Dear Thay,
How do we deal with regrets at the end of our life?
The As human beings,
We all make mistakes.
Especially when we were young,
Without a lot of mindfulness and understanding,
Without skillfulness,
We have made people we love suffer,
And we have made ourselves suffer.
And now as our life is drawing to a so-called end,
I don't believe there is an end to life.
That is the building of another phase,
Vipaka,
Retribution,
Continuation.
The fact is that with mindfulness and understanding,
We can recognize the unskillful things we have done,
We have said in the past.
And all these are still fully present in us and in the world.
That is the practice of beginning anew is needed.
The practice of beginning anew starts with the awakening that we have done something negative,
Regrettable.
And the ground of that action,
Of that speech,
Was our mind.
Our mind lacking understanding and compassion.
But now,
Basing on the mind,
On our mind in the present moment,
We can do something in order to neutralize the things that we have done in the past,
Neutralize the past karma.
Neutralize the things that we have done in the past,
Neutralize the past karma.
And if you know the way,
Well,
It can be done very quickly,
Every day,
To neutralize the negative things in the past and to transform them into something beautiful.
That is for the sake of our continuation,
And the continuation of our children and so on.
Awakening mindfulness helps us to recognize the wrong doing of the past.
And the willingness to act,
The desire to continue in a beautiful way,
Give us enough energy in order to practice beginning anew.
The wrong thing done in the past is still there.
It is still there in us with a wound.
And if we don't do anything,
That wound,
That pain,
Still continues.
Suppose in the past you said something unkind to our mother.
We really should not have said such a thing to her.
But we have done it,
So now we regret.
And our mother is no longer there for us to apologize.
But still something is possible.
With the practice of deep looking,
You recognize the wound and the suffering in yourself.
Your mother is still in you with the suffering,
And you are also there in yourself,
Your body.
So with that kind of enlightenment,
You breathe in,
And you see your mother,
And you say,
Sorry,
Mommy,
Sorry I have said that in the past to you.
I am determined not to do it again.
Please believe me,
From now on,
It will not happen again.
And your mother in you will hear that right away.
And you can see her smiling inside every cell of your body.
And the wound begins to heal very quickly in the present moment.
They say that you cannot go back to the past and fix the past.
But in this teaching and practice,
You can.
You can go back to the past and fix the wrong thing you have done in the past.
Because what?
Because the past is still there,
Disguised as the present moment.
And if you know how to touch the present moment deep enough,
You touch the past.
And that is why you can mend the cut,
You can heal the wound.
Right here and right now.
Because everything comes from the mind.
The wrong mind has created the wound,
And now the right mind is healing the wound.
And the moment when you are determined not to do like that again in the future,
Well,
The wound begins to heal very quickly.
And you have peace and all complexes of guilt will be gone.
You become a Bodhisattva.
You are going to do many things for the sake of people now and in the future,
In terms of understanding and compassion.
And the powerful energy can heal you very quickly.
And you will continue in that direction.
So the practice of beginning anew,
Proposed by the Buddha,
Is very,
Very effective.
If you practice according to what is proposed in touching the Earth,
I'm sure that you will be able to transform every negative thing.
And you will see a very bright path in front of you.
And you will be able to help many people,
Including the people you have done wrong in the past.
And they will be your allies.
And one hour of practice of beginning anew can already heal.
And you have a new life in front of you.
Whether that is ten years,
Or five years,
Or one year,
Or one day,
That is a new life.
And who knows how long we shall continue.
How long we shall continue.
Many young people can die before us.
