When the young people come to you and ask what do you think about our future? Even if you see that the future is very black, you smile. Otherwise you kill these young people. And that smile is a smile of compassion. And if we can smile to the young people like that, we can smile to ourselves. Because there is a child in ourselves to be protected. Last night I said that we should devote time to ask the question as what is not wrong? That means we should give this seat a chance. There are so many of them here that are dying, that are becoming weaker and weaker because of our mistakes. Because we only want to ask the question of what is wrong.

[01:04]

Somewhere I said that when we are possessed by our pain and our sorrow, we have the impression that we are only that sorrow. We want to die. But the fact is that we are more than our sorrow. Because we know that Alaya Vijnana is a huge storehouse and in it we can find all kinds of seeds. The seeds of peace, the seeds of happiness, the seeds of the Buddha, and so on. So when I practice walking like this and feeling the earth underneath my feet and smiling, I am giving myself a chance. I want to Mano Vijnana to be free from the useless thinking, the damaging anxieties,

[02:13]

and so on, in order for the seeds of peace, of healing, to be here. Because I know that when they are here, they have a chance to fall back and become stronger. Collaborating with Mano Vijnana are five consciousnesses. The consciousness of eyes, called eyes consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, and body consciousness. I draw them here. One, two, three, four, five. Please don't mix up eyes consciousness with eyes.

[03:18]

Eyes is only the base, the organ of eyes consciousness. And eyes consciousness is something not permanent. When you sleep, the eyes consciousness goes back, being a seed, and does not operate. The same thing is true with ear, nose, tongue, and body. And Mano Vijnana collaborates with one of the five or sometimes two of the five at the same time. But when it collaborates with one only, concentration is stronger. And if they work together with the five, concentration is poor. When you want to think deeply about something, you have to shut down all five consciousnesses

[04:21]

in order for Mano Vijnana to go back to himself, to herself, and to concentrate. It is kind of a battery. And these are five lamps. And if it goes through the five lamps at the same time, then Mano Vijnana will not have enough energy to work. During our dream, eyes consciousness and the five others do not operate. And Mano Vijnana goes back to Alaya Vijnana and plays with the seeds, and creates a world of dreams. But the force behind pushing Mano Vijnana to find the things it likes

[05:22]

is the seven consciousnesses, or Manas. First of all, in our body, in our mind, there is an instinct of preservation. There is something like a mechanism of self-defense, self-protection, both in terms of body and mind. And please remember that in the practice of Buddhist meditation, body and mind are one. And also, there are so many seeds in Alaya Vijnana that are making a lot of pressure on Manas. Your desire, your anger, have seeds in Manas, in Alaya Vijnana.

[06:34]

And since they are important presence in yourself, they always make pressure on Manas. And also, there is the seed of avidya, which means ignorance, the lack of insight, illusion, delusion. A concept of self is a very strong seed in us. We believe that our self is our body. Our life is just this body. This body, or this consciousness, can exist by itself alone. And that kind of belief is very much in the heart of Manas. This is the first consciousness. This is the second, third, fourth, fifth. This is the sixth. This is referred to as the seventh.

[07:35]

And Alaya Vijnana is considered to be the eighth consciousness. So Alaya Vijnana has the name of the eighth consciousness. And sometimes we call it by the name of Sarva Bijaka. It means the totality of the seeds. Sarva Bijaka Nityatrung Sarva means every, all. Bijaka, bija means seed. The totality, the sum of the seeds.

[08:38]

We are the sum of our bijas. And the value of our being depends on the value and the quality of our seeds. Our happiness, our suffering depends on the quality of the seeds within our Alaya Vijnana. Alaya means storehouse. The role of Alaya is to maintain the seeds. And that is why Alaya is called the maintainer. And also the totality of seeds, that is why Alaya is called the maintained. The content and the recipient at the same time. Alaya Vijnana has something like eight names, but we don't have to mention them here. And during the night, if we have a dream,

[09:44]

well, Mano Vijnana is excited by manas, the pressure of these seeds. And then Mano Vijnana will come to Alaya Vijnana and select and actualize the seeds there, in order to make up a dream. And in that case, Mano Vijnana is described as working independently from these five consciousnesses. And Mano Vijnana stops to function only in a few cases. When you enter into the concentration called non-perception, well, Mano Vijnana ceases to operate. And there are other, when you fall into a coma, deep coma,

[10:54]

Mano Vijnana does not operate. But manas and Alaya Vijnana continue to operate all the time, whether during the life or during the night, whether Mano Vijnana is there or is not operating, Manas and Alaya Vijnana are always flowing like a river. And manas is translated by mentation, a permanent way of thinking, not thinking in the format of Mano Vijnana, but a kind of continued belief that there is a self, separated from non-self elements. And if someone is sleeping without dreaming,

[12:05]

and if someone else comes to wake him or her up, it is described that it is manas that is helping, that is making you do something like this, and then you wake up, and then Mano Vijnana will be born right away after that. That is the role of manas, surveying, protecting during that state of being. Mano Vijnana One of you asked the question how can we link the practice of Buddhist meditation and the work of peace, how to meditate in a way that can protect our planet,

[13:08]

to preserve it, to make peace possible. Last night I was talking about the art of mindful living. When we live mindfully we are in touch with the suffering, but we are also in touch with the non-suffering, which is the things that are enjoyable. I talked about how to educate ourselves and our children to enjoy peace and happiness. Of course we know that peace is important, but if we don't have the capacity of enjoying peace, therefore there is no use of having peace. Just practice the art of being in touch with peace,

[14:13]

and to enjoy peace in the present moment, I think that is the most important practice of meditation that has to do with peace and the preservation of our planet. If we learn how to cherish life in the present moment, if we know how to appreciate the flowers, the grass, the water, if we know how to enjoy these, then that is the basic work for peace and to protect our planet, to me. And if many of us in the world live our daily life that way, able to enjoy these things, we will refrain from doing things that will destroy our planet. We will do only the things that will keep our planet beautiful, worth living for the sake of our own enjoyment.

[15:15]

So I think peace work is first of all the work of education. But to educate here does not mean you have to write school books and to deliver sermons and so on. To educate means to practice meditation, to practice living in a way that you can be in touch with these healthy, refreshing, beautiful, happy elements in life, and your children to be able to do the same. I think if people teach that in school, that would be very helpful. We learn a lot, our children learn a lot of things. Sometimes they complain that they have so much work in school, and sometimes they dream of their schoolwork. But many of the things they learn in school are not really important.

[16:16]

But to learn how to be in touch with life, how to appreciate the beauty, the peace, the happiness that is already there, I think that is very important. And I think in your work to help heal other people, that would be very basic practice. And if we ourselves practice that art of being in touch, and then the people we help would be able to profit from our experience, we can share everything we do to them. Suppose I take the hand of a child, and we practice walking meditation in a way that the child can enjoy making steps, and not think about other things. Then we sit down by a stream of water, we just contemplate the water running,

[17:20]

the light on it, how to see the beauty, how to enjoy the sound of water. These things, I think, this work, dedication to enjoy peaceful living, joyful living. That is why when I said we should give a chance to ask questions as to what is not wrong. And when we pay too much attention to these seeds of suffering, and if we don't know how to practice, these seeds of suffering may become very important. And sometimes they don't need a stimuli from the outside. If they are so important, they will naturally find a way to emerge themselves. And by that time we will be dominated by our sorrow and our suffering.

[18:24]

And now if we come to a practice center, that will be difficult for us and for other people also. What to do if you find yourself in a situation where the block of pain and suffering is so huge and dominating the whole of your mano-vijnana? Well, I know in principle that the flower is so beautiful, the blue sky is so beautiful, peaceful, but I cannot get in touch. And if you tell me to breathe and speak, sometimes I cannot do it, I'm too weak, I'm too possessed by my sorrow. It's too late to ask people to practice that way. Well, usually we have to tell the person that they are more than their suffering.

[19:31]

That in their alaya-vijnana, there are seeds of peace and happiness in there. And if they want, they can practice so that these seeds can grow up and here, and counterbalance the presence of suffering. And this is a practice... Well, one day I... In Plum Village where I live, we lost a friend, a very close friend, a French man that had helped us a lot in setting up Plum Village. He had a heart attack and he died during the night, nobody knows. And in the morning we learned of the loss. He was such a gracious person to us. He gave us a lot of joy. And every time we spent five minutes with him, we felt that he is only joy and peace. And we regretted that morning

[20:36]

that we had not spent more time with him. We chanted the Heart Sutra for him. We discussed how to help his family. And finally, the students in Plum Village, many of them asked the permission to go back and visit their parents and brothers and sisters. We learned the lesson of impermanence. And that night I could not sleep. It's so painful, the loss of a friend like that. My heart is like caught in something. And I knew that the next morning I had to deliver a speech somewhere. And I wanted to sleep. But it was difficult to sleep with such a block of pain. I practiced breathing. It was winter, very cold. And I was lying on my bed,

[21:38]

visualizing the beautiful trees in a yard. I had planted three beautiful cedars. The name of that variety is Cedrus deodara. I think it originated from the Himalayas. And the trees now are very big. During walking meditation, I used to stop and come and bow to these beautiful cedars. And I hugged them, breathing in and out. It felt very healthy, felt very wonderful. And it seems that these cedars always responded to my hugging and breathing. I do that because I feel so refreshing. And I invited these up here,

[22:42]

and I just breathe in, breathe out, and become only the trees and the breath. It's very healthy. It was easy for me because I practiced every day the breathing, the smiling, and the getting in touch. But for those people who do not practice like that, the trees, the little bamboo, have become too weak. And when they come up, they are not strong enough to counterbalance the suffering. And then you cannot ask people to do more than they can do. So maybe the seed in him or her is too weak. We have to go to the roots of the seed. That means if you have a friend

[23:43]

so refreshing, so understanding, that you think that only by sitting by his side or her side that you can establish the balance. And then if that is the only chance, then you have to buy a ticket and go to her right away. No matter how far she is, you have to go there. Otherwise you will die. You need the support of someone. And if you have a good sangha you practice with, you are very lucky. Because a sangha is where you can go to in difficult moments. And if it is a good sangha, well, you feel very safe. But if you don't have a good sangha, and then think of the only friend that can understand you, that can be a source of support to you, then you have to go rightly to him or to her. So when you come to her,

[25:02]

two things will happen. She, as a living reality, will come to you by this way. You see her in person. You listen to her in person. And you sit very close to her. You hold her hands, or you hug her. So she is very real, very strong here. And with the seeds of her that you have here coming up, well, this will be strong enough to counterbalance your suffering, and you feel that you can be alive, you can live now. There is enough peace for you to be. And this is possible. It has become possible for you to reach out to the flower. Now you can touch the flower.

[26:06]

You can see the beauty, the wonder of the flower. But you have to take the opportunity to practice, because your time with your friend is limited. If you just enjoy being with her and don't practice intensely in order to be back with the healthy aspect of life, then when you have to leave her and to go back, you find yourself in a difficult situation again. That is why during the time with her, you have to do your best. That is for your survival. And during that time, her living seeds will be planted here, and also your practice will help plant many other wonderful seeds in here, and you have to make sure that when you leave that person,

[27:10]

you are healthy enough, you are strong enough, and you can continue the practice when you come to your place. That seems to be the only way. If you have a good sangha, you are very fortunate. And if you have one friend left that can help you in that situation, you are still very lucky. There are many people who do not have such a sangha and who do not have such a friend. And when they go to the therapist, the therapist has many people to take care of, and the therapist will do his or her best in order to be your friend, to be your support. But you also need some luck in order to meet a good therapist. So the idea that we have to transplant good seeds in our alaya vijnana

[28:33]

is very important, because many times we do not have to deal with the seeds of our suffering, and yet the seeds of your suffering can be transformed by themselves. When you plant the seeds of the other nature into alaya vijnana, these seeds will go and take care of the other kind of seeds. It is like the antibodies in us. They know where to go and they know how to take care of the foreign bodies. That is true. The transformation at the base is carried on here without your intention. Maybe you don't give the order, but they just do it.

[29:34]

You know, during the first time of my exile, because when I was in Vietnam, the war was so intense, and I had the impression that people outside of Vietnam did not know about the true nature of the war. So I accepted to go out and tell people about the truth of the war in Vietnam. I began to speak at Cornell University, and then after that I made a tour of North America, and then Europe and Asia, talking about the war in Vietnam, telling people that we don't want the war. We are caught in a situation where the communist bloc and the anti-communist bloc are fighting and urge us to fight, but we don't really want to fight. We need a ceasefire, we need a peaceful agreement, and sometimes our voice is lost in the sounds of bombs and mortars,

[30:45]

and we have to burn ourselves alive in order to draw your attention that we don't want this war. But even so, people still don't understand. People still think that we are doing political things. I think that the most important thing to do in a war, And I think that this is the most important thing. So in order to defeat the communist bloc, The reality is that in this war, But even so, people still don't understand. People still think that we are doing political things.

[31:49]

And after that I was not allowed to go back to Vietnam. I was not popular at all with the anti-communist government and I was not popular with the communist government either. And during that first year of being exiled, I very frequently dreamt of going home. I had a beautiful and happy childhood and also my teacher, my master, was a very kind person. And the image of my childhood is a hill, a beautiful green hill with beautiful trees and flowers and small cottages. And I dreamt of going back to that hill. But as soon as I arrived at the foot of the hill,

[32:51]

some obstacle was there and I could not climb on it. And I woke up. And that dream repeated itself a lot of times. But at that time I was also practicing mindful living and recognized what is beautiful, what is peaceful, what is good in Europe and in America and continued to plant the seeds, good seeds, in my daily life. There are trees and flowers and fruits that do not exist in Vietnam and I practiced being in touch with these wonderful things. There are people, Catholics, Protestants, but they are very kind people. They can teach me many things. I practiced being in touch with them and so on. And after some time that dream stopped to come back.

[33:51]

I did not have to analyze it. I did not have to deal with it. I did not have to bring it up here in order to have a conversation with it. It turns out that the seeds I planted here have come and take good care of that seed. The feeling of being in exile, the feeling of not being there with my friends who are in difficulties in the war. Because outside here I continue to work and support the peace work of my friends at home. So by doing these things, I planted seeds. I know that I am with them, I was with them. I knew that I was with them in the struggle for peace. And therefore all these seeds have helped to transform the other kind of seeds, seeds of suffering. So according to the Buddhist teaching,

[34:55]

sometimes you don't have to directly encounter the seeds of your suffering. Sometimes you just plant new seeds that have a healing, refreshing nature and then they will take care of this. There is another reason why we should not invite them up here a lot of time. Because every time it has a chance to be here, it will go down and become stronger. I would like to invite you to meditate on this. Because the Western psychotherapy has the tendency to think that we have to integrate the things that are unknown into our zone of consciousness, integrate it in here. And we are talking about getting in touch with our suffering, getting in touch with our anger and things like that.

[35:59]

But to the extent that we forget to get in touch with the other things. Sometimes I see that we are not very angry. But if we try to express, to be in touch with it, we become more angry. Why? Because the seeds of anger are invited here, to dwell here. And you want it to be expressed. You want to take it out of your system. And by doing so, you are practicing your anger. You are practicing your anger. You are rehearsing your anger. You are planting new seeds for your anger. And that is why the more you express your anger, the angrier you become.

[37:01]

When I close the door and I hit my pillow, I think that I am getting in touch with my anger. I think that I am getting my anger out of my system. But the fact is that I am transforming the energy of anger into the energy of pounding and hitting. And I become exhausted after some time. And when I become exhausted, I feel better because the energy I have spent in hitting my pillow. But the seeds of anger are still there and maybe stronger. The roots of my anger are still there. And if someone triggers, well, anger will come up again as the new zone of energy

[38:17]

and I will have to go into my room and hit my pillow again. I don't think that in the moment we hit the pillow, we are in touch with our anger. I don't think that we are even in touch with the pillow. Because if you practice awareness, you know that this is a pillow. And if you know the pillow as a pillow, you don't hit it. So you are not in touch with the pillow. And if you are not in touch with the pillow, you are not really in touch with your anger. You are just dominated by your anger. And you are practicing your anger. You are planting more seeds of anger in yourself. So please meditate on that. This is an invitation for dialogue. When a patient comes to a therapist,

[39:38]

he or she is seeking a friend that she doesn't have in her life. If she has a friend that is understanding, that can help, she will come to that friend. But since she does not have such a friend, a mother, a father, a brother or a sister, she has to come to a therapist. And the therapist has to act as a brother, as a father. And sometimes without his or her intention, the person becomes very attached to the therapist. And the therapist will find it difficult to remain a free person because the other person continues to cling to him or her. And that is why to really help,

[40:43]

we have to give birth to a therapist in that person, the way we do it in the Buddhist circle. When a teacher is a good teacher, she will try her best to give birth to the teacher in the person of the student. And the student will be his or her teacher very soon. And very soon, she will not depend on her teacher anymore. In the Buddhist circle, there are teachers who want the students to continue to be dependent on them. And that is not a good thing to do. And I think in the psychotherapy circle, that may be true also. We have to practice and to help in a way that the person we help can be on his or her own very soon.

[41:44]

And therefore, the way to do it is to give birth to the therapist in the client. Help yourself. Plant seeds. Get in touch. Live mindfully and happily. And if you do like that, you share everything you have with your student or with your patient. And everything that works with you, you can share, including sitting meditation. Sitting meditation is so beautiful a position of being alive. Well, your body is in a very beautiful and stable position. And it's so wonderful to sit in that position and to practice breathing and smiling for 10, 15 minutes. And I think everyone can do that. And your client also can do it.

[42:46]

Maybe you should invite him or her to sit with you for 5 minutes. First, not in a lotus position. Maybe on a rock by the side of the river and just enjoy breathing and smiling. And then slowly you say that, well, but the best position is the lotus position. I believe so. Because you need to put yourself in a lotus position and you feel stable, calm right away. It's a very good position. I think we should continue tomorrow. And now we have walking meditation to enjoy. I would like to remind you of walking. Walking is not for arriving. Walking is only for walking. Each step you make is an opportunity for us to plant a seed of peace, of joy. Each step is made in the present moment.

[43:49]

And it can engender peace and happiness. In the Buddhist circle they speak of lotus flowers and fresh breeze. Each step causes the fresh breeze to be born in my heart. Each step makes a lotus flower bloom under my feet. And that is the way we practice walking meditation. We practice and enjoy making steps. And because we don't need to arrive, we slow down and we enjoy our walking. We do not walk slowly like in the meditation hall. Instead of making one step, one breath, we make two or three steps, one breath. You can do like this. One, two, three. One, two, three.

[44:53]

In a case your lungs want to make three steps while inhaling or exhaling. But if your lungs only want two, then please make two. And if you find that the counting is not as rich as the using of the gatha, you use the gatha. In, in, in. Out, out, out. Deep, deep, deep. Slow, slow, slow. Like that. Calm, ease, smile, release. Present moment, wonderful moment. And you will know whether you practice correctly or not. When you practice correctly, you feel so wonderful. You don't need a teacher to tell you. And when you don't enjoy your walking, that means you don't practice it correctly. So change. Change your way of walking.

[45:55]

In my, I used to, to tell the story of the astronaut who go to the moon and find out later that their spacecraft does not work and they cannot go home. And they go die on the moon. People from the Earth cannot send a new craft to them. And they ask each other whether, what would be their deepest desire by now. And they tell each other that, well, now my desire is only to go back to the beautiful planet and making peaceful steps like this. I don't care to be the president of a corporation or something like that. I feel that walking now on my beautiful planet is the biggest joy since I know that I am dying on the moon. So now we have been rescued and we are back on the planet.

[47:00]

And we should be able to enjoy walking on our planet. And if we walk that way, not rushing to the future, not having any destination, not having any hope, and then we will make a step into the most wonderful moment of our life. And if we walk like that each day, there will be a transformation at the base. So please enjoy the walking.

[47:37]

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