Resting in the River
By Thich Nhat Hanh
My
dear friends, suppose someone is holding a pebble and throws it in the
air and the pebble begins to fall down into a river. After the pebble
touches the surface of the water, it allows itself to sink slowly into
the river.
It will reach the bed of the river without any
effort. Once the pebble is at the bottom of the river, it continues to
rest. It allows the water to pass by.
I think the pebble reaches
the bed of the river by the shortest path because it allows itself to
fall without making any effort. During our sitting meditation we can
allow ourselves to rest like a pebble. We can allow ourselves to sink
naturally without effort to the position of sitting, the position of
resting.
Resting is a very important practice; we have to learn the
art of resting. Resting is the first part of Buddhist meditation. You
should allow your body and your mind to rest. Our mind as well as our
body needs to rest.
The problem is that not many of us know how
to allow our body and mind to rest. We are always struggling;
struggling has become a kind of habit. We cannot resist being active,
struggling all the time. We struggle even during our sleep.
It
is very important to realize that we have the habit energy of
struggling. We have to be able to recognize a habit when it manifests
itself because if we know how to recognize our habit, it will lose its
energy and will not be able to push us anymore.
Ten years ago I
was in India visiting the ex-untouchable community of Buddhists. A
friend who belonged to the caste organized the trip for me. I was
sitting on the bus, enjoying the landscape outside, contemplating the
palm trees and the vegetation. Suddenly I turned and I saw him looking
very tense. There was no reason why he had to be tense like that. I
thought that he was trying to make my visit pleasant and maybe that was
the reason he was so tense. I told him, "Dear friend, I know that you
want to make my trip pleasant, but I am already very happy. I've
already enjoyed the trip. So why don't you sit back, smile, and relax?"
He said, "Okay," and he sat back and he tried to relax.
I was
pleased and I turned my face toward the window again and I enjoyed the
palm trees and other things. But just a few minutes after when I looked
back at him he was as tense as before. He was not able to relax, to
allow himself to relax. I knew that he belonged to that section of the
population that had been struggling for many thousand years. He was
discriminated against. He had suffered so much, his ancestors and
himself and his children. So the tendency to struggle has been there
for many thousand years. That is why it was very difficult for him to
allow himself to rest.
We have to practice in order to be able
to transform this habit in us. The habit of struggle has become a
powerful source of energy that is shaping our behavior, our actions and
our reactions.
When an animal in the jungle is wounded, it knows
how to find a quiet place, lie down and do nothing. The animal knows
that is the only way to get healed—to lay down and just rest, not
thinking of anything, including hunting and eating. Not eating is a
very wonderful way of allowing your body to rest. We are so concerned
about how to get nutrition that we are afraid of resting, of allowing
our body to rest and to fast. The animal knows that it does not need to
eat. What it needs is to rest, to do nothing, and that is why its
health is restored.
In our consciousness there are wounds also,
lots of pains. Our consciousness also needs to rest in order to restore
itself. Our consciousness is just like our body. Our body knows how to
heal itself if we allow it the chance to do so. When we get a cut on
our finger we don't have to do anything except to clean it and to allow
it the time to heal, because our body knows how to heal itself. The
same thing is true with our consciousness; our consciousness knows how
to heal itself if we know how to allow it to do so. But we don't allow
it. We always try to do something. We worry so much about healing,
which is why we do not get the healing we need. Only if we know how to
allow them to rest can our body and our soul heal themselves.
But
there is in us what we call the energy of restlessness. We cannot be at
peace with ourselves. We cannot be peaceful. We cannot sit; we cannot
lie down. There is some energy in us to do this, to do that, to think
of this, to think of that, and that kind of restlessness makes us
unhappy. That is why it is so important for us to learn first of all to
allow our body to rest. We have to learn how to deal with all our
energy of restlessness. That is why we have to learn these techniques
of allowing our body and our consciousness to rest.
I would like
to offer you some instructions about walking meditation. The first
thing we shall do early tomorrow morning is to practice walking
together, which we call walking meditation. Walking meditation means to
enjoy walking without any intention to arrive. We don't need to arrive
anywhere. We just walk. We enjoy walking. That means walking is already
stopping, and that needs some training.
Usually in our daily life we
walk because we want to go somewhere. Walking is only a means to an
end, and that is why we do not enjoy every step we take. Walking
meditation is different. Walking is only for walking. You enjoy every
step you take. So this is a kind of revolution in walking. You allow
yourself to enjoy every step you take.
The Zen master Ling Chi
said that the miracle is not to walk on burning charcoal or in the thin
air or on the water; the miracle is just to walk on earth. You breathe
in. You become aware of the fact that you are alive. You are still
alive and you are walking on this beautiful planet. That is already
performing a miracle. The greatest of all miracles is to be alive. We
have to awaken ourselves to the truth that we are here, alive. We are
here making steps on this beautiful planet. This is already performing
a miracle.
But we have to be here in order for the miracle to be
possible. We have to bring ourselves back to the here and the now.
Therefore each step we take becomes a miracle. If you are able to walk
like that, each step will be very nourishing and healing. You walk as
if you kiss the earth with your feet, as if you massage the earth with
your feet. There is a lot of love in that practice of walking
meditation.
The Buddha said that the past is gone and the future
is not yet here. Let us not regret the past. Let us not worry about the
future. Go back to the present moment and live deeply the present
moment. Because the present moment is the only moment where you can
touch life. Life is available only in the present moment. That is why
walking meditation is to go back to the present moment, in order to be
alive again and to touch life deeply in that moment. In order to be
able to touch the earth with our feet and enjoy walking, we have to
establish ourselves firmly in the present moment, in the here and the
now.
In walking meditation, we walk like a free person. This is
not political freedom. This is freedom from afflictions, from sorrow,
from fear. Unless you are free you cannot enjoy walking. I would like
to propose to you a short poem that you might like to use for walking
meditation:
I have arrived. I am home.
In the here. In the now.
I am solid. I am free.
In the ultimate I dwell.
You
might like to take two steps and breathe in and say, I have arrived, I
have arrived. And when you breathe out, you take another two steps and
say silently, I am home, I am home. Our true home is really in the here
and in the now. Because only in the here and the now can we touch life.
As the Buddha said, life is available only in the here and the now, so
going back to the present moment is going home. That is why you take
one step or two steps and you awaken to the fact that you have arrived.
You have arrived in the present moment.
If you are able to
arrive, then you will stop running—running within and running without.
There is a belief in us that happiness cannot be possible in the here
and the now. We have to go somewhere. We have to go to the future in
order to be able to really be happy.
That kind of thinking has
been there for a long time. Maybe that feeling has been transmitted to
us from our ancestors and our parents. That is why we have to wake up
to the presence of that habit energy in us and to do the reverse. The
Buddha said that it is possible for us to be peaceful and happy in the
present moment. That is the teaching of trista dharma sadha vihara. It
means living happily right in the present moment. When you are there,
body and mind united, you have an opportunity to touch the conditions
of your happiness. If you are able to touch these conditions of
happiness that are already available in the here and the now, you can
be happy right away. You don't have to run anywhere, especially into
the future.
When we practice walking, we might be aware that
we have strong feet. Our feet are strong enough for us to enjoy running
and walking. That is one condition for happiness that is available.
When I breathe in and I become aware of my eyes, I encounter another
condition for my happiness. Breathing in, I am aware of my eyes.
Breathing out, I smile to my eyes. This is an exercise, a very simple
exercise to help you realize that you have eyes which are still in good
condition. You need only to open your eyes to see the blue sky, the
white cloud, the luxurious vegetation. You can see all kinds of forms
and colors just because you have eyes still in good condition. Your
eyes are another condition for your happiness. We have so many
conditions like that for our happiness and yet we are still unhappy. We
still want to run away from the present moment, hoping we'll find some
happiness in the future.
Breathing in, I'm aware of my heart.
Breathing out, I smile to my heart. That is another exercise. When you
practice like that you touch your heart with your mindfulness. If you
continue a minute, you realize that you still have a heart that
functions normally. It is wonderful to have a heart that still
functions normally. There are people who don't have a heart like that
and their deepest desire is to have a heart like you. So conditions for
happiness may be more than enough for us to be happy, but we are not
able to be happy because of that tendency to run away from the present
moment.
To take an in-breath, to smile, and to touch the
conditions of happiness that are available, is something that all of us
can do. Because of that we can stop and establish ourselves in the
present moment. That is the teaching of living happily in the present
moment. Please train yourself to make the present moment, the here and
the now, into your true home. That is the only home that we have. That
is the only place where we can touch life. Everything we are looking
for must be found in the here and the now. In that way walking
meditation can be a great pleasure and can be very healing.
Do
you have to make any effort to practice walking meditation? I don't
think so. It is like when you drink a glass of orange juice. Do you
think that you have to make an effort in order to enjoy the orange
juice? No. Walking is like that. To really enjoy a glass of orange
juice, you have to be there one hundred per cent mind and body
together. If you are there, mind and body firmly established in the
present moment, then a glass of orange juice will become a real thing
for you. You are real; therefore, the juice is real. And there life is
real. Life exists. Life is deep during the time you drink your orange
juice.
When you contemplate a beautiful sunset, do you have to make
any effort? I don't think so. You don't have to make any effort in
order to enjoy a beautiful sunset. You need only to be there, to be
there mind and body together. But if your body is there and your mind
is in the past or in the future, then the beautiful sunset will not be
there for you.
There is a kind of energy that helps you to be
there body and mind together. That energy is called mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the capacity of being there body and mind united. When
you drink your orange juice, drink mindfully and you will enjoy your
juice because you are really there one hundred per cent. If your body
and mind are united when you contemplate the beautiful sunset, it means
that you are mindful. Mindfulness helps you to be there in order for
the beautiful sunset to be there too. While you walk, if you allow
yourself to be there mind and body together, then walking will become
mindful walking; it will be healing, refreshing and nourishing.
To
meditate means first of all to be there, to be on your cushion, to be
on your walking meditation path. Eating also is a meditation if you are
really there, present one hundred per cent with your food. The
essential is to be there. So please when you practice walking
meditation, don't make any effort. Allow yourself to be like that
pebble at rest. The pebble is resting at the bottom of the river and
the pebble does not have to do anything. While you are walking, you are
resting. While you are sitting, you are resting.
If you
struggle during your sitting meditation or walking meditation, you are
not doing it right. The Buddha said, "My practice is the practice of
non-practice." That means a lot. Give up all struggle. Allow yourself
to be, to rest.
I sit on my meditation cushion. I consider it
to be something very pleasant. I don't struggle at all on my cushion. I
allow myself to be, to rest. I don't make any effort and that is why I
do not get any trouble while sitting. While sitting I do not struggle
and that is why all my muscles are relaxed. If you struggle during your
sitting meditation, you will very soon have pain in your shoulders and
back and things like that. But if you allow yourself to be rested on
your cushion you can sit very long, and each minute is light,
refreshing, nourishing and healing.
It is not sitting in
order to struggle to get enlightenment. No. Sitting first of all is for
the pleasure of sitting. Walking first of all is for the pleasure of
walking. And eating is for the pleasure of eating. And the art is to be
there one hundred per cent.
When I was a novice I learned how
to light a stick of incense in mindfulness. You see, when you light
incense you think that the purpose of lighting incense is to have the
incense pervading the Buddha's home. But lighting the incense is just
for lighting the incense. You pick up a stick of incense mindfully and
you enjoy that, because it is by itself an act of meditation. During
the time you pick up the stick of incense you are mindful, you are
concentrated, you are real, because your body and your mind are
together. And the stick of incense is real. When you strike a match,
you do the same thing. During the time you strike a match, you only
strike a match. You don't do anything else. You don't think of other
things. You are perfectly mindful of striking a match. You are
concentrated on it, and you enjoy the act of lighting the incense.
When
you hold a stick of incense, it is the same. When I stick it into the
incense burner, I put my left hand on my right hand. That is the
tradition. Everyone in the Buddhist tradition lights incense in that
way. The stick of incense is very light; one hand is enough in order to
hold it. Why do you have to put your left hand on your right hand?
Because it means that you are doing it with one hundred per cent of
your body and your mind.
Be there truly. Be there one hundred
per cent of yourself. In every moment of your daily life. That is the
essence of true Buddhist meditation. Each of us knows that we can do
that, so let us train to live each moment of our daily life deeply.
That is why I like to define mindfulness as the energy that helps us to
be there one hundred per cent. The energy of your true presence.
Breathing
in—in the here, in the here. Breathing out—in the now, in the now.
Although these are different words they mean exactly the same thing. I
have arrived in the here. I have arrived in the now. I am home in the
here. I am home in the now.
When you practice like that, you
practice stopping. Stopping is the basic Buddhist practice of
meditation. You stop running. You stop struggling. You allow yourself
to rest, to heal, to calm.
And after a few minutes of
practice you might switch into doing the third line—I am solid, I am
free. This is not auto-suggestion. Why? Because if you have succeeded
in arriving in the here and in the now you are much freer. You are free
from the past, from the future, from your worries, from your fear. And
you become much more solid; your steps become more solid and you become
more solid in your body and in your mind. Solidity becomes a reality
after a few minutes of arriving, of being home.
Solidity and
freedom are two characteristics of nirvana. Nirvana is not something
abstract. The Buddha said we can touch nirvana with our own body. So
while you practice walking meditation you can begin to touch nirvana
already with your body and your spirit.
When you feel you are
a little bit more solid, a little bit more free, then you begin to
touch nirvana with your body and spirit. Solidity and freedom are the
true base for your happiness and well being. No happiness, no well
being, is possible without solidity and freedom.
The last line of
the poem is wonderful. In the ultimate I dwell. In the ultimate. In the
ultimate. I dwell. I dwell. The ultimate here is the true foundation of
your being.
Let us visualize the waves on the ocean, several
waves appearing on the surface of the ocean. Some waves are big, there
are those that are small, and each wave seems to have its own life. A
wave may have ideas like, "I am a wave. I am only a wave among many
waves. I am smaller than the other wave. I am less beautiful. I last
less than the other wave." Ideas like that. A wave can be caught in
jealousy, in fear, in discrimination.
But if the wave is able
to bend down and touch the water within herself, it will realize that
while it is a wave, it is at the same time water. Water is the
foundation of the wave. While waves can be high and low, more and less
beautiful, the water is free from all these notions. That is why if we
are able to touch the foundation of our being, we can release our fear
and our suffering.
Touching the foundation of our being means
touching nirvana. Our foundation is not subjected to birth and death,
being and non-being. A wave can live the life of a wave, but a wave can
do much better than that. While living the life of a wave, a wave can
live a life of the water. The more our solidity and our freedom grows,
the deeper we touch the ground of our own being. That is the door for
emancipation, for the greatest relief.
Throughout
his tour, Thich Nhat Hanh addressed the specific issues of Americans in
a series of question and answer periods. Here is a selection of his
responses to questions on leading a spiritual life in the modern world.
Stress and Work
How do you maintain mindfulness in a busy work environment? At times it seems there is not even enough time to breathe mindfully.
This
is not a personal problem only; this is a problem of the whole
civilization. That is why we have to practice not only as individuals;
we have to practice as a society. We have to make a revolution in the
way we organize our society and our daily life, so we will be able to
enjoy the work we do every day.
Meanwhile, we can incorporate a
number of things that we have learned in this retreat in order to
lessen our stress. When you drive around the city and come to a red
light or a stop sign, you can just sit back and make use of these
twenty or thirty seconds to relax-to breathe in, breathe out, and enjoy
arriving in the present moment. There are many things like that we can
do. Years ago I was in Montreal on the way to a retreat, and I noticed
that the license plates said Je me souviens—"I remember." I did not
know what they wanted to remember, but to me it means that I remember
to breathe and to smile (laughter). So I told a friend who was driving
the car that I had a gift for the sangha in Montreal: every time you
see Je me souviens, you remember to breathe and smile and go back to
the present moment. Many of our friends in the Montreal sangha have
been practicing that for more than ten years.
I think we can
enjoy the red light; we can also enjoy the stop sign. Every time we see
it we profit: instead of being angry at the red light, of being burned
by impatience, we just practice breathing in, breathing out, smiling.
That helps a lot. And when you hear the telephone ringing you can
consider it to be the sound of the mindfulness bell. You practice
telephone meditation. Every time you hear the telephone ringing you
stay exactly where you are (laughter). You breathe in and breathe out
and enjoy your breathing. Listen, listen—this wonderful sound brings
you back to your true home. Then when you hear the second ring you
stand up and you go to the telephone with dignity (laughter). That
means in the style of walking meditation (laughter). You know that you
can afford to do that, because if the other person has something really
important to tell you, she will not hang up before the third ring. That
is what we call telephone meditation. We use the sound as the bell of
mindfulness.
And waiting at the bus stop you might like to
try mindful breathing, and waiting in line to go into a bank, you can
always practice mindful breathing. Walking from one building to another
building, why don't you use walking meditation, because that improves
the quality of our life. That brings more peace and serenity, and the
quality of the work we do will be improved just by that kind of
practice. So it is possible to integrate the practice into our daily
life. We just need a little bit of creative imagination to do so.
The Benefits of Silence
Could tell us about the benefits of silence and how we could bring that home with us from this retreat?
Many
of us have realized in the last few days that silence can be enjoyable.
We realize that there are many things that we do not have to say, and
that then we can reserve the time and energy to do other things that
can help us to look more deeply into ourselves and things around us.
If
you are pushed by your habit energy to say something, don't say it.
Instead, take a notebook and write it down. A day or two later, read
what you wrote, and you might find out that it would have been an awful
thing to say. So slowly you become master of yourself, and you know
what to say and what not to say.
I remember one time I
proposed to a sister that she practice silence. She was an elder nun
and she had a few negative seeds in her that prevented her from being
happy. She was just a little bit too hard on the other sisters. I
proposed to her that she was a very talented person, very skillful in
many things, and she could make many people happy if only she knew how
to be silent and to say only things that needed to be said.
I
proposed to her that she use only three sentences for three months. She
could repeat these three sentences as many times as she wanted
(laughter) and I told her that if she practiced that for a week, she
would feel happiness right away. The first sentence was, "Dear sister,
is there anything I can do to help you?" (laughter) The second sentence
was, "Did you like what I did to help you?" The third was, "Would you
have any suggestion that I can do it better?" (laughter) If she could
say that, she would make many people happy and the happiness would go
back to herself very quickly.
In the family we can practice
silence. We can ask the other members of the family to agree that we
will practice silence for three days or for a week. It is very
beneficial. There will be a transformation after the period of
practicing silence.
Letting Go of Suffering
Why do we cling to our suffering?
Many
of us are not capable of releasing the past, of releasing the suffering
of the past. We want to cling to our own suffering. But the Buddha said
very clearly, do not cling to the past, the past is already gone. Do
not wait for future, the future is not yet there. The wise people
establish themselves in the present moment and they practice living
deeply in the present moment. That is our practice. By living deeply in
the present moment we can understand the past better and we can prepare
for a better future.
Today I attended a Vietnam war veterans'
discussion, and my heart is still heavy. The condition of the war
veterans—their heart, their mind, their body—do you think that they
will ever be emotionally healed in this lifetime? I think if they
practice with all their heart and they are determined to relieve the
past, they will be healed.
We cling too much to the past; we
have to face the future. We have to stand on the ground of the present
moment. The war in Vietnam was just a war. There are many wars still
going on and we continue to create victims of war and war veterans. The
number of American soldiers who died in Vietnam was something like
55,000. Every year the number of people who die in car accidents in
America is exactly that number, 55,000. So there is the equivalent
number of dead people caused by alcoholism and unmindful driving. This
is another war. The toll is as huge as the damage inflicted by war, and
every time a person dies because of a car accident, it creates many war
veterans in the children who lose their mother, the mothers who lose
their son.
If we stick to our suffering we can never stand up
for healing and prepare the future for our children and their children.
I would say to the Vietnam war veteran, okay, you did kill five
children. We know that. But here you are, alive in the present moment.
Do you know that you have the power to save five children today? You
don't have to go to Vietnam or southeast Asia. There are American
children who are dying every day; they may need only one pill to be
saved from their illness.
If you know how, every day you can
save five children from dying. Why do you let yourself get caught in
guilt and become paralyzed year after year? Why don't you make a
bodhisattva vow to use your life to work for the safety of many
children? Did you know that 40,000 children die in the world every day
just because of the lack of food and nutrition? You are here; you can
do something. Why do you let yourself get caught in the past? You can
save children in the here and now. You can use your life in a very
useful and intelligent way. You can very well transform that negative
energy into a positive energy that empowers you and makes life
meaningful.
Relationships
When
I go home, I return to my husband who is a hunter. He goes into our
beautiful woods to shoot birds. He brings them home to show our
seven-year-old twins, who want to be like daddy. What can I do to stop
him from this habit of killing?
If you do not know how to
be patient, how to care, how to use loving speech, you cannot help
other people to change. But if we have the energy of compassion and
loving kindness in us, the people around us will be influenced by our
way of being and living. Reproaching them, shouting at them, blaming
them, can never help them. Only our love, our patience and our loving
speech can help. And if we are in a situation where our own
skillfulness, our own compassion, is not strong enough, we could need
the support of our dharma brothers and sisters in order to do the job.
Abortion
What are your views on abortion?
I
am inclined to devote more of my time and energy to preventing the
situation from happening than to what happens when you have to decide
whether you have to do it or not to do it. If we prepare ourselves in
such a way, then the problem will not present itself to us, and we
don't have to make a decision between abortion or not abortion. In the
last 2,500 years we monks and nuns have helped a lot in limiting the
population of the planet (laughter). And if you'd like to join us
(laughter), it's never too late.
Media Saturation
In regard to television news and newspapers, how can we balance not taking in toxins with not closing our eyes to suffering?
Myself,
I want to be informed about what is going on in the world. I want to be
informed, but that does not mean that I have to listen to the news
three times a day. I think there is some kind of vacuum in us we want
to fill up; that is why we buy so many newspapers and magazines and why
we view so much television. We do not need that much information. I
think maybe five minutes daily is enough. Sometime we can survive
several months without any news bulletins. And you have friends who can
tell you what is important that has happened.
Space and Freedom
Can
you please elaborate on what is space inside of us? Why is this good? I
feel lonely sometimes. This feels like emptiness or space inside, but
it does not feel good.
Space
here does not mean loneliness. Space here means freedom because you are
not busy inside—you don't have a lot of worries, fears, projects,
things to think about. That is space. Space here is the basic condition
for you to enjoy life. If you are preoccupied with so many things, you
don't have that condition.
One day the Buddha was sitting in
the wood with thirty or forty monks. They had an excellent lunch and
they were enjoying the company of each other. There was a farmer
passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He asked the Buddha and the
monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said they
had not seen any cows passing by.
The farmer said, "Monks,
I'm so unhappy. I have twelve cows and I don't know why they all ran
away. I have also a few acres of a sesame seed plantation and the
insects have eaten up everything. I suffer so much I think I am going
to kill myself.
The Buddha said, "My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here. You might like to look for them in the other direction."
So
the farmer thanked him and ran away, and the Buddha turned to his monks
and said, "My dear friends, you are the happiest people in the world.
You don't have any cows to lose. If you have too many cows to take care
of, you will be very busy.
"That is why, in order to be happy,
you have to learn the art of cow releasing (laughter). You release the
cows one by one. In the beginning you thought that those cows were
essential to your happiness, and you tried to get more and more cows.
But now you realize that cows are not really conditions for your
happiness; they constitute an obstacle for your happiness. That is why
you are determined to release your cows."
We have to ask what is
really essential to our happiness. We believe that things are essential
to our happiness, but we have to look again. Many of us have cows, many
cows that prevent us from being happy. That is why we have to learn to
release our cows. Also there are many cows inside, so many
preoccupations! Many things to worry about, to be angry about, and
there's no space at all inside.
How can you be happy in such a state
of being? That is why to release the cows around us and to let go of
these preoccupations inside is a very essential condition for
happiness. That is the space we are talking about when we practice. I
am space; within and out. I feel free. Freedom is the real foundation
of happiness. Sometimes if you don't know how to love, love will
deprive you of your freedom and deprive the person you love of her
freedom. That is why space is so essential in relationship.
There
is a beautiful poem praising the Buddha: "The Buddha is like the full
moon/traveling in the vast sky of emptiness." Because of that freedom,
the happiness of the Buddha cannot be measured by our mind.
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