Stonehill College Retreat - August 16, 2007
Child’s question: What do you do when you're angry or scared?
Thay: When I am angry or scared, I go back to my breath and breathe deeply. I do not think anymore, I do not look anymore. I just bring my attention to my breathing, in and out. I breathe deeply, and I calm myself. It always helps me. Every time I have an upset stomach, a feeling of unhappiness in my belly, I use a hot water bottle. And five minutes later, I feel much better. The same is true with mindful breathing. Every time we have anger or fear, if we know how to breathe, we apply our mindful breathing to that fear, to that anger. We embrace our fear and anger with the energy of mindful breathing. We get relief. It always works.
Adult’s question: Dear Thay, with all the madness and violence going on in the world nowadays, how do you keep yourself from losing faith in humanity and giving up altogether?
Thay: There's a practice called taking refuge. You want to feel safe and protected, you want to feel calm. If you don't learn how to take refuge, you will lose your peace, your feeling of safety, and your calm. You will suffer, and you will make other people suffer. When the situation seems to be permanent, overwhelming, and full of suffering, you have to practice taking refuge in the Buddha—the Buddha in ourselves. Each of us has the seed of Buddhahood, the capacity of being calm, being understanding, being compassionate, and taking refuge in that island of safety within us. This is how we can maintain our humanness, our peace, and our hope. This practice is so important.
Practicing like this, you become an island of peace, of compassion, and you may inspire other people to do the same. It's like a boat filled with people crossing the ocean: If they encounter a storm and everyone panics, the boat will capsize. But if there is one person in the boat who can remain calm, that person can inspire other people to be calm. And then there will be hope for the whole boatload. Who is that person who can stay calm in the situation of distress? In Mahayana Buddhism that is you—you have to be that person. You'll be the savior of all of us. This is a very strong practice, the practice of the bodhisattva, taking refuge.
In the situation of war and injustice, if you don't practice like that you will not survive. You will lose yourself very easily. And if you lose yourself, we have no hope. We count on you and your practice.
Adult’s question: Aware of the suffering surrounding death, are we forced to see our loved ones as impersonal parts that are going to be reborn? Or is there a part of them as we know them, that will live on?
Thay: We have not been able to see ourselves or our loved ones deeply. Our understanding is still very artificial and shallow. We don't know who we really are, we don't know who they really are. That is why our notion of birth and death, of their presence and their non-presence, is also shallow. The practice of Buddhist meditation is to deepen your perception of what is there. When you know yourself deeply, you begin to know the people around you.
When you look at an orange tree, you see what it offers to us and the world: beautiful leaves, beautiful blossoms, beautiful oranges. A human being is like that too. In her daily life, she produces thoughts, speech, and action. Our thoughts may be beautiful, compassionate, and knowing. Our speech may be also compassionate, inspiring, full of love and understanding. Our action may be also compassionate, protecting, healing, and supporting.
Looking deeply into the present moment, you can see that we are producing thoughts, speech, and action, and we can know their value. In the Buddhist tradition, our thoughts, speech, and action are our true continuation. Once we have produced a thought, it will have an impact for a long time. When we say something, the message will have an effect long into the future. When we take an action, our action will have an impact for a long time.
Suppose you produce a thought of compassion and forgiveness. Right away, that thought has a healing effect on your body and your mind, and it has a healing effect on the world. It will continue to have a good effect in the future. It's very important to be able to produce thoughts of compassion, nondiscrimination, forgiveness, and so on. You know that if you practice well, it's not difficult to produce such a thought. That is your continuation: even if your body is destroyed, you continue on through your thoughts, your speech, and your action.
There are many people who believe that after the dissipation of this body, there is nothing left. Some of our scientists believe that. But our thoughts, our speech, and our action are the energy we produce, and they will continue for a long time. We can assure a beautiful continuation by producing good thoughts, good speech, and good action.
You cannot destroy a human being; you cannot reduce him or her to non-being. The other day, we said a cloud can never die. A cloud can only be transformed into rain or snow. A human being is also like this. You have to look deeply to see him or her beyond this body, beyond this feeling. It's impossible for a cloud to die. It is impossible for a human being to become nothing.
When you look deeply like that into your true nature and the nature of people around you, you have the kind of insight that can liberate you from sorrow, fear, anger, and non-fear. It's a great insight given to us by the practice of looking deeply.
Recently, we spoke about a wave going up and going down. As far as the wave is concerned, there is a beginning and an end, going up and going down. But the wave is at the same time water. And if the wave practices some meditation, she will realize that she is water. And when she knows that she is water, she will be smiling while going down. [Laughter] She will know she will not be passing from being into non-being. When you have that kind of insight and that kind of non-fear, you can inspire so many people, you can help so many people. You are truly a bodhisattva. You are no longer a victim of birth and death. You can ride on the waves of birth and death, smiling.
When we come to a retreat, we can learn practices that help us relieve some suffering. But the greatest relief you can get from the practice is from the insight that gives us non-fear, the insight of no-birth and no-death. Unfortunately, most of us are too busy making money, and we don't have time to do that. You don't have to become a monk, you don't have to spend a lot of time in the meditation hall. You can live your daily life mindfully and deeply. Touching a cloud, touching a pebble, touching a flower, touching a child, deeply, you can touch the nature of no-birth and no-death. That is what the Buddha has achieved. That is what many generations of practitioners have achieved: they got freedom from fear, freedom from anger. They have enough happiness to share with other people.
Adult’s question: Dear Thay, first, thank you for helping me transform my life. Two years ago, I was here, extremely depressed and very anxious. I put a question in the bell, and I heard you answer me in your talk. You said that people feel a storm of the mind when they're going through depression. Now that storm has subsided, I'm sitting up front, and I hear everything. It's been wonderful. Thank you for helping me. My question is: One of my biggest fears in my life has been losing my mother or people in my family I feel close to. How can I transform this fear?
Thay: You can look deeply to see that our mother is not only out there, but in here. Our mother, our father, are fully present in every cell of our body. We carry them into the future. We can learn to talk to the father and the mother inside. I have done that several times, talking to my mother, my father, the ancestors in me. I know that I am only a continuation of them. I'm not a separate person, I am a continuation.
With that kind of insight, you know that even with the disintegration of the body of your mother outside, your mother still continues in you—especially in the energies that she has created in terms of thoughts, speech, and action. In Buddhism we call that energy karma. Karma means action: thinking, speaking, and doing. If you look deeply, you see the continuation of your mother in you and outside of you, because every thought, every word, every action of hers now continues with or without her body. Of course, you have to see her more deeply because she is not confined to her body. And you are also not confined to your body. It's very important to see that. Every day we produce thoughts, speech, and action, and that is our continuation.
When I look at you, I see my continuation already. I see my continuation in my children, in my friends, and in the world. When I practice walking meditation, I want to make sure that every step of mine can bring stability, freedom, and joy. Every step like that is self-transformation to my friends and my disciples. I know they have received it. In this way, they bring me into the future. I'm not dying. Is it possible for me to die? This is the wonder of Buddhist meditation: with the practice of looking deeply, you can touch your own nature of no-birth and no-death. You touch the nature of no-birth and no-death of your father, your mother, in you and around you. Only that insight can reduce and remove the fear. Salvation not by faith, but by insight.
To read more Q&As with Thich Nhat Hanh, you can purchase a print or digital copy of the Winter/Spring 2021issue of the Mindfulness Bell here.