Hành Trình Vô Ngã by
Vô Ngã Vô Ưu
Transcript of Thich Nhat Hanh English Dharma Talks
23 True Presence
Published in the Mindfulness Bell, #15 Winter 1995
The Four Mantras
When you love
someone, you have to be truly present for him or for her. A ten-year-old boy I
know was asked by his father what he wanted for his birthday, and he didn’t
know how to answer. His father is quite wealthy and could afford to buy almost
anything he might want. But the young man only said, “Daddy, I want you!” His
father is too busy – he has no time for his wife or his children. To
demonstrate true love, we have to make ourselves available. If that father
learns to breathe in and out consciously and be present for his son, he can
say, “My son, I am really here for you.”
The greatest gift we
can make to others is out true presence. “I am here for you” is a mantra to be
uttered in perfect concentration. When you are concentrated – mind and body
together – you produce your true presence, and anything you say is a mantra. It
does not have to be in Sanskrit or Tibetan. A mantra can be spoken in your own
language: “Darling, I am here for you.” And if you are truly present, this
mantra will produce a miracle. You become real, the other person becomes real,
and life is real in that moment. You bring happiness to yourself and to the
other person.
“I know you are
there, and I am very happy” is the second mantra. When I look at the moon, I
breathe in and out deeply and say, “Full moon, I know you are there, and I am
very happy.” I do the same with the morning star. Last spring in Korea, walking
mindfully among magnolia trees, I looked at the magnolia flowers and said, “I
know you are there and I am very happy.” To be really present and know that the
other is also there is a miracle. When you contemplate a beautiful sunset, if
you are really there, you will recognize and appreciate it deeply. Looking at
the sunset, you feel very happy. Whenever you are really there, you are able to
recognize and appreciate the presence of the other – the full moon, the North
Star, the magnolia flowers, or the person you love the most.
First you practice
breathing in and out deeply to recover yourself, and then you sit close to the
one you love and, in that state of deep concentration, pronounce the second
mantra. You are happy, and the person you love is happy at the same time. These
mantras can be practiced in our daily life. To be a true lover, you have to
practice mindfulness of breathing, sitting, and walking in order to produce
your true presence.
The third mantra is:
“Darling, I know you suffer. That is why I am here for you.” When you are
mindful, you notice when the person you love suffers. If we suffer and if the
person we love is not aware of our suffering, we will suffer even more. Just
practice deep breathing, then sit close to the one you love and say, “Darling,
I know you suffer. That is why I am here for you.” Your presence alone will
relieve a lot of his or her suffering. No matter how old or young you are, you
can do it.
The fourth mantra is
the most difficult. It is practiced when you yourself suffer and you believe
that the person you love is the one who has caused you to suffer. The mantra
is, “Darling, I suffer. Please help.” Only five words, but many people cannot
say it because of the pride in their heart. If anyone else had said or done
that to you, you would not suffer so much, but because it was the person you
love, you feel deeply hurt. You want to go to your room and weep. But if you
really love him or her, when you suffer like that you have to ask for help. You
must overcome your pride.
There is a story that
is well-known in my country about a husband who had to go off to war, and he
left his wife behind, pregnant. Three years later, when he was released from
the army, he returned home. His wife came to the village gate to welcome him,
and she brought along their little boy. When husband and wife saw each other,
they could not hold back their tears of joy. They were so thankful to their
ancestors for protecting them that the young man asked his wife to go to the
marketplace to buy some fruit, flowers, and other offerings to place on the
ancestors’ altar.
While she was
shopping, the young father asked his son to call him “daddy,” but the little
boy refused. “Sir, you are not my daddy! My daddy used to come every night, and
my mother would talk to him and cry. When mother sat down, daddy also sat down.
When mother lay down, he also lay down.” Hearing these words, the young
father’s heart turned to stone.
When his wife came
home, he couldn’t even look at her. The young man offered fruit, flowers, and
incense to the ancestors, made prostrations, and then rolled up the bowing mat
and did not allow his wife to do the same. He believed that she was not worthy
to present herself in front of the ancestors. His wife was deeply hurt. She
could not understand why he was acting like that. He did not stay home. He
spent his days at the liquor shop in the village and did not come back until
very late at night. Finally, after three days, she could no longer bear it, and
she jumped into the river and drowned.
That evening after
the funeral, when the young father lit the kerosene lamp, his little boy
shouted, “There is my daddy.” He pointed to his father’s shadow projected on
the wall and said, “My daddy used to come every night like that and my mother
would talk to him and cry a lot. When my mother sat down, he sat down. When my
mother lay down, he lay down.” “Darling, you have been away for too long. How
can I raise our child alone? She cried to her shadow.” One night the child
asked her who and where his father was. She pointed to her shadow on the wall
and said, “This is your father.” She missed him so much.
Suddenly, the young
father understood, but it was too late. If he had gone to his wife even
yesterday and asked, “Darling, I suffer so much. Our little boy said a man used
to come every night and you would talk to him and cry with him, and every time
you sat down, he also sat down. Who is that person?” she would have had an
opportunity to explain and avert the tragedy. But he did not because of the
pride in him.
The lady behaved the
same. She was deeply hurt because of her husband’s behavior, but she did not
ask for his help. She should have practiced the fourth mantra, “Darling, I
suffer so much. Please help. I do not understand why you will not look at me or
talk with me. Why didn’t you allow me to prostrate before the ancestors? Have I
done anything wrong?” If she had done that, her husband could have told her
what the little boy had said. But she did not, because she was also caught in
pride.
In true love, there
is no place for pride. Please do not fall into the same trap. When you are hurt
by the person you love, when you suffer and believe that your suffering has
been caused by the person you love the most, remember this story. Do not act
like the father or the mother of the little boy. Do not let pride stand in the
way. Practice the fourth mantra, “Darling, I suffer. Please help.” If you
really consider her to be the one you love the most in this life, you have to
do that. When the other person hears your words, she will come back to herself
and practice looking deeply. Then the two of you will be able to sort things
out, reconcile, and dissolve the wrong perception.
The Practice of Loving
Kindness
In our daily lives,
we are often caught by wrong perceptions. We are human, and we make mistakes.
When we listen unmindfully, we misunderstand the other person. We have to be
aware of that. The Buddha said that we are caught many times a day by our wrong
perceptions. We have to be careful not to be too sure of our perceptions. You
might like to calligraphy these three words and put them on your wall as a bell
of mindfulness: “Are you sure?”
When we look deeply,
we often discover that it is we who cause ourselves the most suffering. We
think our suffering is brought about by others – our parents, our partner, our
so-called enemy – but when we look deeply, we see that out of forgetfulness, anger,
or jealousy, we have said or done things to create our own suffering and the
suffering of those around us. Suppose in the past I said something unkind to
someone and made him suffer. Now, touching deeply the present, I can breathe in
and out, smile to that person, and say, “I am sorry. I will never do that
again.” When I practice this, I see the other person smiling to me even if he
is not there, even if he has already passed away, and my wound can be healed.
Touching the present deeply, we can heal the past. The practice of dwelling in
the present moment can help us calm ourselves and transform our pain. If you
were abused by your parents or your society, it is important to learn how to
transform the violence that is within you, so that violence will stop
destroying you and those around you.
Whenever there is a
fight between parents and children, both sides lose. Children who have been
sexually abused by adults often feel helpless. They feel that violence will
eventually destroy them. It is very important to learn the art of transforming
the energy of violence in you into something more positive, like understanding
or compassion. If you have suffered because of violence, you may tend to use
that violence against yourself. That is why it is so important to practice
looking deeply to take good care of the violence that is within you. Looking
deeply, you will be able to see what could have caused the other person to act
so violently towards you. You see the person who sexually abused you as someone
who is sick and needs to be helped. Children who have been victims of that kind
of sickness also need to be helped. If you are aware of their suffering, you
will be able to generate the energy of compassion and bring about healing. In
the past, you may have been animated by the energies of hatred, violence, and
blaming, but through the practice of looking deeply, those energies can be
gradually transformed into understanding and compassion. Compassion helps us
understand others, even those who have caused our suffering. With compassion
and loving kindness in us, we suffer much less.
Looking deeply, we
can see the other person as our mother, father, or ourself. Then it is easy to
act with compassion. The hatred and anger we have towards the other person
prevent us from being happy or peaceful. But if we practice looking deeply into
the other person, we see that she also suffers. She may be living in hell, and
she needs help. Maybe you are the only one who can help. With that kind of
insight, the stream of compassion suddenly begins to flow in your heart, and
you suffer much less. Your insight is the fruit of your practice of looking
deeply.
Just as there is no
need to worry about the past, there is no need to worry about the future. The
future is made only of the present. The best way to take care of the future is
to take care of the present moment. If you walk deeply, drink deeply, and act
deeply – in ways that bring real peace and joy to yourself and those around you
– the future will be assured. When you have a fight with the person you love,
try closing your eyes and visualizing yourself and the other person 200 years
from now. After three breaths, open your eyes and I am sure you will see the
other person differently. You will only want to take him or her into your arms
and practice hugging meditation. Breathing deeply and holding the one you love,
the energy of love, care, and mindfulness will penetrate her and she will be
nourished and bloom like a flower. You will want to do everything you can to make
her happy now. Don’t wait until tomorrow.
Taking care of the
present moment, you recognize the presence of the sunset, the morning star, the
magnolia blossoms, and the person in front of you. When you practice this way,
you will not be lost in your worries or anxieties about the future, or caught
by the suffering of the past. The teaching of the Buddha is clear. You only
have to practice it. With the presence of a loving Sangha, it is easy.
Buddhist meditation
is, first of all, living mindfully. We practice precepts (sila), concentration
(Samadhi), and insight (prajna). Being present helps us touch and look deeply
into whatever is there. When you live deeply each moment of your life, you will
have insight into yourself and also the person you think is the cause of your
suffering. When insight is present, it is easy to love and accept, and you will
see that the other person is not your enemy. He is yourself, and he needs you
in order to be transformed. With that insight, the nectar of compassion is born
in your heat. That nectar is the Buddha, the Holy Spirit, God, and it is
available to us twenty-four hours a day.
After practicing
taking ourselves as the object of love, we change the word “I” into “he” or
“she.” (See The Nine Prayers, below.) We can do that only when we have some
understanding, peace, and solidity within ourselves. Self-love is the
foundation for the love of others. We begin with love for someone we have
sympathy with; then for someone we are fond of; and then for someone who has
made us suffer. The children in Somalia, the victims of war in the former
Yugoslavia, the children in my mother’s native village may be considered first
as neutral, people we don’t really know. But if we touch them deeply, looking
into them, they are no longer neutral to us. We see that they are ourselves,
and suddenly compassion and loving kindness are born in us. They become true
objects of our love. Finally, we come to the person we consider our enemy, the
person who made us suffer. With the practice of deep looking and deep
understanding, that person can also become the object of our love.
But first, we have to
learn to look at ourselves with the eyes of understanding (prajna) and love
(maître). Many of us cannot accept ourselves. We are at war with ourselves and
want to run away from ourselves. Practicing looking deeply into ourselves and
seeing the nature of the joy and pain within us, gradually we are able to
accept, love, and take care of ourselves. “Know thyself” is the practice of
love. If we look deeply into ourselves, we discover the conditions that have
formed us and then we can accept ourselves – both our suffering and our
happiness. So first of all, we accept ourselves as we are. Then we can accept
the other person as she or he is. Looking deeply, we see how that person has
been formed. Just as a flower is made only of non-flower elements, that person
has been made of elements that are not him – his ancestors, his parents, his
society, and so on. Once we see the causes and conditions that have made him, we
are able to accept him and take good care of him.
According to the
teaching of the Buddha, love is made of understanding. With understanding, you
can love. To understand is to see all the difficulties, pain, and problems the
other person is having. If you ignore the suffering and aspirations of the
other person, how can you say you love him or her? But to love and understand
is also to see the aspirations and hopes of the other person. To understand him
more, you can go to him and ask, “I want to make you happy, but I do not
understand you. Please help.” If you want to love someone you don’t understand,
you might make him or her suffer more. A father has to go to his son and ask,
“My son, do I understand you enough? Or is my love making you suffer?” Husbands
have to ask wives the same question. Otherwise our love can suffocate the other
person. It may be just a person for him or her. The practice of mindfulness
helps us be there, look deeply, and understand the other person. We need to say
to the other person, “I really want to love you and make you happy, but I need
your help. Tell me what is in your heart. Tell me your difficulties. Tell me
whether my way of loving is making you happy or unhappy.” That is the language
of true love. We need the other person’s help to love properly and deeply.
All of us are subject
to wrong perceptions. We have an idea of happiness and we want the people we
love to follow that idea, but by forcing them to do so, we make them suffer.
True love is always made of true understanding. That is in the teaching of the
Buddha. “Looking with the eyes of compassion” is an expression from the Lotus
Sutra, describing Avalokiteshvara. When you look at others with the eyes of
compassion, not only do they feel pleasant but you also feel very pleasant,
because understanding and love pervade your heart. The amount of happiness you
have depends on the amount of compassion that is in your heart. Compassion
always carries with it joy and freedom. If you love someone without
understanding, you deprive her of her freedom.
In Buddhist
psychology, we say that our consciousness is made of two levels. The lower
level is called store consciousness (alayavijnana), like the basement. We keep
all our seeds down there, and every time we or someone else waters a seed, that
seed will sprout and manifest itself on the upper level of our consciousness,
called mind consciousness (manovijnana). Mind consciousness is like the living
room consciousness. Seeds in the storehouse consciousness manifest themselves
in the living room consciousness. There are also mental formations. Mental
formations are of 51 kinds, according to the Northern tradition of Buddhism.
Mindfulness, loving kindness, hatred, violence, fear, equanimity, and
faithfulness are mental formations. They manifest themselves on the upper level
of our consciousness.
Our store
consciousness is described as the soil, the earth, containing many positive and
negative seeds. We have to be aware of all these seeds and their importance. We
have seeds of suffering in us, but not only seeds of suffering. When we look
deeply into ourselves, we hay touch the suffering first, but we should know
that there are other seeds present. Our ancestors have transmitted to us seeds
of suffering, but also seeds of peace, freedom, joy, and happiness. Even if
these seeds are buried deep in our consciousness, we can touch them and help
them manifest.
To touch the seeds of
joy, peace, and love within you is a very important practice. You can ask your
friends to do the same for you. If you love someone, you acknowledge their
positive seeds, and practice touching them every day. Touching and watering the
seeds in one person is a very concrete practice of love. If you love me please
refrain from watering only the seeds of anger, despair, and hatred in me. If
you love me, recognize the seeds of joy, gladness, peace, and solidity in me
also and touch them, several times a day. That will help me grow in the
direction of health, joy, and happiness.
To practice
mindfulness is to practice selective touching. Your happiness and suffering
depend on you and the people around you. If they refrain from touching your
negative seeds, if they know the art of touching the positive seeds in you, you
become a happy person and your suffering will gradually be transformed by that
kind of selective touching.
We learn how to touch
the beauty of the sky and the autumn leaves even if pain and sorrow are still
there. If it is difficult, we have to rely on the presence of a Dharma sister
or brother ot help us do so. If one mindful person, capable of joy and
happiness, sits close to us, her energy of mindfulness and joy will support us
and help restore our balance. Suddenly, with her sitting close, we are able to
touch the blue sky and the colors of autumn again. I think all of us have had
that kind of experience. Alone it may be difficult. But with someone beside
you, solid and free, it is less difficult. We profit very much from his or her
presence. If you find yourself in a desperate situation and that person is far
away, you go to her, because her presence can help you restore your balance and
get in touch with the positive elements that are within and around you. That is
why a Sangha and a practice center are so crucial.
You need a practice
center where you can find brothers and sisters, so that in difficult moments
you know where to go to get support. Even if you cannot come, just thinking
about it can give you some relief. Building a practice center, building a small
Sangha in your city so that you have the opportunity of meeting other brothers
and sisters for the practice of walking meditation, mindful breathing, tea
meditation, and recitation of the precepts is very important. It is a raft that
can rescue us.
One young American
who practiced during the Winter Retreat at Plum Village was asked to write down
all the positive traits of his father and his mother. He found it easy to list
positive things concerning his father, but he was having difficulty with his
mother. He was able to write only two or three positive things about her. But
when he began to look deeply, he was surprised to find that he could touch many
positive things in his mother. He practiced walking meditation, sitting
meditation, mindful breathing, and all the activities of the Sangha. Then when
he sat down to write, the insight came very naturally. In a few days he
discovered dozens of positive qualities in his mother. The more his discovered,
the more his resentment toward his mother vanished, and he reestablished his
deep connection with her. Compassion and love flowed in his heart. Then he sat
down and wrote a love letter to her.
When his mother
received the letter, she was very moved. Her son had never talked to her that
way, in the language of true love. He recognized all her qualities and felt
grateful for her presence. She rediscovered her son and her own happiness. She
regretted that her mother was not still alive so she could write the same kind
of letter to her. The son then wrote another letter, saying, “Mother, my
grandmother is still alive in you. You think that she has passed away, but she
is still alive in you. You can touch her deeply. So why don’t you write that
letter now? I am sure Grandmother will read your letter, even as you are
writing it.” That was the insight he got in the practice – that all our
ancestors are still alive in us. Our parents, even if we hate them and do not
want anything to do with them, are still inside us. We are only a continuation
of them. The son wrote the second letter to his mother, and his mother
practiced writing the same letter to her mother. One person practicing may help
the whole family to practice.
The practice of
Buddhist meditation is the practice of true love. True love has the power to
liberate us ad bring happiness to ourselves and to living beings around us.
True love is the love that retains liberty and creates joy. We cannot be
peaceful and happy if we do not have true love in us.
The Nine Prayers
May I be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May I be free from injury. May I live in safety.
May I be free from disturbance, fear, and anxiety.
May I learn to look at myself with the eyes of understanding and
of love.
May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and
happiness in myself.
May I learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving,
and delusion in myself.
May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day.
May I be able to live fresh, solid and free.
May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not be
indifferent.
NOTE: After
practicing “May I be…”, you can practice, “May he (or she) be…”, visualizing
first someone you like, then the one you love the most, then someone who is
neutral to you, and finally the person whom thinking of makes you suffer the
most. Then you can practice, “May they be…’, beginning with the group, the
people, the nation, or the species you like, then the one you love, then the
one that is neutral to you, and finally the one you suffer the most when you
think of.
0 Comments