Resting in the River
Thich Nhat Hanh
---o0o---
My dear friends, suppose someone is holding a pebble and throws it in
the air and the pebble begins to fall down into a river. After the
pebble touches the surface of the water, it allows itself to sink slowly
into the river.
It will reach the bed of the river without any effort. Once the pebble
is at the bottom of the river, it continues to rest. It allows the water
to pass by.
I think the pebble reaches the bed of the river by the shortest path
because it allows itself to fall without making any effort. During our
sitting meditation we can allow ourselves to rest like a pebble. We can
allow ourselves to sink naturally without effort to the position of
sitting, the position of resting.
Resting is a very important practice; we have to learn the art of
resting. Resting is the first part of Buddhist meditation. You should
allow your body and your mind to rest. Our mind as well as our body
needs to rest.
The problem is that not many of us know how to allow our body and mind
to rest. We are always struggling; struggling has become a kind of
habit. We cannot resist being active, struggling all the time. We
struggle even during our sleep.
It is very important to realize that we have the habit energy of
struggling. We have to be able to recognize a habit when it manifests
itself because if we know how to recognize our habit, it will lose its
energy and will not be able to push us anymore.
Ten years ago I was in India visiting the ex-untouchable community of
Buddhists. A friend who belonged to the caste organized the trip for me.
I was sitting on the bus, enjoying the landscape outside, contemplating
the palm trees and the vegetation. Suddenly I turned and I saw him
looking very tense. There was no reason why he had to be tense like
that. I thought that he was trying to make my visit pleasant and maybe
that was the reason he was so tense. I told him, "Dear friend, I know
that you want to make my trip pleasant, but I am already very happy.
I've already enjoyed the trip. So why don't you sit back, smile, and
relax?" He said, "Okay," and he sat back and he tried to relax.
I was pleased and I turned my face toward the window again and I enjoyed
the palm trees and other things. But just a few minutes after when I
looked back at him he was as tense as before. He was not able to relax,
to allow himself to relax. I knew that he belonged to that section of
the population that had been struggling for many thousand years. He was
discriminated against. He had suffered so much, his ancestors and
himself and his children. So the tendency to struggle has been there for
many thousand years. That is why it was very difficult for him to allow
himself to rest.
We have to practice in order to be able to transform this habit in us.
The habit of struggle has become a powerful source of energy that is
shaping our behavior, our actions and our reactions.
When an animal in the jungle is wounded, it knows how to find a quiet
place, lie down and do nothing. The animal knows that is the only way to
get healed-to lay down and just rest, not thinking of anything,
including hunting and eating. Not eating is a very wonderful way of
allowing your body to rest. We are so concerned about how to get
nutrition that we are afraid of resting, of allowing our body to rest
and to fast. The animal knows that it does not need to eat. What it
needs is to rest, to do nothing, and that is why its health is restored.
In our consciousness there are wounds also, lots of pains. Our
consciousness also needs to rest in order to restore itself. Our
consciousness is just like our body. Our body knows how to heal itself
if we allow it the chance to do so. When we get a cut on our finger we
don't have to do anything except to clean it and to allow it the time to
heal, because our body knows how to heal itself. The same thing is true
with our consciousness; our consciousness knows how to heal itself if we
know how to allow it to do so. But we don't allow it. We always try to
do something. We worry so much about healing, which is why we do not get
the healing we need. Only if we know how to allow them to rest can our
body and our soul heal themselves.
But there is in us what we call the energy of restlessness. We cannot be
at peace with ourselves. We cannot be peaceful. We cannot sit; we cannot
lie down. There is some energy in us to do this, to do that, to think of
this, to think of that, and that kind of restlessness makes us unhappy.
That is why it is so important for us to learn first of all to allow our
body to rest. We have to learn how to deal with all our energy of
restlessness. That is why we have to learn these techniques of allowing
our body and our consciousness to rest.
I would like to offer you some instructions about walking meditation.
The first thing we shall do early tomorrow morning is to practice
walking together, which we call walking meditation. Walking meditation
means to enjoy walking without any intention to arrive. We don't need to
arrive anywhere. We just walk. We enjoy walking. That means walking is
already stopping, and that needs some training.
Usually in our daily life we walk because we want to go somewhere.
Walking is only a means to an end, and that is why we do not enjoy every
step we take. Walking meditation is different. Walking is only for
walking. You enjoy every step you take. So this is a kind of revolution
in walking. You allow yourself to enjoy every step you take.
The Zen master Ling Chi said that the miracle is not to walk on burning
charcoal or in the thin air or on the water; the miracle is just to walk
on earth. You breathe in. You become aware of the fact that you are
alive. You are still alive and you are walking on this beautiful planet.
That is already performing a miracle. The greatest of all miracles is to
be alive. We have to awaken ourselves to the truth that we are here,
alive. We are here making steps on this beautiful planet. This is
already performing a miracle.
But we have to be here in order for the miracle to be possible. We have
to bring ourselves back to the here and the now. Therefore each step we
take becomes a miracle. If you are able to walk like that, each step
will be very nourishing and healing. You walk as if you kiss the earth
with your feet, as if you massage the earth with your feet. There is a
lot of love in that practice of walking meditation.
The Buddha said that the past is gone and the future is not yet here.
Let us not regret the past. Let us not worry about the future. Go back
to the present moment and live deeply the present moment. Because the
present moment is the only moment where you can touch life. Life is
available only in the present moment. That is why walking meditation is
to go back to the present moment, in order to be alive again and to
touch life deeply in that moment. In order to be able to touch the earth
with our feet and enjoy walking, we have to establish ourselves firmly
in the present moment, in the here and the now.
In walking meditation, we walk like a free person. This is not political
freedom. This is freedom from afflictions, from sorrow, from fear.
Unless you are free you cannot enjoy walking. I would like to propose to
you a short poem that you might like to use for walking meditation:
I have arrived. I am home.
In the here. In the now.
I am solid. I am free.
In the ultimate I dwell.
You might like to take two steps and breathe in and say, I have arrived,
I have arrived. And when you breathe out, you take another two steps and
say silently, I am home, I am home. Our true home is really in the here
and in the now. Because only in the here and the now can we touch life.
As the Buddha said, life is available only in the here and the now, so
going back to the present moment is going home. That is why you take one
step or two steps and you awaken to the fact that you have arrived. You
have arrived in the present moment.
If you are able to arrive, then you will stop running-running within and
running without. There is a belief in us that happiness cannot be
possible in the here and the now. We have to go somewhere. We have to go
to the future in order to be able to really be happy. That kind of
thinking has been there for a long time. Maybe that feeling has been
transmitted to us from our ancestors and our parents. That is why we
have to wake up to the presence of that habit energy in us and to do the
reverse. The Buddha said that it is possible for us to be peaceful and
happy in the present moment. That is the teaching of trista dharma sadha
vihara. It means living happily right in the present moment. When you
are there, body and mind united, you have an opportunity to touch the
conditions of your happiness. If you are able to touch these conditions
of happiness that are already available in the here and the now, you can
be happy right away. You don't have to run anywhere, especially into the
future.
When we practice walking, we might be aware that we have strong feet.
Our feet are strong enough for us to enjoy running and walking. That is
one condition for happiness that is available. When I breathe in and I
become aware of my eyes, I encounter another condition for my happiness.
Breathing in, I am aware of my eyes. Breathing out, I smile to my eyes.
This is an exercise, a very simple exercise to help you realize that you
have eyes which are still in good condition. You need only to open your
eyes to see the blue sky, the white cloud, the luxurious vegetation. You
can see all kinds of forms and colors just because you have eyes still
in good condition. Your eyes are another condition for your happiness.
We have so many conditions like that for our happiness and yet we are
still unhappy. We still want to run away from the present moment, hoping
we'll find some happiness in the future.
Breathing in, I'm aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart.
That is another exercise. When you practice like that you touch your
heart with your mindfulness. If you continue a minute, you realize that
you still have a heart that functions normally. It is wonderful to have
a heart that still functions normally. There are people who don't have a
heart like that and their deepest desire is to have a heart like you. So
conditions for happiness may be more than enough for us to be happy, but
we are not able to be happy because of that tendency to run away from
the present moment.
To take an in-breath, to smile, and to touch the conditions of happiness
that are available, is something that all of us can do. Because of that
we can stop and establish ourselves in the present moment. That is the
teaching of living happily in the present moment. Please train yourself
to make the present moment, the here and the now, into your true home.
That is the only home that we have. That is the only place where we can
touch life. Everything we are looking for must be found in the here and
the now. In that way walking meditation can be a great pleasure and can
be very healing.
Do you have to make any effort to practice walking meditation? I don't
think so. It is like when you drink a glass of orange juice. Do you
think that you have to make an effort in order to enjoy the orange
juice? No. Walking is like that. To really enjoy a glass of orange
juice, you have to be there one hundred per cent mind and body together.
If you are there, mind and body firmly established in the present
moment, then a glass of orange juice will become a real thing for you.
You are real; therefore, the juice is real. And there life is real. Life
exists. Life is deep during the time you drink your orange juice.
When you contemplate a beautiful sunset, do you have to make any effort?
I don't think so. You don't have to make any effort in order to enjoy a
beautiful sunset. You need only to be there, to be there mind and body
together. But if your body is there and your mind is in the past or in
the future, then the beautiful sunset will not be there for you.
There is a kind of energy that helps you to be there body and mind
together. That energy is called mindfulness. Mindfulness is the capacity
of being there body and mind united. When you drink your orange juice,
drink mindfully and you will enjoy your juice because you are really
there one hundred per cent. If your body and mind are united when you
contemplate the beautiful sunset, it means that you are mindful.
Mindfulness helps you to be there in order for the beautiful sunset to
be there too. While you walk, if you allow yourself to be there mind and
body together, then walking will become mindful walking; it will be
healing, refreshing and nourishing.
To meditate means first of all to be there, to be on your cushion, to be
on your walking meditation path. Eating also is a meditation if you are
really there, present one hundred per cent with your food. The essential
is to be there. So please when you practice walking meditation, don't
make any effort. Allow yourself to be like that pebble at rest. The
pebble is resting at the bottom of the river and the pebble does not
have to do anything. While you are walking, you are resting. While you
are sitting, you are resting. If you struggle during your sitting
meditation or walking meditation, you are not doing it right. The Buddha
said, "My practice is the practice of non-practice." That means a lot.
Give up all struggle. Allow yourself to be, to rest.
I sit on my meditation cushion. I consider it to be something very
pleasant. I don't struggle at all on my cushion. I allow myself to be,
to rest. I don't make any effort and that is why I do not get any
trouble while sitting. While sitting I do not struggle and that is why
all my muscles are relaxed. If you struggle during your sitting
meditation, you will very soon have pain in your shoulders and back and
things like that. But if you allow yourself to be rested on your cushion
you can sit very long, and each minute is light, refreshing, nourishing
and healing.
It is not sitting in order to struggle to get enlightenment. No. Sitting
first of all is for the pleasure of sitting. Walking first of all is for
the pleasure of walking. And eating is for the pleasure of eating. And
the art is to be there one hundred per cent.
When I was a novice I learned how to light a stick of incense in
mindfulness. You see, when you light incense you think that the purpose
of lighting incense is to have the incense pervading the Buddha's home.
But lighting the incense is just for lighting the incense. You pick up a
stick of incense mindfully and you enjoy that, because it is by itself
an act of meditation. During the time you pick up the stick of incense
you are mindful, you are concentrated, you are real, because your body
and your mind are together. And the stick of incense is real. When you
strike a match, you do the same thing. During the time you strike a
match, you only strike a match. You don't do anything else. You don't
think of other things. You are perfectly mindful of striking a match.
You are concentrated on it, and you enjoy the act of lighting the
incense.
When you hold a stick of incense, it is the same. When I stick it into
the incense burner, I put my left hand on my right hand. That is the
tradition. Everyone in the Buddhist tradition lights incense in that
way. The stick of incense is very light; one hand is enough in order to
hold it. Why do you have to put your left hand on your right hand?
Because it means that you are doing it with one hundred per cent of your
body and your mind.
Be there truly. Be there one hundred per cent of yourself. In every
moment of your daily life. That is the essence of true Buddhist
meditation. Each of us knows that we can do that, so let us train to
live each moment of our daily life deeply. That is why I like to define
mindfulness as the energy that helps us to be there one hundred per
cent. The energy of your true presence.
Breathing in-in the here, in the here. Breathing out-in the now, in the
now. Although these are different words they mean exactly the same
thing. I have arrived in the here. I have arrived in the now. I am home
in the here. I am home in the now.
When you practice like that, you practice stopping. Stopping is the
basic Buddhist practice of meditation. You stop running. You stop
struggling. You allow yourself to rest, to heal, to calm.
And after a few minutes of practice you might switch into doing the
third line-I am solid, I am free. This is not auto-suggestion. Why?
Because if you have succeeded in arriving in the here and in the now you
are much freer. You are free from the past, from the future, from your
worries, from your fear. And you become much more solid; your steps
become more solid and you become more solid in your body and in your
mind. Solidity becomes a reality after a few minutes of arriving, of
being home.
Solidity and freedom are two characteristics of nirvana. Nirvana is not
something abstract. The Buddha said we can touch nirvana with our own
body. So while you practice walking meditation you can begin to touch
nirvana already with your body and your spirit. When you feel you are a
little bit more solid, a little bit more free, then you begin to touch
nirvana with your body and spirit. Solidity and freedom are the true
base for your happiness and well being. No happiness, no well being, is
possible without solidity and freedom.
The last line of the poem is wonderful. In the ultimate I dwell. In the
ultimate. In the ultimate. I dwell. I dwell. The ultimate here is the
true foundation of your being.
Let us visualize the waves on the ocean, several waves appearing on the
surface of the ocean. Some waves are big, there are those that are
small, and each wave seems to have its own life. A wave may have ideas
like, "I am a wave. I am only a wave among many waves. I am smaller than
the other wave. I am less beautiful. I last less than the other wave."
Ideas like that. A wave can be caught in jealousy, in fear, in
discrimination.
But if the wave is able to bend down and touch the water within herself,
it will realize that while it is a wave, it is at the same time water.
Water is the foundation of the wave. While waves can be high and low,
more and less beautiful, the water is free from all these notions. That
is why if we are able to touch the foundation of our being, we can
release our fear and our suffering.
Touching the foundation of our being means touching nirvana. Our
foundation is not subjected to birth and death, being and non-being. A
wave can live the life of a wave, but a wave can do much better than
that. While living the life of a wave, a wave can live a life of the
water. The more our solidity and our freedom grows, the deeper we touch
the ground of our own being. That is the door for emancipation, for the
greatest relief.
-oOo-
Throughout his tour, Thich Nhat Hanh addressed the specific issues of
Americans in a series of question and answer periods. Here is a
selection of his responses to questions on leading a spiritual life in
the modern world.
Stress and Work
-- How do you maintain mindfulness in a busy work environment?
-- At times it seems there is not even enough time to breathe mindfully.
This is not a personal problem only; this is a problem of the whole
civilization. That is why we have to practice not only as individuals;
we have to practice as a society. We have to make a revolution in the
way we organize our society and our daily life, so we will be able to
enjoy the work we do every day.
Meanwhile, we can incorporate a number of things that we have learned in
this retreat in order to lessen our stress. When you drive around the
city and come to a red light or a stop sign, you can just sit back and
make use of these twenty or thirty seconds to relax-to breathe in,
breathe out, and enjoy arriving in the present moment. There are many
things like that we can do. Years ago I was in Montreal on the way to a
retreat, and I noticed that the license plates said Je me souviens-"I
remember." I did not know what they wanted to remember, but to me it
means that I remember to breathe and to smile (laughter). So I told a
friend who was driving the car that I had a gift for the sangha in
Montreal: every time you see Je me souviens, you remember to breathe and
smile and go back to the present moment. Many of our friends in the
Montreal sangha have been practicing that for more than ten years.
I think we can enjoy the red light; we can also enjoy the stop sign.
Every time we see it we profit: instead of being angry at the red light,
of being burned by impatience, we just practice breathing in, breathing
out, smiling. That helps a lot. And when you hear the telephone ringing
you can consider it to be the sound of the mindfulness bell. You
practice telephone meditation. Every time you hear the telephone ringing
you stay exactly where you are (laughter). You breathe in and breathe
out and enjoy your breathing.
Listen, listen-this wonderful sound brings you back to your true home.
Then when you hear the second ring you stand up and you go to the
telephone with dignity (laughter). That means in the style of walking
meditation (laughter). You know that you can afford to do that, because
if the other person has something really important to tell you, she will
not hang up before the third ring. That is what we call telephone
meditation. We use the sound as the bell of mindfulness.
And waiting at the bus stop you might like to try mindful breathing, and
waiting in line to go into a bank, you can always practice mindful
breathing. Walking from one building to another building, why don't you
use walking meditation, because that improves the quality of our life.
That brings more peace and serenity, and the quality of the work we do
will be improved just by that kind of practice. So it is possible to
integrate the practice into our daily life. We just need a little bit of
creative imagination to do so.
The Benefits of Silence
-- Could tell us about the benefits of silence and how we could bring
that home with us from this retreat?
-- Many of us have realized in the last few days that silence can be
enjoyable. We realize that there are many things that we do not have to
say, and that then we can reserve the time and energy to do other things
that can help us to look more deeply into ourselves and things around
us.
If you are pushed by your habit energy to say something, don't say it.
Instead, take a notebook and write it down. A day or two later, read
what you wrote, and you might find out that it would have been an awful
thing to say. So slowly you become master of yourself, and you know what
to say and what not to say.
I remember one time I proposed to a sister that she practice silence.
She was an elder nun and she had a few negative seeds in her that
prevented her from being happy. She was just a little bit too hard on
the other sisters. I proposed to her that she was a very talented
person, very skillful in many things, and she could make many people
happy if only she knew how to be silent and to say only things that
needed to be said.
I proposed to her that she use only three sentences for three months.
She could repeat these three sentences as many times as she wanted
(laughter) and I told her that if she practiced that for a week, she
would feel happiness right away. The first sentence was, "Dear sister,
is there anything I can do to help you?" (laughter) The second sentence
was, "Did you like what I did to help you?" The third was, "Would you
have any suggestion that I can do it better?" (laughter) If she could
say that, she would make many people happy and the happiness would go
back to herself very quickly.
In the family we can practice silence. We can ask the other members of
the family to agree that we will practice silence for three days or for
a week. It is very beneficial. There will be a transformation after the
period of practicing silence.
Letting Go of Suffering
-- Why do we cling to our suffering?
-- Many of us are not capable of releasing the past, of releasing the
suffering of the past. We want to cling to our own suffering. But the
Buddha said very clearly, do not cling to the past, the past is already
gone. Do not wait for future, the future is not yet there. The wise
people establish themselves in the present moment and they practice
living deeply in the present moment. That is our practice. By living
deeply in the present moment we can understand the past better and we
can prepare for a better future.
Today I attended a Vietnam war veterans' discussion, and my heart is
still heavy. The condition of the war veterans-their heart, their mind,
their body-do you think that they will ever be emotionally healed in
this lifetime? I think if they practice with all their heart and they
are determined to relieve the past, they will be healed.
We cling too much to the past; we have to face the future. We have to
stand on the ground of the present moment. The war in Vietnam was just a
war. There are many wars still going on and we continue to create
victims of war and war veterans. The number of American soldiers who
died in Vietnam was something like 55,000. Every year the number of
people who die in car accidents in America is exactly that number,
55,000. So there is the equivalent number of dead people caused by
alcoholism and unmindful driving. This is another war. The toll is as
huge as the damage inflicted by war, and every time a person dies
because of a car accident, it creates many war veterans in the children
who lose their mother, the mothers who lose their son.
If we stick to our suffering we can never stand up for healing and
prepare the future for our children and their children. I would say to
the Vietnam war veteran, okay, you did kill five children. We know that.
But here you are, alive in the present moment. Do you know that you have
the power to save five children today? You don't have to go to Vietnam
or southeast Asia. There are American children who are dying every day;
they may need only one pill to be saved from their illness.
If you know how, every day you can save five children from dying. Why do
you let yourself get caught in guilt and become paralyzed year after
year? Why don't you make a bodhisattva vow to use your life to work for
the safety of many children? Did you know that 40,000 children die in
the world every day just because of the lack of food and nutrition? You
are here; you can do something. Why do you let yourself get caught in
the past? You can save children in the here and now. You can use your
life in a very useful and intelligent way. You can very well transform
that negative energy into a positive energy that empowers you and makes
life meaningful.
Relationships
-- When I go home, I return to my husband who is a hunter. He goes into
our beautiful woods to shoot birds. He brings them home to show our
seven-year-old twins, who want to be like daddy. What can I do to stop
him from this habit of killing?
-- If you do not know how to be patient, how to care, how to use loving
speech, you cannot help other people to change. But if we have the
energy of compassion and loving kindness in us, the people around us
will be influenced by our way of being and living. Reproaching them,
shouting at them, blaming them, can never help them. Only our love, our
patience and our loving speech can help. And if we are in a situation
where our own skillfulness, our own compassion, is not strong enough, we
could need the support of our dharma brothers and sisters in order to do
the job.
Abortion
-- What are your views on abortion?
-- I am inclined to devote more of my time and energy to preventing the
situation from happening than to what happens when you have to decide
whether you have to do it or not to do it. If we prepare ourselves in
such a way, then the problem will not present itself to us, and we don't
have to make a decision between abortion or not abortion. In the last
2500 years we monks and nuns have helped a lot in limiting the
population of the planet (laughter). And if you'd like to join us
(laughter), it's never too late.
Media Saturation
-- In regard to television news and newspapers, how can we balance not
taking in toxins with not closing our eyes to suffering?
-- Myself, I want to be informed about what is going on in the world. I
want to be informed, but that does not mean that I have to listen to the
news three times a day. I think there is some kind of vacuum in us we
want to fill up; that is why we buy so many newspapers and magazines and
why we view so much television. We do not need that much information. I
think maybe five minutes daily is enough. Sometime we can survive
several months without any news bulletins. And you have friends who can
tell you what is important that has happened.
Space and Freedom
-- Can you please elaborate on what is space inside of us? Why is this
good? I feel lonely sometimes. This feels like emptiness or space
inside, but it does not feel good.
-- Space here does not mean loneliness. Space here means freedom because
you are not busy inside-you don't have a lot of worries, fears,
projects, things to think about. That is space. Space here is the basic
condition for you to enjoy life. If you are preoccupied with so many
things, you don't have that condition.
One day the Buddha was sitting in the wood with thirty or forty monks.
They had an excellent lunch and they were enjoying the company of each
other. There was a farmer passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He
asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing
by. The Buddha said they had not seen any cows passing by.
The farmer said, "Monks, I'm so unhappy. I have twelve cows and I don't
know why they all ran away. I have also a few acres of a sesame seed
plantation and the insects have eaten up everything. I suffer so much I
think I am going to kill myself.
The Buddha said, "My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here.
You might like to look for them in the other direction." So the farmer
thanked him and ran away, and the Buddha turned to his monks and said,
"My dear friends, you are the happiest people in the world. You don't
have any cows to lose. If you have too many cows to take care of, you
will be very busy.
"That is why, in order to be happy, you have to learn the art of cow
releasing (laughter). You release the cows one by one. In the beginning
you thought that those cows were essential to your happiness, and you
tried to get more and more cows. But now you realize that cows are not
really conditions for your happiness; they constitute an obstacle for
your happiness. That is why you are determined to release your cows."
We have to ask what is really essential to our happiness. We believe
that things are essential to our happiness, but we have to look again.
Many of us have cows, many cows that prevent us from being happy. That
is why we have to learn to release our cows. Also there are many cows
inside, so many preoccupations! Many things to worry about, to be angry
about, and there's no space at all inside.
How can you be happy in such a state of being? That is why to release
the cows around us and to let go of these preoccupations inside is a
very essential condition for happiness. That is the space we are talking
about when we practice. I am space; within and out. I feel free. Freedom
is the real foundation of happiness. Sometimes if you don't know how to
love, love will deprive you of your freedom and deprive the person you
love of her freedom. That is why space is so essential in relationship.
There is a beautiful poem praising the Buddha: "The Buddha is like the
full moon/traveling in the vast sky of emptiness." Because of that
freedom, the happiness of the Buddha cannot be measured by our mind
---o0o---
Source: Shambhala Sun,
http://www.shambhalasun.com/
