There are moments
when many mental formations want to manifest at the same time.
Your jealousy wants to speak.
Your fear wants to speak.
Your anger wants to speak.
And your mindfulness wants to speak also.
It is like a group of people, and they want to talk at the same time.
That happens.
And you don't know to whom you give the priority.
Many feelings,
many mental formations,
try to manifest at the same time. You are not peaceful.
And you are adviced
in that moment, when you are not peaceful,
to play music.
You say, 'Listen, everyone!
You have a chance
to express yourself. But now, listen to some music.'
(Laughter)
And you play the music.
The music of mindful breathing.
Breathing in, breathing out.
I have arrived, I am home.
In the here, in the now.
You play the music. You have the music with you.
You have the instrument.
And you play the music for everyone to listen.
And everyone will calm down
just after a few minutes.
(Bell)
When you practice mindful breathing is like when you play violin.
The music can be very soft,
very soothing. Everyone will be happy.
When you breathe in,
it can go like this, breathing in,
and when you breathe out, it can go like this, breathing out.
And it goes like that continuously.
Or you may draw it like this, breathing in, breathing out.
It is not like this, breathing in! Breathing out.
It is not like that.
(Laughter)
When you play the violin, you play like that also.
Up and down, it is a continuation, there is no break between the two.
And when every mental formation has calm down,
it is very easy for you to begin to look into each one.
You have the violin.
You have to make use of your instrument.
You have many beautiful gathas, like 'I have arrived, I'm home'.
'This is the Pure Land, the Pure Land is here'.
'In, out, deep slow, calm, ease, smile, release'.
'Present moment, wonderful moment'.
All these gathas are pieces of music and you have the violin in you.
The moment when you sit down on your cushion,
you have to take your violin,
and play right away, don't wait for other people.
Why do you have to wait for the bell in order to begin meditation?
For me, I don't need to sit down in order to begin to take the violin out.
It is always playing.
Even before you sit down, you can play already.
It is continuous.
And the music of mindful breathing
can bring about harmony.
Harmony even between conflicting elements in your consciousness.
There is compassion, there is anger.
And yet, when you play that music, compassion is holding anger's hand
and they dance.
It is wonderful! If you try, you will see that.
Because all mental formations in us are of organic nature.
Although they look different, they are all organic.
This can become that.
Hate, anger can become compassion.
If you are an organic gardener,
you know that you can transform the garbage into compost.
And next, into a flower again.
And a flower can become garbage and compost.
Everything is organic.
The 51 mental formations are all organic.
If you don't know how to take care of a flower,
it becomes a piece of garbage very soon.
And if you know how to handle a piece of garbage,
sometime later it will become a lotus.
Based on the fact that every mental formation is organic,
we know that it is possible to transform anger into compassion,
and hate into love again.
And the music is very important.
Don't worry, I will take care of you.
And it is mindfulness that is the musician.
And all of us have mindfulness.