Have you ever seen...
a corpse yet?
Such as the corpse of your beloved lying in bed.
Or have you ever seen the carcass of a wild animal, or a bird?
Even as children at only 5 or 6, all of us have the opportunity to see...
death.
A bird who is dead lays stiff.
He or she can no longer fly.
And it's the same with an adult or a baby human.
Once they're dead, their bodies lay stiff.
Try as you might, that bird can no longer fly.
And
the corpse of that child or that adult,
try as you might,
that corpse can no longer sit up,
walk,
or jump.
When the Sangha was in San Diego,
some monks and nuns got to visit a...
an exhibition called The Body World.
Inside, they displayed only corpses.
The corpses of those who were still very young and healthy
but because of some disease, they died.
There were many beautiful bodies
of young people
that were muscular.
There were hundreds of these corpses standing in different poses and positions.
Some were ...
standing in the pose of ...
skiing.
Some were standing in the position of playing ...
volleyball or basketball.
They used a technique called 'plastination'
to keep these bodies from decomposition.
We could see ...
the muscles
and internal organs.
Sometimes they sliced a piece up so we could have a glimpse inside.
When we entered ...
that exhibition, we felt we were directly in touch with
the real form of humans.
There were those who were younger than us, there were those...
who were still very young but already dead.
Seeing an exhibition like this is like
one- or two-hour meditation on death.
And when we leave that exhibition,
those images stay with us.
We know one day we will die
because of either sickness or old age.
Those who were born will die.
When we take a step,
if we have in mind the images
of those corpses,
we can see very clearly that
being alive,
being able to move around and take steps,
is something really extraordinary.
Suddenly, we feel sincere appreciation for each step,
and we feel very happy.
We breathe in,
we pay attention to our in-breath.
We bring our body...
We bring our mind back to our body.
We are truly present in the here and the now.
We take a step,
and we get in touch with the fact
that we're not yet dead.
We are still alive.
And we take another step, saying to ourselves,
"I walk for you, dear brother. You are stiff now.
"You can't walk now, so I'll walk for you."
And we see
it's such a miracle
the fact that
we can take a step.
Because we're still a living body.
One time when I was walking in meditation ...
Thay was walking in meditation for Uncle Teacher Chí Mậu ...
Thay was informed Uncle Teacher passed into Nirvana
when Thay was in the Blue Cliff Monastery.
So Thay walked in meditation for Uncle Teacher.
Now, he's already in the stupa,
he can no longer walk in meditation.
And Thay want to walk for Uncle Teacher.
And
taking steps this way
feels truly wonderful.
Uncle Teacher walks with Thay's feet.
And Thay really appreciate the steps
that are ...
taken.
So when Thay can take a step,
and really touch the miracles of that one step,
and of a body that's still alive,
it becomes but a joy.
It's a...
pleasant feeling
being able to take...
steps like that.
But in that pleasant feeling,
we can get in touch with a ...
a flavor, a taste.
In the taste of this pleasant feeling,
we touch the taste of a painful feeling.
It's...
our direct experience with death
that
intensifies the...
direct experience of being alive.
Therefore,
looking deeply into the lotus,
we get to be in touch with the mud.
The pleasant feeling that we are ...
that we're having
contains painful feelings in it.
It has ...
It has the bitterness of painful feelings in it.
And with that, the pleasant feeling is even more...
contrasted.
For a whole month now,
whenever Thay practice the ten movements ...
— the ten mindful movements,
Thay have done it for all those
who were in that...
that exhibition room.
When Thay raise his arms,
everyone in that room raises their arms with Thay at the same time.
They can't do it anymore. So Thay do it for them.
And when Thay raise his arms, Thay see
those hundreds of corpses in there
are raising their arms with Thay.
And Thay get in touch very deeply
with each ...
with each feeling
that's going on ...
in each strand of his muscles.
Try and see it for yourself.
Would you be so kind and raise your arms for them?
Stretch them straight out in front of you like this ...
What a great miracle!
Now relax them, slowly put your arms down.
And Thay have the ability to do that for ...
tens of minutes.
It's the same when Thay walk mindfully
for Uncle Teacher.
The sweet taste of pleasant feelings
contains the bitter taste of unpleasant feelings.
In lotus flowers, there's mud.
Now, Uncle Teacher's laying ... His body's already in the stupa.
He can't walk mindfully ...
with us anymore.
So we walk for him.
Thay remember when he first came to Plum Village,
Thay had taken him for a mindful walk everywhere around here.
Lower Hamlet.
New Hamlet. Upper Hamlet. Sơn Hạ.
And Uncle Teacher said,
"One monastery here is bigger than the entire Thủy Xuân Commune ...
... where the ancestral temple sits."
And Uncle Teacher savored the taste of mindful walking practice,
and experienced Dharma happiness while taking each step.
There are photos taken of him holding Thay's hands, walking mindfully.
Very beautiful moments.
Uncle Teacher also got to visit the village for the second time.
And we walked mindfully that same path again — What a miracle!
Now we walk for Uncle Teacher.
But if we walk with Uncle Teacher — if we walk for Uncle Teacher,
does that increase the quality of our practice of mindful walking?
It does.
Actually, it doesn't matter with whom or for whom we walk.
We can also walk for ourselves.
Because one day,
if we don't enter the stupa, we'll go somewhere else.
So now, we walk for ourselves
after that phase.
In this phase, we walk for when we're in the other phase.
Can you do it?
Thay do it and it feels wonderful.
Don't wait ...
until you have to ask someone to walk for you.
Walk for yourselves now.
Walk for ourselves now.
Do you understand what Thay want to talk about, dear?
Don't wait till we're already dead and put in a stupa,
and expect someone to walk for us. Walk for ourselves now.
With that, each step will bring peace, joy, and happiness.
Very miraculous!
For that reason, what we discover
is in the sweet taste of ...
of happiness,
there's always some bitter taste
of ...
suffering.
When you play basketball,
if you want to feel happy playing basketball,
think of when you were terribly ill and became bed-ridden
when you couldn't wiggle even just a little.
Jump up.
And toss the ball.
It'll feel very happy
because...
because it's ...
against ...
against the backdrop of suffering
that happiness can be recognized
very clearly.
When we have already experienced ...
wartime,
and the hustle-bustle of war,
the images and the direct experience about war
are those of pain and suffering.
So when we live in a situation
where there are no guns, no bullets, no bombs, no killings,
if we have...
if we put that which we call peace on top of the backdrop of war,
can that peace
be starkly revealed
as something worthy of our appreciation.
Otherwise, we usually take it for granted.
Only when we put that peace against the backdrop of war,
can we recognize peace,
can we appreciate peace.
We appreciate it every hour and every minute.
During wartime,
occasionally,
people did accept a cease-fire for 24 hours
on Christmas Eve.
Both sides agreed to a cease-fire in 24 hours.
And at that time, within those 24 hours,
many people could breathe a sigh of relief.
Be it inside or outside the country.
We can imagine trees no longer felt fearful.
They even dared stretch up high and came into leaves.
Not to mention the birds and the humans.
24 hours of peace felt very happy.
Very, very happy indeed.
If we have ever gone through the Vietnam War
or the Iraq War,
we know a daylong cease-fire was an acutely precious period of time.
And we wondered
"Why don't they extend the cease-fire ...
... for another 24 hours, and make it 48 hours?"
If you were born after peace already prevailed,
you cannot see the acute preciousness of a 24-hour cease-fire.
Thay remember at that time,
while traveling a long way away from home, calling for peace,
whenever there was a 24-hour cease-fire, Thay breathed to his heart's content.
Thay knew that, at this moment, nobody back home had to die.
No gunfire for 24 hours.
And we asked, "How come is mankind so foolish?"
"Why don't they extend the cease-fire for a few more days?"
There are young people who have no idea what war is.
Or how sufferings caused by a war look like.
So they are incapable of ...
savoring and seeing the value of peace.