Joy And Ease

Breathing in,

I invite the Buddha to sit with my back.

Breathing out,

I invite the Lord Buddha to breathe with my lungs.

Buddha sitting with my back,

Buddha breathing with my lungs.

Bell Bell Bell Buddha is sitting,

Buddha is breathing,

Buddha is smiling.

I enjoy the sitting,

I enjoy the breathing,

I enjoy the smiling.

Buddha is sitting,

Buddha is breathing,

I don't have to sit,

I don't have to breathe,

I let him do.

Buddha is sitting,

I enjoy the sitting.

Buddha is breathing,

I enjoy the breathing.

Bell Good morning dear friends.

Today is May the 7th,

The year 2008,

And we are in Hanoi.

For our retreat,

Engage Buddhism in the 21st Century,

And this is the third day of our retreat.

I hope you enjoy walking,

And when we walk together,

We should not go too slowly.

When we breathe in,

We may like to make two steps or three.

We walk normally.

And when you breathe in,

You may say,

Every step,

And when you breathe out,

You may say,

Is life.

Every step is life.

Touch life.

And when you feel that you are successful in touching life and the wonders,

You change the words,

Every step is a miracle.

Every step is a miracle.

And you touch the miracles of walking on Earth.

We are disciples of a Zen master whose name is Linji,

And he said that the miracle is not to walk on thin air,

But to walk on Earth.

The miracle is walking on Earth,

Dear Han Thanh Thong.

And we enjoy performing a miracle while walking.

It's so wonderful to be alive and to be walking on this planet.

Every step is a miracle.

So we should enjoy every step.

And not only when we walk together that we practice like that,

But when we are alone,

We also apply this art of walking.

Every step should be a miracle.

And mindfulness makes it possible that every step helps us to touch the wonders of life.

Every step becomes a miracle.

We are performing miracles at every moment.

And then we move to the third sentence.

Every step is healing.

Every step is healing.

Mỗi bước chân là tỷ liều.

And we feel the healing taking place.

This is not auto-suggestion.

This is the real feeling that if you walk relaxingly,

Peacefully like that,

Healing is every step.

And then the fourth sentence.

Every step is freedom.

Every step is freedom.

We walk like a Buddha.

We are free from our afflictions,

Our fear,

Our anger,

Because we are in the Kingdom of God.

We are in the Pure Land of the Buddha to enjoy every step.

The French writer André Gide said that God is happiness.

Dieu est bonheur.

And God is available 24 hours a day.

Dieu est disponible 24 heures sur 24.

And if God is available 24 hours a day,

His Kingdom is also available to us 24 hours a day.

So make ourselves available to the Kingdom and enjoy walking in the Kingdom every day.

There is no day when I do not enjoy walking in the Kingdom.

And I want my friends to do the same.

The Kingdom is available.

If you have some freedom in your heart,

You have mindfulness,

Concentration,

You can enjoy the Kingdom in the here and the now.

You enjoy the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha.

Not every step.

The Pure Land is now or never.

So when we walk together as a group,

As a sangha,

There will be no distance between,

No big distance between us.

We adapt the same kind of speed.

So we go like a river and that emanates a powerful energy that will penetrate in every one of us.

And people see us walking like that,

They will be penetrated by our peace,

Our joy.

Maybe we can do some walking meditation around the whole Huan Kiem,

The lake of the restoration of the sword,

And enjoy the lake.

In Buddhism we learn of elements,

Factors of enlightenment.

Buddhism is about enlightenment.

Mindfulness is already enlightenment.

When we are aware of what is going on,

We are awake.

We don't live like in a dream anymore.

So mindfulness makes it possible that we get enlightenment every moment.

When I breathe in and I know that I am breathing in,

That is already enlightenment.

Enlightenment is always enlightenment about something.

And in this case,

I breathe in and I know I am breathing in.

And when you walk,

You become aware of every step.

So mindfulness makes it possible for you to be enlightened on the fact that you are alive,

You are walking on Earth.

So enlightenment is not something very far away.

In the teaching of the Buddha,

We heard of the seven factors of enlightenment.

Mindfulness is one of these factors.

Concentration is one of these factors.

And you may be surprised to hear that joy is one of the seven factors of enlightenment.

Without joy,

You cannot get enlightenment.

And enlightenment is joy itself.

So when you are aware of your breath,

Your step,

You are enlightened.

You are awake and you enjoy yourself.

You enjoy your time of being there on Earth.

You enjoy your steps.

You enjoy your breath.

You enjoy the Pure Land of the Buddha.

You enjoy the Kingdom of God.

So joy is one factor of enlightenment.

The practice of Buddhism should include joy.

If you have no joy in the practice,

That's not what the Buddha wants us to do.

Another factor of enlightenment is light,

Being light,

Being peaceful.

If you don't have the lightness in yourself,

If you don't have peace in yourself,

There is no enlightenment.

Pali is the term in Pali.

And it is translated as Kinh An in Vietnamese.

Kinh means light and An means peace.

So it is.

.

.

If you are light,

You feel peace.

Peaceful.

So feeling light,

Feeling peaceful,

Feeling relaxed,

Is a factor of enlightenment.

And let us go back to the Four Noble Truths.

The first truth is ill-being.

And yesterday we have agreed with each other that the first aspect of ill-being that we feel is the tension,

The stress,

The heaviness in our body,

In our mind.

So tension,

Stress,

Heaviness in our body and in our mind,

That's part of ill-being.

And we know that the third noble truth is the cessation of ill-being.

The cessation of ill-being means the presence of well-being.

Like the absence of darkness means the presence of light.

When ignorance is no longer there,

Wisdom is there.

When you remove darkness,

What is there is light.

So the cessation of ill-being means the presence of well-being.

And that is the truth that is opposite to the first noble truth.

So the third noble truth,

Instead of calling it cessation of ill-being,

You may like to call it well-being.

And I think Dharma teacher of our time should use the word well-being to make it more positive.

They are the same thing.

So the teaching of the Buddha confirms the truth that well-being is possible.

Because there is ill-being,

That is why well-being is possible.

And if ill-being is described first in terms of attention,

Stress and heaviness,

Well-being first is described in terms of lightness and peace.

Relaxation.

La détente.

Relaxation.

Lightness.

Peace.

And with your body,

With your breath,

With your feet,

And with your mindfulness,

You can reduce the stress,

You can reduce the tension,

And you bring about the relaxation,

The lightness,

The peace.

So the four noble truths can be spoken in very concrete terms.

And we have ways,

We have the methods of practice so that we can reduce tension,

Stress and heaviness.

And that should be seen in the fourth noble truth,

The path.

The path leading to the cessation of ill-being.

But now modern Dharma teachers would like to call the fourth noble truth the path of well-being.

It's the same.

The cessation of ill-being means the beginning of well-being.

It's so simple.

And the Buddha always reminds us of that.

When he speaks of ignorance,

Avidya,

He said that there is ignorance,

There is wrong perception,

There is delusion,

Avidya.

But you can remove avidya,

You can remove delusion,

You can remove ignorance.

The destruction of ignorance,

The extinction of ignorance,

Brings about the birth of wisdom,

Of light.

So when avidya,

When ignorance is no longer there,

Enlightenment,

Wisdom,

Insight is there.

So it's very clear that when darkness is no longer there,

Something else must be there.

And that something else is light.

When ill-being is not there,

Something else should be there,

And that is well-being.

So who says that the teaching of the Buddha is pessimistic?

He confirms that happiness is possible.

Well-being is possible.

And you can make it.

You can do it.

So when we talk about the fourth noble path in terms of well-being,

And then the path is the path of well-being,

And that is a noble path.

So the path of well-being.

The Buddha proposed exercises that can reduce the tension,

That can release the tension,

That can bring lightness and peace into our body and our mind.

And that is included in the path.

We know that the Buddha gave us very concrete practices.

If you study,

For instance,

The sutra on the mindfulness of breathing,

You see that the sixteenth exercise proposed by the Buddha is very scientific in its presentation.

The first exercise,

Breathing in,

I know this is my in-breath.

Breathing out,

I know this is my out-breath.

The second,

Breathing in,

I follow my in-breath all the way through.

Breathing out,

I follow my out-breath all the way through.

So when you practice like that,

You become your in-breath,

Your out-breath,

And you are detached from the past,

From the future,

From your projects.

And the in-breath and out-breath bring relaxation,

Concentration,

Life into your body and into your mind.

And that is already the beginning of well-being.

And in the third exercise,

The Buddha proposed,

Breathing in,

I am aware of my whole body.

First,

You go back to your breath,

Which is a part of your body.

And then second,

You go back to your body by the way of the breath,

The royal way of going home.

That's your in-breath.

And the fourth exercise,

Breathing in,

I release the tension in my body.

I think all of us who live in this 21st century have to practice these exercises,

Whether we call ourselves a Buddhist or not.

Because all of us are victims of stress and tension and hectic life.

And these exercises can be done in the sitting position or lying position.

We can survive with these exercises.

And doctors,

Nurses,

School teachers have to practice in order to keep them fresh,

Available,

So that they can help others to do the same.

And that is about dealing with the body.

When we come to the realm of feelings,

The Buddha proposed very much the same thing.

And the seventh exercise,

Breathing in,

I am aware of the feeling in me,

Or the painful feeling in me,

Or the painful emotion in me,

Like fear,

Anger.

Mindfulness is used in order to recognize and embrace that painful emotion,

Our feelings.

We have to take care of ourselves.

We have to take care of our feelings and emotions.

We have to not let our feelings and our emotions destroy us and push us to do things that will be devastating,

Destructive.

And generating the energy of mindfulness to recognize your painful feelings and emotions is a very important practice.

And the eighth exercise of mindful breathing is to release the tension in your feelings,

In your emotions.

Because you know how to embrace tenderly your emotions,

Your painful feelings in mindfulness.

You are doing like a mother holding her child,

And you release the tension in that feeling,

In that emotion,

And you get a relief.

You can see the compassion of the Buddha in these exercises.

He knows the human being quite well.

And his teachings,

Dated from 2600 years ago,

Are still very relevant to our time,

Even more relevant to our time.

That is why when you speak about the path of well-being,

You should include first of all the practice that can reduce the tension,

The stress,

The heaviness.

And this is our daily practice.

If parents and teachers practice,

Then they will be able to help their children practice.

And if you are the minister of education,

I suggest that you bring that kind of training and learning into the school,

Into school.

Elementary school already,

You have to teach the children how to do it,

How to relax.

And you can imagine the school teacher leading a session of total relaxation to their children.

It's very beautiful.

And two years ago when I spoke at UNESCO in Paris,

I proposed that UNESCO set up a school of peace.

So that people can come,

School teachers and others can come to learn these kinds of techniques.

And in Plum Village we can volunteer to come and teach without salary.

So when we look at the first noble truth,

Ill-being,

We recognize different aspects of ill-being.

And then we wish that we can stop ill-being in order to stop well-being.

And since we look deeply into the first noble truth,

Ill-being,

We discover the second noble truth,

Which is the making of ill-being.

The making of ill-being or the path leading to ill-being.

This is also a path.

But this path leads to well-being.

This is also a path.

But this is a path leading to ill-being.

And many of us are treading this path.

We are getting ill-being every day by the way we consume,

By the way we work,

By the way we deal with each other.

The path leading to the cessation of ill-being,

Now we call it the path leading to well-being,

It is called a noble path.

And this is not so noble,

We call it the ignoble path.

The ignoble path that leads to ill-being.

And this is the noble path leading to well-being.

So if tension,

Stress and heaviness are here,

We know that hectic life,

Deadlines and so on,

Are at the root of this kind of ill-being.

So we discover.

Every one of us can sit down and describe the Four Noble Truths as we experience them.

We touch the suffering in us,

And we describe,

We make a list of our suffering,

Of the suffering around us,

And we have an image of the First Noble Truth.

And then when we look deeply,

We discover the Second Noble Truth.

We see the roots.

If we don't see the roots,

We cannot find a path.

Buddha confirms that the cessation of ill-being,

The well-being,

Is possible.

So this is the good news.

And we know that it is possible,

The healing,

The transformation is possible.

And that is why learning about the first and the second path,

The third path,

We see the path of well-being manifested in front of us very clearly.

If the truth of ill-being includes conflict,

War,

Anger,

Hate,

We can put the opposite of these things in the Third Noble Truth.

If there is conflict here,

Then there should be reconciliation here.

If there is anger here,

There should be compassion here.

If there is the blocking of communication,

We have good communication here.

When there is good communication,

We can help each other remove wrong perceptions.

Wrong perceptions are woman,

Ignorance,

Delusion.

Here is insight.

And we can see that in the path we have the practice of listening deeply with compassion in order to understand,

And using loving speech in order to restore communication.

And that is part of the path.

The path cannot be detached from the other truth.

You can only see the path through the Fourth Noble Truth,

Through the three other noble truths.

So the third is the opposite of the first.

And looking into the Second Noble Truth,

We can see the path leading to the cessation of ill-being and the beginning of well-being.

You don't need to be a scholar.

You only need to be a practitioner in order to present the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha in the most concrete,

Effective and clear way.

Because we all have experienced ill-being and suffering.

We just look deeply,

We just mention all aspects of our ill-being.

And then if we look deeply into these sources of ill-being,

We discover the Second Noble Truth.

And then the path begins to appear very,

Very clearly.

We can come together as a group of five or ten.

And we can share about the truth of ill-being.

And one person will write down the aspects of ill-being on a sheet of paper.

Because we are using our practice of looking deeply,

Collectively,

In order to teach sitting.

Tell people,

Tell the people sitting together,

Using concentration,

Mindfulness and looking in order to discover the truth of ill-being.

And one person will write it down.

And then we come to the second truth,

The truth of the making of ill-being.

We must have lived in such a way that this ill-being has come to us.

And we must have described the way we have done in order to make this ill-being a reality.

So one person will write down how these aspects of ill-being have come into existence.

And this is the newest version of the Four Noble Truths.

And the Buddha expects us to do that.

Because in his time,

The list should be different.

The suffering of his time should be different.

But the suffering of our time is not the same.

We need a description of the Four Noble Truths very clear.

Very clear.

And our practice will be based on that description of the Four Noble Truths.

There is nothing mystical here.

Everything is clear.

Everything can be described in a scientific way.

And when you have come up with a beautiful description of the Four Noble Truths,

Please share with us.

And we will combine all the best kinds of sharing in order to make a Dharma book for the new generation of practitioners.

The Sangha should do it.

We have to help the Buddha.

You are the continuation of the Buddha.

You should help the Buddha.

You should present the teaching of Buddhism in such a way that will be relevant to our time,

To the younger generation.

And we should use our intelligence,

Our wisdom,

Our art in order to do so.

Helping the Buddha,

You are very kind.

To have the intention to help the Buddha.

If you don't help the Buddha,

Who will?

Be nice to impossible people like him.

.

Gong Ahoj veyeo me' pha' ugo哪怕呢。