Oprah Winfrey talks with Thich Nhat Hanh Excerpt - Powerful

Martin Luther King jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize join me for a rare and enlightening conversation with the legendary author peace activist and Buddhist monk ticked not Han I wanted a place for people to go every Sunday to wake up thought-provoking oh you couldn't have said that better opening and inspiring this is my favorite thing to talk about this Alif deride honor it for yourself every single Sunday this is super soul Sunday at 85 the Vietnamese Buddhist monk tick not Han is one of the most influential spiritual leaders of our time tick not Han or Thai as the students call him timings teacher his author of more than 100 books a copy of his living Buddha living Christ never leaves my bedside his spiritual journey began at the early age of seven when he felt the calling to become a monk but this monastic has always been active on the world stage in the early 60s horrified by the escalating civil war in Vietnam Tai spearheaded one of the great nonviolent resistance movements of the 20th century Martin Luther King jr. took notice and spoke out against the Vietnam War for the first time at not Hans urging and later nominated tick not Han for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982 Tai established a monastery and retreat center in France where thousands of followers still walk every year he lives there today devoting his life to mindful meditation helping people to be passionately present in the here and now what a treat it was to finally meet tick not Han on one of his trips to New York City well thank you for the honor of talking to me today thank you for that already just being in your presence for a short time I feel less stressed than I did when I started out the day less stressed because you have such a peaceful aura that follows you I and that you carry with yourself are you always this content and peaceful this is my training this is my practice and we try to live every moment like that relax darling peacefully in the present moment and respond to event with compassion so in a moment where you are perhaps going to miss a plane or be late for an appointment or something is causing you to be stressful you do what go back to my breathing and try to me in that moment deeply because there is a possibility to handle every kind of event and essential is to keep the peace in yourself so let's start with 1926 born in Vietnam any wonderful memory that you can share of your childhood your favorite childhood memory one day I saw the picture of the Buddha on a Buddhist magazine and he was sitting on the grass how old were you seven eight and he was sitting on the grass very peaceful who smiling and I was impressed around me people were not like that so I had the desire to be someone like like him and I noticed that kind of desire until the age of 16 when I had the permission of my parents to go and ordain si in this one did your parents encouraged you or were they were locked in for this to happen to you in the beginning they were reluctant because they thought that the library monkeys are hot difficult so this desire to become a monk started when you were seven years old yeah yes and what did that feel like what did those urgings that sense of this is what I must do or must become what did that feel like I would not be happy if I cannot become a monk and that is the feeling and we call it the beginner's mind beginner's mind yeah the deep intentioned deepest desire that one person may have and I can say that since that time until it's this day this beginner's mind is still alive in me let's go back to 1966 when you invited to speak at Cornell and shortly after that you weren't allowed back into your country and were exiled for 39 years how did you deal with those feelings what first of all what did you feel at the time I have left my community at home I was like a be taken out of the Beehive and if I don't practice and then I won't dry up did you feel sadness yes did you allow yourself to feel the sadness in the first year of my Minich exile I I dreamt almost every night of going home can you explain to us three people who don't understand you were not allowed back in the country because you were in essence a peaceful warrior you were practicing peace they didn't appreciate your Buddhism what was the reason you weren't allowed back in the country during the war well the warring parties all declared that they wanted to fight until the end and those of us who try to speak out against the war to speak about reconciliation within brothers and brothers they didn't want us to raise our voice so when you were a man without a country you made another country made a home in other countries and the United States was one of them yes how did you meet Martin Luther King in June the first 65 I'd wrote him a letter explaining to him why the monks in Vietnam will be more elated himself by fire I said the distant the suicide because in a difficult situation like a Vietnam to make your voice heard is difficult so sometimes we have to burn us up alive in order for our voice to be to be heard around so that is out of compassion that you do that this act of love and not of despair and Jesus Christ died in the same spirit out of love in honde cryin and exactly one year after June the first 60 sec I'm at him in Chicago and he had that discussion about peace freedom and community and we agreed with that without a community you cannot go very far how long was the discussion with him 45 minutes or so and after that there was a press conference and he came out very strongly against the war in Vietnam do you think that that was a result of your conversation with him I believe so and after that well we continue our work and the last time I met him was in Geneva during a peace conference called a passive interest there's an interesting story from that I heard that you were running late can you tell me that story Martin Luther King invited me up for breakfast to talk well well what is issues again and I was caught in account in the press conference downstair I came late he kept the breakfast one for me and during the conversation I was able to tell him that the people in Vietnam call him a bodhisattva and lightened being because of what he was doing for his people he's a country on the world and the fact that he was doing it non-violently yes that is the work of a Buddhist that vow of a Buddha of an enlightened person always with the compassion and non-violence oh and when I heard of his assassination I couldn't believe it I thought that the American people have produced King but I'm not capable of preserving him I was a little bit angry at that time for who I did not eat I did not sleep but my determination to continue to work building the Beloved Community continues always always yes coming up solving world problems with compassion that is the best way the only way to remove a terrorism terrorism or even difficulties between yourself and family members or friends super soul Sunday we'll return in a moment what makes you laugh anything that can have a us laugh uh if you talk to our young monastics you'll find out you laugh do you laugh a lot yes we laugh is my a lot in our community you refer to I can't remember which book but you talk about deep listening also deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of the other person you can call it the compassionate listening you listen with only one purpose help him or her to empty his heart and if you remember that you are helping him or her to suffer less and then even if he say things full of wrong perceptions full of bitterness you are still capable to continue to listen with compassion because you know that listening like that with compassion you give him or her a chance to suffer less if you want to help him or her to correct his perception and then you wait for another time but for this the time being you just listen with compassion and help him or her to suffer less and one hour like that can bring transformation and healing so I love this idea of deep listening because oftentimes when someone comes to you and they want to really vent they want to purge whatever is going on inside them people start talking and giving advice so if you allow the person just to let whatever those feelings are to come out and then at another time come back to them with your advice or your comments you would you would experience a deeper healing that's what you're saying yes the fear anger and the despair is born on the ground of wrong perception and we have wrong perceptions concerning ourselves and the other person and that is the foundation for conflict and war and by you've said that the only way we can begin to end wars be is is due to communication between people yes and we should be able to say like this dear friends dear people I know that you suffer a lot I have not understood enough of your difficulties and suffering it's not our intention to make you suffer more it is opposite so please tell us about your suffering your difficulties I'm eager to learn to understand it has to start like that loving speech and if you are honest if you are true they will open their heart and tell us and then we practice compassionate deep listening and during the process of deep listening you can learn so much about our own perception and their perceptions oh and that is the best way the only way to remove terrorism terrorism or even difficulties between yourself and family members or friends yes and the principle is the same no matter the conflict yes terrorists anti-terrorist father and son right yourself and your boss right yourself and your children your best friend yes is there ever a place for anger anger is the energy which people use in order to act but when you are angry you are not lucid and you might do wrong things that is why compassion is a better energy and the energy of compassion is very strong in our country and in other parts of the world we're suffering an economic or experiencing an economic downturn a lot of people have lost their jobs and because of the loss of their jobs they feel a sense of suffering there are other people who have said that this economic downturn particularly in the United States was needed to bring a sense of awareness to the materialism and the overspending and the excessiveness of our culture how do you view the Namah counter then we can learn and always learn from our suffering in the actual suffering a Phoenix can be born and that is why mindfulness help us to look deeply into the difficulty the suffering we have and many positive we will come out of that it depends on our way of responding to the event there is there are ways that can bring more suffering that there are ways that can bring relief right away and hope and it pens on our mind and that is why mindfulness and concentration can help tremendously in bringing insight you've said in one of your most popular books living Buddha Living Christ what do you see the similarities between Buddha and Christ Jesus Christ is a Buddha of the West and his ditchin is also about understanding and compassion in the gospel there is also the teaching of living happily in the present moment in the Gospels according to Matthew is that that don't worry about tomorrow tomorrow we'll take care of it so it is very clear and give us the bread of today we care about today we leave today and if we know how to handle the present moment you don't have to worry much about the future if the present moment has peace and joy and happiness and then the future will have also when we return mindful living in relationships the poor little mantras that can make a big difference the first one cry he's darling I'm here for you it's a lovely mantra darling I'm here for you and get ready to say cheese SoulPancake proves joy is contagious you like that you the nature of Buddhism as I understand is to believe that we are all pure and radiant at our core and yet we see around us so much evidence that people are not acting out of a sense of purity and radiance how do we reconcile that well happiness and suffering they support each other they inter-are they enter our it to be is to inter be it's like the left and the right if the left is not there the right cannot be there so the same thing is true with suffering and happiness and good and evil into our own so in every one of us there I would sit and there are met seats and that's just the nature of being human yeah there is no lotus to grow out of the but we need the mud in order to make the lotus you cannot grow Lotus on marble you have to grow it on the mud mud so suffering is the kind of mud that we must be able to use in order to grow the flower of understanding and love do you meditate every single day not only every day but every moment Oh while drinking by talking by writing while watering our garden is always possible to practice living in the here and now that's what we call meditation but you ever sit silently with yourself and yes you see recite a mantra or not recite a mantra we sit alone we sit together the more people you sit with the better also the collective energy is very helpful I like to talk about the mantras that you just mentioned the first mantra is darling I'm here for you when you love someone the best thing you can offer him or her in your presence how can you love if you are not there it's a lovely monitor darling I'm here for you and you look into his eyes and you say darling you know something I'm here for you you offer him or her your presence and your true presence you are not preoccupied with the past or the future your project you are for your beloved one the second mantra is darling I know you are there and and I am so happy because you are truly there you recognize the presence of your beloved one as something very precious and you use your mindfulness to recognize that embrace your beloved one with mindfulness and she will bloom like a flower to be loved means to be to be recognized as existing and these two mantras can bring happened happiness right away even if you your beloved one is not there you can use your telephone and practice the mantra darling I'm here for you and darling I know you're there the third mantra is what you practice when your beloved one suffers darling I know you suffer that is why I'm here for you Oh before you do something to help her to help him your presence already can bring some relief and the acknowledgement yeah of the health of the suffering of the hurting yeah and the fourth mantra is a little bit more difficult and that is when you suffer and you believe that your suffering has been caused by your beloved one so you suffer so deeply you know and you prefer to go to your room and close to the door and suffer alone yes you get hurt and you you want to you want to punish him or her for having made you suffer yes and the mantra is to overcome that the mantra is darling I suffer I am try my best to practice please help me you go to him you go to her and gratis that and if you can bring yourself to say that mantra you suffer less right away darling I suffer please help me please help me

Channel: Plum Village App

Views: 4,479,387

Rating: 4.8674617 out of 5

Keywords: engaged buddhism, mindfulcloud, thich, king, own, Oprah, movie, thich nhat hanh, plum village, thay, nonviolence, martin, vietnam, noam, mindfulness, luther, entertainment, comic, mlk, jones, Nhat Hanh (Author), Oprah Winfrey (Celebrity), books by thich nhat hanh, oprah thich nhat hanh video, mindfulness thich nhat hanh

Id: NJ9UtuWfs3U

Length: 21min 48sec (1308 seconds)

Published: Sun May 12 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/timbakchoy13]

His segment on compassionate/deep listening brought me to tears. It's so simple but makes so much sense. Listening without perception and judgement, and just letting someone purge. It sounds so freeing.

[u/nate6259]

Incredible human being. I have been reading his book, "Fear" on a daily basis.

[u/ProperGentlemanDolan]

I just got You Are Here in the mail today. About to start reading it. Cool.