Mindfulness as a Foundation for Wellness: Part 3
Click for Part 1 / Click for Part 2 / Part 4 / Part 5
Source in the public domain of this video is HERE
Here is the continuation of the transcription of Thich Nhat Hanh’s talk at Google Headquarters of September 2011. This is what the great Zen teacher wanted most to convey to folks working at one of the world’s most dynamic and innovative tech companies. We can say, therefore, that it is Thich Nhat Hanh’s heartfelt message to us who live in a busy, hectic, and constantly changing world driven by the ubiquitous advanced technology that plays a crucial role in everything today. Special thanks to my research assistant Christine Atchison for helping me out in this
[27:40]
[1] Why loving
and caring for yourself is the foundation of loving and caring for others
That presence generated by the practice of mindfulness, of breathing [during] your walk, that presence is for you first (for us first), and then for the other person. We have to be truly present because love always begins with oneself. If you are not capable of loving yourself, of taking care of yourself, you will not have the capacity to love the other person and take good care of him or her. And that is why loving oneself is the foundation of loving the other person. And there are practices everyone can do in order to care for oneself, in order for us to be able to care for the other person and for the world. (28:45).
[2] Four Simple Meditation Exercises from the Buddha
[2.1] The First
Exercise: Being Aware of Your In-Breath and Out-Breath
The Buddha proposed many easy, simple practices that everyone can do. Like the first practice of mindful breathing [or] exercise of mindful breathing: Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out. You recognize your in-breath; you recognize your out-breath. And since you have your in-breath as an object of your mind you release everything else, you are free. A very simple exercise and in fact it’s great: it sets you free—just three, four seconds of breathing in. And you don’t need to practice many months and many years in order to see the effect. The first few minutes when you begin the practice you can see the outcome right away. Breathing in, if you pay attention only to your in-breath and then you can release the past, the future and all your projects (that is, pay attention to the present) and the process of healing begins right away.
[2.2] The Second
Exercise: Following Your In-Breath and Out-Breath All the Way
The second exercise on mindful breathing is: breathing in, I follow my in-breath from the beginning to the end. I follow my in-breath all the way through. Your in-breath may last only three or four, five seconds but while breathing in, you are fully concentrated on your in-breath and you may enjoy breathing in because breathing in is something enjoyable too. You don’t have to suffer while breathing in. If you suffer while breathing in, you are not practicing correctly. Because life, there is a lot of suffering already in life, why do you have to practice in order to suffer more? So, whether it is the practice of mindful breathing, or mindful walking, or mindful sitting, we do it in such a way that it gives you pleasure and happiness. The practice is pleasant; [it] should be pleasant.
The Energies
Generated by Mindfulness
And when the energy of mindfulness and concentration is powerful enough, you always get an insight. The insight, that insight can help liberate you from your afflictions, like fear, anger, or jealousy, despair, and so on. There are three kinds of energies that can be generated by the practice of mindfulness. [1] The first energy is [the kind of] mindfulness which allow us to become alive, to become present in the here and the now and to be aware of what is happening in the here and the now. [2] And the second energy is the energy of concentration—when you are very aware, when you are very mindful of something, you are naturally concentrated on that. If you’re aware, if you are mindful of your in-breath, you get concentrated on your in-breath. So that is the meaning of the second exercise: breathing in I follow my in-breath all the way through. So mindfulness become powerful because of the concentration that is born from the practice of mindfulness. And when mindfulness and concentration are together, are powerful enough, you always get the third energy—[3] the energy of insight. (33:13).
The Miracle and
Joy of Being Alive
Insight in this case does not come from
thinking, but from mindfulness and during the time of practicing mindfulness
and concentration, you don’t need to think. You might like to stop the [process
of] thinking all together. Insight has an outcome of non-thinking. When you
breath in mindfully, and with concentration, you might discover many things.
You might discover the fact that we are alive. Many do not know that they are
alive. They are there but they are not alive because they do not have
mindfulness. So, there is a very simple exercise: breathing in mindfully I feel
alive. This is the truth—if someone is not alive, she cannot breath in anymore.
So, breathing in mindfully, you get an insight that you are alive. And to be
alive is the most wonderful thing. It is a miracle; it is the greatest of all
miracles to be alive. And just two or three seconds [or] breathing in can bring
you the insight that you are alive. And you touch the miracle of being alive
and when you breath out you can celebrate the fact that you are alive.
So, happiness is possible; joy is possible just by one in-breath and one out-breath. And it’s nourishing and healing. And breathing in mindfully like that helps you to touch the many conditions of happiness that have the power to heal and to nourish us and [those] around us. Suppose we breath in and we become mindful of our heart. Breathing in I am aware of my heart. Generating the energy of mindfulness, you use that image of mindfulness to recognize the presence of your heart. You kind of embrace your heart with the image/energy of mindfulness and you can discover the fact that your heart still functions normally. That is already an insight. And it’s wonderful to have a heart that still functions normally. There are those of us who are/can only wish for that, and their deepest desire might be just having a heart, a normal heart like that. So, breathing in and having our heart as the object of our mindfulness we can feel grateful to our heart and that is one of the conditions of happiness that we are having.
Being in Touch
with our Body
And when the Buddha teaches the practice of
mindfulness of the body, he advises us to get in touch with parts of the body
and smile, recognize these parts of the body. There is an exercise of deep,
total relaxation that we will try today. We put ourselves in the lying position
and we begin to breath in and out mindfully and recognize parts of our body.
It’s like scanning our body not with an x-ray but with a ray of mindfulness.
You recognize your eyes: breathing in I am aware of my eyes. Breathing out I
smile with my eyes, recognizing the presence of your eyes. And you might get
the insight that, well, my eyes are still in good condition. A paradise of forms
and colours are easily available to me just because I still have eyes in good
condition. You need only to open your eyes in order to touch the paradise of
form and colour. That is another condition of happiness. And we go through the
body, and we recognize every part of the body. And we come to a place that is a
little failing we might like to stop longer and embrace with compassion and
tenderness that part of the body that is ailing. That practice of being aware
of the body can help heal the body. You can still continue with the medicine,
but to relax our body, to embrace tenderly that part of our body with mindfulness
practice can accelerate, can help very much [with] the healing, can make the
healing happen more quickly. (39:31).
The third exercise—breathing in I am
aware of my body—is part of that exercise. And the fourth exercise is: breathing
in, I release all the tension in my body. The body has the power to heal itself
only if you allow it to do that. When an animal in the forest gets wounded,
deeply wounded, she knows what to do. The animal finds a quiet place and lays
down. She knows deeply that resting is the only way to heal. The animal does
not think of looking for food or running after an animal. She knows that the
best thing is to rest like that because the body has a natural tendency, a
natural power to heal itself. We human beings used to have that kind of wisdom,
but we have lost our capacity to rest. We have worked our body too hard.
We have accumulated a lot of tension in our body and make it more difficult for
our body to heal. We only count on medicines and other kinds of means. So, the
fourth exercise of mindful breathing is very helpful. It helps us to be aware
of our body and our mind become(s) embodied again and helps the body to release
the tension. And when the tension is released, the body recovers that capacity
to heal itself. So, the practice of mindful sitting with concentration, the
practice of mindful walking, the practice of mindful breathing while lying down
can be very helpful—it can heal.
The Role of the
Sangha (the Community)
And we do not have to set aside time in
order to do that. Just as I said, walking from the parking lot to the office,
you have time to practice releasing the tension and enjoying every step and
in-breath and touching the Kingdom of God around you and inside of you. The
only thing is that there should be someone to remind you to do it. You might
understand it perfectly, but you don’t do it. We live as a community. Our root practice
centre is in France, but in North America we have Deer Park Monastery in
Southern California, Escondido. And we have the Brooklyn practice centre in the
State of New York. And we live as a sangha of monks, nuns, and
lay-practitioners and we practice together, and we remind each other to
practice. When we listen to the bell, well hundreds of us listen to the bell
together. When we sit together and work together, we do that together. And
breathing together, walking together, sitting together, we generate a very
powerful quality of energy of mindfulness, concentration, and compassion. (44:14).
And that helps heal us. When you find
yourself in an environment filled with that kind of energy—peace, mindfulness,
compassion—you get the healing very easily and quickly. I think a corporation
can organize [itself] also as a practice community. There are times when you
can sit together, can breath together, can work together, release the tension
together and then together we can generate that kind of collective energy that
is very nourishing and healing. Our retreats of mindfulness are always attended
by teenagers and children and there are practitioners who bring their babies
(although the babies do not understand the Dharma Talk), they find themselves
in an environment that is so peaceful, so compassionate, they get the
nourishment, they feel it. So, everyone can profit from the practice.
In the practice centre, when you need to move from one place to another place, you always apply the techniques of mindful walking no matter how short or how long the distance is. The practice is to arrive in the here and the now with every step and touching the wonders of life with every step. And while we walk, we do not talk, and we do not think. When we stop our thinking and our talking, we touch life more deeply so that we can get the nourishment and the healing. And when [gestures to the bell silently during a pause] let us enjoy breathing together. (46:49).
[the bell rings and the speaker and audience silently breath until 47:30]
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