Que Será, Será - Plum Village version

When I was just a little girl,
I asked my mother what will I be?
Will I be pretty?
Will I be rich?
This’s what she said to me:

Que Será, Será
Whatever will be, will be?
The future’s not ours to see
Que Sera, Sera,
What’s will be, will be.


When I was just a novice monk
I asked my teacher, what will I be?
Will I be enlighten?
Will I be free?
This’s what Thay said to me:

Que Será, Será,
What ever will be, will be?
The Sangha will let you know,
Within ten years or so.


When I was just a novice nun
I tried my best to be near Thay
But everybody did the same thing,
How could I be near to Thay

Sit next to me my child,
Every Thursday at lunch,
Love your brothers and yours sisters,
You’re always close to me.


I’ve been a nun for 5 years now,
I ask my teacher, where is my (Dharma) Lamp?
I’ve tried my best, done everything.
Will I get it this time?

Sit, stand, talk and walk,
Do everything in mindfulness
And have a pleasant smile
The light will shine from there.


I’ve been a monk for 10 years now
I ask my teacher, what should I do?
Should I go out?
Have a temple of my own,

Que Será, Será,
Whatever will be, will be.
Be a river my child
Don’t be a drop of water.


Photo: Plum Village Novice Brothers and Sisters during Winter Retreat 2008.

http://www.plumvillage.org/

a pebble for your pocket

A meditation with Pháp Huu, in the tradition of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, shot by David Nelson at Plum Village during the Winter Retreat 2008/2009.

Enjoy it!

cultivate

time won't wait for you!
you can dream your life
but you'd better live your dreams


Thank you for reminding me, dear Pháp Thê...
With love and gratitude, I shall cultivate tomatoes, tomatoes and love being the same.

the Buddha eye

This is the story of Plum Village: how to transmit the Buddha eye, not build a big institution and become famous


Thich Nhat Hanh

in Twenty Years of Plum Village Life, Parallax Press (May 2003)

wake-up call

Heart to heart,
that is how I would speak with you.

Words are not necessary
in the language of the Heart.
And yet, the mind at times needs words
to understand what only the Heart knows
beyond words.

I would speak to the Totality of who you are,
mind and Heart, body and Spirit,
with words and in Silence.

Creature of the Earth,
you are not the self
you suppose yourself to be.
Child of the Cosmos,
you are more than the self
you think you are.

YOU ARE A BUDDHA

It is time to remember and awaken
to the Truth of Who You Are.

I Am
What You Will Be,
What You Are,
What You Have Always Been,
only you have forgotten,
only you have simply to remember.

I Am the Awakening.
I Am the Voice of your Heart.
My Word is the vibration of
every atom and every star,
the Light of all beings in the Universe.

Listen to the Voice of Awakening,
the Truth of your Heart.

It is time now,
time to listen and remember.

This is your Wake-Up Call:

YOU ARE A BUDDHA



A Message from the Buddha, by Br. Chi Sing - January 2005

Photo: Bell pagoda at Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, June 2006 ©Richard&Joanne Friday

the three jewels

We can kneel, we can close our eyes, join our palms, and visualize this moment with the water of compassion falling on our head, and we can see ourselves being born anew. Our teacher and the Sangha are transmitting to us our precepts body, and we have the duty to allow our teacher and the Sangha to lead us step by step on this new path. We see we are protected, we are secure, with security from the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, and the precepts; and never before in our life have we felt as we feel at this moment. If we allow the Sangha to wake us up, if we allow our teacher to wake us up, we will see that we are in a state of security we have never been in before. If we live like that every day, our feelings of anxiety, of fear, will disappear. We will be able to dwell happily in the present moment, and each step will take us into happiness in the present moment, into freedom. That is our daily practice. "Do not pursue the past" is what this means. Sometimes we don’t want to go back into the past, but the past grabs hold of us and pulls us back, so we have to organize things carefully, and we have to base our organization on the support of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. We have to look directly into the past and smile at it, and say, "You can no longer oppress me. I am free of you." Only the energy of mindfulness, the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, have enough power and strength to help us to be free of the past. We see that the past is just a ghost. We know that the past is a ghost, but we allow the ghost to imprison us. Therefore a practitioner should know how to take hold of the present with the help of the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha and the precepts, in order to come back to the present, and not allow the ghosts of the past to pull us back into the past. "Do not pursue the past," can you hear the Buddha saying that to you?


excerpt from the Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh on April 5, 1998 in Plum Village, France, on The Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone

If you would like to know more about Plum Village Practice Center, please refer to:
http://www.plumvillage.org/

If you would like to read the whole text, please refer to:
http://www.plumvillage.org/dharmatalks/html/betterwaytolivealone.html

praising Buddha!

.年よりや月を見るにもなむあみだ

growing old--
even while moon gazing
praising Buddha!



And in Plum Village celebrating the 2 years old baby Buddha, The Guiding Light of the Heart...

at Plum Village

what happens to us when we die?

In order to answer what happens to us when we die, we need to answer another question – what happens when we are alive?

What is happening now to us? In English we say ‘we are’ but it’s proper to say ‘we are becoming’ because things are becoming. We’re not the same person in two consecutive minutes.

A picture of you as baby looks different to you now. The fact is you are not exactly the same as that baby and not entirely a different person either. In a picture of you as a five year old, you are not exactly the same as that child and not entirely a different person either – the form, feelings and mental formations are different.

In the middle way there is no sameness and no otherness.

You may think you are still alive but in fact you have been dying everyday, every minute, cells die and are born - for neither do we have funerals or birthdays (laughter).

Death is a very necessary condition of birth. With no death, there is no birth. They inter-are and happen in every moment to the experienced meditator. For instance, a cloud may have died many times, into rain, streams, water. The cloud may want to wave to itself on earth! Rain is a continuation of the cloud. With a meditation practitioner nothing can hide itself. When I drink tea, it’s very pleasant to be aware I am drinking cloud.

When you are parents, you die and are reborn as your children. “You are my continuation, I love you.” The Buddha told us how to ensure a beautiful continuation – a compassionate thought, a beautiful thought. Forgiveness is our continuation. If anger, separation and hate arise, then we will not ensure a beautiful continuation. When we pronounce a word that is compassionate, good and beautiful that is our continuation.



excerpt of a transcription from a talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh during a retreat with five hundred people in Hong Kong on 15 May 2007.

If you'd like to read the entire text, please refer to:
http://www.plumvillage.org/HTML/dharmatalks/html/whathappenswhenyoudie.html

Photo ©nicolas valentin; if you'd like to see more please refer to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrian_valentin_murphy/354252383/

discourse on love

He or she who wants to attain peace should practice being upright, humble, and capable of using loving speech

He or she who knows how to live simply and happily, with senses calmed, without being covetous and carried away by the emotions of the majority

Let him or her not do anything that will be disapproved of by the wise ones

(And this is what he or she contemplates:)

May everyone be happy and safe, and my all hearts be filled with joy

May all beings live in security and in peace, beings who are frail or strong, tall or short, big or small, invisible or visible, who are near or far away, already born or yet to be born

May all of them dwell in perfect tranquility

Let no one do harm to anyone

Let no one put the life of anyone in danger

Let no one, out of anger or ill will, wish anyone any harm

Just as a mother loves and protects her only child at the risk of her own life, cultivate boundless love to offer to all living beings in the entire cosmos

Let our boundless love pervade the whole universe, above, below, and across

Our love will know no obstacles

Our heart will be absolutely free from hatred and enmity

Whether standing or walking, sitting or lying, as long as we are awake, we should maintain this mindfulness of love in our own heart

This is the noblest way of living

Free from wrong views, greed, and sensual desire, living in beauty and realizing perfect understanding, those who practice boundless love will certainly transcend birth and death

Etena sacca vajjena sotthi te hotu sabba da
(by the firm determination of this truth may you ever be well)

Etena sacca vajjena sotthi te hotu sabba da

Etena sacca vajjena sotthi te hotu sabba da.


Discourse on Love, from the Plum Village Chanting Book (2002) adapted from a traditional Pali chant, recorded by Sister The Nghiem of Green Mountain Dharma Center. This chant is a common one in the Pali tradition of Theravadan Buddhists. The English translation was done by zen master Thich Nhat Hanh with the help of Plum Village monks and nuns. To listen to this beautiful chant please refer to:
http://www.deerpark.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=161115#


If you'd like to see more photos like to the one above, please refer to:
http://villagedespruniers.net/?locate=photo&langue=francais

gatha for my beloved

My beloved,
All things pass away, and time
is precious.
Let us cherish our togetherness
now –
Each moment, each smile,
each day, each embrace –
before the sun sets
and darkness falls.

On this sacred day of
Buddha’s Awakening,
Remember, my heart-mate,
your bedroom is
your zendo.
Taking care of the little details,
you take care of Life Itself.
Every day is sesshin,
and every dust particle swept
is the saving of all beings.

All things pass away
and the sun is setting.
Now is the time, my beloved,
now is the time for loving.
Time is precious
and darkness is falling.
Now is the time.
Now, beloved.
Now.


by Brother Chi Sing
(Bodhi Day, December 8, 2004)


Gatha = verse of mindfulness
zendo = meditation hall
sesshin = meditation retreat

from the Music, Writing & Poetry page of Deer Park Monastery. To read more please refer to
http://www.deerparkmonastery.org/news/music.html

Photo: burning sunset ©Isaac Zilinsky

breathe, you are alive

Breathe and you know that you are alive.
Breathe and you know that all is helping you.
Breathe and you know that you are the world.
Breathe and you know that the flower is breathing you.
Breathe for yourself and breathe for the world.
Breathe in compassion and breathe out joy.

Breathe and be one with the air that you breathe.
Breathe and be one with the river that flows.
Breathe and be one with the earth that you tread.
Breathe and be one with the fire that glows.
Breathe and you break the thought of birth and death.
Breathe and you see impermanence is life.

Breathe for your joy to be steady and calm.
Breathe for your sorrow to flow away.
Breathe to renew every cell in your blood.
Breathe to renew the depths of consciousness.
Breathe and you dwell in the here and now.
Breathe and all you touch is new and real.

Breathe.



from the Plum Village Chanting Book. This song can be heard at the page below (just click on the green button under A Basket of Plums to start the song):
http://www.deerparkmonastery.org/news/music.html

Photo ©Tijen Inaltong; and I dedicate this post to you, my dearest: breathe, we are alive!

love invincible

I dedicate this song to all my friends, of all times.






When I fall down, I need a helping hand.
And when I lose my head, it's cause it's always buried in the sand.
When I get stuck on myself, feelin' sorry for myself
Will you help me grab a hold and please don't patronize my soul.
When I start to lose control, when I get irrational, when I start to get too high,
you see me come floating by, I say

Touch me in the morning sun, when I feel impossible.
Touch me in the morning sun, show me what is possible.
Touch me in the morning sun when I feel impossible, show me what is possible.
Teach me love invisible,
Teach me love invincible,
Teach me love invisible,
Teach me love invincible.

When you’re down, you need a helping hand.
And when you lose your head, I'll help you wash away the sand.
And when you get stuck on yourself, feelin' sorry for yourself
I will help you grab a hold and I won't patronize your soul.
When you start to lose control, when you get irrational, when you start to get too high,
I see you come floating by, I say

Touch me in the morning sun, when I feel impossible.
Touch me in the morning sun, show me what is possible.
Touch me in the morning sun when I feel impossible,
show me what is possible.
Teach me love invisible,
Teach me love invincible

When we're down, we need a helping hand.
And when we lose our heads, it's cause they're always buried in the sand.
But when we get stuck on our selves, feelin' sorry for our selves.
Will you help us grab a hold and please don't patronize our souls.
When we start to lose control, when we get irrational, when we start to get too high,
You see us come floating by, I say,

Touch us with the morning sun, when we feel impossible.
Touch us with the morning sun, show us what is possible.
Touch us in the morning sun when we feel impossible, show us what is possible.
Teach us love invincible, teach us love invisible

Teach us love invincible, hold us love invisible, share us love invincible,
be us love invincible, help us love invisible, touch us love invisible,
breathe us love invincible, sing it love invisible.

(lyrics by Michael Franti & Spearhead)


Photo: with many dear friends from the Saffron Thread Family, Plum Village, June 2006 ©Matthew Holloran

love, love

No coming, no going

No after, no before

I hold you close to me

I release you to be so free

Because I am in you

and you are in me

Because I am in you

and you are in me



from the Plum Village Chanting Book. If you'd like to listen to this song please refer to http://www.deerparkmonastery.org/news/music.html and click on the green button at the bottom right of your screen for No coming, no going.

water reflecting

Breathing in I see myself as still water. You know still water is not a wave. Sometimes you enjoy being a wave—it’s very wonderful to be a wave, coming up very high, and going down very low. But sometimes you are tired, you don’t want to be a wave anymore. You just want to be still water. To be still water is also a great joy—you feel peaceful, you feel quiet, and you enjoy the peace and the quietness that is in you. I know the young people like to be waves, but they should know that it is also wonderful to be still water. Have you seen a pond that is very still? You look into the water and you see reflected in the water the blue sky, the clouds, the trees. You can even take a picture of the sky and the clouds just by pointing your camera at the water, because still water reflects things perfectly. Still water does not distort things. When you are not still, you distort things. When your mind is not still, you distort everything. The other person did not hate you, but you believe that she hated you. That is a distortion, because your "water," your mind, is not still. Therefore it is very important to practice so that your mind becomes still water. And now you know why I asked you to draw still water. "Breathing in, I see myself as still water; breathing out, I reflect things as they are." This is very important. We should not be victims of our wrong perceptions. In order for our perceptions not to be wrong, our minds should be still, like water. And there are ways to help your mind to become like still water.

(...)

The transformation and healing we are looking for is not outside of us, it is in us. It is like the wave: if it wants to be still, the stillness should not be obtained from the outside, it is in the water itself.

We have the capacity to be a wave, but we also have the capacity to be still water. So we look for peace, we look for stability, we look for well being within ourselves, and these things are not something that we can acquire from outside. But maybe there are those of us who are only used to being waves, and we have forgotten how to become still water again. We know that we have the capacity of becoming still water again, but we have forgotten how to do it. That is why we need the practice.


excerpt from Our Appointment with Life, Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh on July 16, 1998 in Plum Village, France.

© Thich Nhat Hanh

http://www.plumvillage.org/

(photo: a pond that is not still, Bahia, 2003)

we are our ancestors

When we hear the sound of the bell, we should open ourselves up to allow all the generations of ancestors in us to hear the bell at the same time as we do. It means we shouldn’t imprison ourselves in a shell of self – we should allow our ancestors to listen to the bell at the same time. That is our practice at that moment, because all the generations of ancestors, including our father and our mother are in us in a very concrete way - in every cell of our body. The body contains the mind – the soma contains the psyche, and we could say that the mind also contains the body. That means that the psyche contains the soma and that psyche includes feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness and we should learn to see our mental formations are made out of cells, just as the body is made out of cells. The cells of the body contain the cells of the consciousness and the cells of the consciousness contain the cells of the body.

Psyche and soma are just two sides of the same reality. There isn’t one that precedes the other, just like the particle and the wave are two aspects of the same reality. The wave contains the particle, just as the particle contains the wave. The reality of us is the reality of body and mind. We could call ourselves psyche and we could call ourselves soma, but in fact psyche and soma are two aspects manifesting from one reality. If we look into one cell of our body, or one cell of our consciousness, we recognize the presence of all the generations of ancestors in us – that is the truth. Our ancestors are not just human beings. Before human beings appeared we were other species. We have been trees, plants, grasses, minerals, squirrels and deer. We have been monkeys and one-celled animals and all these generations of ancestors are present in each cell of our body as well as our mind and we are the continuation of this stream of life. Therefore, when we hear the bell, it is not a separate "I" which is listening to the bell, but it is the stream, the vast stream of life, and this is the practice of no-self. We talk a lot about no-self. We could talk about it very fluently but we don’t practice no-self, we just talk about it. When we hear the sound of the bell and we allow all the generations of ancestors and all our descendants, which are already present in our body, to hear it also then we are experiencing the reality of no-self which the Buddha taught. No-self is not some vague idea, but it is a reality which we carry in our very person and we only need to listen properly to the bell and we can go beyond the shell of self. We can go beyond the prison of the idea of a separate self and we allow the sound of the bell to penetrate every generation of the past and the future which is in us.

[...]

When we take a step on the green grass of spring, we walk in such a way that allows all our ancestors to take a step with us. Our peace, our joy, our freedom, which are in each step, penetrate each generation of our ancestors and each generation of our descendants. If we can walk like that, that is a step taken in the highest dhyana. When we take one step we see hundreds and thousands of ancestors and descendants taking a step with us, and when we take a breath we are light, at ease, calm. We breathe in such a way that all the generations of ancestors are breathing with us and all the generations of our descendants are also breathing with us... if we breathe like that, only then are we breathing according to the highest teachings. We just need a little mindfulness, a little concentration and then we can look deeply and see. At first we use the method of visualization and we see, as we walk, all the ancestors putting their foot down as we put our foot down, and gradually we don’t need to visualize any more – each step we take, we see that that step is the step of all people in the past.

When you are cooking a dish of food - something you have learnt from your mother or your father, a dish that has been handed down through generations of your family – you should look at your hand and smile because this hand is the hand of your mother, the hand of your grand-mother. Those who have made this dish are making this dish now and that is the truth! We are not the inventors of this dish, we are just continuing. We see our mothers hand, our grand-mothers hand, and the hands of all our ancestors making this dish. When we are in the kitchen cooking, we can realize the highest teachings – we don’t have to go into the meditation hall to practice this. We have so many opportunities, the problem is – do we know how to make the most of them? We have our teacher, we have our Sangha, we have our dharma teachings, we have all the conditions that are necessary to do this and we should use these opportunities. This is not a theory, this is real experience of our daily life... it is real life.

In the past, your grandfather – did he play volleyball? No, he didn’t, because in those days they didn’t have volleyball... Did your grandmother go jogging every day? Did your grand-mother have the opportunity to practice dwelling in the present moment while she was walking... while she was running? When we are running we should allow our grandmother to run in us, and it is the truth that your grandmother is running in you. She is in each cell of your body. You carry all your ancestors in you when jogging, when doing walking meditation and when you are realizing the practice of dwelling happily in the present moment. Maybe other generations didn’t have the opportunity to practice like this. Now we have the opportunity. We have received the practice as taught by our teachers and when we do that practice we bring happiness and joy to countless generations of ancestors, whether we’re practicing walking, running, or breathing.


Thich Nhat Hanh, excerpt from We are our Ancestors and The Sutra on Measuring and Reflecting, Dharma Talk given at 26th of March 1998, New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

To read the entire talk please refer to:
http://www.plumvillage.org/dharmatalks/html/weareourancestors.html

Photo: The Royal Cloister (Claustro Real) in the Batalha Monastery, Portugal © Antonio Sacchetti

dissolve among things

When I ask Phap An about the meaning of love, he says, “When your eyes are open, the love happens. Love is a state of mind where you are very bright, very clear. There is connectivity between you and the rest of the universe. It is a source of energy that makes you dissolve among things. Slowly a process of opening begins, your mind begins to expand, and you begin to see things much more clearly. You hear the sound of bird chirping and you see the green on the bamboo. You feel a lot of energy to be alive. That is love. It gives you the energy to serve. You feel your life is very wonderful. That is spiritual love.”

I love asking about love, now that I’m in love. I ask Sister Chan Khong what love is, and her response is so beautiful I am in tears. She speaks from such a deep place of knowing, with a sweet, soft, strong voice. Sweet as a flower and strong as a lion. She says that we need to love a person the way we love a tree – not just the surface, not just the branches or the trunk, but also the roots. We need to know all of them – their ancestors, their family, their friends, their dreams. This is all part of who they are. What is it that really matters to them? A lover always offers joy and eases suffering.

Excerpt from I Am Home by Velcrow Ripper, who reports on Thich Nhat Hanh’s historic second trip home to Vietnam, in 2007. To read the entire text please refer to:
http://www.plumvillage.org/pressrelease/pressrelease.html

Photo: Sister Chan Kong in a school at Buong Dang, Vietnam, March 5th 2007 ©David Nelson

Photos taken by David Nelson can be seen on
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rezdog/sets/72157594580266211/

a practice infused with love

By the middle of the trip, I am in love. I can barely contain myself during the mindful walking meditations – it feels like mindful skipping. Fortunately, being with the Plum Village sangha is a safe place for a lover. No one thinks I’m crazy if I smile a little too widely. It feels like everything is in sync. To me, every chirp of a bird is a love song right now.

When I watch Thay as he leads the morning walking meditations, I sense that his heart is blown wide open. His brand of Zen Buddhism is far removed from the stick-thwacking, koan-churning stereotype of Zen. His is a practice infused with love, in all its dimensions. You can see it running through his students. The sangha beams with love and smiles. Even when Thay is not around, I am still imbibing his teachings, transmitted with authenticity by his students. This is not a grim, repressed bunch of monks and nuns, fearers of life hiding out in the security of the monastery. These people are engaged; they’re living fully, in this moment, freely sharing their findings with the rest of us.

Phap An, one of Thay’s senior monks, says that before he met Thay he spent years meditating on a deceptively simple koan: Who am I? It became an obsession: Who am I lifting this arm? Who am I taking this step? Who am I moving through space? Then he met Thay and discovered meditation in action. He dropped the philosophy and started living, being fully alive. There is some formal meditation at Plum Village, but not a lot. More important is how you live life. How you fully show up. It’s not about analyzing yourself into enlightenment. It’s about being, now. Now. Now. Now.




Excerpt from I Am Home by Velcrow Ripper, who reports on Thich Nhat Hanh’s historic second trip home to Vietnam, in 2007. To read the entire text please refer to:
http://www.plumvillage.org/pressrelease/pressrelease.html

Photos: top, Thay and the sangha just before the walking meditation at Tu Hieu, Vietnam, March 29 2007 © David Nelson; bottom, walking meditation towards Son Ha Monastery, Plum Village, France, June 2006 © Richard & Joanne Friday

To see more pictures from Thay's 2007 Vietnam pilgrimage, please refer to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rezdog/sets/72157594580266211/

not pleasant yet wonderful

This is from one Question and Answer Session with Thich Nhat Hanh on 20th of July 1998, in Plum Village:

(Thay reads a question.) I hear you say that the present moment is a wonderful moment. What if the present moment is just despair... a desert of emptiness and loneliness, meaninglessness, sickness, a feeling of loss and despair? Most of the time when I stop I find myself there.

When the Buddha gave his first Dharma talk, he spoke about ill being, dukkha. Of course the feeling of loneliness, meaninglessness, sickness, despair, all belong to dukkha, ill being. The Buddha talked about it first of all. That was the first topic of his Dharma talk. According to the spirit of that Dharma talk, you should not try to run away from your ill being, try to escape, because if you do, you have no chance to get out of it. If you know how to embrace your pain and look deeply into it, and if you really care to look deeply, you will find out how it has come to be: the roots of your ill-being. And only with that kind of insight will you be able to get out of the situation. Therefore the attitude of running away from your suffering is not a wise attitude. In fact the first truth, namely, ill being, suffering, has been described as a holy truth, because the first Dharma talk given by the Buddha was about the Four Holy Truths. First of all, ill being. The second truth is the cause, the roots of ill being. The third truth is the possibility of overcoming ill being and restoring well being, and the fourth is the way out of ill being and arriving at well being. Not only are the two last truths described as holy, but also the first one and the second one. Why do we call pain and suffering a holy truth? It is because, thanks to it, we can find the way to overcome suffering and ill being.

If we know how to handle our suffering, then we can learn a lot from it and we can discover the way out. But if we don’t know how to handle it, we will be overwhelmed by it, crushed by it, and the only thing we will want is to get away from it. But how to get away? That is why even suffering is described as holy, wonderful. "Wonderful" does not mean pleasant alone. "Wonderful" means that there is a depth that we have to discover, and that looking into this, we can discover that also. The fact is that happiness is not possible without suffering. Those of us who have not experienced any kind of suffering would not be capable of identifying happiness, this is my experience. If you have never been hungry in your life, you do not know exactly the joy of having something to eat. If you have not suffered as a homeless person, you would not be able to identify the joy of someone who has a house to live in. That is why happiness cannot be identified without the background of suffering. That is why when someone says, "Come with me—I will show you a place where there is only happiness," please don’t believe him or her. Without the background and the remembrance of suffering, of pain, you cannot enjoy the happiness you are having now. That is why not only happiness is wonderful, but your non-happiness is also wonderful.

Suppose you have a depression and you want to get away from it. How can you get away from it? You have to embrace it and look deeply into it and identify the causes that have brought it to you. Then you can learn from your depression, and then you can enjoy the non-depression, the well being that you can afford to have. If you know how to cut the source of nutriment that has brought on your depression, then you are on your way to emancipation, and you begin to enjoy your non-depression. It is like your toothache. I hope that in this moment you don’t have a toothache, yet you don’t enjoy your non-toothache until you have a toothache. Suffering from your toothache you get enlightened: you say: "It’s wonderful not to have a toothache." So, how to enjoy your non-toothache? Just remember the time when you had a toothache. Suffering plays a very important role in helping you to be happy. That is why even what you call suffering, loneliness, meaninglessness, sadness, fear and despair can be wonderful, because it is thanks to them that you have an opportunity to discover what freedom, stability, friendship, interbeing and love are.

So let us not run away from our garbage; we should learn the art of making compost. Using that compost we will grow a lot of flowers. Don’t think that without compost you can have flowers. That is an illusion. You can have flowers only with compost. That is the insight of interbeing — look into the flower and you will see the compost. If you remove the compost that became the flower, the flower will disappear also. What you are looking for, freedom, joy, and stability, you know that suffering plays a very important role in it. So be aware that we cannot just run away from our problems. In fact, we have to go back to our problems. The practice of calming, of concentrating, of embracing, of looking deeply into the nature of our pain, is absolutely necessary for us to get the transformation, the healing that we need so much.

Foto: Thich Nhat Hanh portrait © Plum Village site

eating impressions

Secondly, there is the food called "sense impressions." This food comes through our eyes, our ears, our nose, our body and our mind. When you cross the city or the town, images hit you, sounds hit you, and this is called the food of sense impression: sight, smell, touch, and thought. When you look at television you are consuming. When you read a book, you are consuming. And among the things you consume, there are poisons and toxins. You should be aware, and be able to identify poisons and toxins in what you consume, by your eyes, by your ears, and by your nose. And each time you expose yourself to images, sounds, smells, thoughts which destroy you, you are …We are always consuming by means of our six senses.

Remember how one time you talked to someone for an hour, and the conversation was so poisonous, that after talking you felt completely paralyzed? You were filled with the despair and violence expressed in that conversation, and during that hour when you listened to that person, you consumed many poisons. It was not a good consumption. In our daily lives, besides edible food, we take a lot of sense impression food, and we expose ourselves to all kinds of toxins. We read an article in the newspaper, we look at a film, and that is consuming. If you are subject to depression, if you are subject to despair, if you no longer want to live, that is because you have consumed without mindfulness. You’ve consumed just anything that comes your way. We can talk about these products as products of culture. Our children also consume violence, fear, and despair every day when they watch television. The Buddha has warned us against this: he has told us to take care of our six senses, look with mindfulness, listen with mindfulness, consume sense impressions through eyes and ears with mindfulness, and do not allow the toxins to come to you. You should look deeply to be able to recognize and to decide whether to should ingest this or not.

I have told you that the first element of Buddhist meditation is to stop, and now I am going to talk about the other element, which is called "looking deeply." When you have practiced stopping, you are really there, and you can look at the food, you can look at everything you consume with your ears, your eyes, your body, with your mind, because thoughts and ideas are also products which we consume. Looking deeply is something we can do when we stop. If we continue to run, how can we look deeply? We have to stop first of all, and then we can start looking, looking into what is facing us, what is before us, and we are talking now about the things which we consume. We allow our children to poison themselves every day with cultural products, and we ourselves consume without mindfulness. If we are depressed, if we are in despair, it is because of something we have consumed.

The Buddha said, "Look at the nature of what happens to you, and if you can identify the source of nourishment which has brought that about, then you are already liberated." And the Buddha is talking about food. It’s because you have consumed this or that, that you are suffering now, from depression, despair, and pain, and that does not come on its own, just like that, it comes from your consumption without mindfulness. To practice mindfulness is to be able to distinguish what is good for your organism, whether it is your physical organism or your mental organism, from what is bad for you. And this is something we practice on our own, with our family and with our Sangha. Looking deeply we have to say, "This is not good for me," or "This is not good for us." And that is why I said that the therapist is also a restaurateur, a cook, who should only offer healthy food to his customers. When you come to Plum Village, we are cooks at your service. We are determined to offer you only healthy food: walking meditation so that you can stop and touch the positive things in life, sitting meditation so you can cultivate more solidity, silence so that you have more time to look deeply into what is happening. Practitioners who live with us, who have a certain amount of joy, compassion and solidity, are supporting you in your practice. These are all foods that we need to help us.

A therapist needs to be a cook, a restaurateur, who can restore your mental and physical health. That is why the Buddha taught us that before eating we have to practice the Five Contemplations: "This food is the gift of the earth and the sky. It is the gift of the whole universe. I am determined to live in a way that makes me worthy of receiving this food." What does that mean, "to be worthy?" To be worthy of the food means to eat it in mindfulness, you know what you are eating. Eat, and be aware of what you are eating; that is to practice mindfulness while you are eating, and it makes you worthy to receive the food. And if you eat in mindfulness, you know exactly what you can swallow, and exactly what you should not swallow.

What is mindfulness? It is Buddha in you, it is the energy which makes you present in the moment, which helps you to see things as they really are, and that is why you will not wander into confusion, into wrongdoing towards yourself and towards others. For we who practice Buddhism, mindfulness is the Buddha himself. Each one of us has a seed of mindfulness in us, and each day we practice will help this seed of mindfulness to develop.

All of us are able to be aware of everything which is happening. When you drink a glass of water, you can always drink that in mindfulness. "I drink and I am aware that I am drinking water." When you walk, you can walk in mindfulness. You all have that capacity. The only thing is, do you want to do it, or not? It is sure that you have the capacity to be aware of everything that happens. You can breathe mindfully, you can walk mindfully, you can sit mindfully, and this will give you the energy called mindfulness, which will help you see clearly the way things are, and thanks to that, we will be able to know what we should consume, and what we should not consume.



from the Dharma Talk on Mindful Consumption given by Thich Nhat Hanh on July 17, 1998 in Plum Village, France.

http://www.plumvillage.org/

Photo: brother Phap Doh eating his salad in a green ocean of peace, Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, The Breath of the Buddha Retreat, June 2006 ©Richard&Joanne Friday