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Thank you so much for your welcome.
Distinguished members of the House,
distinguished guests and friends.
I'm sure that all of you agree with me
that we need a spiritual dimension in our daily life
in order to be able to overcome difficulties
and meet challenges
whether we are political activists or peace activists
or business leaders, schoolteachers
health professionals or police officers
we need a spiritual dimension in our life.
I have offered retreats of mindfulness
to members of parliament,
to business leaders, to schoolteachers,
to health professionals,
and we have found out that these practices of mindfulness
can help people
in their attempt to restore themselves.
How to get the nourishment and healing
that they need in order to continue.
I would like to share some of our experiences with you today.
We need a spiritual practice in order to help us
to take care of our body,
of our feelings and our perceptions, emotions
so that we can respond
with clarity and compassion and loving kindness.
When we breathe in mindfully
when we focus our attention on our in-breath and out-breath,
we can release the past, the future, our projects
and come in touch with our body again.
We become freer just by one in-breath and out-breath
made in mindfulness.
When I bring my mind back to my body just by breathing in mindfully,
suddenly I find that new possibilities arise.
I feel that I have more freedom.
There are many ways to respond to the same challenge.
The practice of mindful breathing can help me connect
to my body, help me to recognize, to remember that I have a body,
which is a wonder.
If we spend too much time with our computer
we may forget that we have a body.
And we get ailment that come of our body
and that will be the cause of sickness, stress and so on.
So it is very important from time to time to go back to ourselves
and remember that we have a body.
If we can connect with our body
we can connect with Mother Earth
and connect with all the wonders of life
that are refreshing and healing in us and around us.
It is very important.
It is a very simple practice but it can help tremendously.
When I go back to my body
I may notice that there is stress,
there is tension and pain in my body.
I may have allowed the tension
and pain to be accumulated a lot in my body.
So when I go back to my body by the way of mindful breathing or mindful walking
I feel
I need to help my body to release the tension.
So by breathing out, smiling,
I can allow the tension in my body to be released.
And that, I can do while I am in my office
or I'm sitting in my car,
at anytime of the day.
I do not have to put aside
some time for my spiritual practice.
This kind of practice can be taken up
any time of the day, whether you are brushing your teeth,
or you are washing your dishes or you are driving your car.
To be mindful of what is going on, to be mindful of your in-breath and out-breath
is always possible.
To release the tension in my body
I can do it several times a day.
Many of our brothers and sisters in the community
they program a bell of mindfulness in their computer
and every quarter of hour
they hear the bell of mindfulness.
They stop working, stop thinking and begin to breath in and out
release the tension and connect with their body
and smile to the wonders of life that are available in the here and in the now.
In this practice
we know that the kingdom of God is not something in the future, elsewhere,
but it is right in the here and in the now.
When I get in touch with a flower deeply,
I know that the flower belongs to the kingdom of God.
If I am in touch with the flower deeply
I am in touch with the kingdom of God.
In this practice we notice that the kingdom is now or never.
We know that our body also belongs to the kingdom of God.
That is why breathing in, breathing out mindfully
we come home to the present moment
which is a place
where life is available.
Because the past is already gone
and the future is not yet there.
Only the present moment has life and contains all the wonders of life.
That is why my practice of mindful breathing, of mindful walking,
is to bring me home to the here and the now
so that I can be in touch with those events
those things that are healing, nourishing,
that belong to the kingdom of God.
It is possible, I know that it is possible
to live happily right in the here and the now.
I do not have to wait until the future
in order to start living.
So, generating the feeling of joy,
generating the feeling of happiness
is possible with the practice of mindful breathing and mindful walking.
Many members of the Congress in America
know the practice of mindful
walking and breathing.
We have offered two retreats of mindfulness
in the Capitol Hill.
And there are those who say
that from their office
to the place where they caste their vote
they always practice walking meditation
enjoy every step and allow their mind to stop thinking completely.
And they can survive the hectic life by such practice,
mindful breathing, mindful walking.
You need a little bit of training in order to get used to the practice.
We can release the tension,
get in touch with the wonders of life,
get the nourishment and healing at any time
thanks to this simple practice.
Also when we go home to ourselves
we have the opportunity
to notice
that maybe there are
painful feelings or a painful emotion.
The practice of mindful breathing, mindful walking,
can help us to recognize the pain,
the sorrow, the fear, the anger in us.
And help us to recognize it, help us to embrace it tenderly
in order to bring a relief, to calm it down.
Is like our body.
When we are with our body, we can release the tension in our body,
calm our body down.
There is more peace in our body
after a few minutes of practice.
So the same thing is true with our painful feelings,
our strong emotions.
If we know how to generate the energy of mindfulness and peace
by breathing mindfully, walking mindfully,
we have that energy in order to recognize and embrace
our pain, our sorrow, our fear, our anger
and get a relief after few minutes.
Most people in our society
do not like to go back to themselves
because they are afraid that when they go back to themselves
they will have to encounter
the block of pain and sorrow and fear and anger in them.
It is not pleasant.
And that is why most of us
try to run away from ourselves, from our own suffering.
Or we may like to cover up the suffering inside
by consuming. We consume television,
conversations, books, novels, musics.
It is not because you like those very much
but because we can not bear.
We do not know how to handle the suffering inside.
That is why we need those items of consumption
provided by the market.
So this practice
offers us another alternative.
If you know how to breath in mindfully or to walk mindfully
you may generate energy of mindfulness and peace
and with that you can go home to yourself without fear.
And you have the capacity to recognize
the pain, the sorrow, the fear, the anger
and embrace it tenderly.
And after a few minutes of practice
you can get a relief.
And there is more peace, more capacity
to be in touch with the wonders of life
that are available within and around us.
And then,
getting in touch with the suffering inside
is a very important practice.
There is suffering inside anyone of us.
And that suffering inside of us
may reflect the suffering of all of our parents,
of all ancestors.
Our parents, our ancestors, may have suffered a lot.
But because any of them did not know how to handle
to transform, that is why they have
transmitted to us their own suffering.
And that is why we sometimes suffer
and we don't know why we suffer like that.
So it is very important
to get in touch with the suffering
and to embrace it, to listen to it
to have a deep look into the nature of suffering
in order to find out the cause
the roots of our own suffering.
And our suffering also,
somehow reflects the suffering of the world.
That is why to understand our own suffering
help us to understand the suffering of the other people much more easily.
The other people
in the other tradition
of politics, religion and so on.
So understanding our own suffering
is very important.
And when we have the capacity
to recognize, to go back to our suffering,
recognize it, embrace it tenderly,
we have a chance to understand our own suffering.
And from that understanding of suffering
arises compassion.
The energy of compassion born from understanding suffering
has the power to heal, to transform.
And we feel much better after having produced
the energy of compassion in us.
When we are lighter, when we suffer less,
we look at the other person or the other group of persons
we can easily identify their suffering.
We may find out that their suffering is not very different from our own suffering.
And we have not understood
their suffering because we have not understood our own suffering.
That is why having understood our own suffering
we can begin to understand their suffering.
And suddenly we have the capacity to look at them
with the eyes of compassion.
And we don't suffer anymore.
We do not have anymore
that intention to punish.
Instead, we have to do something, to say something
in order to help him, to help them suffer less.
It means that we have the energy of compassion inside of us.
We suffer less.
And when we get in touch with the other person or the other group of people,
that compassion helps us
to understand the suffering inside of that person or that group of people.
And suddenly we have the capacity to look at them with the eyes of compassion.
When they see us looking like that,
they feel wonderful.
They feel
different.
They suffer less.
And when we look at them with that kind of compassion
we don't suffer anymore.
Instead, we want to do something
to say something in order to help that person suffer less.
Even the person we consider to be our former enemy
or enemy now.
Joy and happiness are born from understanding and compassion.
True happiness is not really made
by fame, power,
wealth and sex.
Because this objects of craving
can make a person suffer very deeply.
But if we know how to generate the energy of understanding and compassion in us,
happiness becomes possible.
A person who does not have compassion and love
can never relate to another living being.
He or she is completely cut off.
And that is why
we have to learn how to generate the energy of compassion.
And the way
is to get in touch with suffering.
And look deeply into the nature of suffering.
And understand suffering.
The roots,
the cause of suffering.
First of all, the suffering in us.
When we have understood the suffering in us,
it will be much easier to understand the suffering of the other person.
When we see the suffering of the other person,
we are not angry anymore.
We do not blame,
we do not want to punish anymore.
Instead, we want to do something to help.
And now we have the capacity to use the kind of speech
that is called kind, gentle, loving speech.
We can say something like this.
"My dear one,
I know that you have suffered a lot during the last many years."
We can tell our partner, our husband, our wife,
our son, our daughter.
We may tell our colleagues.
We may tell the people on the other
side.
And use that kind of speech called loving speech
once compassion is already a reality in us.
"Dear one, we know that you have suffered a lot in the past.
I have not been able to help you to suffer less.
Instead, I have made the situation worse.
It is not my intention to make you suffer, my dear one.
It is because I have not seen your suffering
I have not understood your suffering.
It is not my intention to make you suffer.
It is not my intention to destroy you
as a person,
as a culture, as a religion.
It is just because I have not understood your difficulties and your suffering.
So, I need help.
Could you tell me what is in your heart?
Your difficulties?
Your suffering, so that I understand better
and I will not react like I have before?
If you do not tell me, who will?"
That is the kind of speech that we can use when there is compassion in our heart.
And that will change the whole situation.
The other person will open her heart and tell you the truth.
And then you will have a chance to practice compassionate listening.
Compassionate listening is a kind of practice
that has the power to heal.
Heal yourself and heal the other person.
Compassionate listening is the kind of listening
that is connected with mindfulness of suffering.
Mindfulness of suffering means you are aware
that there is suffering in him or in her or in them.
And listening like this you have only one purpose:
to allow them a chance to speak out so that they can suffer less.
If during the time you listen you keep that kind of awareness alive,
then you are protected.
What the other person says will not touch off anger, irritation in you
because you are protected by compassion.
Even if his speech
is full of wrong perception,
full of accusation,
anger, blames, you can still continue to listen with compassion
because you are protected by the energy of compassion
just because you know how to preserve that kind of awareness.
I listen to him, but only with one purpose:
that is to help him to have a chance to speak out and suffer less.
I listen to them with only one purpose:
to give them a chance to speak out and suffer less.
Therefore, even if he has a lot of wrong perceptions
he has a lot of anger, I still continue to listen.
I will not interrupt him or her or them.
Maybe later on, in a few days,
I will have a chance to offer him or them
some information so that they will correct their perceptions.
But not now. Now is only compassionate listening.
And listening like that for one hour is very healing
whether that person is our partner, our son, our daughter, our father
or our colleague or even another group.
Even if they are terrorists.
When the event of September 11 happened I was in America.
That event took place only 5 days after the publication of my book 'Anger'.
The whole country of America was carried,
overwhelmed by the feeling of fear and anger.
And I think that acting on the base of fear and anger is very dangerous.
I was scheduled to speak
in Berkeley for 4.000 people.
And what I did that day
is to conduct a session of breathing in and out
to calm the emotion of fear and anger.
And then,
I proposed that we had
to keep our calm and start
that kind of deep listening.
I proposed this:
I proposed that America would organize sessions of deep listening.
And they could address the people they thought to be the enemies.
And say something like this.
Dear people over there,
You have done such an awful thing to us.
You must be very angry.
You must have been very angry, you must have been very...
You must have suffered a lot to have done such a thing to us.
We do not know why you have done such a thing to us.
Have we done anything to make you that angry?
Have we try
to destroy you as people, as religion, as culture?
It's not our intention to do that.
Maybe we have done something,
maybe we have said something that gives you the impression
that we want to destroy you as a people, as a culture, as a religion.
But in fact, we do not have that intention.
We may be unskilful in what we have said or done in the past.
But, please, tell us.
We will listen to you with all our hearts.
And if we have committed some unskilfulness we will apologize.
Tell us.
So we can organize sessions of listening like that
and invite the people in our society,
people who are considered as wise,
in their spiritual traditions and otherwise
and you may televise
that kind of sessions of deep listening and loving speech
in order for the whole nation to follow.
This practice of deep listening and loving speech
can be healing
and can remove the fear and the anger
and put us in a much safer condition.
You know that the war in Iraq
was started with that feeling of fear and anger.
And many millions of human lives were destroyed just by that.
That is why it is very important
that we practice so that we can understand our own suffering,
we can see the suffering of the other person
that we can start dialog
with the practice of deep listening and loving speech
that we can restore communication and begin the process of healing.
In Plum Village,
France, where we live and practice,
we have sponsored sessions of practice
inviting groups of Palestinians and Israelis to come and practice with us.
We support them in their practice.
When they first came, both group had a lot of anger, and fear and suspicions.
And strong emotions.
So the practice of the first week
was just to help them to walk, to breathe, to sit,
in such a way that can calm down their feeling,
their emotions.
For the second week we initiated them into the practice of compassionate listening.
Each group
was requested to use loving speech
and tell the other group about their suffering.
Suffering endured by the children and adults. You have to tell them.
Tell us everything about your own suffering and difficulties.
And the other group was using deep listening,
compassionate listening,
mindfulness of compassion in order to listen.
The outcome was
that this group, while listening,
realized for the first time
that on the other group they had suffered almost the exactly the same kind of suffering
that we had.
Children and adults.
And they began to see the other group as human beings.
And they can, for the first time, look at them with eyes of compassion.
They suffer less and the other group suffers less also.
They know
that there are wrong perceptions on both parts.
But that kind of dialog helps us
very much to recognize their wrong perceptions and our own wrong perceptions.
We have plenty of time in order to offer each other, later on,
information in order to help each other remove wrong perceptions.
And the healing takes place.
Both groups begin to share a meal in mindfulness
do walking meditation together,
holding hands,
and brotherhood, sisterhood, become possible
with understanding and compassion, understanding of the suffering.
And they always come together at the end
as one group.
And they report to us about the success of their practice.