When I was about nine years old I happened to see a drawing of a Buddha on the cover of a Buddhist magazine, and the Buddha was sitting on the grass very peacefully - very relaxed. And I was very impressed because people around me were nervous. So that was the first time I had the desire to be like a Buddha.
In order to be a Buddha you have to practice - do do something.
So a few years later I happened to see a monk. We were students, we were going up to a mountain for a picnic. We were organized in groups of 5 - boys and girls. I had learned that up on the mountain there was a monk practicing on the mountain to become a Buddha. So I was very excited to go and find out how he practiced in order to become a Buddha because I, myself, I wanted to become a Buddha - peaceful, happy, relaxed and so on.
But I did not have much luck, because when we came up to the top of the mountain we found out that the monk was not there. Maybe someone had told him that 500 boys and girls were coming up the mountain (laughter). So he may have gone and hid himself in the woods to practice sitting alone, so I was very disappointed.
I did not know how to do walking meditation or to breathe in and out because no one had taught me. So we were given instructions to bring bottles of boiled water, and a rice bowl and sesame seeds in order to have the picnic on the mountain. Because we did not know how to climb relaxingly and happily like we do walking meditation here, that is why all of us tried to climb as quickly as possible to get to the top, and half way we were so thirsty and we drank up all of the water that we had brought. But added to that we found out at that the hermit, the monk, was not there so I was very disappointed.
So our teachers gave the order for us to sit down and set up our picnic. While the other four boys were setting up the food, I ventured into the wood hoping that I might meet the monk. When I went into the wood, I suddenly heard a very beautiful sound, the sound of water dripping. I allowed myself to be guided by the sound and finally I found a very beautiful, clear, natural well. You know, Thay was very thirsty, I was very thirsty and when I saw the fresh water I was so happy. I kneeled down and cupped the water in my hand, and drank. It was so delicious.
The water was so refreshing, and because Thay had read many fairy tales he believed that the monk had transformed himself into a well so I would have a private audience with him, and he was displaying himself as a well - fresh water. So when you are young and read so many fairy tales you believe things like that, that a monk has the magic power of transforming himself into a well so that you can drink the water and you can meet him in the form of the well.
What happened is that after I had drunk the water I felt completely satisfied, no more desire, even the desire to meet the monk - very strange. And the water was so delicious, I had never tasted any kind of water like that. It was much better than Coca Cola. So after having drank the water I sat down, and then I lie down and I contemplated the branches of the trees. Because I was very tired I fell into a very deep sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke up I did not know where I was. The sleep must have been very deep. It took me a minute to remember that I was on the top of the mountain and the other four boys were waiting for me down below. So I had to leave the well with regret to join them.
And in my mind, a line of poetry came up, “I have tasted the most delicious water in the world.” Strange - when I met up with the other four boys I did not tell them what happened to me. Because it was a very sacred spiritual experience and if I talked about it, I would lose some of the happiness. So I kept silent. I was very silent that day. And I believed that I was very lucky because the monk had transformed himself into the well so that I could have a private audience with him. And I think at that time I believed that I was the luckiest person on earth.
Later on, I hoped that everyone would have the chance to meet that hermit the monk - maybe not in the form in the well, but maybe a tree, or a rock, or a beautiful sunset because you are very lucky if you have a chance to meet your hermit, your monk. And many of us may have had a chance to meet him, but did not recognize him. So I always tell the young people that if it happens that they meet their monk, their hermit, they should write to me and announce the good news. “Dear Thay, yesterday I have met my hermit, my monk.” And since that day I wanted to become a monk.
And at the age of 16, I obtained the permission of my father and my mother to go to a temple and be ordained as a novice monk. It is exactly there that I learned how to breathe, how to sit, how to walk in order to bring peace, and happiness, and compassion into myself. So remember, maybe you will meet your monk, your hermit, tomorrow or after tomorrow. And if you do, please write Thay a note and tell Thay that you have met the Hermit of your life.
Q: Do you think you have accomplished the highest level of Buddhism, and if you haven’t do you think you will? And would you play soccer with the kids today?
Frankly, I do not have the wish to accomplish the highest level of Buddhism - because after that level you don’t have anything to do any more. At this level I am already very happy. So I am relaxingly practicing. Practicing and helping people to practice in order to suffer less, and to be able to smile and to reconcile - that brings me a lot of happiness. I am not very eager to attain the highest level of Buddhism.
I will ask one of my young monastic students to play soccer with you today, because they are my continuation - they are my self. My students, my disciples are also my self. And you are my student, and you are also my continuation; you are my self - so enjoy playing soccer.
I think that is enough questions for children. Very good questions.
Q: Do you believe that you have reached the state of enlightenment, and if not, do you believe that you will reach it at some point?
Enlightenment is not something that is difficult. You can get it today. Enlightenment is always enlightenment about something. In one day, you can get many enlightenments several times. If you practice mindfulness and concentration you may get insight and enlightenment several times a day. You don’t need to practice ten years in order to begin to have enlightenment.
Enlightenment is our daily business.
When you breathe in, and if you become aware that you are alive - that is already enlightenment, that is already awakening.
Because so many people who are alive, who are there but they don’t know that they are there - alive. So one in-breath can help you to be enlightened to the fact that you are still alive on this earth, on this beautiful planet. So when you walk, if you are aware that you are making steps on this beautiful planet. That it is a miracle to be alive and to be walking on earth - that is already enlightenment.
Great enlightenment is made of many small enlightenments like that.
Enlightenment can happen today, if you practice mindfulness and concentration. You do not have to wait for enlightenment to happen.
There is individual enlightenment. There is also collective enlightenment. There are those of us who are enlightened on the fact that our planet is in danger. And thanks to this enlightenment we try to live in such a way in order to make a future possible for the planet. But there are those who are still not enlightened. They don’t know what is going on. They don’t know that our planet is in danger. And that is why we have to practice in such a way in order to help wake them up so they can also experience enlightenment. And when they have enlightenment they will change their style of living, and they will be able to protect the planet. That is why we have to produce individual enlightenment. We have to help create collective enlightenment in order for us to suffer less. And in order to bring joy and hope to us and to other species.
Enlightenment is our daily practice.
And every moment of your daily life can be a moment of enlightenment if you are inhabited by the energy of mindfulness and concentration.
And if you do like that you are a good continuation of the Buddha.
Q: What is the goal of Buddhism?
The goal of Buddhism is to be happy right here and right now.
And it is possible.
With the practice of mindfulness you can bring your mind back to your body. Mindful breathing, mindful walking and when your mind is there with your body you realize that there are so many wonders of life that are available in the here and the now, and you can enjoy them. And you can be happy right here and right now. You do not have to long for something in the future.
Buddhism means “the path of awakening”. And a Buddha is someone who is already awake.
Awakening is always awakening to something.
You are awake to the fact that life is a wonder, and you don’t need to run anymore to look for something elsewhere, and in the future. It’s just beautiful, just wonderful here and now.
And enlightenment, or awakening can be obtained in just a few seconds. When you breathe in, and come home to the here and the now that is full of wonders. The Kingdom of God is there, the Pure Land of the Buddha is there, life is there and you can be happy and compassionate right here and right now. So the goal of Buddhism does not mean that you have to wait for the future, that you long for something that hasn’t happened. Buddhism is the kind of practice that can help you to be right here, right now - in order to live your life right away and with peace and brotherhood and sisterhood. And that goal can be realized very quickly with the practice of mindfulness of breathing, walking, sitting and so on....
Q: Do you have any advice on how to overcome my self-doubt, my worries about my shortcomings?
When something negative happens, we should not try to fight it. We should accept the situation as it is.
And then we can see, that the situation can be different, because there are good things in us that can come to the foreground.
It’s like a television there are many channels. If what is manifested on the screen you don’t like, you can change the channel. There is a channel of the Buddha, of love, of trust, of happiness, of joy, of brotherhood in you. And you don’t have to fight the channel of sickness, of anger - you have to smile to it, and you just have to turn on the other channel. It’s very easy (laughter).
Don’t fight. Don’t try to fight, just accept that it is. Smile to it, and change the CD, change the channel.
And that can be done easily.
Because you have to believe that there are good things in you transmitted by your parents, ancestors and we have to learn how to make good use of the positive things that are in us. The Pure Land of the Buddha, the Kingdom of God, brotherhood, sisterhood, joy, peace, forgiveness - they are all in us. To practice means to give them a chance to manifest.
Sickness and anger can vanish in one or two seconds if you know how to turn on the good things inside. And if you find yourself living with people who can do that around then, well you can do it easily.
Q: How can I stay connected the practice and remain true to my volition to help others, outside of the retreats?
When you practice with a sangha you are reminded by the members of your sangha to come home to that. Like the practice of mindful walking, if around us people are walking mindfully and are enjoying every step, you are motivated to walk like that. And to walk like that is to come home to the best of ourselves.
We should learn to organize our practice in such a way that without making a lot of effort we can still remember to practice. We need more skill than physical strength. Suppose we practice breathing in, you don’t need to make much physical effort in order to breathe in. You don’t have to struggle with your in-breath.
You need to learn a skillful way of breathing in. You breathe in such a way that your in-breath brings you joy, and peace, and enlightenment. And this is possible.
In our daily life we breathe all of the time, but many of us do not pay attention to our in-breath and our out-breath.
So in our practice, we allow ourselves to breathe normally, but we pay attention to our in-breath and our out-breath. And with mindfulness, you touch the insight that being alive and breathing in is a wonder, so you enjoy your in-breath.
Your in-breath is very gentle, very natural. It can bring peace and relaxation to your body, and to your mind.
So we need more skillfulness than physical strength.
And sitting we need also skillfulness. If you suffer, if you make too much effort and you can get pain into your body very quickly. But if you enjoy sitting, relaxingly, you can sit for a long time and every minute can bring you joy and peace. And if you are surrounded by good practitioners who enjoy walking, breathing, sitting and then you are reminded by all these friends to go home always to your practice.
Practicing with a sangha has the advantage that when we find ourselves practicing with a sangha we can profit from the collective energy of mindfulness created by the whole group. And with that collective energy of the whole group you can very easily recognize your suffering, your sickness, your anger, your fear and embrace them and transform them. It is very important to have a sangha around you to help you maintain the practice and to help you strengthen your mindfulness and concentration. Therefore, every practitioner when they go home to their city should look around to recognize members of their future sangha, and invite them to come for a sitting, a walking, because a sangha always helps us to maintain our practice for a long time, and we don’t have to wait for the next retreat.
We can continue in our daily lives, enjoying the practice. If we have the talent to organize, and organize our daily lives in such a way, that can help maintain our practice.
Gatha for Waking Up
When I first learned Gathas, when I became a novice monk, my teacher gave me 50 verses to memorize to practice with and the first one is:
Waking up this morning I smile.They are four line gathas, and when you breathe in you read the first line. When you breathe out, you read the second line silently. And you have mindfulness and concentration, and you enjoy and cherish the gift that life gives you 24 hours every morning.
I know that 24 brand new hours are offered to me.
I vow to live them deeply.
And learn to look at people around me with eyes of compassion.
So in order to do that I stuck a leaf, an autumn leaf, on the mosquito net, because in VietNam we sleep in a mosquito net. And as soon as you open your eyes and see the leaf it means you should breathe in and recite the gatha. So I allow myself to relax. I breathe in and I read the first line, I breathe out and read the second line. You begin your life like that in a beautiful way, in a mindful way. And when you sit up, using your feet to find your slippers there is another gatha for you to recite and to breathe.
That is the way they organize the practice in a temple so that you can maintain the practice in every moment of your daily life.
I remember the first time my teacher told me how to light a stick of incense. Usually, when we light a stick of incense it is to offer it to the Buddha, but my teacher said that, “My Child, When you hold a stick of incense you have to hold it by both hands, like this. You put your left hand on your right hand.” This means that you use your whole body and your whole mind in picking up a stick of incense and you light it mindfully. And that is already the practice. You have to do everything in your daily life with the whole of your body, and the whole of your mind.
And we are trained like that in order to maintain your practice throughout the day.
There are many ways; the gathas that you memorize, a co-practitioner next to you, a sangha around you, and the sound of the bell. Everything can help you to go back to the here and the now, and practice mindfulness. So if you have a talent for organizing, make use that talent in order to help yourself and your community to practice with skillfulness. And the practice should be pleasant. The practice can bring relaxation, joy and happiness right away and we don’t have to wait for a long time to get these.
Q: What advice can you give to those who practice with physical pain and agony over seeing many negative things in the world?
We have learned that we can reduce physical pain with the practice of releasing the tension in the body. The pain may still be there, but it can be reduced by releasing the tension. The pain increases as a function of the tension. So the practice of relaxation in the lying position.
The practice of relaxation during the time we walk. Because every step you make can help release the tension. Walk like a free person. Put things down, don’t carry. And you feel lighter. There is a burden that we always carry with us. And the technique is, the skillfulness is how to lay down the burden in order to be light. And if you sit, and walk, and lie down like that it is very easy to reduce the pain.
The Second Arrow of Exaggeration
And the Buddha said that we should not try to amplify our pain, or exaggerate our situation. He used the image of someone who is hit by an arrow. And a few minutes later, a second arrow comes and strikes exactly in the same spot. So after the second arrow comes, not only is the pain doubled but it can be tripled or ten times more. It can be very painful and intense.
So when we have some pain whether it is physical or mental, we have to recognize it as it is and we should not exaggerate.
Breathing in, I know this is only a minor physical pain.
I can very well make friends and peace with it. I can still smile to it.
And if you recognize it as it is and do not exaggerate, then you can make peace with it - you don’t suffer much. But if you get angry, revolting against it, you worry too much, if you imagine that you are going to die very quickly then the pain will be multiplied by one hundred times.
And that is the second arrow. We should not allow it to come. And that is recommended by the Buddha. It is very important. Don’t amplify the pain.
Re: Activism
And we know that if we are not peaceful. If we do not have enough compassion in us we cannot do much to help the world. As an activist we want to do something, to help the world to suffer less.
We ourselves are the center. We have to make peace, to reduce the suffering in us first, because we represent the world.And the Buddha, he recommended many practices in order to help reduce the pain in the body, reduce the pain in the feelings and emotions, to reconcile with ourselves. Because there is suffering inside; fear and anger.
Peace, love, and happiness should always begin - here (pointing to the heart).
When you take care of yourself, you are practically taking care of the world.
Imagine a pine tree standing in the front yard. We ask the pine tree what it can do, what is the maximum the pine tree can do in order to help the world. And the answer is very clear, “You should be a beautiful, healthy pine tree.”
You help the world by being your best.So that is applied for humans also.
The basic thing we can do to help the world is to be healthy, to be solid, to be loving, to be gentle to ourselves. And when people look at us they will gain confidence, and they will say “She can do that, then I can do that too.”
So anything that you can do for you, you do it for the world. Don’t think that you and the world are two separate things. When you breathe in mindfully and gently, and feel the wonder of life you are doing that for us - for the world. Remember.And practicing with that kind of insight you will succeed in helping the world. And you don’t have to wait until tomorrow, you can do it right today.
