusation you are still capable of sitting quietly and listening and do not try to interrupt or correct. If you interrupt or correct the session becomes a kind of dispute and not a session of Deep Listening anymore.
You have to practice Mindfulness of Compassion. Mindfulness of Compassion is to keep in mind that desire, that purpose; “I am listening to him with only one purpose - to allow him a chance to suffer less.” So you are protected by Compassion so whatever the person says cannot touch the seed of irritation and anger in you because Compassion is a wonderful kind of energy that can protect you. So even if what the other person says is full of accusation, complaining, blame, bitterness, wrong information the seed of irritation and anger in you is not watered because you are protected by the energy of Compassion. Compassion is there because you are practicing Mindfulness of Compassion remembering that that you listen like this, I listen like this with other one purpose - to just allow that person a chance to suffer less by speaking out. And that is not too difficult.
If you do not practice Mindfulness of Compassion the seed of anger and irritation will be exposed and when they are touched by what the other person has said the energy of irritation and anger will come up and we are lost. We will lose our capacity of listening. That is why when you sit down and listen you have to follow your in-breath and out-breath and remember just one thing: “I listen like this with only one purpose - that is to allow him, allow her to speak out and to suffer less.” And that is the practice of Quan Yin, Avalokiteshvera. And there is a Quan Yin inside of us - you can do it. You can play the role of a Bhodisattva of Compassionate Listening. You can listen to your husband. You can listen to your wife, your father, or your son as a Bhodisattva. The Bhodisattva of Deep Listening is not in the clouds. He is, she is in your heart. Invite him to manifest in order to help you to listen.
So any kind of bitterness, sourness, accusation will not make you angry because you are protected by compassion. And everyone of us has the seed of compassion inside. That is the Buddha inside of us.
The Buddha inside of us is not just an idea - it is a reality.
We have the capacity of being compassionate or being understanding. We have the seed of forgiveness, and joy and peace and liberation in us. That is the Buddha inside.
We have to trust the Buddha inside and allow the Buddha inside to have a chance to operate. And then just practice mindful breathing and the Buddha will manifest and help us.
And when you notice that what the other person says is full of wrong perceptions, you still smile and you say, “Poor person. He is the victim of so many wrong perceptions. Where did he get that information from?” But you don’t interrupt. Your job now is just to listen with all of your heart. And you say to yourself, that in the next few days I will have plenty of time and I will offer him or her information so that he or she can correct his perception - but not now, now is the time to listen. And if we can listen like that for one hour it will be very healing.
You are the Bodhisattva of Compassionate Listening at work and if you have confidence in the practice, one hour can bring a lot of relief. You listen with all your heart, even if his speech is full of accusation, blame, bitterness and so on. You are a beautiful Bodhisattva sitting there and practicing.
Israeli and Palestinian Retreat (cont’d)
The group of Israelis have been given that instruction so that when they listen to the group of Palestinians they know how to protect themselves in order for them to be able to continue with their practice of Deep Listening.
As far as the Palestinian group is concerned we also have given them some instructions about how to speak. We say that, “You can tell everything in your heart but try not to condemn, not to accuse because that will make the other person receive the information much easier. Try to use Loving Speech. You can tell all kinds of suffering that you have undergone; you, other adults, children, your people have undergone. You have to tell us everything but try your best to use the kind of language of non-accusation, of non-blaming and don’t show your bitterness. Just tell us everything about your suffering and that will make it easier for the other group to receive your message.”
So the session will not begin until both groups have been briefed on the way to speak and to listen. You can see already the result of the practice right in the first session. The Israeli group reported after the first hour that they were very surprised to find out that the kind of suffering of the other group looks very much like the kind of their own suffering. What the children and adults of the other camp suffers from looks very much like the kind of suffering that the children and adults on their side suffers from. And for the first time they saw the other group of people not as enemies, but as human beings who suffer like us. Before that, they think that the other camp never suffers - they only make us suffer. We are only the group that suffers. The other camp - they don’t suffer; they just want to make us suffer.
So that kind of wrong perception is removed right away during the first session of practice. And when you see them as human beings who suffer like you have, suddenly there is compassion in your way of looking. And when you look at them with compassion like that you don’t suffer anymore. And when they see you looking at them like that they don’t suffer anymore. The miracle happens like this right in the first session of the practice.
One session is never enough. So we give that group another session and another session if we need more practice, and each side practices the practice of Deep Listening and Loving Speech and discovers that when you see the suffering Compassion arises in you and it is Compassion that neutralizes anger and hate. The healing takes place when you sit and listen.
Compassion is the antidote of anger and hate.
When you listen and if you recognize you touch the suffering in the other group, Compassion naturally arises. The first Noble Truth is very important that is why we call it nobel. And each group that is listening knows that there will be a chance for them to express themselves also.
Several sessions like that take place. And they do walking meditation together. They share a meal together, which is something that they could not do when they first arrived. It is very moving to see Israelis and Palestinians holding hands and doing walking meditation - it is very beautiful. On the last day of the retreat they always came together as one group, not two, and report to the whole sangha about the progress of their progress. And they always promise that when they go back home they will organize a sangha, they will organize practice so that other Israelis and Palestinians will practice and suffer less. They have several sanghas there. We have a monastic who is Israeli and she helped produce a book on Reconciliation and we from time to time go to Israel in order to offer retreats of mindfulness.
I think when politicians organize peace negotiations they can apply some of our techniques. Because peace talks organized by politicians are very different. When they come together they only see the other group as enemies. They never have a chance to see them as human beings. And they still believe that the other side does not suffer; that the other side only makes the other suffer. So you are afraid, you are suspicious because you cannot connect with them as human beings and that is why these peace negotiations cannot result in anything that is substantial. I think if they ask us to come and help we will be ready to go, and we will propose that when negotiators come the first thing to do is not to sit down and discuss. The first thing to do is to have sessions of total relaxation - to calm down, to learn how to embrace anger, fear and suspicion. And to learn how to be in touch with the suffering not only inside of our camp but on the other camp.
It takes about a week to ten days for pre-conference preparation, and monks and nuns and lay practitioners can come and help with peace negotiations. And then both groups will be initiated into the practice of Deep Listening, Compassionate Listening and Loving Speech. I think the result of these peace talks would be much better, and maybe the time of negotiation will be much shorter because in the process we can remove so much discrimination and fear and anger because we come to understand each other as human beings. We can see the suffering and the fear of the other side.
Politicians are trained in many respects, but I think they should be trained on this discipline also. So if you are a professor of political science, think about it. Try to bring this kind of practice into the school of politics, and help bring a spiritual dimension to political life - it’s very important.
Every one of us has the seed of understanding, compassion, forgiveness in us. In a retreat we have a chance to breathe, to walk, to listen to a dharma talk. A dharma talk is like rain; the dharma rain. If we listen to a dharma talk with only our intellect we tend to compare this idea with other ideas, but the dharma talk is not just ideas. The dharma talk comes from the living experience of a teacher, not from ideas from he has learned from books.
The best way to listen to a dharma talk is not with your intellect - remove the intellect and allow the dharma rain to penetrate deep into your store consciousness. Your intellect is like a piece of nylon that prevents the dharma rain to penetrate into the soil. Usually when you hear something that agrees with your views; you hear something and you have some views that you bring them up and compare and if what is said agrees with what you think you say, “This is the truth,” and you accept. And when what is there and you bring something up and you say, “This is not what I think.” So in both cases you learn nothing, and that is the work of the intellect.
I think we need to send the intellect on a vacation, and allow the dharma rain to penetrate into the soil of our store consciousness because there are so many good seeds down there; the seed of understanding, nondiscrimination, compassion and a dharma talk always waters the best of the seeds in us. That is why during a dharma talk we feel wonderful already like the dharma rain has penetrated into our body. In the time of the Buddha, many people get enlightened just during the dharma talk because they allowed the dharma talk to come deeply down and touch the best thing in them and one of the seeds is the seed of awakening, enlightenment.
During the first, second, third and the fourth days walking, sitting, breathing and listening to a dharma talk we witness to the transformation inside of us; the seed of anger, fear and so on are not watered. The other kind of seeds that are positive are watered every day. And that is why on the fifth day the situation is different. Usually on the fifth day we ask practitioners to put into the practice the teaching of Deep Listening and Loving Speech. We say, “Ladies and gentlemen, now is the time for us to use the instruments we have received from the Buddha in order to restore communication with a person you are having difficulties with. “You have until midnight tonight to reconcile with him or her.” If she is in the retreat that is very easy because she has been exposed to good watering of the good seeds, so if you use Loving Speech you continue to water the good seeds in him or her and then reconciliation can be very easy. “And if the other person is not in the retreat you are authorized to use your portable telephone.” (laughter)
I remember in a retreat of Mackaw (sp?), the next morning many ladies came to me during the time of breakfast and they reported that last night before midnight they had used their telephone and had talked to their husbands and had reconciled with them.
In a retreat in northern Germany, that morning four gentlemen came to and said, “Thay, we reconciled with our father last night just using our telephone.” One gentlemen said to me, “Thay, I could not believe that I can talk to my father that way. I was so angry at him I never thought that I could talk to him in the gentle way that you recommended. But when I followed your instructions, breathing in and out, and get in touch with the suffering inside of my father. Suddenly I hear his voice, and I was able to talk to him very nicely. It has been many years since I had talked to him this way.”
He did not know that was possible because during the first four days of the retreat the seeds of compassion and understanding in him had been watered by the dharma talks. They had become more bold now, and that is why that night they allowed him to use that kind of loving speech. When you see the suffering inside of the other person, compassion arises and suddenly your way of talking changes. You don’t have to try - you don’t try - it naturally changes. What is important here is that you can see and understand the suffering inside of him or her. When you get in touch with the suffering, naturally compassion arises in you and suddenly you find it very natural to speak to him with compassion. And they reconciled with their father who did not practice, who did not come to the retreat, but who opened their heart and they talked and they reconciled.
Miracles of reconciliation always happen in our retreat. And that brings us a lot of joy. That nourishes us very much, those of us who organize retreats, because in just four or five days we can help people suffer less and reconcile. It is very wonderful. That is why we should not underestimate the power of the Fourth Mindfulness Training. The Fourth Mindfulness Training can restore communication, realize reconciliation. Not only between two people but between two groups and even two nations. If you are a politician, professor of politics, in the realm of international activism you may like to think about it and bring this instrument into the practice to help with restoring communication and bringing about reconciliation.
This is Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and Right Diligence, Mindfulness, Concentration, and Insight.
Right Livelihood is to select the kind of job that helps us to realize our ideal of compassion. If your job allows you to help protect the environment and help the people to suffer less you are very lucky. Not everyone can have a job like that. I think that even if another job does not bring as much money. You may have to drive a less expensive car, to live in a smaller house but you will be happier. Because we know that we are helping with the environment we live in such a way that the planet and future generations will have a future that can bring a lot of happiness.
True Diligence
The teaching of True Diligence is very concrete. It has four aspects, and we should have a little bit of understanding concerning our mind in order to practice it.
The other day we drew a circle and we said that mind in Buddhism has at least two layers and the lower part has “store consciousness” and the upper part is called “mind consciousness”. And we know that there are so many seeds lying in the bottom of store consciousness; good seeds and negative seeds. There is a seed of despair, of anger, of discrimination - the worst seeds are there.
Hell exists within in us. So the practice of diligence is not to give hell a chance to manifest.
But Heaven is in us also. The Kingdom, the Pure Land is in us also.
So let us practice True Diligence in order to give the Kingdom, the Pure Land, and the Paradise a chance to manifest.
In Buddhist psychology, there are fifty-one variety of seeds. In physics they speak of particles, and in Buddhist psychology we speak of seeds. We don’t see them but we know that they are there. Because the are used to manifest for us to see. Like in quantum physics you don’t see the quarks but you know that they are there. The Chinese character means, “seed”, and the Sanskrit word is “bija”. There are 51 categories of seeds; there are good ones, negative ones, and there are those that can be either good or not good according to the circumstances. There is the seed of anger down there. Even when you are happy, when you are loving, when you are joyful - the seed of anger is always down there. And if someone comes and touches the seed of anger, if someone says something or does something that touches the seed of anger it will manifest up here as a form of energy - the energy of anger. And when it manifests in mind consciousness it is no longer called a seed, but it is called a “mental formation”. A seed down below manifesting up here is called a mental formation, and in Buddhist psychology we speak of 51 categories of mental formation.
Formation is a technical term in Buddhism. It means composite things. This flower is a formation. It is made of non-flower elements like sunshine and clouds, and rain and minerals and so on. But this formation is a physical formation. My anger is a mental formation. There are 51 mental formations. And as a good practitioner we need to be able to identify each of them when they manifest.
#9 - Recognizing Mental Formations
Recognizing mental formations; that is the object of the practice of the 9th exercise of mindful breathing. The other day we have learned of the first 8 exercises of mindful breathing, and the 9th is to recognize mental formation as it manifests. When anger is up here, you breath in and say, “breathing in I know anger has manifested.” It is a simple recognition of anger as a mental formation.
When anger comes up to the mind consciousness the practitioner invites the mental formation called Mindfulness to come up and with Mindfulness we can recognize anger. “Breathing in, I know anger has manifested. Breathing out, I will take care of you my dear anger.” Mindfulness is an energy. Anger is an energy. Mindfulness recognizes Anger, embraces Anger and brings relief.
First Aspect: Don’t Give Negative Seeds A Chance to Manifest
We are speaking about Right Diligence, and the first aspect of the practice is the negative seed like anger, craving, fear. If you are a true practitioner you don’t give them a chance to manifest. The 5th Mindfulness Training is very important. It depends on your way of consuming that you water the seeds of goodness in you, or the negative seeds in you.
Suppose you watch television without mindfulness and you are not aware that the program has a lot of anger, despair and fear in it. And you allow your children and yourself to watch that film so you consume toxins, poisons, because while you are watching that film the seed of anger, craving, fear are watered and they manifest. If they grow strong it’s not good for you or your child.
That is why the first aspect of the practice is not to give negative seeds a chance to manifest, because once they manifest down below, the seeds become stronger at the base. So in a relationship we have to apply this. We look at the other person, your partner, and say, “Darling, I have some negative seeds in me and if you water these seeds like jealousy, anger, fear and if I suffer you cannot be happy. So please refrain from watering the negative seeds in me. And as for me, I make the vow not to water them by myself. And I make also the vow not to water them in you. So this is a “Peace Treaty”, a Love Treaty that you sign with your beloved one; not to allow the bad seeds in us to have a chance. That’s the first aspect of the practice.
Second Aspect: Don’t Give Negative Seeds a Chance to Stay Very Long
But if it happens that a seed like anger and despair has manifested, what to do? The Buddha recommends, do something to help that mental formation go back as quickly as possible to its original position. The problem is not to fight it, to suppress it, but to recognize it. With mindfulness you can recognize it. And you have many beautiful seeds down there so you can invite one of them to come up - especially one who is opposite of this.
It’s like when you play a CD, and you don’t like the music. Why do you allow the music to continue? You change the CD. So changing the CD is what is proposed by the Buddha. You have plenty of beautiful CD’s down there why don’t you play them and allow this one to go on and on and destroy you and your beloved one. So the second aspect of the practice is that if it happens that a negative seed has manifested as a mental formation do something to help it go home to its original place by inviting a good one to cup.
In the Sutra, the Buddha used the image of a carpenter who used pegs in order to connect to blocks of wood. If the pegs are rotten, you have to change the peg. You have to use a new peg, and drive the new peg into the same spot, and you drive the old peg out. So changing the peg is an expression used by the Buddha in the Sutra. So this is the second practice in diligence - don’t let that mental formation anger, fear, craving stay too long - change your CD, change the peg.
Third Aspect: Allow Opportunities for Good Seeds to Manifest
The third aspect of the practice is to allow plenty of chances for the good ones to come up. You have plenty of good seeds. One of the ways is to come to a retreat. Because in a retreat our good seeds have many chances to manifest, the seed of forgiveness, understanding, compassion, peace and so on.
And as a co-practitioner you can help your partner if you see that your partner is a victim of a bad seed you can help her to change her CD, “Darling what are you thinking? Why do you allow that anger, that fear to overwhelm you like that because you have plenty of beautiful things down there,” and you touch the best thing in him or her so that it can come up. We are co-practitioners, we help each other in the practice. And as a good practitioner we know how to give a chance to good things in us to manifest, and we can always do or say something to help bring the best things in our partner to come up. You make him happy, you make her happy and you can profit from her happiness. And this does not take a long time. It may be done very quickly.
I remember one day I gave a talk on this matter we call it the practice of selective watering. You only water the good seeds. And I noticed that in the audience there was a lady who cried from the beginning of the talk to the end of the talk. After the talk I came to her husband and I just said one thing, “Dear Friend, your flower needs some watering.” In the morning they set out and it was not very joyful because she suffered - she cried a lot. I did tell him more, that was enough. So on the way back home, it would take only one hour he practiced selective watering. He told her how wonderful she is, how talented she is and when they arrived the children were very surprised because their father and mother were very joyful. So it does not take much time if you know the art of selective watering you can change the situation in just five, ten minutes.
Fourth Aspect - Keep the Good Seeds Manifested as Long as Possible
The fourth aspect of true diligence is that if the good seed has manifested in mind, try to keep it as long as you can up there. It’s like if you have a good friend visiting you, you try to keep him or her with you as long as possible. The same thing is true here. If the seed of joy, happiness, forgiveness, compassion has manifested practice mindful breathing, walking, keep it up there because while it is manifested at the top at the base the base continues to grow. And that is the practice of, “the transformation at the base.” You don’t know but down there the good seeds are growing and the next time when you need it, it can come up very easily. So this is the true meaning of the practice of Right Diligence.
