1
I know what it is to get angry,
and I know the pleasure of being praised.
I'm often on the verge of tears or laughter.
But beneath all these emotions,
what else is there?
How can I touch it?
If there isn't anything
why would I be so certain that there is?
Is it okay if you bang the drum with the stick
wrapped like that?
Well, each stick will make
a different sound.
Try it.
Should we unwrap the other one
Shedding my hair completely
Shedding my hair completely
I make the great vow today
I make the great vow today
to transform all my afflictions
to transform all my afflictions
and to help all living beings.
And to help all living beings.
When icy winter comes,
it is unforgiving to all things young, tender and insecure.
One must grow beyond youthful uncertainty to survive.
Maturity and determination are necessary.
Seeing the courageous, solid way
that trees prepare for winter
helps me appreciate the lessons I've learned.
You need to remove that word here.
What's going on here?
I'm not high enough here.
No, that's not it.
Yes, there's always that problem.
When the garden is fully weeded
the flowers, symbol of enlightenment
have the opportunity
to continue to grow.
You need compost
to have flowers
and you need to have suffering
to be awakened.
Full stop.
Suffering is the compost.
The food of awakening.
Full stop.
You have to look for enlightenment
in the suffering.
This is why we have the expression
"Suffering is enlightenment."
And:
"Finding Nirvana in birth and death."
Here is the first precept.
You cannot have sexual intercourse.
If a Shikshamana has sexual intercourse,
she can no longer remain a Shikshamana.
She can no longer be called a nun,
a daughter of the Buddha.
If she has not had sexual intercourse
but has touched the body of someone else
out of sexual desire,
although she's still a nun,
she has not kept the Shikshamana precepts.
She has to confess and take the precepts again.
This is the first of the six Shikshamana precepts.
Is your precepts body clear?
Do you understand this verse?
"Listening to the dharma in the ultimate dimension"
I see the autumn leaves fall
occupying the whole sky.
I see the autumn moon
in every on every path all path.
"But the dharma is neither full nor empty."
And the hermit sleeps in here.
At first, it seemed like a passing cloud.
But after several hours,
I begin to feel my body turning to smoke
and floating away.
I became a faint wisp of a cloud.
I had always thought of myself as a solid entity.
And suddenly I saw that I am not solid at all.
I saw that the entity I had taken to be me
was really a fabrication.
My true nature, I realized,
was much more real,
both uglier and more beautiful than I could ever have imagined.
- The other day I asked Sister Cam Nghiem - if she felt happy.
"Am I happy?" she said.
"It's hard. I don't know if I'm happy."
And then I asked if she felt
if she felt satisfied
and she said, "Yes."
Yeah, you just keep cooking all the time,
and it can be enjoyable.
But when you run out of ideas, you get sick of it.
Maybe for others it's different
but if I do the same thing for too long, I get bored.
If it's your responsibility, you just do it.
As for liking it? I just don't like repetitive tasks.
There are times I do things
out of love for our teacher.
That helps with the boredom.
But sometimes I have to get out of here.
Then when I come back I feel fresh again for him.
We're close to our teacher. That's why we sometimes
feel bored.
The younger ones who don't get as much time with our teacher
- are probably very happy to spend every moment - they can with him.
Okay, it's ready.
Ready? Wow, you're good!
Are you going to put the napkin on the right?
No, it goes on the left.
Friends want you to appear
in the familiar form they know.
But that is impossible.
How could we continue to live if we were changeless?
To live
we must die every instant.
We must perish again and again
in the storms that make life possible.
I became a battlefield,
and I couldn't know until the storm was over
if I would survive.
Not in the sense of my physical life,
but in the deeper sense of my core self.
I experienced distraction upon distraction
and felt a tremendous longing for the presence
of those I love.
Even though I knew that if they were present,
I would have to chase them away
or run away myself.
I took out 500. Okay.
So, um
Or I could do the first week and then whichever.
- That's fine. Is that fine to do? - First week?
Children find other children.
So in your case,
- going in a young adults group won't work because you - have children.
Ah, okay, I understand.
That's fine.
- You know the score with the clock chiming, right? - You've heard about this?
Yes, someone told me about it. Isn't it every 15 minutes?
That clock chimes every 15 minutes.
Okay.
But generally in Plum Village,
every time we hear a bell, we stop what we are doing.
- And that's all about coming back - to the present moment,
Because we often find ourselves on autopilot, and
the idea is to get out of that.
It's difficult and requires a lot of training,
but here we train together.
I have a doggy,
and this doggy died, and I was very sad,
so I don't know how to be not so sad.
This is a very difficult question.
Suppose, uh, you look, uh, into the sky
Look up into the sky and you see
a beautiful cloud.
And you like the cloud so much.
And suddenly the cloud is no longer there.
And you think that the cloud
has passed away.
Where is my beloved cloud now?
So if you have time to reflect,
to look,
you'll see that the cloud has not died,
has not passed away.
The cloud has become the rain.
And when you look at the rain,
you see your cloud.
And when you drink your tea mindfully,
you can see the rain in your tea
and your cloud in your tea.
And you can say, "Hello, my cloud."
I know you have not died.
"You are still alive in a new form."
So doggy is the same.
And if you look very deeply, you can see doggy
in its new form.
When the storm finally passed,
layers of inner mortal lay crumbled.
On the now-deserted battlefield,
a few sunbeams peeked through the horizon,
too weak to offer any warmth to my weary soul.
I was full of wounds,
yet experienced an almost thrilling sense of aloneness.
No one would recognize me in my new manifestation.
No one close to me would know it was I.
Hieu, you have given me so much happiness.
When your father left, you gave me energy
so that I could continue to go to work
and live with you.
I know that what's happened is my fault.
My job is so stressful, and I don't know
how to control it.
That's why sometimes when Mom comes home late,
I don't have space to think or breathe,
and I yell at you, my child.
I promise that I will do better
and that I will breathe like our teacher,
Thich Nhat Hanh, has taught us.
I just want to say that Mom loves you a lot.
Breathing in
I enjoy my in-breath.
Breathing out
I let go of the out-breath.
In-breath.
Out-breath.
There is a song
that we like to sing in Plum Village.
"I have arrive, I am home."
This is a song of practice
because the practice of mindfulness
is to always arrive.
Arrive in the here and the now.
We have been running a lot but we have not arrived.
We are always looking for something,
searching for something,
longing for something.
And we have not found it.
And we continue to run.
And we don't know how long
how much more we have to run
and look for what we are looking for.
Maybe you are looking for some conditions
of happiness
that we believe we don't have.
And running, searching has become a habit.
And life and all the wonders of life
are available only in the present moment.
Because the past is no longer there,
the future is not yet there.
There's only the present moment.
So the practice of mindfulness help us
to go home to the here and the now
in order for us to learn how to live our life deeply.
That way we will not waste our life.
Mountains and rivers,
Earth and sun
all lie within the heart of consciousness.
When that realization arises,
time and space dissolve.
Cause and effect,
birth and death all vanish.
Though I dwell a hundred thousand light-years
from a star,
I can cross that distance in a flash.
Oh, that feels good.
Let the teamaster take care of the cups, please.
Are there any more cups?
Phap Luu has very long legs, so he can reach you from there.
Christ can save you!
And the word of God has shown in its
Buddha cannot save you.
Muhammad cannot save you.
Krishna cannot save you.
Charles Darwin cannot save you,
and you cannot save yourself!
I cannot save myself!
The devil, Satan, is real!
God is real!
God is real!
If you are not with Jehovah God,
if you are not with Jesus Christ
you are against him.
I didn't say it. He said it.
So why would you follow a dead end to Buddha,
when you can believe in Jesus
and have eternal life?
- Praise the Lord! You don't know that - for a fact!
Jesus said it! What about what Jesus said
about loving everyone and turning the other cheek?
What I'm teaching here
Why won't you listen to the dialogue?
Because you're afraid that I'm telling the truth?
- You're so afraid I'm telling the truth you don't - want to get to the dialogue?
Hallelujah! You are attempting
vile gossip.
That is why you're getting angry and riled up.
- I'm not angry. You're the one - who's angry, sir.
Notice you don't Notice you don't
put down the Buddhists.
You're the only one here putting down the Buddhists.
Nobody else here is putting anyone down.
You're the only one condemning people.
- Jesus said love everyone. He never said anything - about judging people.
Jesus Christ. That's it.
Hey! The Savior.
Walk a little faster.
Almost like a normal pace.
Walk a little faster.
Walk really, really fast.
Walk really,
really fast.
Pay attention to your foot while you're doing this.
Now you can stop.
Stop.
- You guys ever seen any monks or nuns before? - In movies.
- Where do you guys sleep at? - Where?
We have We usually share a room.
So there'd be like four people in a room.
And, um, I think at the beginning,
our monastery was really simple.
There was nothing there. They had no beds.
They didn't have money to buy beds.
Because we take a vow to not have any personal possessions.
- So we don't have money. We don't have a bank account. - We don't have a credit card.
We don't have a personal card or, you know, like a
Cell phone. Cell phone.
We don't have We don't have money.
We don't get paid at all.
We get pocket money,
but we get just like, uh
It's about $40 a month.
I can't survive. Can't survive.
- You know, when you have a house - and you have a car
- And you have all that stuff, actually you kind - of worry about it.
It's not just, uh
You think it's going to be
You think you'll be happy when you get all that stuff,
but when you get it, maybe you're not happy.
Have you ever had that?
You really think you're gonna be happy
when you get something.
- And when you get it, actually you're not happy. - Yeah.
- And if you break one of the rules, - what happens?
Well, there's different kinds of rules.
Say you start dating and then smoking and stuff,
what happens?
Then you're not a monk anymore.
Are you guys single
We are single. We're not married.
Because we choose to live the life
that doesn't involve sex
or a partner or anybody else.
- And you have to live like that. - No sex?
And we live happily like that. I was just making sure.
Is your life controlled by someone else higher
than yourself?
There's no master.
We have a teacher.
I call it a master.
Some people Some people call him master.
'Cause he's very, you know, kind of like, um
You know Yoda in Star Wars?
He's a little bit like that.
Everybody ready? I don't wanna lose nobody.
I don't wanna lose nobody.
Now, let's have the brothers sing "Ahh."
Ahh
And the sisters
Eeh
That's almost in tune.
It's much nicer, okay Almost in tune.
a guided meditation
on the stage
in about five or six minutes,
so you've been asked to come upstairs for that.
I knew early on
that finding truth is not the same as finding happiness.
You aspire to see the truth.
But once you have seen it,
you cannot avoid suffering.
Otherwise, you have seen nothing at all.
I've seen him.
I only get over here once every other year
'cause I live in France in a monastery.
And so I only have the opportunity
to see my dad and my family here in the States
every other year.
- Well, I'm glad you're here. - Yeah.
- I feel very lucky, 'cause some of my monastic - brothers and sisters
Don't get to see their relatives that often.
Stay to your left.
To your left.
To your left.
This is my dad.
Hey, baby doll.
Dang.
He cries He cries every time he's happy.
Bless you, Lord. Bless you, Lord.
Give me a hug, man. You can lean on me.
You can lean on me.
Oh, Lord.
It must have been That's right.
It's been more than a month of Sundays.
Surprise, surprise.
Surprise. You look like you're 19 years old.
I am 19. I am 19.
Is that right? You look good.
You shave?
I shave just like you shave.
- I shave every couple well, about three weeks - or so.
Is that right? You look good.
- Well, you know, I cut my hair back - every year.
Take your hat off, Daddy.
Let me see your head.
How's your head? Oh!
Oh!
Look at you. He got a haircut too, huh, man?
Look at that.
My head gettin' cold.
Okay. No, I was just kiddin'.
Yeah. It looks good there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You wanna sit up a little better? - Yeah, you all right?
- You all slouched down. No. I got this - right and tall.
You good now? I'm good.
Yeah. Yeah.
- I get to sit here and hold your hand. - That's right.
Huh?
Look what I brought you.
Trick or treat. Trick or treat.
Yeah, the trick or treat. Trick or treat.
Jacqui, do some of your breathing with your dad.
Okay, man.
Just breathe. Reconnect with your body.
Breathing in and breathing out
with a lot of gratitude.
Breathing in.
Breathing out with joy.
Breathing in.
Yeah.
It's all right.
It's all right.
Breathing out and release all that joy.
It's been pent up for how many years?
Let all that joy come out.
Praise the Lord. That's right. Yeah.
Thank you, Lord.
That's great.
Praise the Lord.
The last couple of times I've come
that there hasn't been that smile.
Breathe out.
Breathing in
and breathing out
and releasing the tension.
Breathing in.
Releasing.
That's good.
You can remember to come back to your body like this
every time you get a little overwhelmed, huh?
Even though when it's happy.
Lord, have mercy.
Say "thank you."
Thank you, Lord.
We're lucky too, you know. It's not just you.
We're lucky that we still got you around.
Yes.
Lord, have mercy mercy on my soul.
On my soul.
Happy moment, huh
A happy moment. Is this a happy moment or what?
Yes, it is. Huh?
Happy Is this a happy moment or what?
- Lord, have mercy on my soul. - Or what?
Yep.
Lord, have mercy on my soul.
This is the kingdom of heaven right here now. Isn't it?
Who says you have to go anywhere?
Heaven is right here, isn't it?
Huh? Right here.
It's right here, isn't it?
Mm-hmm.
Right here.
Right here with all of us.
All of us. All of us.
Thank the Lord. Mm-hmm.
And they're on their cell phones.
Yeah.
Okay.
Where's your tissue? Get another tissue for him.
Mmm.
Oop.
Hold still. There you go.
Okay? Yeah.
I'll help you get out the door.
You working up a sweat?
Do you work this hard when you're on your own at home?
Ah! I'm retired.
One of the beauties of being retired.
You don't have to work as hard.
So this is the way you used to work.
More or less, yeah.
We didn't have you singing the song with us
at the beginning.
It goes in the workplace
It goes
In, out
Deep, slow
We got to slow you down.
You know, you remind me of somebody
and I don't know why.
Are you from St. Paul or Minneapolis?
Yeah.
What was your name before?
Well, when I was a priest, it was Father Adrian Stier.
When I was in Dave Gere.
I'll be
Free Online Movies
I thought you died.
I thought you died.
Oh, wow.
Dave Gere.
How about this?
You're a miracle.
You're looking good. Yeah?
Last I heard, you were very sick,
and then I didn't hear anything for a while.
Twenty years ago I had cancer.
Yeah.
And I was in deep chemotherapy. Uh-huh.
- At which time was I first tapped into this program. - Okay.
And when I was in chemotherapy,
I happened to read my partner's copy
of The Miracle of Mindfulness.
Yeah. Yeah.
How about this?
We worked together in the Hampton County
Court Services.
Yeah. Yeah. Probation. Yeah.
Yeah. Working with criminals.
- You just looked There was something - about your face.
I said, "I know who he is, but I can't put"
a name to it."
Good seeing you. Good seeing you, Dave.
Wow. This is wonderful.
We shall visit more in this week here.
Okay. Okay. Good.
I have a question. Yes?
I'm with a sound therapy organization.
My question really was:
If silence is the pathway
to mindfulness and awakening,
what is the purpose of sound?
And what is sacred sound?
Well, silence can be thunderous.
Yeah. True.
You know that Just like a black color
is the absorption of all colors,
so silence can absorb all sounds.
It's a great sound sacred sound.
So in our practice, we practice that deep silence within,
of the mind, of all the perceptions,
the thoughts and also the quietness of the body,
so there's solidity, stability.
Spaciousness is the foundation,
and that's where other sounds can arise.
If we are always in chaos or moving around,
those are just noise.
That's not sacred sound.
So how would you define sacred sound?
What would sacred sound be
If there is one. I just did.
When you take a step and you're completely
in oneness with Mother Earth
and you don't have the division between you and Mother Earth,
nature and all that is,
that is very deep sound.
And there's no limitation to it.
And from there it can spring a song,
a poem, a smile.
A smile can be a beautiful sound.
Ah.
Hello. Ah, hey.
Have a hug.
Ah, good to see Mummy.
Well Interesting home.
I thought you said all the furniture was gone.
Huh? I thought you said
all the furniture was gone.
No, some. Yeah, it's all gone.
Garden is still there.
Garden.
This is my rock garden.
I know there's not much to see today,
but in a month's time, all the plants will come up.
See?
Oh, to
Is this my journal?
It's amazing.
Just Just your drawing book.
That's my That's my journal.
I show this part, this picture part.
The maps. Right?
Map of Davis's life.
Cool, huh?
Isn't it amazing though?
Oh, my gosh.
This is really detailed.
"Birth. Seven years old."
Make friends. Be cool.
Join the drama club and be good at all sports.
Thirteen years old apply to high school.
Student class president.
Get accepted to all high schools.
In college everyone loves me.
Good student. Founder of three clubs.
Parents proud.
Accepted to Ivy League college with full scholarship.
Twenty years old buy $30,000 car.
Twenty-one get the perfect girlfriend.
Twenty-one get the perfect
Twenty-four graduate with an MBA.
Get a $300,000 job.
"Twenty-six get married. Buy a million-dollar home."
I wondered who planted that idea.
I don't know. You did. Oh, that's really inspired.
"Thirty"
Pop out a few children.
Parents super happy.
40-plus have everything go directly as planned.
Become vice president of company.
Everyone is happy and loving.
"Seventy obtain enlightenment."
How are you going to get there
with all that?
It's a busy life.
Everything obviously goes directly as planned, so
- Okay, we're gonna sing you a song. - Oh, you don't have to.
No, no, no. It's okay. It goes like this.
Happiness is here and now
I have drowned my worries
Know wherever you go
You bring to you
No longer in a hurry
Happiness Is here and now
Really, it's okay. I got it.
I have drowned My worries
No place to go
Something to do
But I don't need
To hurry
Thank you.
Thank you. That's okay.
This has been very good. Thank you very much.
Glad you enjoyed it. Have a good day.
Thank you!
This tops it, man. Thank you so much.
I haven't done this in 60-some years.
Really?
Have a good day.
Wow!
They're coming for your food.
Oh, that's beautiful.
Look at that.
At that moment, I felt perfectly at peace.
Not one sad or anxious thought entered my mind.
Ideas of past, present and future dissolved.
And I was standing at the luminous threshold
of a reality that transcends time,
space and action.
I arose and sat in meditation the rest of the night.
All that remained was a deeply rooted peace.
I sat like a mountain
and I smiled.