In order to help that person. So meditation is quite important for therapist If you are a good therapist No matter you say that you are practicing meditation or not. I believe you do because you know to look at things in order to see Their nature somehow in the depth of their nature The difference is that in buddhism we have Elaborated many many methods of doing that So the practice of buddhism is based on of meditation is based on the principle of vasana performation fumigation and

[01:01]

The most important seed to be planted is the seed of understanding When we look at the flower Deeply enough we see non-flower Elements non-flower elements within it and including the garbage and when we look at the garbage We can also see The non-garbage elements within the garbage we can see the flower in there we can see cucumber we can see Lettuce I think that the good organic gardeners They can see that Even if they don't practice meditation a lot when they look at the garbage heap They can see cucumber and lettuce that is why they are wise enough not to throw the garbage away They keep the garbage in order to transform them back into cucumber and lettuce If the flower is on her way to the garbage the garbage should be on her way to the flower

[02:08]

And this is the most important buddhist teaching to me That is called the teaching of non-duality This is because that is and and if that is not this cannot be So the flower is not considering the garbage as her enemy It's important and The garbage is not depressed The garbage is not looking at the flower as His enemy In fact, they realize the nature of interbeing in each other. So that is why they don't panic The flower does not panic when she knows that she is on the way to the garbage Yeah, I think that is important because all of us know that we are going to die someday But there are people who suffer very much from that idea But there are people who can smile at that idea

[03:13]

And that makes the difference between an enlightened person And not enlightened person You know in my tradition the old people Especially in the old time. They are not afraid of dying The grandfather would enjoy very much going to the to the carpenter in order to select the kind of wood that will for his coffin They want a beautiful coffin and they want to select the wood by themselves and then they supervise the making of the coffin During my time as a child I saw many Aged people doing so and they were so happy to bring the coffin home and to place it in a piece In a room close to their room And going in and out they look at it smiling. They love it because not many people have that kind of privilege

[04:17]

So the children if they know what their parents want They try to in order to satisfy their parents needs And I Saw a person who from time to time got into it, lie down to see whether it still fit And when they sat on the porch Watching their grandchildren to play How they smile beautifully. They know that their children are going to carry them into the future So they do everything in order to bring their wisdom Their joy in order to pass it to their children and grandchildren very wise in our time not many people can do that and they are very afraid of dying and They try to ignore that fear in themselves but

[05:19]

Obviously, I know of many people who consider dying as something very natural And if you study and practice the prasna paramita, you know that Nothing can die. Nothing can become Nothing To be born means from nothing you become something and that does not happen We Observe we cannot find a single thing that has come from nothing That is why the concept of birth is Is a concept that we have invented And We cannot pick up something that we think that will become nothing But Something must be become something else When you burn a sheet of paper the sheet of paper doesn't become nothing

[06:21]

It becomes something. It can become the smoke, become the heat going into the cosmos It becomes some kind some ash and it continue to be in different forms and Breaking the path of birth and death Is the practice of meditation also And when you arrive at that you smile at birth and death and you know that You have never been born and you will never die And people who have obtained that kind of insight, well, they ride on waves of birth and death Beautifully and joyfully like Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara Described by Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhists as riding on the tide of birth and death Love, joy may be considered to be flowers

[07:34]

But If we meditate we know that that flower can turn into garbage very quickly if we don't know how to preserve it And there are couples who enjoy much love and joy in the beginning But if because they don't know how to preserve that love and joy They don't live mindfully. That is why that love and joy Turn into hatred and anger and despair very quickly So We can help the process of transformation from rose to garbage But we can also help with the process of turning garbage into rose and there are kinds of Garbage that can be easily turned back into flowers But there are kinds of garbage that needs a long time, a lot of practice in order to be turned back to rose

[08:43]

When you throw a banana peel into the garbage Can You know that you are throwing a banana peel in a garbage can, that is the practice of meditation You know what is going on You don't do that in a meditation hall, you do it in a dining hall or in the kitchen And you did do it mindfully. That is what I call the practice of meditation You do it with a lot of peace because you know that it takes no time at all For the banana peel to go back into a flower, but when you throw a plastic bag When you know that you are throwing a plastic bag, you feel a little bit uneasy Because of the fact that you are mindful of what is going on Because it may take much more time And people say that when you throw a plastic

[09:48]

Disposable diapers Into the garbage can, you know that it could take from 400 to 500 years for it to degrade And because of the practice of mindfulness you refrain, you know what to do and what not to do in order not to create the kind of Garbage that will cause suffering for a long time And all of us know that Nuclear waste is the worst kind of garbage and we are making a lot in the world It takes about 250,000 years to turn them back into flowers and the practice of mindfulness alone can save us From this situation Concerning our person we have flowers and garbage within ourselves But from the Buddhist point of view

[10:51]

We accept both We are not afraid of our garbage And we know how to cherish, to appreciate the presence of our flowers You have understanding, you have joy, you have peace, it means you have That part of flower in you, but you also have hatred, you have Despair, you have anger in you and you know that that is the part of the garbage But from the Buddhist, the standpoint of Buddhist teaching You know that You can transform the garbage into flower again, that is why you don't panic You

[11:54]

Cherish the lettuce, the cucumbers, but you also cherish the garbage You don't throw them away Because you know this brings the other So To preserve the garbage in ourselves is the Buddhist principle of therapy We don't want to throw it out, we don't want to get it out of our system Because if we get it out, we have nothing left in order to make our flowers grow Nirvana is made of samsara, that is the very well-known thing in Buddhism And Buddhism is made only of non-Buddhist elements I Think Western therapy has the tendency to To

[12:54]

Get things that they don't want out of their body, of their mind A Therapist might behave like a surgeon thinking that the best way is to make a surgery To pick the wrong thing and to throw it out Peace activists in the West are thinking of doing peace like that They think that if we can throw our atomic bombs outside of our Planet, that is good But they don't know that it is our Body, our mind, that is, that are the roots of atomic bombs

[14:01]

Dealing with the roots Is the problem So if we have a nodule, a kind of tumor in us, even if it is benign It's not maybe Benign They they say that in order to be safe, it's better that you undergo a Surgery and take it out, better even if you run only 5% or 10% risk For it to turn into a cancerous nodule, and then it's better to And I know that many people who have got cancer have been practicing and Have practiced and Using Herbal medicines and they have been able to transform

[15:05]

Their situation and the cancer is gone So operating, I mean to operate to To Open and to take it out may not be the only way And I think therapists in the West are inclined to do that way Anger is energy Like a hatred, like a delusion And it is the garbage, but there are ways in order to Preserve these kind of energies and to transform them During the war, I wrote a very short poem about my anger I think I may ask Roshani to sing it to you The poem is very short But when Betsy Rose

[16:06]

Made it into a song, she added more words and she made it more dramatic and and less strong Than the original, but people like that better because they feel closer to to it The original is something like this, I hold my face in my two hands Now the American bombers just destroyed a village that we have helped rebuild And And They have destroyed four times the same village, and they have helped rebuild four times that village It was very close to the demilitarized zone I hold my face in my two hands No, I'm not crying, that's the second line, no, I'm not crying

[17:11]

I hold my face in my two hands in order to keep my loneliness warm Two hands to nourish Two hands to protect Two hands to keep my soul from leaving me in anger, and that is my song And I'm holding my anger, I'm not expressing it I am taking, I was taking good care of my anger because I know that What I have to do is to transform it into the kind of energy that is needed for for my country, for my peace for the peace of my country Roshani is here? Please come Hmm

[18:29]

Hmm I Hold my face In my two hands I hold my face In my two hands My hands Hold to catch what might fall from within me

[19:31]

Deeper than crying Crying I am not crying I hold my face In my two hands I Hold my face In my two Hands

[20:43]

From the rain Thunder Two hands preventing My soul from flying in anger I hold my face In my two hands I hold my face In my two hands Holding The From the wind

[22:00]

Me Where tomorrow may blow Forgiveness When something triggers your anger your anger from being a seed become a zone of energy

[23:12]

Burning in your body burning in yourself, but the buddhist practice is to Go back to the breathing and recognize anger as anger Breathing in. I know that i'm angry Breathing out. I know that i'm angry And the buddhist Attitude is to take care very Kindly Of your anger you don't suppress it You don't run away from it. You just breathe and hold your anger into your in your arms With the most tenderness you can afford And you breathe on your anger breathing in I know that i'm angry Breathing out. I know that i'm angry and you continue to practice like that Not saying anything not doing anything. Just practicing breathing

[24:16]

breathing in I know that anger is still in me Breathing out. I know I am anger at this moment And if possible you practice walking meditation while doing so Anger is still there, but it's already different. It's like You throw a stone into the river The stone will sink But if you have something else to help Like a boat and then you can have Many kilograms of stone without The fear of having them Sinking When you practice breathing and you produce awareness about

[25:18]

Your anger in yourself You are taking care of your anger in the way the buddha taught You should not be angry at your anger If you are angry at your anger and then anger will be doubled and you suffer more so instead You bring about the mindfulness of your anger And that is the sponsor of your anger What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is the awareness that is something that is going on And you produce awareness in yourself in order to take good care of your anger. Your anger is like this And if you leave it alone in yourself, it will be very destructive You will say things you will do things and if you don't say things you don't do things

[26:24]

It is still continue to destroy Not in this direction, but in this direction So what you do is to bring out the awareness of your anger in order to protect and protect your anger And to sponsor it Breathing in I know that i'm angry breathing out. I know that i'm angry And there anger is no longer alone anger Is with something else that is your mindfulness And mindfulness to us who practice buddhism is the buddha in person Because mindfulness is the awareness of what is going on and that is the very essence of buddhahood If you are aware of what is going on and then very soon you will see into its true nature and you'll be emancipated It's like when you contemplate a flower in the morning

[27:31]

a tulip flower A lotus flower in the morning the flower is still closed like this And when the sun dries and begin to shine on the on the flower it still keep like this But if the sun keeps shining on the flower something will happen After one hour and two hours of shining well the flower will have to bloom The sunshine tries to penetrate deeply into the flower And our mindfulness is like that if you keep breathing and sponsoring your anger the particles of Mindfulness will enter infiltrate into the body of the anger The sunshine is a source of energy made of particles called photon

[28:36]

and they Penetrate into the flower and at some point The flower cannot resist it has to open itself and show its heart to the sun If we keep practicing Maintaining mindfulness breathing on our anger taking good care of it using our Compassion our understanding to shine on anger very soon our anger will crack and we'll be able to look into the depth of our our anger Anger is not very Pleasant to experience it's like raw potatoes But you know that if you don't have raw potatoes you don't have cooked potatoes

[29:46]

So you put the raw potatoes into a pan you pour the water in it and you put it on the fire And then you put a cover on it The fire underneath Is mindfulness the practice the continued practice of mindfulness. This is the shine the sunshine continuing to shine on the flower And the cover is your concentration If you want your mindfulness to be strong to be powerful in order to take good care of your anger and then practice Concentration. It means that at the time when you are practicing Mindfulness on your anger you should be somehow alone You should not listen to television. You should not talk to other people especially to the person who has just Helped The seed of anger to manifest

[30:50]

It's better that you turn around You'll be yourself alone walking or sitting practicing breathing on your anger And The moment you begin it It seems that you don't see any difference, but there is already a difference when mindfulness is born There is already a difference When the pot of raw potatoes is put on the fire the big the water Begins to be warm, although it's not boiling yet but it starts to be warm And if you can keep it on the fire for some time it will begin to boil And 45 minutes or one hour later when you uncover it you smell something delicious The potatoes are cooked The same thing is true with your anger. You can cook your anger And you can transform it into something else quite useful to your body and your mind

[31:56]

And as you look deeply into your anger you see the roots of your anger And You do the work of transformation just by planting the seeds of understanding in you So a 14 year boy who practiced in Plum Village told me this story He came to Plum Village once a year and stayed for one month practice And then he brought the practice home and practiced with his sisters and brothers He told me that when he was 11 he was very angry at his father because He could not understand his father Every time he fall down and get hurt and then his father would get very angry at him and shouted at him He could not understand because to him when someone get hurt

[33:01]

He would need care and compassion and anger doesn't help at all And when his sister got hurt also she was shouted at by His father So he told himself that when he grow up he will be quite different And when my my my son Fall down and get hurt. I would not be angry at him. I would come to him pick him up and try to say very Assertive thing to him I will be very different from my father And that kind of determination is quite remarkable but Just A year ago I had a very interesting experience. I would like to tell you that is what he reported to me

[34:06]

His sister was playing with another little girl on a hammock And Suddenly they fell off the hammock and her sister got very hurt and then blood was running here Suddenly he saw that he was very angry at his sister. He wanted to shout at her To say that how stupid you are Why did you do that? but fortunately He stopped in time. He did not do that He he said that because I had he had practiced breathing and Practice mindfulness in Plum Village. That is why he recognized anger as anger And that is why he could stop in time to breathe And while some other people are taking were taking care of the wounded Little girl, he turned away and he practiced breathing on his anger and he walked

[35:13]

He told me this Suddenly I saw that I am exactly like my father And I know if I don't do anything for that anger in me. I am going to transmit it to my children And at the same time I saw something very important I saw that my father may have been a victim like me and the seed of anger might have been transmitted by my grandfather And I told myself to practice in order to transform my my my anger into Something else and after a few months I was able to look at my father without any anger and I brought my The fruit of my practice back to my father and I told him that I used to be angry at him But now I understood And I wish that he can practice like me in order to transform his seeds of anger And after that the father and son became very close like a friend like a couple of friends

[36:21]

And what the the young man realized there is quite remarkable We usually think that fathers and mothers Fathers and mothers have to nourish children, but in this case it is The children who can bring the nourishing things back to their father and mother in order to help transform them and There are young men or young women Who believe that they don't want to have anything to do with the father and the mother Because during their childhood they suffer so much from their father and the mother But if they practice and if they see how the mind works and how the seeds become manifested dharma They will understand That their father and mother may be just victims like them And it is with compassion that they have to deal with them instead of anger

[37:24]

There was a man who lived in Los Angeles A Vietnamese refugee He had not talked with his son for four years Because they did not go well with each other The man came from a very different kind of culture and society. He was born there and he was raised up there as a Vietnamese having Confucianism as a way of life And his son had been sent to an American school and had been exposed to the American way of life And they could not understand each other so they did not talk to each other. They were angry at each other They had made each other suffer a lot So during a retreat in

[38:31]

in Northern California I talked about understanding as the basic condition of love Prajna and Karuna Prajna is understanding Karuna is love compassion If you don't have one, you don't have the other If you don't understand you cannot love If you love properly And you make the other person happy it means you understand And if your love is making the other person unhappy that means It is not true love. It is not based on understanding And during the retreat there was a deep transformation in the soul of the person I do not hesitate to use the word soul or self I am afraid of it He knew that he did not understand his son and his son did not understand his suffering

[39:39]

So he he knows that he has to transform himself I said that if you don't understand the suffering the difficulties the anguish The aspiration of the other person. There's no way you can love him or her even if you have a A tremendous amount of goodwill you can make that person suffer a lot so, please Please go back to that person hold his hand Hold her hand And sit close to him or her and ask this question Darling Do you think I understand you Do you do have I made you suffer a lot because of my love, please tell me And if the person you talk to begin to cry that is a good sign because the door of understanding Is open again and you can communicate again

[40:43]

But you have To transform yourself before you can say such a thing you have to look to get a lot of courage a lot of wisdom in order to to say such a thing and The father in los angeles, he had that kind of courage So he decided to recuperate his son And on the way from San francisco to los angeles He meditated on how to talk to his son When he got home his son was not there And his son came back only three days after so he had more time to prepare for his strategy of communication And when he hear his son Coming he stood up and brought a chair and invite his son to sit down That was not very

[41:47]

Very usual in a confucian family But the young people bring a chair to them they are there and not the opposite Confucianism is like that And then when the child was the boy he was 16 sat down he He said like this He reported to me every word He said that son I know that I made a lot of mistakes in the last four years I know that I have made you suffer a lot And that be that is because I did not understand you So, please give me a chance So that I can repair all that His son Made a comment very short He said I don't believe it And then he left again

[42:50]

for three more weeks He did believe that a miracle can happen but a miracle did happen But during these three weeks it seems that the seed of that statement Has gone deeply into his alaya-vijnana and has developed So he went back and this time he consent to sit down and talk with his father And his father continued to talk in that kind of language that kind of attitude and finally Reconciliation was possible That happened three years ago This year when I conducted a retreat for refugees Vietnamese refugees In Southern California both son and father came for the retreat And I received them in my cabin and I talked to them because I

[43:50]

I had the feeling that I had many things to learn from the experience in order to share with other people And if that father Has succeeded in his attempt to re-establish understanding if the little boy Who could Who Brought back his insight and help his father to understand his seed of Anger and then I think all of us can can do so and can help other people to do so We usually think that the seeds of sufferings

[44:52]

in us Have been have been planted during our childhood And if we continue to suffer like this because of that important period But we neglect the fact that From that time on we have been living in such a way that we continue to plant to plant seeds of suffering into us I know of people who had difficult childhood, but who can live happily because They have lived in ways By which they can plant Joyful and happy seeds within the alaya vijnana And when We Practice breathing mindfully and look into the nature of our anger

[45:55]

We may ask the question as why Why that person has said such a thing to us has done such a thing to us And very soon we will find the answer And if we can see The roots of things will be liberated from our anger In Plum Village we receive a lot of news from Southeast Asia And many of the news are not joyful What happened In the hard labor camps What happened in the refugee camps? What happened on the ocean with the boat people things like that are not very pleasant to listen

[47:02]

But we keep Receiving that kind of news every day And many times We know that we are not able to handle all all of these news So we have to postpone The job of Opening the letters In order to practice walking sitting smiling and when we feel ready to come and open the mail One day I received the news that a 13 year old girl Was raped on a boat from from South Vietnam to Thailand And after Being raped the little girl could not the younger could not bear so she jumped into the ocean and drowned

[48:08]

And news like that Of course I got angry And I had to practice breathing And Sometime I got the news that 35 people on a boat were killed completely by the sea pirates One of them survived and reported to the United Nations Commission On refugees And there are many there should be many Boats like that attacked by pirates and killed completely without any body reporting But that night in during meditation I saw that I can be a sea pirate very easily I saw myself as a baby born in a fishing village along the coast of Thailand

[49:12]

And My father is a drunk person Very poor fisherman And he inherited that kind of situation from his father who was also very poor And my mother is a woman who doesn't know how to raise children properly So I don't go to the school I play with the children on the streets And when I got 20 I became a poor fisherman like my father And one day on the high sea other fishermen said well, let us just try once Because the refugees they have some gold some valuables And if we can get it But we can Get out of our situation Being a

[50:14]

poor Miserable fisherman for all our life. We could do something else to have a decent life And I was tempted by that kind of Thing Because I never went to school Nobody told me how to understand and to love I was tempted so I agreed And when I saw other fishermen doing like that, I just Tell myself Why don't I try like him? Everybody is doing that So I commit the crime of raping the little girl Now if you are there and if you have a gun you shoot me I die that's all you don't help me Nobody helped me when I was born When nobody helped me when I grow up as a little boy No one helped me when I become a poor fisherman

[51:16]

and now if I do things like this because Because I have been raised like that so killing me does not help me And last night along the coast of thailand 500 600 babies were born in that way and if Economists educators politicians don't do anything for them Dozens of them will become at least sea pirates in 20 years And when you see that in your meditation your anger for the pirate just disappear You know that you have to do something for them in order for them not to become a pirate And when they become a pirate shooting at them That doesn't help you make Their mothers cry their mothers are also victims And the contemplation the meditation on The nature of your anger can bring about that kind of insight

[52:21]

And with that insight compassion is born in you Compassion as a source of energy just like anger it has been the result of your Meditation formerly it was anger now. It is compassion And having that compassion In you and having that kind of insight, you know what to do and not what to do with the pirates are the pirate to be That have been born In the last night I told you the story of the grain of corn In buddhism

[53:23]

We talk about suchness suchness means the nature of a person or of a thing When we understand the suchness of a person we can begin to love and to help him or her The person is supposed to have flowers and garbage within himself or herself and if we love we have to accept both sides It's like a bottle of gas we know that gas is dangerous we can die because of the gas But we have brought the bottle of gas into our kitchen because we know that gas can help us cook a good meal We can live peacefully and happily with the bottle of gas because we know the suchness of gas Electricity is like that. It can kill you, but it can help you a great deal So you have invited electricity to your home and coexist peacefully with it so your wife your husband They do have their suchness they do have

[54:27]

The part of their flower and the part without garbage and if we know their suchness We'll be able to live with them happily and peacefully If we do not live peacefully and happily with him or her because we don't know enough about their suchness If you know their suchness you would know how to turn on the flower in her And you will profit from that And if you are too ignorant You will come and turn on the garbage in her And you help that garbage to develop And you have to suffer Therefore understanding a person Is the basic thing to do in order to help him or her? And to help you yourself And sometimes you think that you need to transform that person so that she or he will become Pleasant to you But you don't know that you also should be pleasant to her

[55:33]

So the first thing we have to look is to look at Flowers and garbage within ourselves and the practice of meditation is just the practice of Nourishing the flowers and transforming the garbage into flowers again. It is a continued process Not just you you have to do it for all your life I guess the Buddha practiced that all his life also Not just before enlightenment And he cherished garbage and flowers at the same time Without suffering, how can you experience joy and peace? A person who has not known Who doesn't know what is suffering doesn't know how to appreciate happiness if you don't have If you have not had any toothache you cannot enjoy your non-toothache Therefore suffering is useful in many ways

[56:38]

and You practice peace and joy and the transformation in yourself and when you You know that the flower in you is quite Obvious Quite pleasant You go to that other person As a flower and you have the chance to help him or her You cannot go to her as a piece of garbage. You cannot do anything With that So what we can offer each other is flower A flower We have to offer our husband a flower, have to offer our wife a flower Have to offer our wife a flower

[57:30]

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