Good evening. Can you hear me okay? No? Yes? Okay. Thank you very much for coming. The great moral issue of our time is the suffering and starvation, the economic and political instability, and sometimes chaos of the so-called third world. This was not an awareness during the Second World War when the Western powers fought with Western powers. The Korean War was seen as a police action and a war with communism. But the television reported Vietnam War, the scale and sophistication of the weaponry, the threatened and possible use

[01:02]

of nuclear weapons, and the amazing, resilient, and courageous Vietnamese people and their extraordinary suffering changed all that. The worlds within this world have become aware of each other, and there is only a turning toward that. Communism and capitalism are both trying to supply the answers, the moral base, the promises, but there must be another way. This is also a time when East and West, the Orient and the Occident, have recognized each other. The great material culture of the Occident has become the denominator, the measure, of nearly every culture in the world. And it may be that Buddhism and Oriental culture will be the numerator, the definition of mind, of thought, and action, at least to some extent

[02:08]

in the West. The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh has found himself, by circumstance and suffering, by his inescapable experience, by his dissatisfaction with all sides in the Vietnam War, and by his teachers and practice as a Buddhist monk, he has found himself in the West, bringing us our moral dilemma, pointing to the war and mind of war that exists all over the world. And now we have this new crisis that is not in any historical scale, that these same superpowers who often rob small nations of any chance to solve their own problems are now willing to threaten to blow each other up without much thought given to the reality of all the rest of the world, the third world, many worlds, and all the unacquiescing plants and animals

[03:14]

that are not at war with anybody or anything. Almost all of what we call the world can be lost, and it is an extreme likelihood, not a certainty, but an extreme likelihood that there will be an intentional or accidental, more likely accidental, nuclear war and Holocaust genocide. It could happen right now. Thich Nhat Hanh has come from these crises and conjunctions of East and West, of the Occident and the third world, to speak to us of peace and being peace, peace and being peace in order to produce peace, and of what we can do. I am relieved, I am relieved, so relieved to find he exists, and relieved to know that each of us so exists.

[04:25]

We can prove to each other that this world is for us, as we can live peacefully and mindfully. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. In the case some of you do not know him, he is Becker Roshi, one of the most important Buddhist leaders in this country. He is a teacher and leader of the Zen Center in San Francisco, and in Green Gulch Farm, and also of the Tassajara

[05:28]

Zen Mountain Center. It is he who has invited me over. I brought with me a poem. I am going to read for you a little bit later. I feel that we are very fortunate that we still have air to breathe, so enjoy your breathing. The other day, at the Zen Center, someone asked me this question, as whether we should

[06:29]

think about the nuclear war or not. Should we speak about it, or should we refrain from speaking about it? Because someone else had told her that it is very dangerous to think about it and to speak about it. If you do, and will happen very soon, so better not to think or to speak about it. A number of people who were there in the room laughed at that, but personally I think there is some truth in what they were saying. The fact is that we are in real danger, and we have to think seriously about it in order to have some hope. But the way you think about it, and the way you talk about it, will determine whether

[07:36]

it will come sooner or later. Perhaps you have heard of the boat people who have fled Vietnam on small boats. They told their stories. They told their stories, and they told their stories. Very often there are boats who are caught in a storm, and if the people on the boat get panicked, then it is very likely that the boat will sink and people will die. But if there is one person on the boat that can keep quiet, that can be peaceful at that time, that can be able to see the situation well, then there is hope for all people who are on the boat. That person, even before the storm arrived, had thought about it and

[08:43]

had arranged things so that people can cope with it when it comes. And when the storm comes, just looking at that person to see his tranquility, his attitude, you can have some hope. In fact, because of his attitude, because of the fact that he does not panic, the hope for survival is there, as a fact. Our planet is also a small boat, and we are in real danger, and all of you know about it. If we are not careful enough, we will

[09:47]

sink in the ocean of the cosmos. And that is why we do need such a person, a person that is solid, calm, wise. Where could we find such a person? And how long do we have to wait until such a person appears on the earth? The question is that that person should be each of us, because in my belief, one person is very important. Every one of us in this auditorium can be such a person if he or she wants to be.

[10:52]

I have experienced that kind of marvel, that one person can perform such a miracle. And I believe that you have, several times, experienced that kind of fact. Tonight, I am not going to speak to you about strategies, especially political strategies, in order to stop the course of the armament. I am not qualified to speak about that. I wish only to talk to you about what can we do, what can we be, in order to become

[11:58]

that person, because becoming such a person is what all of us can do. With some determination. And my hope is that you are such a one, you are such a person, if you do care for the survival of our green planet. All of us tend to think that there are those who are responsible for the situation of the world now. And if only these people change their attitude, change their policy, and then

[13:00]

everything will be all right. To me, that is a mistake on the part of many of us. We have the habit of thinking that our government does not want to do what should be done. And not knowing that, because of the way we are, the government must be like that. Some Americans go to the Soviet Union and return here, saying that, well, the Soviet people are fine, only the government is bad. And I guess that several Soviet citizens have been here, and back to the Soviet Union. Well, a number of Soviet citizens have been

[14:12]

here, and when they go back to their country, they would say the same thing, the American people are fine, only their government is evil. Now I would like to speak to you a little bit about that. According to the Buddhist way of looking at things, if this is like this, then that is like that. And if we want to change this, we have to change that at the same time. In the Oriental way of therapeutic, sometimes when you have lung disease, they do not treat lungs directly, but they treat your kidneys. Everything is related to the other in a very complicated way, that if you do not have a correct vision of reality, you

[15:22]

will miss what we would call the enemy. It seems that many countries now cannot survive unless it has an enemy. The governments, in order to mobilize their force of the people, have to create an enemy in order to do so. The Chinese got to have a very dangerous enemy, the Vietnamese too, the Russians too, and the Americans also. It seems that in our civilization we cannot survive without any enemy, and that is very strange. The poem that I am going to read to you, I just read yesterday in a poetry reading evening with Gary Snyder and Robert Quigley. It is about three persons. One is a little girl

[16:30]

of 12 years old, another is a sea pirate, and the third person is me. The 12-year-old girl was raped by a pirate while she was one of these boat people crossing the Gulf of Siam in order to go to seek asylum in Malaysia. And after having been raped, she threw herself in the water and she was drowned. And the sea pirate, the second person that we used to hate, and there is me who is the third person who is confused, not knowing what side to take.

[17:30]

It would be too easy to take the side of the little girl and consider the sea pirate as your enemy. But I could not do that because I have had the habit of looking at things carefully and deeply. I was capable to see that if I was born in the village where that pirate was born in Thailand, and if I got the same kind of education and economic conditions of life, and now I am that pirate. Since I have not been mindful, I have done nothing, that is why the little boy has become

[18:39]

a pirate, and it is my responsibility. The pirate is myself. I cannot, I try very hard, but I cannot disengage myself from him and say that, well, he is a pirate. He is absolutely other than me. The enemy here could not be found easily. I am sure that you have followed films that tell us about the life of animals. Sometimes you see a tiger running after a deer and caught it and eat it. Sometimes you see a grass snake going silently in order to catch a frog and swallow it. And if you

[19:52]

are sensible enough, you feel that you don't like that. It causes in you some kind of uneasy feeling, and if you are there, if you were there on the scene, you would try to do something in order for the snake not to swallow the frog and the tiger not to catch the deer. And you take side, you take side of the oppressed, you take side of the frog and you take side of the deer. But if you look at the situation more deeply, you see that the grass snake needs something to eat in order to survive. If you prevent it from eating the things she

[20:52]

eats, she used to eat, and then she will starve, and you should have compassion to her also. The same thing is true with the tiger. Tiger should eat something, and if he doesn't have anything to eat, he will die like any animal without food. So life is like that, and it's very hard to take side. Now during the war in Vietnam, who is the enemy was a big problem. A number of us think that the communists, the Vietnamese communists, are our real enemies. Some of us thought that, well, the Russians are our real enemies. Some of us think that

[21:56]

the pro-Americans are enemies, and the Americans are enemies. There were a number of us in Vietnam who thought that everyone who was dying in Vietnam are not enemies, not Vietnamese, communist Vietnamese, or anti-communist Vietnamese. They were, they are only victims of some bad policy and some incorrect way of thinking. I, myself, was capable to see that the American soldiers who were dying in Vietnam were not our real enemies. They were young, they were sent there to die, and I saw them as victims

[22:56]

of a bad policy. In 1968, I was here in the United States speaking about the sufferings of the people in Vietnam, and there was a young man standing up there and shouted at me, why are you here? You should be at this time in Vietnam fighting the American imperialists, he said. I know that he was frustrated because he had tried very hard to end the war, but the war was not ended, so he considered his government and his army as his own enemy. At that time, I was capable of saying something very, very kind. I told the young man, well, I have thought that the root of the war is

[24:05]

here, that is why I have come to tell you the way how to end it. I don't know whether he understood or not, but I still think so. Now, the government of the United States and the government of the Soviet Union, are they the authors of war? Are they responsible for this present situation? A number of us, many, even in the peace movement, think so, and think that the object of our struggle is attacking

[25:06]

these governments. If we push hard, they will change their policy, not knowing that that policy is made up by our way of life every day. If we have such a government, because we want to have such a kind of government, the way we live our daily life has brought about such a government. That is why the object of our struggle is not only our government but ourselves. If you look at the television screen and you see Mr. Reagan, and you think that he is responsible for everything that is bad, and then that's too easy, that's too simple. You cannot disassociate yourself with Mr. Reagan. In fact, you are

[26:11]

one with him, whether you want it or not. I tell you this story about the Buddha and his so-called enemy, Mara, equivalent to the Satan in Christianity. I told this story to the Zen students in Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, after I had told them about how to deal with our feeling of anger. One student asked me, how do you deal with the feeling of anger in meditation? I said that you should treat the feeling of anger very nicely, very non-violently, because the feeling of anger is yourself.

[27:13]

Each person is like a television set with 10,000 channels, and we are free to choose the channel. We can be anger, we can be love, we can be business, we can be leisure. If you take the time to look at the mountain and enjoy it, we are the mountain. If you take the time only to drink, then we are the drink. If you take the time to watch a very bad movie, then we are that bad movie. But if you take the time to sit down near a stream of water, to listen to it, we are that stream of water. So there is a lot of channels to be turned

[28:23]

on, and you have a wide selection. In fact, in our tradition, in order to treat our feeling of anger, we produce in ourselves what we would call awareness of anger. There is a feeling of anger that is in me, and I am aware of it. That's what we do every time we notice that there is a feeling of anger. We do not try to suppress it, because we know that suppressing it would not help. The more you suppress it, the stronger it becomes. That is our experience. That is why our way is a non-violent way of dealing with it. Produce awareness, mindfulness

[29:30]

that a feeling of anger exists, and the awareness will encompass the feeling of anger, and then there will be some transformation coming later. It is as if sunshine on the green leaves. You know the effect of the sunshine on the leaves. The sunshine does not do anything, but under its effect, the leaves transform themselves, and the green color will be there. In Buddhism, we have the habit of looking at things in a non-dualistic way. That is why it is hard for us to find the enemy. When we know that that feeling of anger is yourself

[30:37]

at that moment, and then you cannot consider it to be your enemy. The only way is to face it with mindfulness, with non-violence, with tenderness. Mara is supposed to be the opposite of Buddha, because when we think of Buddha, we think of something good, something perfect. And therefore, the evil and the non-perfect must exist. That is duality. Just like when I say microphone, well, at the same time as the word microphone is spoken, you know that there are a lot of things that cannot be called microphone, like table, chair, and so on. So every time we utter the word and have a concept of something, we single that out,

[31:48]

and the opposite becomes possible. Just when I say right hand and then the left hand must exist at the same time. So now I say Buddha, of course, Mara should appear right away. That is the dualistic way of vision. So suppose there is Buddha and there is Mara, but reality is not that simple. I wrote an epilogue to Dan Berrigan's book on the sounds, and I told this story one day. Mara came in person to visit Buddha. Buddha was in his cave, and he was assisted by Ananda, who is his most beloved disciple. Well, he is a beloved disciple

[33:02]

of Buddha, but not the brightest disciple. So when Ananda, standing outside of the cave, saw Mara coming, he was frightened. What did this evil one come to do here? And at that time Mara is at the door, and he wants Ananda to go in to announce his visit to Buddha. Ananda refused. He said, Why? Why are you here? Don't you remember that 2,500 years ago you were defeated by the Lord under the Bodhi tree? Do you have a sense of shame at all? Go away! You are the enemy of the Buddha. And thereupon Mara laughed and said, Well,

[34:10]

is that what the Buddha has taught you? Did he say that he has an enemy? Well, Ananda was confused. It looks as if Buddha never said that he has an enemy. So he was somehow disarmed. He accepted to go in to announce his visit. And strangely enough, Buddha rose from his seat and went out in person to greet Mara. Hello, how are you? He said. Mara did not answer. And then Buddha took his arm and led him into the cave, and they both sat down.

[35:11]

And now it is very hard for Ananda to go and make tea for both persons, because he does not like that. Making tea for his master, yes, but making tea for Mara is very hard to do. And then, after having taken tea, Lord Buddha asked Ananda to go and make tea for Mara. And Ananda asked again, How are you? How are things with you? And Mara, No, things are not going well at all. You know something? I am tired of being a Mara. If you are a Mara, when you dress, you have to dress with table dress. And when you breathe, you have to breathe out of smoke or something like that. And when you talk, you have to use a very tricky kind

[36:16]

of language in order to be recognized. I am very tired of doing all these things. And what is worse is that my disciples, many thousands of them, they are now talking about revolution. They are talking about social change and non-violence and compassion and wisdom, all these things. That does not sound good. I think it is better that you take over all my disciples, and I cease my job to be a Mara. So, having talked his heart out, Mara sat down and listened to the Buddha. Buddha asked

[37:17]

him this, You think that being a Buddha, you think it is fun to be a Buddha? Well, they try to sell me every day. They are talking about things that I have never said. And they bring bananas and pineapples and sweet rice in front of me, and in fact it is for them to eat. And then, would you like to be a Buddha sitting on something high and they make a procession of you going through this street and the other street, and you

[38:18]

do like this, like a drunk gentleman. I think to be a Buddha is not fun at all. You would not wish to do it. And thereupon Buddha recited a verse, which is a little bit too long, and I don't remember the content of it. So if you want to read it, please try to find Dan Berrigan's book, The Book of Psalms. The epilogue is about it. I wrote that epilogue as some suggestion to the peace movement in the United States, because it seems that the peace movement here would not survive without an enemy. And I think

[39:20]

that for many people in the peace movement, for the war in Vietnam or opposing the war in Vietnam, they adopt very much the same attitude. There must be an enemy of the struggle. There must be an enemy in order for the struggle to be possible. I would invite all of you here to meditate on that subject. Could a peace movement go on and be effective without an enemy that is completely independent from our life, from our self? The other day I met with someone in the peace movement. I wouldn't tell his name here, but he refused to speak about the plight of the boat people. I know who they are, the

[40:27]

boat people. They suffer a lot. I myself was on the Gulf of Siam trying to help. And I saw that we chartered two ships in order to pick up the boat people in danger. And we did it underground too, because the governments of the countries in the surrounding area, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, did not want any kind of operation like that. He said that if he had not spoken about the boat people, not because he is not concerned, he knows that the boat people suffer. But if he speaks about it, it is against his policy. I said, why? He said, well, the government here makes use of it so much, that the boat

[41:35]

people suffer. That if you speak more about it, that would help the right-wing people. And therefore we cannot speak about it. To us, Vietnam needs some funds in order to rebuild itself. Vietnam would need financial assistance in order to do the work of reconstruction. And the only thing I want the United States government to do is to give the Hanoi government some money. That is what he said. I said, it is fine to give the government of Hanoi some money to feed the hungry people. But it is fine also to help the boat people. Why cannot you do both? Because, ladies and gentlemen, to him, doing both is stupid. Because the

[42:40]

two things cannot go together politically. Because helping the boat people is to denounce Hanoi, and to denounce Hanoi and giving Hanoi money, that does not go together. I said that you are too political. Could we be otherwise? Could we be human beings first? You have to respond to every problem. If you think that Hanoi should be helped with some money, you help him, help them. But if you think that the boat people need your help, you have to help them too, by refraining. So one of the things I would like to say to him in the peace movement is that he should learn to look at things other than political. And we

[43:45]

should, I believe, we should be human beings first, and political animals later. The one on the small boat that can inspire hope and calm, and I do wish that each of you will become such a one. I myself have tried very hard in order to be my best, because I know living in this society is very easy to lose oneself and to panic. And we know to be fragile, to panic, is not for the sake of peace and of survival. And that is why I want very much tonight to tell you about my experience on it.

[44:48]

Concerning the bad television program tonight or tomorrow, should we turn off the television set for a while? It seems that we open our door too much to society, to the sounds and the noises and the sights and the smells that continue to destroy us. One day, I had a young boy, a 12-year-old, coming from London, and he said to me, he said to me, he said he had lunch. And the first time in his life he ate lunch without talking. We look at him,

[46:00]

and I know that he was embarrassed. And I came to him after lunch, and I asked him, is that true that eating without talking, like the silence is too heavy? He said, yes, yes, it's clear. I've never done that. So I explained to him that we practice eating without talking that day because we want to focus our attention on the food. And I asked him whether he has had the experience of eating something with the television on, and he did not enjoy fully his food, and he turned the TV off. He said, yes. So I said, that is the same thing. If we do not talk, it is because we want to focus our attention to the food, to be more polite to the food, and to be polite to pay attention to those who are eating with us at the same

[47:09]

time. He understood, and the next time, he was capable of enjoying it, the silence. I think many of us tend to be afraid of silence, and that is why we want something going on in order for our mind to stick on it. We are somehow afraid of being alone, without reading something, or watching something, or talking about something. I think these things are very common, and I think that small things like that have to do with peace. I think the first act of being peace is not to let ourselves to be colonized by others.

[48:12]

What right that author has on us in order to continue destroying us by his mediocre film. Sometimes we notice that the film is very bad, but we do not have the courage to stand up and to turn it off. Why? Because we are used to it. We do not want to be alone without doing anything. That is very serious. I think we have to regain our independence. Sometimes we meet with someone and shake hands with him and be with him, and if there is no talking between two of us, we feel that something is lacking, so we find things to

[49:18]

say, like, how are you, the weather today is good or bad, and so on, because we are used to it. We think that silence is a sign of lack of friendship. How wrong. I have a friend who was very old. He is himself a friend of Albert Einstein in Princeton. I was in Princeton at that time, and I used to go and visit him, and when he opened the door for me to come, to go in, and we sat for one hour near the fire, and we did not say anything. After that, I stood up and said goodbye, and that happened so many times. The gentleman was 80 years old, and he was very capable of enjoying silence. I think

[50:21]

to learn how to enjoy silence, to enjoy your breathing, to enjoy your being, is very important. I think in order to be effective in working for peace, you should be able to be happy, to be peaceful. I am quite sure that if you are not peaceful and happy, you cannot work effectively for peace. You will say that how can I be happy when things go wrong like that in the world? Forty thousand children die of starvation every day. People go to sleep without anything but so much in the third world. Atomic weapons are being manufactured,

[51:26]

and the money used for the poor is poor on that kind of enterprise. And how can I be happy like that? I said, no, instead of all that, we should be happy. We should be happy otherwise you cannot do anything for peace. Because humans have the right to be happy, and happiness is not very far away. And there is a technique of being happy I would like to present to you. Just look at the Buddha statue and see the smile on his face. If you go to Cambodia, you see the smile on the face of the Buddha in Angkor Wat. There are many

[52:34]

statues of Buddha who are not beautiful, and you cannot see their smile, but in many you can see their smile. Was the Buddha aware of the suffering of the world? I think so, because he speaks of suffering as the first prerequisite. If you do not accept that suffering exists, you cannot become a Buddhist. The first truth to acknowledge is the existence of suffering. Therefore, he is aware of all the suffering that was going on. So why that smile? Because to me that is the only way of reacting to the suffering. Smiling at suffering, not to make fun of it, of course, but only with a serene mind, not to make fun of the

[53:37]

suffering. With such a smile, could we remain calm, solid, in order to do something to relieve the suffering? If we suffer too much, our heart will become like a stone. We cannot no longer feel compassion vis-à-vis the others. That is why suffering, the awareness of suffering, to suffer is good, but not too much. I speak of the dosage, a weak dosage of suffering. Our community in France used to refrain to eat twice a week in order to create that feeling

[54:53]

of hunger. It is not hunger. It is a feeling of lacking some food only. It's not real hunger. That feeling of having the stomach a little bit empty that evening is a kind of exercise of mindfulness, reminding us of the reality of the world where so many people are hungry. So we take a dose of suffering that we can bear just for the sake of suffering. We take a dose of being awake. From time to time, and I think very often, we get bad news from the third world. Sometimes we almost die because of the bad news. People die in prison,

[55:56]

people arrested. One day, we received the news that two Buddhist leaders were arrested and one died in prison, and so many children starving. These bad news are very disturbing, and if we keep opening our mail every day like that, we think that it's not very wise. That is why we open our mail only once a week, and we prepare ourselves in order to be strong enough to confront the mail. And these things we learn in our daily life.

[57:00]

We know that a certain amount of suffering keeps us awake and tells us what to do, but being peaceful and being happy is also very much needed for us to be capable to go on with the peace work. We practice, for instance, the walking meditation about the awareness of the green earth. We make steps on the green earth, and we practice on the green earth, and we want to be aware of the fact that we are walking on the earth, and we think that we can be very happy by doing so. This is what I told the people. Suppose that you are an astronaut, and if you are on the moon or somewhere there in

[58:09]

outer space, and you cannot return to your home, the earth, and then oxygen is lacking, and you are going to die in three or four days. Now if someone said that, well, they can help you to go back to earth with the condition that you cannot live in your country, you have to live in a very foreign, poor country. I think you will accept with joy the idea that you can go back to the earth, and walking on it will make you very happy. So suppose you are now back on the earth, and you are practicing walking on it, and if you are aware enough, you will be very happy. And that is what we are doing every day, and we are

[59:10]

not happy about walking at all. Suffering and happiness are not very far from each other. Sometimes they are the same. The people who lost their sight think that they are walking on the moon, and they are happy. But having eyes is a wonderful thing. You can see a lot of beautiful things. Look at a pebble, look at a flower, look at a leaf, look at the cloud, look at a child, look at the neighborhood. How wonderful to be able to see. If I recover my sight, I will spend most of my time just looking around to enjoy the beauty of life, he would say. But all of us have eyes, capable of seeing things. A sunset, a morning, the

[60:13]

blue sky, the birds singing, all these things are just beautiful, marvelous, and yet we are not happy with them. We look for happiness elsewhere. We think that happiness is there, and it's not as ghostly as we used to think. I have spoken of the smile, the smile of the eyes, as an exercise of relaxation and mindfulness. Practicing meditation is not something difficult. It's quite easy, and you would like to try it. I think that you would like it very much. For instance, practice breathing, knowing that air is still breathable, and how wonderful

[61:24]

to breathe. So, I told you in the beginning of my talk that please enjoy your breathing. Try it, please. It's wonderful. And we have, the other day I told Bhikkhu Roshi that in the United States there is still very fresh air, very delicious air to breathe. I said that in Tassajara. Having a cup of tea with a friend is a joy, provided that you know

[62:30]

how to do it. In the old time, we used to spend three hours for a cup of tea. Well, that's not good economics, you say. I agree. But we were happier. Three hours for a cup of tea, and imagine we didn't talk much. We just sit, drink some tea, and we were very happy, and feel the presence of each other. I think we have to relearn all these things to be happy. The other day, a friend of mine told me this. You should not spend your time growing lettuce. Everyone can do that. You should write more poems, and you should give more talks. Growing lettuce, anyone can do that. And she was telling

[63:36]

me of good economics. I didn't believe her. I thought that if I don't spend time to grow lettuce, I cannot be myself, and my poem will be less than what I desire. I believe that growing lettuce, or mint, or herbs, fine herbs, are very important to me. And growing lettuce is a very everlasting kind of act, and it's as sacred, as important as writing a poem. And I spend time being with the lettuce. I spend time being with the lemon tree. And I think if I can be peaceful and happy, because I know how to use my time. I think you can

[64:41]

too, and you have a lot of experience on that. We should reorganize our lives so that we can be happier, and believe the happiness is there, not far away. Have you practiced half-smiling? This is one exercise of meditation. Half-smiling is to create relaxation in more than 100 muscles on your face. And half-smiling is to prove that you are in control of yourself. You know what you are thinking about. You know what you are feeling about. You know who you are. Exercise of mindfulness is to know what is going on in your body, in your feelings, in your mind, and in the world. And if that kind

[65:45]

of mindfulness or awareness is there, it should be accompanied by a smile, the one you see on the face of the Buddha. That smile is the proof that mindfulness is there. And you know, such a smile is not very expensive. You can afford it every day, several times. And you know that members of your family will appreciate it very much. Reorganize our daily life so that we regain our power of control. So that we have more time. So that we become happier and more peaceful. I have an exercise for you to wash, to do the dishes. Well, don't think of doing the

[66:58]

dishes. The dishes is doing the dirty work. No, it's not. Nothing is dirty. It's a dirty work. You do it more slowly, maintaining your house smile, and thinking of washing each plate like that. It's like giving a bath to a baby, with gentleness. I have practiced that, and I was capable of comparing my washing a bowl, as my giving a bath to the baby Buddha. I think that the baby Buddha would not be offended by that, comparing him with a bowl, a dirty bowl. But in fact, I was washing that bowl very mindfully,

[67:58]

and my act was solemn as a rite, because I was happy doing that. And I think, if I give the baby Buddha a bath, I'll be that happy only. Well, doing the dishes can make you very happy if you know how to do it. Please try, and I wish you good luck. All these things are very important for peacemaking. Be happy, be peaceful, be solid, not too kind. That is the first prerequisite of peace, and of peace work. Someone will say that, well, I have to think of others. I cannot just think of my own happiness,

[68:59]

as if they are very altruistic. I would say that, don't mind what they say. Be happy, be peaceful. Because if you are happy, and if you are peaceful, that is not only for me, it's for all of us, it's for the world. Because if we do not have peace, we have nothing to share. If we do not have happiness, we have nothing to share. That is why peace work must be done within yourself. And when you are at peace, when you are at happiness, whatever you do is peace work. And the way you see things will be peace. You do not need a theory, a doctrine. You just live happily, peacefully, with awareness, and then you know what to

[70:06]

do. Now each of you become that person that I just talked about, the person on the boat. And your presence there, in your family, in your society, in your town, is very important. People look on you, and have faith, have confidence, do not panic. And even if you tell them the truth of our situation, you tell it with calm, with confidence, and that will not cause panic. And you will radiate love, tranquility, and peace, and people will profit from that. I will profit from that. There is another thing I would like to tell you here, is the interconnection

[71:18]

between all of us. For peace workers, this is very important. For peace workers, this is very important. I know from experiences that the problem of death is very crucial for those who wish to work for peace. In Vietnam, the young people in the school of youth for social service, they have to go to very dangerous areas in order to rescue victims of the war, helping children, helping the wounded. And many of them have died because of service. So I carefully prepared for them to die. A grenade was thrown into my room itself, and I almost died myself. So meditation is very important. Meditation

[72:24]

on death, on life and death, is important for those who want to be really a peace worker. If you undertake a fast in order to call on the people to mobilize for peace, of course you think of death, and you have a concept, a notion of death. In Buddhism, death is a life and death is considered to be the most important subject of meditation. The other day I asked a student at the Zen Center to tell me, by looking in his hand, whether how long has it been around his hand. He looked at it and said that 32 years. But right after that, he said, no, it's not that. He was capable of seeing the existence of

[73:32]

the hand beyond 32 years, because his hand did not come from nothingness. 32 years means what does it mean? It means that before 32 years, it was nothing, which is not true. So he looked more deeply in his hand than he saw his father, he saw his mother, grandfather, grandmother, and even the enemies of his father. And also the food that his father ate, and the rain and the sunshine that has produced the food. So if he looks carefully at his hand, he sees that he has been around, though he does not know when. And he said that he has never been born, and he has never died. If he has died once, why is he still there?

[74:40]

And if during a million years he has not died, why is he going to die in the next million years, 20 or 50 years? That is the subject of meditation. Please try it. As for what we can do, I think that is of secondary importance. We have to be ourself first, we have to be that person first, and then we know what to do. The to-do has to be based on the to-be. That is what I insist tonight. And without that to-be, every kind of to-do cannot be meaningful, whether it is political or non-political.

[75:43]

I think that we should nourish that kind of awareness in us as to what is going on in the world. And we have to create opportunities to nourish it. The young people in my community, they work to help the starving children in the Third World. And they are in contact with these children. And while these children get some food to eat, they get awareness, because they receive letters, pictures, stories about their daily life. And they are very aware as far as the conditions of life in the world is concerned. So the work benefits the children, but benefits themselves first. And these dedicated people are wonderful, because although they

[76:46]

do not live in the Third World, they are with the people in the Third World. And if they refrain to eat a few times a week, that is to be in more communion with the Third World. So that is what a few things I described about their life that I just want to tell you as an example. Of course, you do not want to do the same thing, because each of us has a special circumstance, situation. And we should be capable of creating that kind of thing for us, to nourish awareness. How for our children to know that 40,000 children in the Third World die every day because of the lack of food? How for the people who

[77:53]

surround us be aware that if they don't change their daily way of life, then there is no point. It's up to you, up to all of us to do, to reorganize. That is very important. The nuclear danger is very much in your mind, of course. It is in mine, too. But if we try to do together some of the things that are easier to do, like... discussing, making strategies how to dismantle the weapon industries in this country. Because weapons are being made in this country and sent to the world, and people are dying because of that a lot. The United States, as the strongest nation on the Earth, can

[78:56]

do something about it. I believe that there are so many intelligent people here. They can get together and plan strategies in order to find jobs for people, for them to remove themselves from the weapon industries. I think if we can do that, hope will be larger. More important. If we prove that we are capable of doing these so-called small things, then we have greater hope for the survival of our planet. And then, as Francois Perrault, the head of the Institute of Economics and Mathematics in France, said, if the Western nations reduce the eating of meat by 50 percent, and reduce

[80:10]

the consumption of liquor by 50 percent only, the fate of the Third World will be changed completely. Because the amount of grain that we use to feed the cattle, the amount of grain that we use to drink, and to make alcoholic drinks, we can use it to feed the Third World and change the economic situation. And that is something that we can do without the Russians. The Russians do it or not, we can do it. Some of these things, I think, if we can do, if we pay attention enough and try hard enough, I think we can do it. And if we prove that we can do these things, then greater hope we'll have concerning the survival of our planet. Ladies and gentlemen, now I would like to conclude this talk, read to you that poem

[81:16]

that I have promised. Please call me by my true name. Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow, because even today I still arrive. Look deeply, I arrive in every second to be a bird on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth

[82:25]

and death of all that are alive. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river, and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat the mayfly. I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond, and I am the grass swimming in the lake, who, approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks, and I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl refugee on a small boat, and I am the pirate, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate, and I am

[83:34]

the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the Politburo, with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood, to my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life, and my pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills all four oceans. So please call me by my true names, so that I may be heard, so that I can hear all my cries and laughs at once, so that I can see that my joy and my

[84:34]

pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, and so the door of my heart be left open, the door of compassion. Thank you very much. Thank you. If some of you would like to speak to Thich Nhat Hanh, he could answer some questions,

[85:49]

or you could just come up and talk with him afterwards, whatever. What should we do? Did anybody have something you'd like to ask him? What? Oh, would anybody else like to come up and say something? Thank you very much.

[86:25]

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