(Bell)
What is the hardest thing that you practice?
That is not to allow yourself to be overwhelmed by despair.
That is the hardest thing.
Because when you are overwhelmed by despair,
that is the worst thing that can happen to you.
I remember when the war was going on.
We did not see the light
at the end of the tunnel.
It seemed that the war would go on and on forever.
The young people came and asked:
'Dear Thay,
do you think that the war will end soon?'
It is very difficult to answer.
Because you have not seen the light at the end of the tunnel.
But if you say: 'I don't know',
then you water the seed of despair in them.
So Thay had to breathe in and out a few times
and then what he said was:
'Dear friends,
the Buddha said that every thing is impermanent.
The war should be impermanent also.
It should end some day.
Let us continue to work for peace.'
During the war,
we, young nuns and monks, and lay practicioners
we organized the School of Youth for Social Service
like the Peace Corps created by John F. Kennedy.
We went into the war zone and we helped the wounded people.
We helped create refugee centers,
we gave them a chance to go back to normal life.
We rebuilt the villages that had been bombed.
There was a village called Tra Loc
not very far from the demilitarized zone
separating North and South.
The village of Tra Loc was bombed, completely destroyed.
Our young social workers,
including monks and nuns and lay practitioners,
they had rebuilt the village.
But it was bombed again and destroyed again.
And our social workers wired us
and asked whether they should rebuild it.
We said: 'Rebuild it'.
And we rebuilt it.
And it was bombed again.
Four times.
If we gave up,
that would create a feeling of despair.
That is why we kept rebuilding it and rebuilding it.
So the hardest thing is not to lose your hope,
not to give up, to despair.
That is the hardest thing.
We have gone through two wars like that.
We saw French soldiers came, killed and get killed.
We saw young Americans came and killed and get killed.
50.000 young Americans were killed in Vietnam.
Hundred of thousands of them were wounded
and many had to be cared by psychotherapists and so on.
In a situation of utmost suffering like that
if we don´t have a practice we cannot survive.
We practice in such a way
that we can preserve our hope and our compassion.
When the journalists asked us questions about that,
about how do we felt about young Americans coming
and killed and died in Vietnam,
we said: 'They are victims, we don't hate them.
They are victims of a kind of policy that is not very intelligent.
A policy based on fear.
Fear of the taking by the communists of the whole South East Asia.
They are victims.
They have to come here to kill and to die.'
You understand, so you are not angry at them.
In 1966, Thay was invited to come to America.
He had the chance to talk to the American people about the war.
There was a very angry young American
who stood up and told Thay this:
'You should not be here.
You should go back and fight American imperialism in Vietnam.
You have to kill the American soldiers there.'
Thay's answer was:
'I thought that the root of the war is here.
It is not in Vietnam.
The young Americans who came in Vietnam
they are just victims.
So I had to come here and tell the American people
that this war is not helping Vietnam at all.'
So without that kind of understanding and compassion,
you will lose yourself in anger and hate.
And you will not be able to say things like that
and help the American people understand
and change the policy.
There was a peace movement in America oposing the war in Vietnam.
As people demanded peace and did not get it,
they got very angry.
So there was a lot of anger in the peace movement.
And when Thay toured America and talked to these groups,
Thay said: 'If you have a lot of anger in you
you cannot touch the peace.
You have to be peace before you can do peace.
Understanding is very important.
You need to know how to write a love letter
to your president, to your Congress,
and tell them that you don't support the war.
If you write a strong, angry letter,
they will not read it.'
Thay was able to speak like that
and help somehow to end the war.
Understanding suffering
helps compassion to be born in you.
You will be free from despair, from anger,
and you can help the cause of peace.
(Bell)
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