So this is from Thich Nhat Hanh.
Teaching is not done by talking alone.
It is done by how you live your life.
My life is my teaching.
My life is my message.
And this message continues.
It's a teaching that points back to ourself.
My life is my teaching.
Imagine living your life with this message.
How would you live if your life is the message?
Your life is your teaching.
So this week I want to explore and celebrate the life of Thich Nhat Hanh.
By sharing some of his teachings,
Honoring his teachings.
Last week we talked a little bit about moral courage and the life and work of Dr.
King.
And what's interesting is that Dr.
King and Thich Nhat Hanh were influenced by each other.
The civil rights movement had a really big impact on Thich Nhat Hanh.
So much so that after being in the US in the early 60s,
He returned to Vietnam and dedicated himself to anti-war and social service work until he was exiled from his government around,
I think it was around 1964.
And Thich Nhat Hanh,
He suffered a lot,
You know,
And he openly talked about suffering,
His suffering and suffering in the world.
And he wrote poems about it.
There was one in the New York Times in his obituary called Condemnation.
It was an excerpt.
I'll read it to you.
Whoever is listening,
Be my witness.
I cannot accept this war.
I never could.
I never will.
I must say this a thousand times before I am killed.
I am like the bird who dies for the sake of its mate,
Dripping blood from its broken beak and crying out.
Beware,
Turn around and face your real enemies.
Ambition,
Violence,
Hatred and greed.
What the times left out was this last important line.
Humans are not our enemy,
Even those called Viet Cong.
If we kill our brothers and sisters,
What will we have left?
With whom then shall we live?
So Thich Nhat Hanh died on Saturday and his life was teaching.
His life was the message and the message hasn't died with the death of his body.
That message continues.
He's still very much alive in his teaching.
He lives in us in the books that we've read by him,
Something that he wrote or said that touched us.
These teachings that he shared and demonstrated in his actions,
They point back to ourselves.
He was really an innovative teacher.
Not only had he written,
I think,
A hundred books,
He coined the phrase,
Engaged Buddhism.
And this engaged Buddhism is really the teaching that I want to explore with you.
Engaged Buddhism is where practitioners,
Buddhist practitioners bring their practice wisdom and the insights from meditation and Dharma teachings into the world.
Here's what Thay had to say about it.
Thay is the affectionate name that his students gave Thich Nhat Hanh.
It means teacher,
Thay.
Here's what he wrote about engaged Buddhist practice.
When I was in Vietnam,
So many of our villages were being bombed.
Along with my monastic brothers and sisters,
I had to decide what to do.
Should we continue to practice in our monasteries or should we leave the meditation halls in order to help the people who were suffering under the bombs?
After a careful reflection,
We decided to do both.
To go out and help people and to do so in mindfulness.
We called it engaged Buddhism.
Mindfulness must be engaged.
Once there is singing,
There must be acting.
We must be aware of the real problems of the world.
And with mindfulness,
We will know what to do and what not to do to be of help.
Once there is singing,
There must be acting.
So how do we apply these teachings in our daily life?
This has been my entire offering over these years together.
Applying these teachings in our daily life.
So in the Plum Village tradition,
The meditation that I offered,
The core teachings and practice is mindfulness of breathing just in the way that I shared with you.
Breathing in,
Aware I'm breathing in.
Breathing out,
Aware I'm breathing out.
And Thay said that it doesn't matter if you're Buddhist or Jewish or Christian or agnostic or atheist.
As long as you're breathing,
You have a spiritual dimension and you can practice.
Because when you breathe in,
Your mind comes back to your body.
And with mindfulness then you become fully aware that you're alive.
So he says in this way,
You are a miracle.
And everything you touch could be a miracle.
Everything becomes wonder.
And the wonders of life,
You know,
They're available only here and now.
And all we need to do to experience them is breathe in and breathe out.
To be fully present.
To get in touch with these things.
And this is the way that we can meet our suffering.
Our practice is not running away from suffering anymore.
To make use of it in order to build peace within us and bring it forward.
Thay talks about suffering like growing a lotus flower.
You know,
You can't grow a lotus flower in a well-cultivated soil.
You have to grow them in mud.
No mud,
No lotus.
Without suffering,
There's no way to learn how to be understanding and compassionate.
That's a powerful understanding.
So I think I'll stop here today and take some comments and questions.
And we'll continue to explore engaged Buddhist practice and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh for the rest of the week.
So thank you.
Let's open it up for comments and questions now.
