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This Dharma Talk was recorded on the 6th of June 2023, in Lower Hamlet, Plum Village France, as part of the retreat “Finding our True Home”.

“Let the Buddha breathe, I don’t need to breathe”. Can we take refuge in our Buddha nature when times are hard? If we can manage to find some peace within, we become a solid refuge for ourselves, our loved ones and the world. this Dharma Talk was recorded on 11th May 2023 in the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village France.

“Compassion is the intention and the capacity to relieve suffering in the world.” This dharma talk was given on Thursday, 8 June in Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, during a retreat for young people who have grown up away from home.

Where is our true home? Is it a particular place with particular people within a particular culture? What if we had to leave our “home”? Or lost the people we held most dear? Or grew up in a culture vastly different to that of our parents’? In this deeply moving talk, Sister Dinh Nghiem (“Adornment with Concentration”) shares her experience as a child of a refugee family, the death of her father, finding Thay as her teacher and touching peace in the practice of dwelling truly in the present moment. The talk was given as part of a themed retreat for young people of Asian heritage who were born or grew up in the west. __________________________________________________________________ this talk was recorded in Lower Hamlet, Plum Village France on 4th June 2023.

Freedom is possible with our mindful breathing and mindful walking. Breathe in and focus your attention on your in-breath. Your in-breath becomes the only object of your mind, you are concentrated on your in-breath, you are mindful of your in-breath. You release the past, the future and your worries and you become a free person. If you want to keep that freedom, you can breathe out mindfully. Breathing out, you focus your concentration on your out-breath. One breath can bring you home to ther here and the now. One step can also bring you home to the here and the now. From the parking lot to the office, you may like to walk in such a way that every step release the tension in your body. Every step bring you home to the here and the now so you can touch the wonders of life available in you and around you. The seventh exercise of mindful breathing is to recognize the painful feeling in us. Breathing in, I am aware of the painful feeling in me. Breathing out, I smile to the painful feeling in me. The eighth exercise is to calm down the painful feeling. Mindfulness is like a mother holding the child of suffering. The first thing you do is to use the energy of mindfulness to recognize the painful feeling. The second thing is to use mindfulness to embrace the painful feeling tenderly. Exercise five is to generate a feeling of joy. Exercise six is to generate happiness. A good practitioner can always generate a feeling of joy and happiness whenever he or she wants. Help us caption & translate this video! https://amara.org/v/DqWy/

In the Sutra on the Eight Realizations of Great Beings, we read “the mind is always looking outside of itself and never feels fulfilled”. How can we overcome this constant running and come back to our true home? The obstacle to our peace of mind is our inability to dwell in the present moment. In this Dharma Talk, Sister True Virtue shares how we can practice the 4 establishments of mindfulness as well as the 16 exercises of mindful breathing in order to get out of the state of dispersion of our mind. Rather than trying to attain something, we can experience each breathing exercise with ease. If we give ourselves a chance to recognise and accept a painful feeling, we can be at peace. We also have the example of Ancestral Teachers who practiced being fulfilled in the present moment. Master Tang Hoi, King Tran Thai Thong, King Tran Nhan Thong, and Master Nhat Dinh, are all real examples of applied and engaged Buddhism. In the midst of a busy life, they were able to be at peace and share the practice with countless people.

Thich Nhat Hanh offers this dharma talk at Deer Park Monastery during the Colors of Compassion Retreat on March 25, 2004.

Before taking a deep dive into our suffering, practicing mindfulness according to the breathing exercises taught in the Anapanasati Sutta increases our capacity for happiness and joy. In this way, we are able to hold our deep suffering. Thay regularly taught his students to balance the spiritual life among the four spiritual pillars: work/service, practice, study, and play. Sister Trai Nghiem offered concrete examples of practicing the four pillars and posed these questions for us to ponder in our lives as mindfulness practitioners. How do we enjoy and create joy in our daily activities? How do we know if the work we are doing is supporting the purpose of our life? To end the Dharma Talk, Sr. Trang Tu Hieu and Sr. Trang Hien Tam offered the song “The Sun is Rising”, composed by Sr. Trang Tu Hieu.

We all have aspirations, dreams, joys and sorrows deep in our hearts. But are we aware that anything we want to cultivate needs food to grow? In Buddhist psychology, we learn that there are four kinds of nutriments: edible food, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness. In terms of edible food, are we consuming in a way that sustains our health and nourishes our heart of compassion? As for sense impressions, do we take the time to develop friendship and bonding in our daily lives or are we constantly being hooked to our devices? Do we recognize the stress, intensity and addiction that spending so much time on our devices brings about for ourselves, our family and our society? When it comes to volition, we are speaking about our deep aspiration. What kind of aspirations do we pursue in life? The Five Mindfulness Trainings give us very clear and concrete guidelines on how to live our daily life with compassion and the insight of interbeing. We need the awareness and determination of every individual on Earth to reverse the process of global warming. The fourth kind of nutriment, consciousness, is both individual and collective. For us to be able to realize our potential, we need to be in a wholesome environment. With the practice and the sangha, we can generate mindfulness and love for us and others to take refuge in.

To feel love, be loved, and to share love is the spiritual need of human beings. This is the heart of our spiritual path: how to grow to a state of boundless love that is not restrained by any conditions. Sister Lực Nghiêm (“Sister Power”) dives deeply into the 6 ingredients of the path: motivation, determination, patience, inspiration, creativity and courage. Why do we seek a community of practice? Can we break through the ideas we have about ourselves as we reflection on our motivations on the spiritual path? We might have the willingness to change – and at times there is clarity about what changes we need to implement, but there are many layers to that change. As we let go of our thinking, our ego (“manas” in Buddhist tradition), we return to simply being a living being, to be fully present in the present. When we surrender to the present moment, we touch our suffering and can find compassion for ourselves. This will then flow into other people’s hearts. Our constant thinking prevents us from getting in touch with the source of life, which is love.

What is the spiritual meaning of Christmas in our times? In a society of consumerism where we can easily feel alienated, we are longing for an atmosphere of simplicity and love. If the most important element of Christmas is our brotherhood, sisterhood, and siblinghood, then how can we practice in order to generate this true kind of love? Sister Chan Duc (True Virtue) shares how love is made of understanding. To truly love someone, we need to understand that person. And to understand them, we need to have good communication based on deep listening, loving speech, and openness. This journey starts by coming back inside of ourselves to listen to our own pain, rather than blaming someone for it. As we walk on the path of understanding and love, we can also keep in mind that understanding is boundless. We always learn something new about the other person and by doing so, we also learn more about ourselves. We learn to see what is not immediately visible in us and in others, and our understanding and love grow more and more each day.

Practicing the Six Harmonies is a deep practice to ensure a long life in the Sangha and continue on the path of transformation with our spiritual friends, even when facing difficulties in communication. If we are still unable to deeply connect with another person through the heart, maybe because of unresolved conflict, we can still practice to offer simple material gifts or a smile, to open the path of transformation wider. It is also important to learn to express our needs and thoughts with one another to increase understanding. We can learn to do so with gentleness, openness, while remaining firm and solid. We can also deepen our practice of the Five Mindfulness Trainings with our loved ones to help with this. It is easier to practice when there is harmony in the sangha or with loved ones, although it is not always possible. When it is not possible, “60% of harmony is good enough”. With faith in our practice of mindfulness, we know that transformation is always possible, and we can continue to take solid steps on our path.