The Practice of Mindfulness Is the Practice of Happiness

Thich Nhat Hanh — Winter Retreat 2013–2014 (New Year’s Eve public talk, in English) Lower Hamlet, Plum Village · 31 December 2013 · talk 14 of 24

Illuminates: compassion made of suffering (the lotus and the mud) · Avalokiteśvara & mindful chanting · the collective energy of compassion (healing stories) · the four elements of a true home (body · feelings · perceptions …) · “are you sure?” (wrong perception) · self-love as the foundation of love · the new year as action (karma/retribution) · the Kingdom of God / Pure Land / dharmakāya here-and-now · the second arrow & the art of suffering · the Island Within · “Buddha is my mindfulness, Dharma is my breathing.”

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[Opening: guided mindful breathing — Breathing in, I know this is an in-breath… Breathing in, I am aware of my ancestors, spiritual and blood, alive in every cell of my body; breathing out, I smile to all my ancestors alive in me.]

Good afternoon, dear friends. Welcome to the Lower Hamlet of Plum Village. Today is the last day of the year 2013.

Compassion is made of suffering

A few months ago we were invited by the Department of Neuroscience at Stanford University to speak about compassion. If we always try to run away from suffering, we have no chance to understand compassion or to generate the energy of love — yet most of us are doing just that, not knowing how to make good use of suffering to create love and compassion. It is like not knowing how to use the mud to grow lotus flowers: a lotus cannot grow on marble; we need the mud. So those who practice compassion know very well that compassion is made of suffering. If you know how to embrace suffering and look deeply into its nature, understanding arises and brings the energy of compassion. Without suffering, no compassion is possible. That is why the practice of Plum Village is not to run away from our own suffering or the suffering of our beloved ones.

We need to learn this, because most of us are afraid that going home to ourselves and meeting the suffering inside will overwhelm us. But if we know how to practice mindful walking and breathing, we generate the energy of mindfulness — and when we go home to ourselves with that energy, we are no longer afraid of being overwhelmed by the pain, sorrow, fear, and despair in us. Especially when we live with a community that knows how to generate this energy, we can make good use of the collective energy of mindfulness to go home and take care of the suffering inside.

Mindful chanting — Avalokiteśvara

In Mahayana Buddhism there is a great being, Avalokiteśvara — the bodhisattva capable of listening to his own suffering and understanding it, and because of that practice able to overcome the suffering in himself and to listen to the suffering of others and help them suffer less. We call him the bodhisattva of deep, compassionate listening. Today the monastics will chant his name mindfully, three times. During the first chanting they go home to themselves and touch the suffering within — for the monastics, like all of us, have suffering in them: My dear suffering, I am here for you; I am taking care of you; I am not running away. During the second chanting they reach out to touch the suffering of the people in front of them, beside them, behind them — for everyone has suffering inside, and touching the suffering of others lets compassion grow. During the third, they touch the suffering of the world — war, violence, suicide, social injustice, death, everywhere in Asia, Africa, America, Europe. The purpose of the chanting is not to ask for grace, but to allow compassion to be born and to grow. So twenty minutes of chanting is twenty minutes to generate the energy of compassion, which can heal us and the people around us. That is mindful chanting.

We don’t have to chant with the monastics — we can just listen. If we know how to listen, we participate in making that energy of compassion. The way to listen is to allow body and mind to be there in the here and now — by stopping the thinking. If we keep thinking, the thought takes us away from the present and out of the zone of collective energy; so following the in-breath and out-breath, fully focused on the breath and the chanting, keeps us present and stops the thinking. We don’t have to think — we feel the wholesome energy of the Sangha penetrating our body and releasing the tension, and as the tension is released, the pain is reduced, and we feel much better after a few minutes. We sit, follow our breathing, allow the body to relax, and let the collective energy of mindfulness, peace, and compassion penetrate us.

If we have pain, sorrow, and fear in our heart, this is the time to open the heart and allow the collective energy to penetrate and help hold the blocks of pain. We practice like a drop of water in the heart of a river — allowing the whole river to embrace us and carry us, as a mother’s tenderness penetrates the body of the baby she holds, so the baby calms and suffers less. We behave like a baby allowing the mother-Sangha to embrace us, and after a few moments the pain comes down, and we experience relief right here, right now. And if a member of your family is sick, in hospital or at home, unable to come today, you can send this energy to them simply by thinking of them or calling their name silently — and they will feel better this very afternoon. So whether we chant or listen, we contribute to the energy of mindfulness and compassion that heals everyone.

The elements of a true home

We have been discussing home and the new year. We spoke of the body as the first element of our true home: if you don’t know how to take care of your body, you don’t have a true home — so learning to breathe, to walk, to go home to your body and release its tension is to build your home.

The second element is our feelings and emotions. To have a good home we must learn to take care of our feelings — pleasant ones, and also painful ones.

The third element is our perceptions. Much of our anger and suffering is born on the base of wrong perception — we have wrong perceptions about ourselves and about others, and on that base we create much anger, fear, sorrow, and despair. So we take care of our perceptions by looking deeply, and by not being too sure of them: if you are too sure of your perception, that may be the cause of a great deal of suffering — so always ask, “Are you sure of your perception?”

[Erich Fromm], who wrote The Art of Loving, speaks of love as loving someone else, and we are quite sure that we love ourselves — but that is not the case for many of us. We don’t really know how to love and take care of ourselves: our “self” is made of body, feelings, emotions, perceptions, and we don’t yet know how to take care of them. Self-love is the foundation for loving another person — for how can you love someone else if you don’t know how to love yourself? This teaching is very clear. When we think of the new year, we hope to “do better” — which may mean taking better care of myself; and if I know how to take better care of myself, I can take better care of him or her, and we can support each other in the practice.

The new year is action — “new year, new me”

The new year is not just time; it is action. We think 2013 is going away — but I am not sure; it may stay a long time, because a year is made not only of time but of space and, especially, of action. What we have done in thought, speech, and deed is karma, and we may begin to harvest its fruit in 2014. Nothing is lost: something nice, loving, and compassionate that you said or did in 2013 will bear fruit in the new year — that is retribution.

This year our phrase is “New year, new me.” For the year to be truly new, you have to be new too. If you remain the same person, how can you hope the year will be new? If there is no new me, there is no new year. The “new me” is a practice — we learn to renew ourselves: the way we walk, sit, breathe, smile, eat, done so as to create joy, happiness, and compassion. That is the practice of mindfulness.

The Kingdom of God is available now

Suppose we resolve: In 2014 I will walk mindfully. You are already in the Kingdom of God, but you don’t enjoy it. This flower truly belongs to the Kingdom of God — ask her to speak to you about it, and if you are mindful enough you will hear her, in her own language. Without mindfulness we don’t even know that our body is a flower — yet the human body is a wonder, and it too belongs to the Kingdom of God; we just don’t know how to take care of the flower. So when you walk from the parking lot to your workplace, walk so that every step puts you in touch with the wonders of life, so that the Kingdom of God is available at every step. Otherwise, when the time comes to leave this life and someone asks, “Have you enjoyed the Kingdom of God?” — “No, I had no time; I was so busy.”

In the Buddhist tradition we use the terms dharmakāya — the Dharma-body — and the Pure Land of the Buddha, available in the here and now, like the Kingdom of God. This is not difficult to see: a biologist studying the human body sees that it is just a wonder — an eye, the neocortex of the brain, so wonderful. The Kingdom is available, but we are so busy: “I don’t have time for the Kingdom.” The question is not whether the Kingdom is available to you — it is — but whether you are available to the Kingdom. The new year is your next chance: walk so that you have the Kingdom with you, so that later you will not regret having been in the Kingdom without enjoying it. In Plum Village we have time every day to walk together; so challenge yourself: Am I capable of walking from the parking lot to my office with mindfulness, enjoying every step? If you are the chief executive of a company, you might recommend it to all your employees: “Dear friends, every morning when I park, I walk like this, and I feel wonderful — with every step I enjoy the wonders of life; I don’t think about business; I feel the Pure Land of the Buddha; I release all tension and renew myself.” Perhaps you would be the first CEO to encourage your colleagues to do so, telling them happiness is possible because you have experienced it.

And not only while walking — when you brush your teeth, you may have two minutes, and there is a way of brushing your teeth that makes you happy: not in a hurry, but knowing, “I still have enough teeth to brush; I have hot and cold water from the mountain.” Brushing your teeth can become a pleasure in which freedom, happiness, and joy are possible — you need no extra time to practice mindfulness. If you cannot be happy while brushing your teeth, then when the time comes to enjoy a cup of tea, you will not enjoy it either — holding the cup, you are thinking of business, and the tea is not real, because you are not real, not in the here and now, pulled away by past and future. Freedom is the foundation of happiness — not political freedom, but freedom from worry, fear, anger, and forgetfulness. Forgetfulness is the opposite of mindfulness: doing things like a machine, unaware. Mindfulness means being aware of, and enjoying, everything you do. Living together as a group, it is easier to remind each other: seeing a brother walk with freedom and joy, you are reminded to walk like him — we are a bell of mindfulness for one another.

The art of suffering — the second arrow

So the practice of mindfulness is the practice of happiness: everything you do can create joy. And when a painful feeling or emotion arises, mindfulness helps us recognize it, embrace it, calm it, and suffer less — and continuing the practice, we can transform the pain into something positive. For a practitioner there is no fear of suffering, because we know how to handle it and make good use of it. The teaching of the Buddha helps us in both the art of happiness and the art of suffering — for if we know how to suffer, using the energy of mindfulness, we suffer much less. Suffering is part of life, like the mud: without the mud, no lotus.

The Buddha spoke of the second arrow. When a person is struck by an arrow, there is pain; but if a second arrow strikes the same spot, the pain is not merely doubled — it can be ten times more intense. The secret is to prevent the second arrow. When you have pain in your body or feelings, you may allow it to be magnified by fear or anger — and then the pain becomes ten times greater. So mindfulness helps us recognize the pain as the pain and not exaggerate it; we can ask a friend, a co-practitioner, or a doctor to know exactly the nature of our pain and not exaggerate. That is the first thing in the art of suffering: don’t suffer more than you have to. The second is: don’t be afraid of suffering — see that it has its own goodness, that something positive can come from it.

The third and fourth exercises of mindful breathing — aware of the body, then calming the body — apply equally to feelings: aware of the painful feeling, then calming the painful feeling, embracing your pain like a mother embracing her baby. This is a matter of training; at first it may feel too hard, because you are not used to it, but with a Sangha you can make good use of the collective energy: “Brothers and sisters, here is my block of pain and sorrow — please help me embrace it,” and you let the collective energy penetrate your heart and hold your pain, and you feel better.

I remember a young woman, about twenty-seven, from England, with an enormous block of pain. Nine of us sat in a circle, breathing, allowing her to speak so she would suffer less. It took hours, and she could not speak; she had been involved in a world of drugs and killing. But in the third session she was able to speak out — thanks to the collective energy of mindfulness and compassion of the group. It was like the war veteran in America who came to a retreat for veterans of the Vietnam War: he had killed five children, and back home he suffered day and night, unable to sleep; the only person who knew was his mother, who could not help, only saying, “These things happen in war.” At our retreat, many of us — including Vietnamese who had gone through the war — sat and breathed and created the energy of mindfulness and compassion so he could speak out; he could not in the first two sessions, but finally he told us the story, and then we could offer him a way to transform his suffering. So the Sangha is very important — made of people who can generate this energy. To suffer is one step; the second step is to make good use of the suffering to create happiness, because suffering has its own goodness, like the mud that does not smell good but grows fragrant lotus flowers. Understanding and compassion — the elements of true love — are born from suffering.

Yet most of us are afraid of suffering and run from it, using electronic devices to run away from ourselves and the present moment; we don’t have time for ourselves, our families, or Mother Earth, who has the power to heal and nourish us. So the teaching is to go home and begin taking care of body, feelings, and perceptions — and if you can do it for yourself, you help your beloved ones do it. We don’t have to look for our true home in the future or another country, but right in the here and now, because every step and every breath can bring us home.

The hut, and the Island Within

Many decades ago I had a hermitage about an hour’s drive southeast of Paris. One beautiful sunny morning I decided to spend the whole day in the woods — but at two in the afternoon the wind began to blow and dark clouds gathered, so I went back to the hut. It was not pleasant: before leaving I had opened all the windows and doors for the sunlight, and the wind had scattered the sheets of paper everywhere; the place was dark and cold. The first thing I did was close the windows and door; the second was to light the lamp and make a fire. When the fire was there I began to get warm, then gathered the scattered papers and sat down before the fireplace and breathed. We do exactly like that: whenever we feel there is no peace, we begin to calm our feelings — it is like lighting the lamp and making a fire — and then we gather the scattered papers, and after five or ten minutes the heart becomes very pleasant.

Last week we spoke about the Island Within. The Buddha said: Dear friends, go home and take refuge in the island within yourself — a safe island inside, your true home. The practice of mindful breathing helps us feel warm, pleasant, and peaceful; you don’t have to go anywhere to find your true home — you find it in every step, every breath. There is no way home; home is the way. So we live in such a way that our home is available at every moment, and then the other person can find his or her home in us, because we can share our home with someone else if we have one.

These three energies — mindfulness, concentration, and insight — all of us can generate. When we go home to ourselves, we see the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, and take refuge in the Three Jewels:

Buddha is my mindfulness, shining near and shining far.

The Buddha is made of mindfulness — without mindfulness there is no Buddha; mindfulness is the light that shows the way, that shows what is happening in the here and now. As soon as you begin mindful breathing, the Buddha is there in you, and you see the way.

Dharma is my breathing[, guiding me far and near].

I am inhabited by the Dharma because I am practicing mindful breathing — the living Dharma — which calms the body and feelings and establishes harmony among the five aggregates (body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness). Together, even as a family, we can generate a collective energy of mindfulness and peace, and create our true home for ourselves and for our children. And the true home is not just a dream — through the practice of mindfulness it can be a reality in the here and now.

There are still a few hours before the new year. So let us practice walking together, and prepare ourselves, make ourselves new, in order to truly have a new year.