Good morning dear friends. Welcome to the summer opening of Plum Village. This is the 30th summer opening at Plum Village. Plum Village is 30 years old. 30 years young. And I am so happy to see many of you coming to this summer opening. I'm very happy to see many children with us. This year we had a 21 days retreat for scientists. There were no children. And we had the French speaking retreat.
There were no children. So this is a very different retreat. We have many children. There will be Dharma talks
for children and young people. We shall begin today with chanting. And everyone is invited to participate in the practice of listening. The monastics are going to chant the name of Avalokiteshvara. The name of a person who knows how to listen to the suffering within himself and the suffering in the world. This is a very deep practice. If you know how to go back to yourself and listen to the suffering inside you can get enlightenment. Understanding and compassion will arise
from that kind of practice. You understand your suffering. You understand the suffering
of your father, your mother. Your ancestors. You understand the suffering of your people, your country. You understand the suffering of the Earth. Of our society. And understanding like that will help love and compassion to arise. And when compassion arises,
you suffer less right away. There is a transformation and healing taking place when compassion is born in your heart. Now you can look at the other person
with compassion. You don't suffer anymore
when you look at him or her. Because you can see the suffering in that person. You don't blame. You are not angry at him or her anymore. Because in your heart there is already compassion. So instead or trying to punish him you have the intention to do something or to say something
to help the other person to suffer less. You can listen to that person with compassion. You can say things that can help him suffer less. That can make her suffer less. You can do many wonderful things like that. Just because you are able
to understand your own suffering. Understanding your own suffering you can understand the suffering of the other person much more easily. So Avalokita is the kind of bodhisattva that is specialized in listening. First, he goes back to himself and listens to the suffering inside of him. When listening to the suffering inside he can understand the suffering of his parents, his ancestors, and at the same time he can understand the suffering of other people in society. This is a very important practice because many of us
do not want to listen to our own suffering. That is why you do not have a chance. So today's chanting is to chant
and to touch the suffering inside so that you can allow compassion to arise so that you can understand the suffering of the world, of your parents, of your ancestors. When the monastics chant the name Avalokitesvara for the first time, they go back to themselves and try to touch the suffering inside of them. And when they sing and chant the name for the second time they become aware of the suffering
of the people around them. And when they sing and chant it for the third time, they get in touch with the suffering in the world. There are many spots in the world where people suffer very deeply. Not only because of war, because of separation of natural catastrophes. They suffer also for social injustice or suppression because of violence and so on. They suffer from difficult relationships and so on. The practice of listening to the suffering is to give a chance for compassion to arise. When compassion arises,
you feel better, you suffer less. It can happen very quickly. That is the practice of mindfulness of suffering. You are mindful of your own suffering. You are mindful of the suffering of the other person. You are mindful of the suffering of the world. Mindfulness of suffering will bring
compassion and understanding. So when we sit and listen, we can do very much the same.
We don't have to chant aloud. We follow our in-breath and out-breath, and we go back to ourselves.
We are not afraid of being in touch with the suffering inside. We allow ourselves to embrace our own suffering. Oh, my dear pain, my dear suffering,
my dear sorrow. I know you are there. I'm not running away from you anymore. I'm back to recognize you and to embrace you like to embrace a baby. That is what we practice. We go home and allow ourselves to be embraced, allow our suffering
to be embraced by ourselves. We take care of ourselves. And then when we hear the chanting
for the second time, we are aware that
the people around us they have suffering also. So we have sympathy. We can communicate with them. And then, when we hear the chanting for the third time we know that in the world people suffer very much. And we want to be in communication with them. We want to be something or to do something in order to help the world to suffer less. The practice is to allow ourselves to be here. Not to be taken away pulled away by our thinking. Because if we sit there thinking, our thinking will bring us elsewhere. That is why it is very important
to stop the thinking. Just to focus our attention on the chanting. And you are with the chanting. You are breathing in, breathing out and you stay with the chanting. So there is only the breathing in,
breathing out and the chanting. And our mind can stop thinking. We just feel the energy. The collective energy of the sangha.
The energy of mindfulness, the energy of compassion generated by the chanting. And we allow our body to be relaxed. To be open,
so that the collective energy of the sangha can penetrate into our body.
This is very important. Not to think. Just to feel. Open our body and allow the energy of mindfulness and compassion
to penetrate into our body, And we can do that. And if we can do that, then a few minutes later there will be a change. Our tension, the tension in our body the pain in our body will go away. Because we allow our body and our mind to be embraced by the collective energy of mindfulness, of compassion, generated by the chanting. Chanting is not exactly to pray, no. Chanting is to touch the suffering to allow compassion and understanding to arise. And when we do that together, the collective energy of compassion
and mindfulness will be great. If we sit there and allow ourselves
to be embraced by that energy, we will suffer less in a few minutes. There is tension and pain in our body. If we allow our body to be embraced
by the energy of mindfulness and compassion we can release the tension and reduce the pain
very easily in just a few minutes. And we will feel much better
after a few minutes of listening. Listening, feeling and not thinking. If we have some pain and some sorrow
or anger or fear in our heart try to open our heart so that the energy of the sangha
can penetrate into our heart. Don't keep it for yourself. Open and allow the energy of the sangha to penetrate and to help embrace the pain and the sorrow,
the fear, anger in you. Dear sangha, I'm here. I have pain, suffering, fear despair in me. Please, help embrace these blocks of pain in me. I entrust myself to the sangha. So if you can open your heart and allow the energy of the sangha to penetrate and embrace your pain and your sorrow, you will feel better after a few minutes of listening. This is the problem of energy. The energy of suffering, of fear, of anger, is been embraced
by the energy of mindfulness and compassion and transmission can happen. If you allow your suffering, your fear, your anger
to be embraced by the sangha. Transformation and healing is possible during the time of the practice. And if we have someone very close to us back home who could not come to the retreat, and that person suffers deeply, we can very well send this energy to him or to her
right here and right now. We just think of that person. Or call his or her name silently in your mind. And then this energy generated by the practice will be channelled to that person right this morning. And at home that person may feel better. Avalokitesvara is a person who knows how to listen
to the suffering inside and outside. And he got transformation and healing because of that practice. So we are going to practice like him, the bodhisattva of deep listening. The bodhisattva of compassionate listening. And we feel that the bodhisattva in us
is not outside of us, it is in us. He is in us. Because we too we have
the capacity to listen to our own suffering and the suffering of the world. Let us sit relaxedly and practice listening to the chanting. Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Namo'valokiteshvaraya Thank you children, for participating in the chanting. When you hear the small bell
you may like to stand up and bow and go out and continue outside. (Bell) Les enfants peuvent se lever et faire une révérence à la sangha avant de sortir. (Bell) Bonne journée. Your can stand up also
and do some mindful movements. (Bell) I am aware of my movements.
I breathe in, and I reach out. I breathe out. In, out. J'inspire, j'expire. J'inspire, j'expire. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathe in, breathe out. In, out. J'inspire, j'expire. j'inspire, j'expire. J'inspire, j'expire. Breathing in, I touch the sky. I breath out, I touch the ground. Breathing in, I go up on my toes. Breathing out, I go down. One more. (Laughs) (Bell) (Bell) (Bell) (Bell) (Bell) Good morning, dear sangha. Today is the 7th of July -- correct? -- of the year 2012, and we are
in the Assembly of the Stars meditation hall of Lower Hamlet. When I was a young boy people told me about the Buddha and I heard a lot of stories about the Buddha. I was told that when the Buddha was born, the first thing he did was to take steps, seven steps. I asked the question: How can a baby just born walk
and take seven steps? Everyone said that, well,
when the baby Buddha was born he took seven steps before he lay down and cried. That is one story I heard. The second story I heard is that when the baby Siddhartha was brought into a temple by his mother, because Siddhartha, after his birth, Maha Maya died. The younger sister of Siddhartha's mother,
took care of the child and became the mother, Prajapati. When Prayapati brought him to a shrine all the deities in the shrine stood up in reverence to the baby Buddha. That is the second story I heard. I didn't believe too much. But these stories are trying to tell us something. There is something behind the story. And the third story I read in the Avatamsaka sutra. The bodhisattva Manjusri had many disciples. One of his disciples is a very young man called Sudhana. He is about 12 years old. Sudhana was sent by his teacher to study with many teachers. And there was one teacher who told him that
he had to look for the mother of the Buddha. And the mother of the Buddha could teach him a lot. The mother of the Buddha, her name is Maha Maya. Maya means illusion. Something that is so beautiful
that you don't believe it to be true. It's like an illusion. Great illusion. The young man was trying to look for Maha Maya. Because he had been told that he could learn a lot from her. He tried to look for her
but it was impossible to find her. Then, one day, someone said: You cannot find Maha Maya just going around. You have to sit down. And breathe. And concentrate. And you'll have
more of a chance to meet Maha Maya. And then the young man sat down and concentrated on his in-breath and out-breath. And suddenly he saw a huge lotus flower springing up from the earth. One thousand petals lotus flower. And suddenly he saw himself
sitting in one of these petals. And he looked back and he saw that this petal was transformed into a whole lotus flower. And when he looked up he saw lady Maha Maya
sitting on another petal of the flower. And that petal became also a full lotus flower. This story you can still read
in the sutra called Avatamsaka. Flower ornament. So they share the same flower,
and each of them is sitting on a full flower. He was so happy to see lady Maha Maya, the mother of the Buddha,
sitting on the other petal of the lotus, so he joined his palms and bowed to her. He told her that he had been looking for her and he would like to receive some teaching from her, the mother of the Buddha. And lady Maha Maya told he about the time she got pregnant of Siddhartha. She said: Young man, do you know something? I was so happy when I conceived Siddhartha in my womb, I cannot describe to you
how happy I was in that moment. How can you describe to people the happiness of someone
who has a Buddha in him or in her? You carry a Buddha inside of you. You are a mother of a buddha, you are a father of a buddha. The happiness should be very great. I was enjoying that kind of happiness of having Siddhartha in my womb. Suddenly, I saw a lot of bodhisattvas
coming from many directions. They were all friends of Siddhartha, my son. They wanted to go in me to make sure that my son was comfortable inside. And before I could say yes,
they just penetrated into my body. And I could feel their presence in my womb. There was a lot of space inside of me. And I had this impression, that if there were millions of bodhisattvas more who wanted to go in
in order to pay a visit to Siddhartha, my son, there was still place in myself. Maha Maya was telling the young man about the conception of Siddhartha. That story can give us a lot of insight. The feeling that you are large. You contain multitudes. Not only do you have a place for a buddha inside, but you can have a place for millions
and millions of buddhas and bodhisattvas. You have plenty of space. It means: you have a lot of freedom. A person who is happy is a person who has a lot of space inside of him. Inside of her. And around him, around her. And that was the feeling of Maha Maya.
She had a lot of space. Not only outside but also inside. Without freedom, without space, one person cannot be happy. What to do in order to have a lot of space in your heart and around you? The kind of love taught by the Buddha
is the kind of love that has no frontiers. That love can embrace many living beings and not just one living being. Like the womb of Maha Maya has place for a lot of buddhas and bodhisattvas. Young man, do you know something?-- she continued -- Do you know that I am the mother
of all buddhas in the past? Do you know that I am the mother
of all buddhas in the present? Do you know that I am (the mother)
of all buddhas in the future? I am the mother of all buddhas. When I meditated on that chapter in the Avatamsaka, I found that every one of us can be like lady Maha Maya. If we have enough space in us we can be the father of all buddhas and the mother of all buddhas. If we have enough freedom if we have enough space in ourselves, we can allow, we can offer space to other people. Because without space, without freedom,
true happiness is not possible. So our practice should be able
to get us more freedom, more space in our heart and in our daily life. And, how? Sudhana was instructed that if he wanted to meet the mother of the Buddha, he should not go around searching,
he should sit down. Go back to himself and practice mindful breathing. That is a good beginning. If we do the same, we begin
by the practice of mindful breathing to bring our mind home to our body to be truly there in the here and the now, and to look at our situation and to know how to bring to ourselves a lot of space so that each day of our life
can be full of happiness and love. (Bell) (Bell) We have money to offer, we have food, shelter and medicine to offer. But can we offer freedom? We know that without freedom
happiness is not possible. So offering people freedom, freedom is the greatest kind of gift. But if we do not have freedom,
how can we offer freedom? We should have freedom first for ourselves. I imagine that because Siddhartha before he was reborn on this planet Earth he had spent sometime in a kind of heaven called Tushita. Tushita heaven. And waiting for the time to be reborn on Earth, as a human being, and to become a Buddha, on this planet Earth. He must be very eager to go down here. To be reborn as a human being,
not a god anymore. The gods in Buddhism although they can live very long they have to die and be reborn also. And the Buddha is described
as a teacher of gods and men. There are many heavens. An although people enjoy
living in these heavens, they have a chance to be reborn on this planet Earth. Siddhartha, before he was reborn on our planet, he stayed in Tushita heaven. And he must have missed the Earth very much. I imagine him telling his friends, the other gods, that "If I were reborn on the planet Earth, the first thing I would like to do is to walk. I miss the Earth, I miss walking on Earth". And the other friends of him said: "How can a baby just born walk? You have to wait until you grow up into a little boy in order to begin walking". But Siddhartha liked to be walking on Earth so much, that he said: "Well, please, help me. The first thing I want to do on Earth
is to take a few steps, at least seven". So his friends tried to help him. "We will come on the moment of your birth and we will support you,
we will help you with our energy so that even if you are newly born, you can take 7 steps on the planet Earth". So when Siddhartha was born,
although he was still a baby he took seven steps. And this means something. It means that to be alive on this planet and to be taking steps on this planet is a miracle. Suppose you are born this morning. All of us are born this morning. In the Lower Hamlet of Plum Village. This very moment. What do we want to do now? We want to enjoy this planet Earth to enjoy taking steps on this beautiful planet Earth. It is not difficult to realize that the planet Earth is the most beautiful thing around. And we have been born on this planet. And the first thing we could do after we are born is to enjoy taking a few steps. So this morning,
we shall do walking meditation together. And savor every step that we take. At least seven. You are welcome to continue. You can enjoy the 8th, the 9th and so on. Walking meditation is a wonderful practice. You enjoy yourself. You know that you have a body. Your body is a wonder. And when you breathe in mindfully, you become aware of your body. You are born on this planet. You have a body. And that is already an insight. Many of us do not remember
that we have a body. We spend three hours with our computer and we forget completely
that we have a body. The brothers and sisters in Plum Village
program a bell of mindfulness in their computer and every 15 minutes,
the bell is invited so that they will remember
that they have a body. They stop working and they go back to their in-breath. They breathe in mindfully, and they remember that they have a body. Breathing in, I have a body.
Breathing out, I enjoy my body. So when you breathe in mindfully, you become aware of your body. You bring your mind home to your body. And when mind and body are together, you are truly there,
in the here and the now, alive. And that takes only a few seconds, because breathing in
you need only a few seconds. Three, four. And during that time you become alive. Again. Because you know that you have a body. And you are bringing your mind
home to your body. This is very simple.
Every one can do (it). Breathing in, you make your mind and your body into one. And you produce your true presence
in the here and the now. Just in three seconds or four. And when you breathe out,
you may enjoy taking a step. I know that I'm alive. I'm taking a step on this beautiful planet Earth. And happiness can come.
Right away. To be alive, to be born on this planet, to be alive and to be taking steps
on this planet like a buddha, that is a joy. You don't need more conditions in order to be happy. You have enough conditions of happiness. You have been born here. You have a body, you can breathe in, and you have feet
that are strong enough to make steps. You do it for the Buddha. You do it for your father, your mother,
your ancestors. That is walking meditation.
To enjoy every step. Every step is healing,
every step is nourishing. Every step is generating joy and happiness. We don't need power,
we don't need fame. We don't need money.
We only need mindfulness. Mindfulness allows us to see things. We see that we are here and now. We see that we have a body.
We see that we can breathe in and out. We see that we can get in touch
with this planet Earth and all the wonders of life. If we walk like that,
if we enjoy every step, then all our ancestors in us
enjoy the steps together. Our blood ancestors and our spiritual ancestors
also enjoy taking the steps with us. Because all of our ancestors
are still alive in us. We are a continuation of our ancestors. So that is how I understand the story told
about the Buddha taking the first 7 steps. During the time we walk like that, you do not have to make any special effort. It is not hard work. It is just enjoying. Enjoy making steps. You make use of your in-breath, out-breath, you make use of your lungs,
you make good use of your feet, and you just enjoy walking. You don't need anything else to be happy. Just be yourself
and just enjoy every step. And you have freedom. You are free from your worries
and your fear concerning the future. You are free from your regret and sorrow
concerning the past. Because every step you make like that sets you free. And freedom is the foundation of our happiness. And that is a miracle. Mindfulness.
The practice of mindful walking. And while you are making the first step,
the second step in mindfulness, you generate the energy of mindfulness and joy. Other people around you are doing the same. They are making steps mindfully, joyfully, and we create together
a collective energy of joy and mindfulness. When we come to Plum Village, we have a chance to offer our energy of mindfulness, of peace, of joy. We do not come to get something. We come to offer. Because if we know how to practice
mindful breathing, mindful walking, we contribute to making the wholesome collective energy of mindfulness, of peace, of joy. Everyone will profit from that collective energy
of peace and joy and mindfulness. Especially the children. They don't understand much
about the theory of the teaching, but they can feel the energy
of peace and joy and togetherness that we generate while we walk together,
we sit together. And they are nourished by that. Dear friends, you are my co-practitioners. While you stay in Upper Hamlet,
or Lower Hamlet, or New Hamlet, you do the same. This is a time of happiness. We have a chance to practice together. We don't need to hurry when we go from our tent to the kitchen or to the bathroom or to the meditation hall, why don't we enjoy walking like the Buddha? Why do we have to hurry? We arrive with each step
in the here and the now. Every step can generate peace
and joy and mindfulness. We arrive with every step. Let us do that together. We are not in a hurry. We can make every step pleasant, nourishing, healing. We don't need to arrive to the meditation hall
in order to practice. No. Walking from your tent to the meditation hall every step is already meditation. Every step can bring mindfulness, concentration,
insight. Happiness, joy.
Healing, nourishment. And together we generate the collective energy
of mindfulness and joy. That can be very nourishing and healing
for every one of us. Plum Village is pleasant or not. Nourishing or not.
Healing or not. Depends on all of us. The teacher cannot do much. The teacher is also a practitioner. And the teaching is simple enough. The practice is simple enough. The practice can be joyful, pleasant. It is not a means to an end.
It is the end by itself. Taking steps is not a means
to arrive anywhere. Taking steps is to arrive
at the destination: life. Here and now. So if we are to stay seven days,
or fourteen days in Plum Village, we should make good use of every moment
being in Plum Village. The first thing that I recommend is
that we enjoy every step. We prove that we are free. Maybe you have the habit of running transmitted to us by many generations of ancestors. We run even in our sleep. Running to find, to look for something. But according to this teaching and practice, you don't have to run. Everything you are looking for is already there. In the here and the now. If you know how to make use of your body, your breath, your feet,
your lungs, your mindfulness, then each moment can be a moment of peace,
a moment of joy, a moment of wonder. When you look at one person walking, you can see the degree of freedom
that person has in him or in her. Just look at that person walking. You see how free she is. How relaxed she is. And she is contributing, her peace, her joy, her mindfulness, to the Sangha. I don't need to wait
until the time of walking meditation in order to practice walking meditation. Every step can generate the energy
of mindfulness, concentration, insight, peace, happiness. If the habit energy of running comes back, the sight of other people walking mindfully relaxingly, will help us to go back
to our practice. So the existence of a brother
or a sister in the practice is a kind of bell of mindfulness and helps you to recognize
the energy of running. The energy of the habit of running. Being aware of that,
we stop running and we relax and enjoy our steps. And we support each other. Arriving the first day, we can do that. Freedom, joy, happiness and healing
are possible with every step. With every breath. We don't look for healing, for nourishment, for liberation,
in the future. Because we know that every breath, every step, can be healing, can be nourishing. And we find the healing and the nourishment
right in every step, every breath. I have confidence. Sitting we also enjoy sitting, because every moment of sitting can be healing, can be nourishing. And the bell is always there for us. Every time we hear the bell, there is the voice of the Buddha
calling us home to ourselves and enjoy this present moment
which is a wonder. (Bell) (Bell) The fact that we can arrange
so that we can come to Plum Village and practice together like this, is already a great happiness. We shall be learning and practicing together and we shall be offering
the energy of mindfulness, concentration, insight,
and peace and happiness by practicing together. When we walk together, we allow the energy of the whole group to carry us. We go like a river. Don't stay as a drop of water. Become a river. And allow the collective energy
of mindfulness and peace to embrace us, to carry us. In that way we feel light. Be a river, not a single drop of water while sitting, while walking. That is our practice. While sitting, while walking, we focus our attention on the feeling that we get. The feeling in our body, the feeling in our environment. During sitting, we get in touch
with our in-breath and out-breath. We are in touch with our body. We are in touch with our environment. Many of these elements are favorable to our peace and happiness. When we walk, we allow ourselves
to be in touch with the ground. With what is around. We feel the contact
between our feet and the ground. We touch the bodhisattva Mother Earth. We are aware that this planet is so beautiful. On the moon there is no grass, no flowers yet. But down here there are so many beautiful trees
and grass and flowers and birds. The Kingdom of God is here, on Earth. That is what I see. The Pure Land of the Buddha is here, on Earth. And during walking,
we should be able to be in touch. The Kingdom is now or never. You don't have to die
in order to go to the Kingdom. In fact, you have to be very alive. And in order to be alive,
mindful breathing helps a lot. Breathing in I know I am alive.
I am here and now. With that kind of insight, you enter the Kingdom
just by one step. And enjoy. I don't want to go out again. Because the thinking will bring us
out of the Kingdom. So, no thinking. Just feeling. And that is very nourishing. When we allow ourselves to be embraced by the collective energy, the healing takes place very quickly. That is what we call
taking refuge in the Sangha. Trusting the Sangha. Allow yourself to be embraced
and transported by the Sangha. That is what we do
while we walk together. I have arrived. I am home.
I don't have to run anymore. I am solid. I am free.
I am solid because I do not allow myself to be carried away
by the past or by the future. I am free because I am able to be
in the here and the now. To be in touch with the wonders of life
beginning with my body. (Bell) (Bell) (Bell) (Bell) Subtitles by the Amara.org community
