[Touching the bell]
[Bell]
So how can we...
practice
when the other person
is full of anger and hate,
when they're not nice to us,
when they betray us,
when they're not faithful to us?
They once promised us this and this,
but now they treat us like that and that.
They've hurt us till we can't take it anymore.
So now, how are we supposed
to handle this?
That's the question.
We've been in pain.
There are days we stay up all night.
Our heart feels like it breaks into pieces.
It's because that person
is not nice to us.
Their words show that
there's no love, gratitude, nor appreciation in their heart.
They betray us and are unfaithful time after time.
And our heart
bleeds.
And we've been in pain because of them for years.
So what are we supposed to do now?
The answer is we have to practice like the earth.
It's because
our heart is still small,
our heart can't contain that person yet.
That person is also someone in pain.
They need
help
rather than
punishment.
When someone hurts us,
we tend to have the idea of punishing them
and giving them really hard times to release our rage.
We tend to believe that when that person suffers a great deal, we'll suffer much less.
That's how
we normally go about this.
"I'll make you suffer, ruin your life, and hurt you back so you'll regret it for the rest of your life
because... how dare you?"
That's the heart and mind of all beings.
That's the mind of those
whose hearts
are as small as an orange.
A heart as small as an orange can't contain something the size of a mountain.
Pains as big
as a pomelo,
an orange can never
contain.
With our heart the size of an orange but our pain the size of a pomelo,
how can we contain it?
That's why we 'craquer'.
That's why we break down and collapse.
So the most important thing is to make our heart
bigger and bigger every day — until it's much bigger than a pomelo,
so it can contain the pomelo.
We should keep in mind
the image of putting a fistful of salt in a bowl of water that the Buddha uses.
Because the bowl is so small, the water becomes so salty it can't be drunk.
But when throwing the same fistful of salt into a river,
because the river is wide-open,
people can still use its water to drink,
bathe themselves,
and cook.
Likewise, we should make our hearts bigger.
"But dear respected teacher,
dear respected Buddha,
how can I make my heart
bigger?
It's still so small. Of course, I want it to be big
but seems like it doesn't want to get any bigger at all."
On hearing that, the Buddha says,
"We should train ourselves to meditate and look deeply.
We should train ourselves to have right understanding."
So the first way to go about this is understanding.
Understanding, or "hiểu" in Vietnamese.
Sometimes we use the word "prajñā".
Sometimes we use the word "insights".
Sometimes, we use the word "awakening" or "enlightenment".
But these are all big words.
"Understanding" is much simpler.
Understanding what?
First off,
we have to come to see for ourselves
many things — but there are three most important things.
The first one
is "Because our heart is still small,
we're still in pain, we still suffer."
In someone else's case,
because their heart is quite big, they don't suffer at all.
We suffer because of the reasons that mainly come from our end.
The second
is "The other person is also in pain."
Fact is, when people are happy,
they don't make others suffer.
Just look around and see for ourselves.
We'll come to see when someone is truly happy,
no matter where they are, they don't make those around them suffer.
One makes others suffer
because their heart is too full of suffering and pain.
Such a person tends to say something
that shows no love, no gratitude, no appreciation in their heart.
It shows betrayal.
It provokes people into argument.
Or they tend to do something cruel.
It's because, in their heart, there's too much substance of suffering and bitterness,
too much substance
that is
toxic and poisonous,
too much substance
of attachment,
blind desires,
anger, hate, resentment,
jealousy, or ignorance.
So whatever they say,
it hurts.
Whatever they do,
it causes pain.
So looking at this person, we see that they...
deserve our love and compassion more than anger and hate.
And this is called "understanding" — right understanding.
The other person is someone who's in pain.
Because of that, they spill it over onto those around them.
The same with us.
If all we have in our heart is suffering and bitterness,
we'll spill it over onto those around us.
That's why we have to learn to have happiness.
But happiness... As we all know when coming to Plum Village,
happiness is very simple.
While walking,
standing,
sitting, eating,
or doing our dishes,
if we allow our heart and mind to be free from afflictive thoughts, to be at peace,
to be in touch with the wonders of life in the moment,
very naturally, we have happiness right away.
So, learn to live peacefully and happily.
We see that some Brothers here
live very peacefully and happily.
We see that some Sisters here live very peacefully and happily.
We see that some lay practitioners
live peacefully, happily, and free from afflictions.
And they've helped countless people.
We can aspire to also live in the same way.
They are bodhisattvas
who help others.
Everything they say
is to help others
rather than hurt others.
Everything they do
is not to hurt the other person's feelings
or make them suffer,
but to rather
soothe the other person's pain.
We can aspire to do the same as they do.
When we train ourselves like this for one week,
two weeks, or three weeks,
naturally our heart...
feels light and free — it's getting bigger, it starts to dawn on us many things we fail to see before.
The third one is to practice.
"To practice" here
means to live in such a way that we can bring joy,
happiness, and peace to ourselves
and, at the same time, to other people.
One day is twenty-four hours.
How have we
spent those twenty-four hours so far?
Or have we been living on autopilot, like a programmed robot, all day long?
Washing our face,
rinsing our mouth,
putting on our shirt or robe,
putting on our shoes,
eating,
driving,
working,
eating again,
and going to sleep.
Some people live on autopilot, going through their life like a programmed robot,
completely unhappy.
Meanwhile, there are those who live very happily.
Twenty-four hours is even a bit too few for them
because they can make every hour happy, joyful, and pleasant the same.
They make their brothers, sisters, and friends happy.
They bring joy, happiness, and well-being to others as well as themselves.
You don't need money to make someone happy.
All it takes is giving
the other person a smile from the heart,
looking at the other person with eyes
of compassion and uncriticalness,
or expressing your care, however small.
That will already be enough to make someone's day.
Everyone can do this, even young ones.
We have flower-freshness.
We have warm smiles.
We have very loving eyes.
We have our hands, which we can use to help — however small,
to soothe and relieve people from their suffering.
Making someone happy is something we can do many times a day.
But we have to learn how to do it first.
Like, on waking up,
let us
ask ourselves this question, "What...
can I do today to make that person's day?"
As soon as we wake up,
as a second nature, we ask ourselves that question.
"That person" can be our mother,
our father,
our spouse or partner,
our daughter or son,...
That person may be in pain
so think, "What should I say to them today,
what should I do today,
for them to be happy?"
Then we keep that list of things in mind and that day, we try our best to do them one by one
— do at least one in the morning,
and do at least one in the afternoon.
Do at least two every day.
Two things that you can do to make others happy.
It's because when they're happy, naturally, there's happiness in us.
We have a chanting text that goes, "(We aspire) to bring joy to one person in the morning
and to ease the pain of one person in the afternoon." See?
Very simple.
A day going
without us doing at least two such things
is a day we make no progress in the practice whatsoever.
It's a day we don't practice mindfulness, understanding, and love at all.
In the morning, we help at least one person suffer less.
In the afternoon, we bring joy to at least one person.
If we're a practitioner of understanding and love,
we practice like that.
If we're better at this, we can make more people happy.
If we bring joy and happiness to two, three, or four people in the morning,
and if — after helping one person suffer less,
we help two, three, or four more people suffer less in the afternoon,
we are already bodhisattvas,
we are already an arm of the Buddha.
It's such a great joy
to be an arm of the Buddha.
To be only a finger of the Buddha can already bring us great joy.
Why not be one?
Why live on autopilot?
That person has so much pain,
so much worry,
and so much sadness and affliction.
We do something or say something
that helps that person
to suffer less,
worry less, and grieve less.
In order to do that, we have to use our wit.
That's why if we want to practice love and compassion,
in Thay's opinion, we have to have a notebook.
Because love's a matter of practicing to offer our best to someone — not receiving or indulging.
If we say,
"It's so sweet, I love it,"
that's not love.
That's just indulgence for our own good.
Let's say
when we eat an ice-cream,
if we say, "J'aime les glaces,"
that's not love. That kind of 'aimer' is not love.
It's not love at all.
The 'aimer', the love, we're talking about is something completely different.
True love is different than that.
We can only have true love when there's mindfulness, concentration, and understanding.
The other person is in pain and we help them suffer less — that's the 'aimer' we're talking about.
Meanwhile, that love for ice-cream is not love.
It's not real love.
It's funny that
you love ice-cream,
and you love Coca-Cola.
It's very odd.
It's not love.
When you eat too much ice-cream or drink too much Coca-Cola,
it doesn't do your body any good. It's harmful.
It only does harm,
it's not...
it's not love whatsoever.
So
Thay suggest that,
if we're practicing mindfulness, understanding, and true love, we have a notebook.
On waking up, we tell ourselves, "Today, the 18th
of July, 1999.
I decide that I'm to make someone happy in the morning,
and I'm to make someone else suffer less in the afternoon."
If we can help many people this way, it means we're really good at this.
But two is the minimum number.
Make sure we can do it.
Before going to bed, we turn to that diary page again
and reflect on whether we've succeeded at this or not.
Probably we're more successful
in the afternoon than in the morning.
With that, we'll sleep very well.
But to do that, we have to really understand the other person first.
Understand what has hurt them, what difficulties they have,
or what their aspirations are,...
That person can be our son.
That person can be our daughter.
That person can be our husband,
our wife,
or our spouse or partner.
They can be our mother or...
our elder brother.
That person has suffering and pain.
Who doesn't have suffering and pain?
If we can see that,
having compassion for them, "Poor soul", whatever we say or do will bring great relief.
Now we're taking a break for half an hour.
After that, we're going to return to listen to another talk in English.
Today children get to listen to a whole talk,
from the beginning to the end.
How great is that.
Adults are only allowed to listen without participating. [Thay smiling]
[Touching the bell]
[Bell]