January 27, 2013. 76-minute dharma talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh from New Hamlet at Plum Village. The sangha is in the 90-day Rains Retreat (Winter Retreat). This is the twenty-fourth dharma talk of the retreat with the theme Are You The Soulmate of the Buddha? The talk is given in Vietnamese and this is a translation provided by Sr. Chan Không.
In first 17-minutes, we arr reminded how to be in touch with yourself. Through walking meditation and no thinking. When we walk, we walk relaxingly and solidly. Every step is solid and every step is freedom. And with Freedom you can arrive in Nirvana. Nirvana is extinction of all the affliction. Walking meditation can be very profound.
Three Dharma Seals. Impermanence. No self. Nirvana.
The island of self. There is no way to Nirvana, nirvana is the way.
At 45-minutes, we look at the Four Noble truths and noble eight fold path. The five mindfulness trainings are a concrete manifestation of this path to Nirvana. What are the five mindfulness Trainings? Includes a discussion of the four Kinds of nutriments.
December 31, 2012. 120-minute dharma talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh from Lower Hamlet at Plum Village in English. The sangha is in the 90-day Rains Retreat (Winter Retreat) and this is the special New Years Eve dharma talk (and the sixteenth dharma talk of the retreat with the theme Are You The Soulmate of the Buddha?).
Dear friends, please smile. You are online.
How do we go home? Home is in the hear and the now. It is the practice of healing. Every step is healing. Every breath is healing.
Nirvana is available in the here and now. Nirvana is cooling down. Cooling the fire of fear, afflictions, and wrong views. This is the Third Noble Truth. We do not need to die in order to touch nirvana. Nirvana is a state of no heat. We use the noble eightfold path. How do see the path? We need our six sense organs and our mind to experience nirvana. The Five Mindfulness Trainings help us experience the path.
Right View. Notions of being and non-being. Notions of birth and death.
Right Mindfulness. This allows you to be fully alive. It is an art of living.
November 1, 2012. 76-minute dharma talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh from New Hamlet at Plum Village. The sangha is enjoying the Autumn Retreat and this is a Day of Mindfulness. This is the 8th, and final, dharma talk of the fall retreat. Thay begins with a short review of what’s been covered in the last four weeks.
Today we will look more deeply into the nature of our birth and our death. We begin with an analysis of a cloud. What is a cloud and when does it exist? We have to look at the cloud with eyes of signlessness. The rain is the new form of the cloud. How do we appy this to our own being? Is there really birth and death? There is only continuation.
Collective action. In Buddhism, the notion of action is very important. It is called karma. Triple action: thought, speech, and action. With mindfulness we can recognize our thoughts and make a decision that they produce healing and reconciliation. In order to so, we need Right View and Right Understanding. What is the connection between birth, death, and karma?
We need mindfulness and concentration to gain the insight if Right View. Birth and death inter-are with each other. Thay teaches briefly on each of the other elements of the Noble Eightfold Path.
October 18, 2012. 84-minute dharma talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh from Upper Hamlet at Plum Village. The sangha is enjoying the Autumn Retreat and this is a Day of Mindfulness.
What is the Winter Retreat? Why do we practice together for 90-days? The theme this winter will be are we soul mates of the Buddha? Do we understand the Buddha? There are many misunderstandings and we’ll focus on this problem. That’s why we have the Sutra on a Better Way to Catch a Snake.
We continue a teaching on relationships and working with suffering. How do we feed our relationship? The source of nutriments? This teaching is found in the first and second Noble Truths. Why do we need to start with suffering? Nothing can survive without food, including your love. In a relationship, we should know how to nourish each other. How can we nourish our relationship? Right Speech, Right Action, and the remaining Noble Eightfold Path. In addition, we have the Five Mindfulness Trainings to help us practice.
September 2, 2012. 84-minute dharma talk given in English, with simultaneous translation into Italian, with Thich Nhat Hanh at the Italian Retreat with the theme Peace in Action. The retreat took place at Fraterna Domus in Rome, Italy.
How do we let freshness and beauty arise? The teaching on the seed of corn.
Listening to the bell to get in touch with every cell in our body. The noble truths and noble eightfold path. Right View is the foundation of the othe seven. The topic of no-birth and no-death are examined. The wisdom of non-discrimination.
August 2, 2012. 92-minute recording given at New Hamlet, Plum Village by Thich Nhat Hanh. This is the twentieth dharma talk of the Summer Opening. The talk was originally given in French and this is an English translation.
We begin with a meditation on the birth of the flame. Does “nothing” exist? What is the existence of nothing?
What is our nature? Are we caught in the notions of birth, death, being, and non-being? These are the foundation of our fear and anxiety. In Buddhism, Right Thinking is being free of these notions. There is only continuation and manifestation. Thinking is already an action.
We continue with a teaching on Right View, Right Speech.
June 3, 2012. 103-minute dharma talk by Thich Nhat Hanh from Lower Hamlet in Plum Village during the 21-Day Retreat with the theme The Science of the Buddha. The talk is given in English and this is the second dharma talk (of 15).
Topics
Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing – exercises 5-8
May 17, 2012. 116-minute recording given at Upper Hamlet, Plum Village by Thich Nhat Hanh. This is a Day of Mindfulness. At about four minutes into the recording, the brothers are trying to solve a sound problem and the talk resumes in English after 12-minutes.
Today we are stepping from the Four Noble Truths into the Noble Eightfold Path. Mindfulness, Concentration, and Right View. These are the first three elements of the path. But what is right view? Right View is the foundation for all the other elements. It is also the foundation for applied ethics.
Thinking, Speech, Action, Livelihood, and Diligence all have their foundation in right view.
April 15, 2012. 106-minute recording given at Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney, Ireland by Thich Nhat Hanh. The sangha is on the UK and Ireland Tour and this is the third (and final) dharma talk for the Mindful Living Today retreat.
Thay begins with an explanation of no-birth and no-death, including a teaching on energies we produce in our daily lives. Thoughts of healing an compassion can heal the world. Thinking is already action. Karma has three kinds of action. We continue with a teaching on the noble eightfold path and mental/store consciousness. we conclude with the last eight exercises on the full awareness of breathing.
April 8, 2012. 115-minute recording given at The University of Nottingham by Thich Nhat Hanh. The sangha is on the UK and Ireland Tour and this is third dharma talk for the Cultivating Happiness Family Retreat. We begin with Br. Phap Trien singing with the children, Sr. Chan Khong sharing about the Thich Nhat Hanh Continuation Fund (UK Donation, US Donation), monks and nuns chanting “From the Depths of Understanding” and then a short talk for the children on people meditation and the first mantra. The main talk begins at 55-minutes into the recording.
With the three kinds of energies – mindfulness, concentration, and insight – we can produce Right View, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Action (karma), Right Livelihood, and Right Diligence. The Noble Eightfold Path.
What if yesterday I have produced a thought of hate, and I had the intention to punish? Is it too late, because I produced that thought yesterday, you may ask? It’s not good to produce such a thought. Because it is going on now. It is your continuation. And that is not a beautiful continuation. You don’t want to be continued like that. So today, looking back, I regret that I have produced such a thought of anger, hate, and what should I do? So the practice is to sit down and breathe and produce a thought of the opposite nature, a thought of non-discrimination, a thought of compassion, understanding, and as soon as the new thought is produced, full of understanding and love, that thought will catch up very easily with the other thought, and neutralise it. Right away. Because the nature of our thought is nonlocal. It doesn’t have to travel much, it can catch up the thought of yesterday very easily, and you can neutralise it. Everything comes from the mind. So it is possible to repair the past. The past is still available. And if you are established in the here and the now, you have the opportunity to repair the past. Even if our parents have done something regrettable, even if our ancestors had done something regrettable, the past is still there, and we continue to suffer, and our ancestors continue in us to suffer. So with the Dharma, with the practice, we sit down and we embrace that, and produce the kind of thought, of compassion, understanding, that can neutralise what was wrong, wrongly done in the past. It is possible. It liberates us, and liberates our parents and ancestors. This is possible. Our ancestors expect us to do that. It is nice to encounter the teaching and the practice, and with that practice, we can change the past. And of course, change the future.
