Plum Village, France, May 2014
Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh answers questions
from his one million facebook friends
How do you know you are really living the life that can contribute the most to humanity?
All of us have to make a living, but how can we also really help to heal the world?
Just imagine a pine tree standing
outside.
The pine tree is asking:
What we can be in order to help the world?
The answer can come easily:
Be a healthy, beautiful pine tree.
If a pine tree is vigorous, beautiful, healthy
every one of us will profit from it.
If a pine tree
is less than a pine tree,
not healthy enough,
not beautiful enough,
then we will suffer, all of us.
So the answer is that
the most helpful thing for you to do
is to be a happy human being.
You should be solid, fresh, happy,
and everything you do for yourself
in order for you to remain solid, fresh, happy,
is helping all of us.
So that is the problem: to be, how to be,
how to be healthy, how to be fresh,
how to be beautiful,
that is the answer.
Then, in the question
there is the idea
that if you have a profession,
you have a job,
because you need to make a living,
how can I chose a job in order to
to be more peaceful with myself and with the world
to be more helpful to myself and to the world.
This brings in
the topic of right livelihood.
We have to earn a living,
but there are many kinds of jobs that can help you
to express your joy,
your compassion.
So you decide to take up the kind of job
that gives you a chance to be more compassionate
even if you earn less.
And you are happier
even if you have to earn less.
So if you are lucky,
you can have a kind of job that can help you
express your compassion, your love,
to all of us, human beings, animals, plants and minerals.
If you do not have that kind of job,
you may continue the job that you are having
and you have in mind that
if the situation presents itself that you can have a better job,
a job that can help you express more of your compassion and joy,
then you are ready to take up that job
even if you have to earn less.
To earn less but to be happier.
That is the suggestion.
Okay?
(Bell)
Subtitles by the Amara.org community