Satsang with Maitreya Satsang with Maitreya Satsang with Maitreya This morning, she seemed to be much happier than the day she arrived. It seems that she has arrived, and she is now capable of touching her home. She does not feel any more desire to run. Before she came, she was quite upset.

[01:15]

She was angry. She was angry at God, at the other person, at society. And she was angry at herself. She did not understand why. She blamed herself. And, of course, she blamed God. She thought, if God was really loving, why should he give her hell? If he was really loving, he should have given her only paradise. But that was not true. He had given her also hell.

[02:17]

She could not understand. But now she understands. She is able to see that hell and paradise inter-are without one that cannot be the other. She was offered both, paradise and hell. And she was supposed to know how to handle both. She now has found out that if one knows how to handle paradise, then one will know how to handle hell. And if one knows how to handle hell, one will touch deeply paradise at the same time. Without one, you cannot know the other. Without the pain and the suffering, you have no chance to know and to taste what is well-being.

[03:23]

She realized that it is impossible to choose only one end of the pen. This is the right, and this is the left. It would be impossible for her to have only the left without the right. In the past, she was naive. She thought that she may do something in order to eliminate the right. She only wanted the left. She was tempted to use a knife in order to cut this part and to throw it away, hoping that to do so she would be able to throw away the right. But after throwing away that portion of the right, this point became the right. As far as the left is there, the right must be there.

[04:39]

If you remove the right, you have to remove the left. The left is made of the right, and the right is made of the left. The right and the left, they inter-are. Nothing can be by itself alone. Everything has to inter-be with the opposite. That is true with day and night, light and darkness. And therefore, she now accepts. She accepts that hell is there to help. Because without hell, there is no way that she could recognize heaven. And that is why she feels much better today. What is most wonderful for her is that she has learned that once she is able to embrace,

[05:53]

to hold hell within herself, then she will be no longer afraid. Holding hell is her practice. And practicing holding the pain, the sorrow in her, she realizes that she has the capacity of doing so. So every time hell is coming, she is no longer panicked. She knows how to breathe, how to be a mother holding the ailing baby. And while holding the suffering, she feels something very tender within herself, the tenderness that only a mother can experience. Holding the pain and looking deeply into it,

[06:57]

she realizes that what she is looking for, heaven, paradise, delves deeply into the heart of the pain. The pain, the sorrow, the suffering is the very vehicle that she uses in order to have access to heaven, to heaven, to paradise, to the kingdom of God. And therefore, she no longer has any idea or desire to run away from her pain. In the past, she was trying her best to run after the kingdom of God, to run after the true, the good and the beautiful, to run after happiness and peace. And she thought that running away from hell,

[08:02]

running away from suffering is the way. But now she has stopped. She knows that as far as she continues to run, she will never be able to arrive. And therefore, once arrived, she touches both. She touches both heaven and hell, and she realizes the nature of interbeing of both. Touching this, look, touching this, she touches that. And the most wonderful thing that has happened to her is that she realizes the nature of interbeing between hell and paradise. She has the impression that she doesn't have to suffer anymore.

[09:15]

Why does she have to suffer? Before that, she was very upset. Why did God behave like that? He gave her birth, but he also gave her death. He gave her a beautiful baby, and he took it back. He gave her a loving father, and after that, he took him back. How cruel is God? And that is why she got so angry at God. Why was she born

[10:18]

as a person in color, a colored person, black, yellow, so that she was discriminated against by other people? Why was not she born as a white, and not as a black, or not as a yellow or brown? Her anger is so strong. Her suffering was so intense. Why was she born as a gay, as a lesbian? But now she found out that as a lesbian, she is a continuation of God.

[11:23]

She found out that God is also a lesbian. God is the very foundation of her being. And she is the continuation of God. She is what God is, and therefore God is what she is. That is what she has found out. The other person, because of his ignorance, of his arrogance, he could not see that. That is why he practiced the policy of discrimination. God forgave him

[12:25]

because he does not know what he is doing. He does not know that he is doing harm to himself. He does not know that he is doing harm to God. And Cathy is calm, is happy, because now she begins to know, to understand. And as she is able to understand, she no longer holds any resentment. She has compassion to give to those who are not capable of understanding. She no longer feels that she is an object of discrimination anymore. And because there is the substance of understanding, of awakening in her, the energy of compassion

[13:28]

and loving-kindness is also in her. That is why she can accept, she can forgive, and her heart now is very free. She no longer has to suffer. She feels that she can practice the third precept. Why not? Everyone is practicing the third precept. God also is practicing the third precept. A lesbian, a gay also practices the third precept. And as we want to be true, we want to be truthful to each other, we honor our long-term commitment. Any kind of relationship that can nurture love, understanding, is a good relationship. Relationship has no color.

[14:30]

True relationship brings health, brings harmony and peace. And she knows that with the energy of mindfulness in her, she will be able to honor her commitment, she will be able to make the other person happy, and herself happy at the same time. Dear friends, the practice of giving is a wonderful practice. Yesterday I said that if you are angry, and if you have tried different ways, and yet you are still angry, then try dharmaparamita, the practice of giving,

[15:34]

in order to bring yourself to the other shore, the shore of non-anger. And I have mentioned items that you can give, provided that you have them. Your presence. Your presence is the first item. It's very precious. The best thing you can offer to the person you love is your true presence. How can you love unless you are there? That is why to practice being there is the most profound practice, the most basic practice. And everyone has to practice in order to be really alive.

[16:36]

To be alive means to be there, to be entirely present, to be truly present. And you offer that to him, to her, to the person you love, and to the person you think to be the source of your suffering. And if you are able to offer that to him, to her, you will be liberated right away from your anger. In the past, there was a tendency that every time we get angry at someone, we want to get a relief, and we think that we can get that relief by punishing him or her, making him suffer or her suffer, and then you feel better. Now you have realized that is a wrong way. The more you punish, the more you suffer,

[17:40]

because the other suffers. When I was in the Middle East, when I was there, not very far from Jerusalem, I offered a retreat, and I told my friends over there, in order for you, Israelis, to have peace, to have security, to have safety, think of organizing an international conference to work out, to take care of the peace, the safety, and the security of the Palestinians. If you can offer them safety,

[18:43]

security and peace, you will have safety, security and peace yourself. You get what you offer. So instead of trying to punish the other person, you try to offer what exactly the other person needs. This is a wonderful practice, the practice of Dana Paramita, the practice of offering what the other person really needs. If the other person makes you suffer because the other person suffers deeply within himself or herself, when someone suffers so deeply within himself or herself, he or she always spills over

[19:44]

the suffering all around us. He was trying to get a relief, that's all. You have to understand that. By trying to get a relief, he makes you suffer. And you have to see deeply into that fact. He does not need punishment. He needs help. That is the message he has been sending to you. SOS, I need help. So if you are able to see that, you come to him and to her and you offer exactly what he needs, a relief. And your presence is what you can offer him or her. Pronounce the first mantra, Dear one, I am here for you. And as your happiness and safety

[20:52]

is not a personal matter, you know that her happiness, her safety is crucial for your happiness and your safety. Therefore, you wholeheartedly wish happiness and safety for her so that you have a chance. The idea of punishment will vanish. Only the desire to offer peace and joy and well-being remains in you. And before you do anything to help, you have already found yourself on the other shore, the shore of non-anger. What else do you have to offer? Your freshness, your solidity, freedom in terms of space, and understanding.

[21:56]

Understanding is the flower of the practice. As you are concentrated, as you focus your attention on one object, and if you continue to practice looking deeply into the heart of that object, you begin to see, you have the insight, you have an understanding. And that is a wonderful gift. You offer him your understanding, you offer her your understanding, and you know she'll stop suffering right away, and you will lose your anger right away. You will begin to get the happiness you deserve. The first petal of the flower is dana paramita,

[23:55]

the practice of giving. And what you give is what you receive right away. It's very quick, quicker than when you send signals to the satellite, and the satellite sends back signals to your television set. Very quick. Whatever you offer, you get right away. Not because you want to calculate, but that is the secret of the practice.

[24:56]

Whatever you give him, whatever you give her, you give to yourself, because you and she, you inter-are, you are her, and she is you. Understanding is the second petal of the flower. The Sanskrit word for it is prajna, prajna paramita, what a gift. Offering understanding,

[26:00]

how beautiful. You cannot be happy unless you feel you are understood. And if you can offer understanding to someone, that is true love. And the one who receives that understanding will bloom like a flower right away, and you are rewarded right away at the same time. And understanding is the fruit of the practice, looking deeply. You have to be there in order to look, to be there, to be mindful, to be concentrated. And with your looking into it, the insight, the understanding will come like a flower. That is why the third petal of the flower

[27:01]

is meditation. Meditation is an English word that we use to translate dhyana. Dhyana in Japanese, Zen. In the same word, we pronounce Zen by Japanese, Chan by the Chinese, Tian by the Vietnamese, and San by the Korean, the same word. And meditation consists of two aspects. The First Aspect of Meditation

[28:11]

The first aspect of meditation is the practice of stopping, of arriving, of stopping. This is a very wonderful practice. We have been running for all our life, and in so many lives in the past, now we have a chance to arrive, to stop. Because you realize that happiness is possible in the here and the now. And by stopping we can touch so many conditions of happiness that are already available to us. Happiness is instant, instantaneous. The word for stopping is written like this in Chinese. If you go to China,

[29:12]

you'll see a lot of that sign on the street. That's for your automobile. In Berkeley, in San Francisco, in Santa Barbara, you also have sign stops written in English, S-T-O-P. It is exactly the same. I propose that every time you see that sign stop, you begin to breathe in, and out, and smile. That is the hand of the Buddhisatva waving to you, and helping you to go home to yourself, practicing breathing and smiling. That is a gift. Stop means don't run anymore. Enjoy being in the present moment. Breathe in and become alive again. The first part of meditation

[30:16]

is stopping, and calming, and concentration, and soothing. Calming, soothing, concentrating. It is shamatha. When you bring your mindfulness back to yourself with mindful breathing, the effect of stopping arrives right away. You are concentrated on what is happening in the present moment. And if it is an emotion, or a feeling, you embrace it with your mindfulness, and it has the effect of calming, soothing. And because you are focusing only

[31:18]

on what is there, you are concentrated. That is why shamatha means stopping, calming, relieving, soothing, concentrating. And this is a very important practice. Because if you are able to practice shamatha, then insight, deep vision of reality, will naturally come. And the other part of meditation is vipasyana. It is translated as looking deeply, deep investigation into the nature of things. So the practice of stopping,

[32:26]

calming, concentration, allows the practice of deep looking to take place. And deep looking always reveals the true nature of things. And that revelation, the object of revelation is your insight, your understanding. If you have the time to stop and look into the person you love, and then you find out what kind of suffering, what kind of misery, what kind of difficulty she has within herself, what kind of deep aspiration, secret aspiration that is in her. And the moment when you see these things, you have the insight. And if you offer her in your insight, your understanding, and that is a great gift.

[33:28]

Because understanding is the substance of acceptance and love. Therefore, the practice of meditation is a gift by itself. Because by practicing looking deeply, concentrating, calming, stopping, you got a lot to offer. To offer to him, to her. It means to yourself. So not only understanding is a great gift, but your daily life conducted in mindfulness is also a great gift. You cook mindfully, you drink mindfully,

[34:29]

you garden mindfully, you clean the house mindfully, you drive mindfully, you do everything mindfully, is the practice of meditation. And as you continue to live mindfully your life, you get the insight. And that is a great gift to the person you love. The fourth petal of the flower is the precepts. Shilaparamita. Dhanaparamita, Prajnaparamita, Dhyanaparamita, and Shilaparamita, the practice of the mindfulness training is a great gift. When you practice protecting life, you offer the most precious gift,

[35:31]

life. What is more precious than life? To you. When you practice the third precept, you protect yourself and you protect families and couples and other people. And they feel safe, children feel safe, adults feel safe. And practicing the third precept is practicing the protection of yourself, of the people you love, of children. And this is also a gift, a great gift. Practicing the fourth mindfulness training about the art to listen and the art to use loving speech is also a great gift. That person suffers so much. No one in the family

[36:33]

has been able to sit quietly and listen to him or to her. If there is someone who is capable of sitting calmly and listening with his heart or her heart for one hour, that person may feel, will feel that that his suffering, he has got a relief, a big relief from her suffering. If you suffer so much and if no one has been able so far to listen to your suffering, your suffering is always there. But if someone is able to listen to you and understand you, you get a relief after one hour of being with the other person.

[37:36]

In the Buddhist circle, we speak of a person who has a great capacity of listening, listening with compassion, listening with true presence. That is the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, Kuan Yin. Kuan Si Yin, Kuan The Am, means the one who can listen and understand the sound of the world, the sound, the cry, the suffering of the world. Psychotherapists are supposed to practice the same. They must be there sitting very quietly with a lot of compassion and listen to you. And if they are able to listen like that to you for one hour, you feel much better. But the psychotherapist has to practice so that she can always have compassion and concentration and deep listening. Otherwise, her quality of listening will be very poor

[38:37]

and you will not feel better after one hour of listening. I think psychotherapists, they have to practice the art of deep listening, the art of compassionate listening. Because listening like that is not to judge, to criticize, to condemn, to evaluate, but to listen only with one purpose in mind, to help the other person to suffer less. And you have to practice mindful breathing in and out so that compassion always stays with you. I am listening to him not because I want to know what is inside him only. I want to tell the right from the wrong.

[39:37]

I am listening to him just because I want to relieve his suffering. So that is called compassionate listening, meeting, compassionate listening. You have to listen in such a way that compassion remains with you the whole time of listening. That is the art. And if halfway of the listening irritation comes up, anger comes up, and then you cannot continue to listen. So you have to practice in such a way that every time the energy of irritation, of anger coming up, you breathe in and breathe out, it goes down again, and you continue to hold compassion within you. It is with compassion that you can listen to him or to her.

[40:40]

So no matter what he says, even if he has a lot of wrong information and injustice and his way of seeing things, even if he condemns you, blames you, you continue to sit very quietly, breathing in, breathing out, and maintain your compassion intact within you for one hour. That is called compassionate listening. And if you can listen one hour like that, the other person will feel much better. And if you don't feel that you can continue, you say, Dear one, may I ask you to continue in a few days? Because I need to renew myself. I need to practice myself so that I can listen to you in the best way I can. If you are not in your best shape, you are not going to do,

[41:43]

to listen the best way you can. You need to practice more walking meditation, more mindful breathing, more sitting meditation in order to restore your capacity of compassionate listening. That is the practice of the fourth mindfulness training. Training ourselves to listen with compassion. That is very important. That is a great gift. Also the fourth mindfulness training has to do with loving speech. You have the right to tell him or her everything in your heart with the condition that you use only loving speech. If you are not able to speak calmly and then don't speak that day, sorry, my dear, allow me to tell you

[42:45]

tomorrow or after tomorrow. I am not in my best shape. I am afraid that I will say things that are unkind to you, it means to me. So allow me to tell you about this after another day. You open your mouth and you speak only when you are sure that you can use calm and loving speech. You have to train yourself in order to be able to do so. In our time, many of us have lost our capacity of listening and of using speech. In a family, it may be that no one is able, is capable of listening to no one else. So we feel very lonely, all of us in the same family. That is why we have to go

[43:47]

to the therapist, hoping that she is able to listen to us. But many therapists have deep suffering within. That is why sometimes they cannot listen as deeply as they wish to do. So if you really love him, love her, train yourself to be the listener, his listener, her listener. Be the therapist. You may be the best therapist for him or for her if you know how to train yourself to the art of deep, compassionate listening. And also, loving speech. We have lost our capacity to say things calmly. We are too irritated. Every time we open our mouth, our speech becomes sour, bitter. We know.

[44:47]

We know that we have lost our capacity of speaking with kindness. And that is the trick of training the fourth training of mindfulness. That instrument is so crucial to restore peace and loving relationship. If you fail in the fourth training, you cannot succeed in restoring harmony, love, and happiness. That is why training yourself in the fourth precept, mindfulness training, is a great gift. In our time, communication, techniques of communication are very sophisticated. We need no time at all to communicate, to send news to the other side of the planet. But it is exactly

[45:51]

at this time that communication between men and men, humans and humans, has become very difficult. Fathers cannot talk to sons and daughters. Husbands cannot talk to wives, and partner to partner. Communication is blocked. We are in a very difficult situation, not only between countries and countries, but person to person. Person to person, yes, it has become very difficult. That is why practicing the fourth mindfulness training is a gift. And practicing the fifth training, mindful consumption, is also a gift. Because if you know how to consume mindfully, you protect your body, you protect your consciousness,

[46:53]

you protect the body and consciousness of your family and of your society. I don't know, without the training, the fifth training, how could we get out of this difficult situation of our society. Consumption is the word. The more we consume, the more we suffer. And the more we make our society suffer. And that is why to consume mindfully seems to be the only way out of our mess. To stop the course of destruction of our body, of our consciousness, and the collective body and consciousness of our society. And that is why the practice of shila paramita is also the practice

[47:54]

of giving. Every time I see one person receiving the five mindfulness trainings and practice, I am so happy. Happy for him, happy for his family, happy for myself. Because I know that the five mindfulness trainings are the most concrete way to practice mindfulness, the most concrete way to practice meditation. And also you need a sangha, in order to practice well the five mindfulness trainings. You need to build a small sangha around yourself, so that you can practice the five mindfulness trainings as deeply as you wish.

[48:57]

Because that is the only way out. That is the only way by which you can protect yourself, your beloved one, and your society. And in every tradition, people should go back and restore the equivalent of the five mindfulness trainings. The fifth petal of the flower of paramita is the practice of inclusiveness. You may like to use the word patience or forbearance, but for me this word does not succeed to convey

[49:58]

the teaching of the Buddha concerning this practice. I propose inclusiveness. is the capacity to receive, to embrace, and to transform. You don't exclude, but you include, you accept. You can bear, you can accept, because you know you have the power of receiving, of keeping, of embracing, of accepting, and of transforming. The Buddha gave a wonderful image. Suppose we take a handful of salt, a handful of salt, and we put it in a bowl of water, and we stir. We know that it is not too salty for anyone to drink that water,

[50:58]

too salty. And for the thirsty people, well, that bowl of water can no longer be used. But if with the exactly same handful of salt you pour it, you drop it into a river, the situation will be different. People continue to take the water and to drink, and it's alright, it's still very sweet. Because what? Because the river is so big, a handful of salt is not enough to make the water of the river salty. So the river, because it is immense, it has the capacity of receiving and receiving and transforming without having to suffer. The river doesn't suffer at all because of a handful

[51:59]

of salt. Your heart is like that also. If your heart is small, and then that sentence can make you suffer day and night, for many consecutive days and nights. And that act done to you can make yourself, can make you suffer and go into hell. But if your heart is large, if you have the capacity of understanding and compassion, that sentence addressed to you doesn't have enough power to make you suffer. You have the power of receiving it, embracing it, transforming it in just one or two seconds. You don't have to suffer at all. Why the other person? Because of his understanding is so small, his heart is so tiny,

[53:00]

he has to suffer quite a lot. So what counts here is your capacity of receiving, embracing, and transforming. This summer, I was walking with many children in the Upper Hamlet, and we paid attention to all kinds of tiny flowers on the grass. We were so happy. The Upper Hamlet looked exactly like paradise. I and the children were very happy. And at one point, we passed by a place where there is excrement left there by some animal, a dog or something. The children tried to avoid it.

[54:05]

They didn't want to get their shoes dirty. Instead of walking quickly, I took them back, and I stayed and looked at it. I did want to have the children to have a chance to look deeply into what they would consider to be dirty, dirty, not beautiful, stinky. And then I told them after that, you know, don't worry, my dear, because Earth is wonderful. Earth has the capacity to receive, to embrace, and to transform very quickly. Come back in one week, and you'll see that everything will be fine, and the flowers,

[55:06]

the grass will profit greatly from it. And in fact, that is the teaching of the Buddha. Rahula was a novice, and one day the Buddha said, Rahula, my beloved one, practice so that you'll be like Earth. Earth has the capacity of receiving, embracing, and transforming. Whether you pour on Earth milk, fragrant milk, yogurt, perfumes, or if you deposit on Earth excrement, urine, anything, Earth will not be either proud or angry because of it.

[56:07]

Why, Rahula? Because Earth has a great capacity of receiving, embracing, and transforming. Earth doesn't have to suffer because Earth knows how to practice inclusiveness. Rahula, learn to be like water. Even if you pour fragrant milk, perfume, yogurt, or you deposit urine or excrement into the water, water does not discriminate. Water will receive everything, embrace everything because she has the power to wash, to transform everything. Come back the next day and you'll see that everything will be fine. Water doesn't have to suffer because water is huge, is strong. It has a

[57:08]

great power of transformation. Rahula, practice like air. Rahula, practice like fire. Air and fire are also like that. They can receive whatever you give it, they can embrace whatever you give it, and they can transform whatever you give it. And that is the lesson given to Rahula concerning inclusiveness, forbearance, patience. Aum This bottle is small.

[58:09]

It has the power to receive and to contain but only 50 centiliters. If you ask the bottle to receive more, to contain more, it will not be able to do so. Our heart is also like that. If you have a big heart, if you practice the four unlimited minds, the four Brahma viharas, and then you have a huge heart, the heart of great beings is great. The Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas, they have great hearts. And because they have a great heart, they have a huge capacity to receive, to embrace, and to transform. And they don't

[59:13]

have to suffer at all. So the practice of forbearance, the practice of patience, is not the practice of suffering. No, you don't have to suffer because you have great understanding, you have great compassion. That is why you have the capacity of accepting, receiving, embracing, and transforming. And this is a great gift for the world, and for the people you love. Shanti Paramita. And the last petal, the sixth petal of the flower of Paramita is diligence.

[60:14]

Virya Paramita. I would like to use the word continued practice. Continued practice. Continued You may like the practice. You may have seen the practice as wonderful, transforming, healing. Yes. But after some time practicing, you give it up. Because you don't have a Sangha, you don't have friends to support you. So even if you have a great appreciation for practice, you will not continue. So the essential here is to be able to continue the practice. You have the the volition,

[61:17]

you have the desire to bring the practice home. Yes. That is very clear. But whether you are able to continue the practice, that is another matter. And continued practice is described in a very concrete term. Let us borrow the circle circle we used the other day. With a line dividing the circle into two. Down here is the store consciousness. And up there is mind consciousness. We know that all the mental formations are here.

[62:21]

Deep down in our store consciousness. And every grain, every seed in the store consciousness can be touched and manifest themselves on the upper level of our consciousness, namely mind consciousness. So continued practice, what does it mean? It means the negative seed the negative seed in your consciousness try your best, try whatever you can in order for them not to be touched in your daily life. Don't allow the machines to manifest themselves here.

[63:22]

The seed of anger, the seed of discrimination, the seed of despair, the seed of jealousy, the seed of craving. You know you have them down there. But do whatever you can in order not to allow the machine to come up. That is the first practice. And tell the people who live with you, dear ones, if you truly love me, don't water the seeds in me. Don't touch them every day. That is not good for my health and for yours. So you have to make a contract to practice selective watering of seeds. We recognize what are the kind of seeds not to be watered. And if

[64:25]

it happens that a negative seed is watered and manifests itself here, we would like to do everything in our knowledge, in our power, to have it go back as soon as possible to where they have come from. Don't allow them to stay for a long time up there. Because the more they stay, the stronger they become at the base. That is the law. If you allow a negative seed to be manifested here and to stay there for five minutes, then the green down there has five minutes in order to grow. That is why, if you love me, please help me to bring it back to the state of a seed.

[65:27]

We have to learn. We have to train ourselves to get the skillfulness in order to do these two things. First, not allow them a chance. Secondly, if they happen to manifest, do everything in order to ask them to go down as quickly as they can. Not, of course, with the effort to suppress. This is a wonderful practice suggested by the Buddha, the changing of pack. Pack is a piece of wood like this that the carpenter uses in order to connect the two blocks of wood. And if the pack is not the right size, or it is not

[66:30]

in a good state, the carpenter would like to change the pack. And the way of changing is to use another pack to put it exactly on the spot and to drive the new pack into it in order to take the old pack out. So if you have a mental formation coming up that you don't like, you use another mental formation to come up. You invite something else to come up. And there are many other seeds here that are handsome, that are wholesome, that are beautiful, and if you don't want this to stay for a long time, then breathe in and out and invite one of them to come up. And you welcome it, you do everything for it to stay and the other seed will go down. That is the practice of changing

[67:31]

packs. And among these seeds, there is the seed of mindfulness, a wonderful seed that is in you, and you know it. That seed is the baby Buddha existing in you. Try to touch it several times a day. When you hear the bell, when you take the hand of your friend, create a lot of opportunities for you to touch and to have that seed of mindfulness to manifest on the upper level of your consciousness. So the third practice is that you do everything you can with your intelligence, with your planning, so that you can touch as much as you can the positive seeds in your store consciousness so that they can manifest themselves one after another

[68:31]

in your living room. It is like using your television set or your computer. You know in the hard disk there are so many things. And you know that you don't want a certain or certain program. You only want this program. So you just push the kind of button that can bring to you the things that can make you happy. Ask only the pleasant people to come and sit in your living room. Never ask unpleasant guests to come into your living room. And fourth, of course you can invite the people you love and you say that dear people, if you really love me,

[69:33]

please recognize the wholesome seeds within me and try to water them every day. I'll be very happy. And it will be very pleasant for you also. And the fourth practice is that once the wholesome seed is manifested, try your best to keep him as long as possible there. Because five minutes of stay up here will help to strengthen the base down here. That is the law. Mindfulness is maintained for 15 minutes. The seed of mindfulness down here will be strengthened. And any time you need the energy of mindfulness, it's very easy to come up. Because the energy of mindfulness shines, helps you to see clearly, helps you to appreciate what is there, to look deeply into what is there,

[70:36]

to understand, to be compassionate, to be happy. That is why it's very important to help the seeds of mindfulness, forgiveness, and compassion down there to grow. And the only way for them to grow is for them to be present here as long as possible. The transformation is done at the base. We call it transformation at the base. Ashraya Paravitti means the transformation at the base. And that is the true meaning of continued practice of diligence. So this is the practice

[71:42]

of the six paramitas offered by the Buddha. And please, my dear friends, don't think that you have to practice eight years or ten years in order to begin to feel the effect. No. It is taught in the Prajnaparamita Sutra that understanding prajna is a kind of is a kind of earthenware, earthen recipient that is well cooked in the furnace. And because the earthen recipient is well cooked in the furnace, it can contain the water. And the water will not be leaked out. When understanding is there, when insight is there, meditation will be

[72:42]

true meditation, continued practice will be true continued practice, inclusiveness will be true inclusiveness, mindfulness training is truly mindfulness training, and giving is true giving. That is why understanding increases the quality of the five other practices. So you can see the presence of understanding in meditation, in continued practice, in inclusiveness, in mindful training, and in giving. You give with intelligence, with understanding, and that increases the quality of giving. Giving so that the other person can be happy, and you be happy. And if we look into the six parameters in the light of interbeing, we see that understanding is giving, meditation is giving,

[73:44]

continued practice is giving, inclusiveness is giving, and mindfulness training is giving. And if you look in the same light of interbeing, you see that giving is mindfulness training, understanding is mindfulness training, meditation is mindfulness training, continued practice is mindfulness training, inclusiveness is mindfulness training. So one of the six parameters contains all the other five. And that is the interbeing of the six parameters. And if you practice one deeply, you practice all the six. And in this retreat I have let stress on the practice of giving. If you practice giving deeply, you are practicing also understanding, meditation,

[74:47]

and so on. Silence. Silence. Sound of the bell. Silence.

[75:57]

So in order not to have to remember everything, we just focus our attention on the practice of giving. If you practice giving, you practice everything. We know that we have anger within ourselves. We have worries within ourselves. We have fear within ourselves. We have despair within ourselves. And we know that the practice of giving alone can help transform all these negative energies in us. So just focus our attention on the practice of giving. We know what we can give. We can give our presence, our true presence.

[77:03]

We can give our solidity. We can give our freshness. We can give space. We can give our understanding. And when we practice giving like that, we strengthen our presence, we strengthen our solidity, we strengthen our understanding. And that is why I would like to urge you to go home to yourself and to look into the situation to see, to have an idea as to how rich we are inside. What do we have in the present moment as a gift? And without any hesitation, without any waiting anymore, we begin right away the practice

[78:07]

of giving. And the moment we begin the practice, that moment we begin to be happy right away. Because the Dharma, the Dharma is not a matter of time. The Dharma is dealing with what is in the here and the now. The Dharma is inviting to come and to see and to try it by yourself. The Dharma can transform our life right now, right here. Thank you. The Chinese character for mindfulness is written like this. The upper part of the word Kim it means now,

[79:07]

the upper part this moment. And the lower part of it is Shin Tam means our spirit, our heart, our mind. Now, mind. The mind going back to the present moment. That is mindfulness. Do not lose ourselves in the past. Do not lose ourselves in the future. Do not get caught in our anger, in our worries, in our fear. Go back to the here and now. Touch life in the present moment. That is mindfulness. Be mindful when you walk. Be mindful when you look. Be mindful when you breathe. Select the most interesting object of your mindfulness.

[80:09]

You cannot be mindful of everything at the same time. So you are free to select the most interesting object of your mindfulness and live deeply with it. And feel free to change the object of your mindfulness at any time you want. The blue sky, that's wonderful. But the beautiful face of a child, that is also very beautiful. You have a variety of objects to choose from. The essential is to be alive, to be there, to encounter the wonders of life that are available. So by the practice of mindful living, mindful touching, you generate the energy of mindfulness around you, within yourself. And this energy is going to save our life, to save the life of the world. This is the holy energy.

[81:11]

That is the Holy Spirit. That is the energy of a Buddha. A Buddha is someone who is mindful. Mindful all day long. We are only part-time Buddhas. So you have an eye. Don't just look with your eyes, without the energy of mindfulness under it. But the Buddha eyes is the eyes that has been empowered with the energy of mindfulness. So the practice is to invite you to use your Buddha eyes. Of course you can use your mortal eyes to look at things, but you cannot see deeply

[82:12]

with your mortal eyes. You are encouraged to use your Buddha eyes because you do have your Buddha eyes. If you breathe in and out and generate the energy of mindfulness and put it into your eyes, you have your Buddha eyes. Use it in your daily life. The world needs your Buddha eyes. When you listen, you may like to use your mortal ear, but with that mortal ear you cannot listen deeply, you cannot understand very well. So generate mindfulness and empower your ear with that energy and you have the Buddha ear. Use, you are invited to use the Buddha ear in order to listen. Because if you know how to use that ear to listen, you will relieve a lot of suffering

[83:13]

from the other person. You will be able to restore communication between you and the world. And here is your hand. You have a mortal hand, but if you practice mindfulness and if you put the energy of mindfulness into your hand, your hand will be the hand of the Buddha, the Buddha hand. The Buddha hand will never make mistakes because it does everything mindfully. It is a hand that will protect life, that will protect the integrity of safety of the people you love. Because looking deeply into your hand you see the eyes inside. In the Buddha hand

[84:19]

there is an eye, there is an ear also. When you go into a Tibetan temple or a Chinese temple or a Vietnamese temple or a Japanese temple, you may have a chance to see a bodhisattva with 1,000 arms. As a lover you need a lot of arms because there is much you want to do to help. That is why two arms are not enough. So you wish to be like the bodhisattva having 1,000 arms in order to do 1,000 things at the same time. You understand now why the bodhisattva needs so much arms. And you approach the bodhisattva and you discover that in each hand of his there is an eye inside. That represents your insight, your understanding. Without understanding

[85:21]

what you do can make the other person suffer. You are motivated by the desire to make him happy, to make her happy. But without understanding the more you act, the more you destroy him or her. And that is not true love because true love is made of true understanding. You need your hand in order to perform the act of love. But your hand, first of all, you have to look and to make sure that the eyes of understanding is there. And if you know that the eyes of understanding and the ear of understanding is there, you can be sure that whatever you will do will only make him or her happy. That is why mindfulness is the kind of energy that will bring an eye and an ear into your arms. And you will be the best activist

[86:24]

because you are going to relieve the suffering, to change the world and to bring relief and happiness for so many people. And the energy of mindfulness therefore is considered to be the energy of the Buddha. And you know that that energy is within yourself. It is not an abstract thing. And it is possible for every one of us to generate that energy in each moment of our daily life. Sound of the bell

[87:26]

Sound of the bell [...]

[88:18]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ