Share

Retreat offered in Kim Lien Hotel, Hanoi, Vietnam on Engaged Buddhism in the 21st Century.  Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh offered two dharma talks on "Definition of Engage Buddhism" and "History of Engage Buddhism" during the one week retreat.  This week, we offer you the Dharma talk "Definition of Engage Buddhism", next week we will offer you "History of Engage Buddhism".

Source URL: http://vimeo.com/6261980
Video Author: Thich Nhat Hanh

Breathing in I feel alive, breathing out I smile to live inside of me.

Good morning dear sangha, today is may the sixth 2008, we are in Hanoi, Kiem Lien hotel for our retreat with the theme Engaged Buddhism in 21st century.

There is a technical term, formation (Skt. Samskara), Buddha said that all formations are impermanent, always changing, you can distinguish between physical formation, biological formations and mental formations, a flower is a formation because many elements has come together in order to help flower to manifest. you see the cloud, sunshine, the seed, soil, farmer, the gardener and many elements that had come together in order to help  the flower to manifest, that is why a flower is called a formation.

That formation called flower is impermanent, it is always changing. When I looked at my hand, I know this is also a formation, many elements has come together in order to help my hand to manifest; ancestor, mother, father, food, water, experience, and so on; many elements come together to help my help my hand to manifest as a biological formation, my body is a formation (Skt. Kayasamskara).

When I have anger, joy, forgiveness, irritation, depression, peace, they all are mental formations. Mental formation are also impermanent, our emotion, feeling perception, are all mental formation, all mental formations are impermanent, not only physical formation are impermanent but physiological and biological are also impermanent, all formations are impermanent, statement made by The Buddha. When we observe one formation we can see the nature of impermanent in each formation.

We want to talk about the mental formation this morning, in my tradition there are 51 category of mental formations, as a novice monk, I have to learn by heart the name of these mental formations, there are positive or wholesome mental formation like compassion, loving kindness, joy, forgiveness, mindfulness, concentration, insight, there are many wholesome wonderful mental formation in us. The practice is to recognize our positive mental formation in us and help them to manifest.

We also have negative mental formation, like craving, anger, hate, violence, jealousy; and the practice is consist of  refraining from touching them or refraining from watering these seeds of unwholesomeness so they don't have a chance to manifest.

So there are positive or wholesome and negative or unwholesome mental formations, and there are also can be wholesome or unwholesome like the mental formation called thinking, thinking can be good, or destructive; so there are three kind of mental formation.

Practicing meditation we have to be be there in the here and the now, in order to recognize what ever formation is manifesting. Yesterday we learned about the formation called body, breathing in, I aware of my body, the body is a formation, when we are of our body, then you might be aware that there might be a tension, stress, pain in our body, all these things belong to the realm of physiological formation, so anything that happened in your body, you are aware of it, if there is pain in your body, then you are aware that there is a pain in our body, if there is a relaxation in our body then we are aware that there is a relaxation in our body, mindfulness is a kind of energy that help us to be aware what kind of the formation that are going on.

Same apply to mental formation, when there is a mental formation called joy we are aware that is joy in me, when the mental formation of sorrow is manifesting we are aware the the mental formation of sorrow is in me, when the mental formation of irritation is manifesting we are that mental formation of irritation in me. So mindfulness is a power to recognize mental formation that manifesting in present moment, whether it is physical, physiological, or mental.

Among the 51 mental formations, we know that there are wholesome or wonderful mental formation like mindfulness, concentration, insight, loving kindness, compassion, joy, peace, and everyone has these mental formations that exist in the form of seeds (Skt. Bija), we have the seed of anger that lie in the bottom of our consciousness, because that seed of anger is sleeping down there, we are ok, we are not angry, it doesn't mean that we don't have the seed of anger in us, but if someone say something or does something that touch the seed of anger in us, it will manifest as a mental formation, so before it become a mental formation, it is still a seed, a bija, when the bija is watered then it become a mental formation (Skt. cittasamskara).

You also have wholesome formation like forgiveness, loving kindness, compassion, and we need to know hoe to touch the seed so they have a chance to manifest, when they manifest themself, then we are happy, if we continue to sleep down there, we are can not be happy.

Our consciousness consist of at least two layers, down here we have store consciousness, and up here we have mind consciousness, all the seed are here, wholesome and unwholesome, there are 51 kind of seeds. When the seed of anger is watered, it manifest itself up here in the realm of mind consciousness as a mental formation, down here is only a seed.

According to the practice recommended by the Buddha, when the seed of anger or frustration is manifesting as a mental formation, we should not allow it to be there alone, we should try to invite another seed to manifest, usually we invite the seed of mindfulness to manifest.

The mindfulness is invited up in the mental formation as a kind of energy to recognize the other mental formation, we called it a practice of mindfulness of anger, mindfulness is always a mindfulness of something, when you breath mindfully this is called mindfulness of breathing, when you walk mindfully that is a mindfulness of walking, when you are angry aware that you are angry, that is a mindfulness of anger.

Those who doesn't has a practice they only has anger mental formation, they allow the energy anger to cause a lot of damages, for those of us who has a practice, we will not let the anger alone, we are always invite the mindfulness to come up to take care of anger, anger is still there but mindfulness is already there in order to take care of anger,  this is the practice of mindfulness of the anger.

If the seed of depression is coming up, we suffer, the landscape of mind consciousness is not peaceful, is not happy, when depression is manifested, we should know how to invite the seed of mindfulness to manifest, the energy of mindfulness will recognize the energy of depression, there is no fighting between the two kind of energy, because the job of mindfulness is to recognize, to recognize thing as they are, then to embrace whatever is there in a very tender way, like a mother embraces a child, when the child is suffered, the mother is working in the kitchen but she hears the baby cry, she know that the baby is suffering, so she goes into the baby room and she pick the baby up, she hold the baby tenderly in her arm, and the the energy of tenderness from the mother begin to penetrate into the body of the child, and after a few moment the child feels better, this also happened in the practice of mindfulness.

With the practice of mindfulness breathing and walking, we generate the energy of mindfulness, the seed of mindfulness become the mental formation of mindfulness, with this energy we recognize the other energy and we can embrace other energy with tenderness, there are no fighting, there are only supporting, helping, buddhist meditation based on non duality and non violence.

Non duality means, not only mindfulness is you but anger also is you; not only mindfulness is you but depression is also you, so you are taking care of yourself, you are not fighting against yourself, that is why we said that buddhist meditation is based on the principle of non duality, you are both anger and mindfulness, no fighting is needed, you only need to recognize, you only need to embrace tenderly.

There is no attempt to suppress, to fight, and therefor the practice is non violence. Non duality lead to non violence.

When we have a feeling, pleasant or unpleasant, or neutral; as a practitioner be become aware of that feeling, you recognize the feeling, you accept the feeling as it is, you don't have the intention to fight, whether the feeling is pleasant or unpleasant, or mix; to become aware of the mental formation is the practice, there is a river of feeling flowing day and night in us, a practitioner is there in order to recognize every feeling when it manifest, as it stay for sometime and die down, that is the practice of contemplation of the feeling.

The four foundation of mindfulness sutra, Buddha advised us to focus on our body first, the in breath and out breath belong to our body, so mindfulness of breathing belong to the first realm of the practice.

when I practice breathing in I'm aware of my body, breathing out I release the tension, I'm dealing with my body as a object of mindfulness, when I practice total deep relaxation, I become aware every part of my body, I bring relaxation to every part of the body that belong to the realm of the realm of practice contemplation the body inside the body.

I aware the feeling and emotion, feeling and emotion maybe pleasant or unpleasant, but we should be there as a practitioner in order to recognize and to take good care, like a mother take good care to her baby, If that is a pleasant feeling, you say to yourself breathing in I'm aware the pleasant feeling is in me, we should not identify ourself with the pleasant feeling and allow  it to carry us away.

If it is a painful feeling, you say to yourself, breathing in I'm aware of the unpleasant painful feeling, just become aware of that feeling, this is very important, non violence, non duality. In the case of mother embracing holding the baby tenderly, few minutes later, the painful will be lessen, you get a relief after having hold tenderly the painful feeling with energy of mindfulness (the mother), the painful feeling (baby).

Just be there for your child, recognize the suffering, hold your child tenderly and after few minutes you get a relief, so mindfulness has the function to recognize then to hold and to bring relief.

The energy of mindfulness carry the energy of concentration, when you mindful of the flower, if you maintain you mindfulness alive for a long time, concentration begin to be powerful, so mindfulness lead to concentration, with concentration you can take deep look into the nature what is there, that is deeper level of meditation, first you recognize than you can look deeper, if you look deeply with concentration, you discover the root (very nature) of what it is, with that kind of insight, that kind of understanding you can liberated from that kind of sorrow, pain, anger, and despair.

Mindfulness is a kind of energy that contain within itself, the energy of concentration, and the energy of concentration contain within yourself, the energy of insight, insight is the factor of liberation, in Buddhism we do not speak salvation by grace, but salvation by insight, insight comes only when you have strong a concentration, in order to nourish and cultivate concentration we should practice mindfulness; mindfulness, concentration, and insight are the heart of Buddhist meditation, this is the 3 kind of energy that we can cultivate in every moment of our daily life, while breathing, walking, washing, driving, cooking, this energy can cultivate at anytime and anywhere, even when you drive your car, it is still possible for you to practice mindfulness driving, and concentration, you don't need to go into a monastery in order to practice mindfulness, concentration and insight. Although the atmosphere of the monastery is very supportive to that kind of practice.

It is very important to learn how to use the energy of mindfulness in order to recognize the painful feeling, painful emotion in us, not only we can bring about a relief but we can also practice looking deeply into the nature of feeling of the emotion in order to get the insight, once we get the insight we are liberated from that painful emotion, fear, despair, and anger.

When we speak about engaged buddhism, we speak a kind of buddhism that is present in our daily life and moment. firstly when they heard about engaged buddhism, they think of fighting for social justice, fighting for human right, organizing demonstration and so on, that is not true, that is part of the practice, but not the basic part, the basic part is to have the practice alive in very moment of your daily life, you should be there in order to attend to what is happening in here and now, in the realm of the body, realm of mind, the realm of environment.

So, engaged Buddhism is to response to what is happening in body, mind, and environment, this is a simple definition, to response to physiological formation, mental formation, and physical formation.

In 1954, I was a young dharma teacher, the Buddhist institute where I taught is a “En guang” temple, the temple is still there in Ho chin Minh city, you can  come an visit. In fact, since 1949, I already helping building that temple “En Guang”, I was one of the founder of the Eng Guang Buddhist Institute in Ho Chin Minh City. I taugh the first novice class, the temple was very simple, only build with bamboo.

The name of the temple is En Guang, there was a dharma teacher came from Danang, he is name is Ven. Di Heu, we both built Eng Guang temple, the war was going on between French and Vietnamese resistance movement, five years later the country was divided into north (communist) and south (anti communist), over 1 million of people migrated from the north to the south, among of them many Catholic, there were a lot of confusion in the country, the Geneva accord was sign and the country was divided into two part, En Guang temple from time to time receive French soldiers who came to visit us, the soldier was preparing
to get out from the country.

The war ended, and agree that the country should be divided, the French would withdraw from the country, I remember talking this to the French soldiers, many of them had come to Vietnam and died there.

In 1954, there was a great confusion in mind of people, especially the young people, especially monk, nun, lay practitioners, everyone; the north was inspired by the Marxism ideology, and the south, people has become catholic in order to be the president of the south, they try to run the country by the other kind of ideology opposing the Marxism and Leninism called personalism, it seem that the ideological war begins, a lot of confusion, there was a daily newspaper came to En Guang Temple and ask me to write about a series of article how buddhism shed light on this situation, what kind of directive we should have in order to have people settle their thinking, we should go in what direction because there was lot confusion, Buddhism is a very ancient tradition in Vietnam, most of people has the seed of buddhism in them.

Mr Wu Ngok Gag, who was the director of Yen Cu newspaper,  he migrated form the north, he asked me to write article of buddhism in order to offer insight, suggestion in what spiritual direction we should go, in order to deal with the great confusion in the country. I accepted the request and I wrote a series of 10 articles, Buddhism a Fresh Look, A new way of looking at Buddhism. This 10 articles I propose the idea of Engaged Buddhism, so engaged Buddhism dated from 1954, Buddhism in the realm of education, economics, politics, and so on. I remember I didn't use a type writer I just use an old fashion style, they came just took the article, the article always printed in the front page with a red and big title.

The newspaper sold very very well, because people are very thirsty, they want to have a spiritual path, they want a direction, because they are in confusion, the confusion was so huge.

I remember that Thay Thich Quang, at the same time he was also at En Guang temple, he was very curious on what I had wrote in the newspaper, so every morning he went down and buy one copy of the newspaper and he read.

The series of articles was printed as a book, not long after I visited Hue, Thay Deg Than, who has been with me in the same class in Buddhist Institute, he was another editor of buddhist magazine called “Lien hua” in Hue, the chief editor was Ho Te Dung Hao, Thay Deg Than has his temple in a small island of the perfume river, they grow a very good and tasty corn there, he invited me to stay few weeks in his temple, every morning he offer me tea with Tung Rie flowers, a kind of tiny rose smell very nice when you put in the tea, every morning we do walking meditation and bought some fresh corn, he nourish me with rose tea and fresh corn and he want me to write another series of article on engaged buddhism.

I wrote another series of 10 articles by the title “Buddhism of Today”, that was on the theme of engaged buddhism, he printed these articles in his buddhist magazine, it was translated into French by Li Veng Hao in Paris, he is a scholar who lived in Paris, the title he took is “??” (in French).

in 1964, when I visited America to give lecture, I met Thomas Murton, I gave him the french version of engaged buddhism, he wrote a review on that book, in 1964, I was lecturing in Columbia University on Buddhism, there was the struggle movement lead by buddhist the regime,  maybe you have heard about Ven. Thich Quang Dec who emulated himself with the fire in order to draw attention of whole world to the violation of human right in Vietnam, that was completely non violence movement for human right.

When the regime fall down, I was asked by my college to come home and help, I was teaching in Columbia University, so I went home and found Vanh Hanh University, I collected many articles that I had written before and publish a book called “Engaged Buddhism”.  I think this is the first time you have these information. This book was published in the beginning of 1964, many articles had written down before, I just put them together and publish under the title, “Kuk Dei” (Life, society), “Di Vau” means to enter, so “Divau kukdei” is using in Vietnam means entering to the social life.

In China, our college has been using (Ren Jian Fo Jiao), in Vietnam we used “Engaged into life”. Six month later I produce another book “Buddhism updated” / “Buddhism renewed” (Xian dai hua fo jiao), “Buddhism make actual” or “the actualization of buddhism” all of these has to do with Engaged Buddhism, after that I had written many books, “Buddhism of tomorrow”, “Buddhism of Today” and “the Buddhism of Tomorrow”.

At that time, my name was banned by the government of the south (The anti communist), because my activity for peace, calling for reconciliation for the north and south, I become a persona non grata, I could not go home anymore, I was in exile, so my book “Buddhism of Tomorrow” could not publish in Vietnam, so I used other name, you might wonder where does that name comes from.

In 1966, we found a practice center in the Highland in Vietnam, called Fragrant palm leave monastery, we bought the land from friend called Cabreu and Cabroi, the name of the village where the Fragrant Leave is “Su Dang Lue”, I continue to publish my book in Vietnam with many other name, I wrote 3 volume of the history of Buddhism in Vietnam, I signed the name “Viet Lang” although I was away from the country 39 years, but I continue to write books and publish in Vietnam under different kind of names.

Engaged Buddhism: a kind of Buddhism that is present in every moment of our daily life,
why you brush your teeth, the reason should be there; while you drive your car, Buddhism should be there, while you are walking in the supermarket, Buddhism should be there, so you know what to buy and what not to buy.

Engaged Buddhist is a kind of Buddhism that response anything that happened in the here and the now, what happened in the here and the now is global warming, climate change, the destruction of ecosystem, the lack of communication, war, conflict, suicide, with mindfulness we have to be aware of what is going on in our body, feeling, emotion, environment, that is engaged Buddhism.  Engaged Buddhism is a kind of Buddhism that response to what is happening in the here and the now.

It is right to speak about Engaged Buddhism in the term of 4 noble truth, the first noble truth is Dukkha (ill-being). In olden time buddhist teacher speaks of the first noble truth Dukkha in terms of old age is suffering, sickness, death, separate from those your love one, live with those you don't love, wishing something but you never obtain it, all are suffering, this is the definition if one give to the first noble truth, but now as the partitioner of mindfulness we have to identify the kind of ill-being that is ready there in and around us, first of all we know that there are a tension in our body, tension, stress, a lot of anxiety, fear, violence, broken family, suicide, war, conflict, terrorism, destruction of the ecosystem, global warming, etc. We should be fully present in the here and the now in order to realize, to recognize the real face of ill-being.

The natural tendency is to run away from suffering from ill-being, we don't want to confront, we don't want to recognize it,  that is too much for us, so we try many way in order turn around from the truth, we try to escape, we try to run away; but the Buddha advises us not to do so, Buddha encourages us to confront with the suffering, to recognize the suffering, to look deep into the nature of suffering in order to learn.

Buddha's teaching that, if you don't understand suffering you can not see the path of transformation, the path leading to the cessation of suffering. All of us know that the 1st noble truth is ill being and the 4th noble truth is the path leading to the cessation of ill-being.

Without understanding the 1st noble truth, you will never have the opportunity to see the path leading to the cessation of ill being, looking deeply into the ill-being you discover the path, that is the teaching of the Buddha. that is why to run away from suffering or ill being you have no chance to see the path. That is why you should learn to come home to the present moment, to be fully present in order to recognize ill being as it is, practice looking deeply on ill being, you will discover the root of ill being (2nd noble truth).

The nature of ill being, the making of ill being. I fact, looking deeply into ill being we can discover the second noble truth, craving, hate, ignorance, wrong perception, lack of communication, each of us has to discover our root of ill being.

Supposed we speak about our hectic life, so much to do, so much to achieve, as a politician, businessman, artist, we want to do more and more and more, craving for success, we do not have a capacity to live deeply each moment in our daily life, you never allow our body to relax in order to heal, that is why our hectic life is the cause us so many tension, anxiety and so on.

If we know how to live like a Buddha, dwelling in the present moment, allowing refreshing healing elements of life to penetrate and to heal us and to nourish us, we will not become the victims of stress and tension, and many kind of disease. so we can say that one of the root of the ill being is the inability to live our live deeply in each moment.

We want our children to raise to the top, force them to study very hard, our children become very stressful, at one point they can no longer continue to study. Competition, we want to be number one, that is why we should bring spiritual dimension to our daily life as a politician, as a businessman, teacher, father, and so on, so the art of mindful living can be seen already as the 4th noble truth.

When we have a lot of tension and irritation in us, we can not listen to the other person, we can not use loving speech, we can not help each others remove wrong perception, therefore wrong perception give birth to fear, hate, violence, and so on. we have to identify our root of ill being, this is a very important work.

Example, suicide, broken family, we know that when communication become difficult between husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter, people are no longer happy, many young people despair and want to commit suicide, they have the feeling and emotion of despair, as they don't know how to handle the despair and emotion,  they think that the only way to stop suffering is to just kill oneself, in France, about twelve thousand young people commit suicide, just because they can not handle their emotion like despair.

Their parent don't now how to do it, and don't know how to teach the children how to handle the despair and emotion, even teacher don't know how to do it how they can teach the student to recognize and hold tenderly their emotion and their feeling?

When people can not communicate, they don't understand each other, they don't see the suffering of each other, they continue to accused and blame each other, no love and no happiness.

War also born from wrong perception, terrorism also, the terrorist think that the other side are trying to destroy as a tradition or way of life, as a tradition, as a nation, that is why they want to punish, if we believe that the other person is trying to kill us, then we will seek way to kill that person first in order for us not to be kill, so there is a fear, there is a misperception, there is a misunderstanding, perception as the foundation of all these violence.

War in Iraq, the war of anti terrorist, that war is not help to reduce the number of terrorist in fact the number of terrorist is increasing all the time with the war, because the foundation of misunderstanding, wrong perception, are the cause of anger, hate, fear, in order to remove terrorism, we have to remove wrong perception.

We knew very well that airplane, fighting gun, bombs, can not remove terrorism, can not remove wrong perception, only loving speech and compassionate listening can help bring about information that can help people to correct  their wrong perception, and our leaders do not know and do not train in that kind of discipline, they rely on the armed forces, the rely on gun, bombs in order to remove terrorism, so looking deeply we can see the making of ill being, the root of ill being by just looking, by recognizing the ill being as  the truth, adn looking deeply into its nature.


There are many developing country, like china, India, population is very large, now people has a chance to consume because in the past the were not able to consume, so they need energy, they need gasoline, electricity, then the amount of oil and energy can produce is limited.

The industry of meat making has been destroyed a lot of ecosystem, caused a phenomenon of global warming more and more serious everyday. According to the report of UN, we have to reduce the meat industries at least by 50% in order to save our planet.

I have written a letter to my friend, my disciple to urge them to reduce meat eating at least 50%, in the Vietnamese Buddhist tradition eat vegetarian 10 days a month, I urge them to add at least 5 more days, so 15 days a month.

When we look deeply into the first noble truth we will discover the root of ill being, and suddenly the path become apparent, you know how to live out in daily life, so that our children has a chance to enjoy this planet. One thing that is clear is the forth truth can be seen when when you look deeply into the first and second noble truth, the 5 mindfulness training for instance, many of you already received and practice it,  5 mindfulness training are very concrete practice of compassion, loving kindness, that is the practice of true love.

The first mindfulness training is about protecting life, not only the life of human being, but also the life of animals, vegetables, and minerals, that is the practice of protecting the planet. In buddhism it is taught that not only human that have Buddha nature, but animal, plants have Buddha nature in them.

The well being of human depend on the well being of animal, vegetables and mineral, human are made of non human elements, and these non human elements are animal, vegetables, minerals, if you destroy this non human being elements you destroy yourself, this is the teaching of inter being. So, the teaching of the Buddha in deep ecology is very clear, that is the real practice of love, not only the life of human, but also animals, vegetables, and minerals,  we should be able to live our daily in such a way, that this kind of practice of love could there in every moment.

The second mindfulness training is about generosity, not to posses anything that do not belong to us, use our time and material resources to help those in need, that is the practice of generosity, the practice of dana, this is also the practice of love, the concrete practice of love, you may consume less, and practicing the second mindfulness training you develop your love, as loving kindness and compassion grow in you, then you become happier and happier all the time, so the second mindfulness training is also about love, the practice of love.

The third mindfulness training is to refrain from sexual misconduct, to protect children and others from sexual abuse, because we know that sexual misconduct has destroyed so many families, bringing about a lot of unhappy children, therefor the practice of the third mindfulness training also a practice of love, the practice of protection.

The fourth mindfulness training is about the practice of listening with compassion, speaking with loving kindness, this is a wonderful instrument to help restore the communication between husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter, nation and nation, community and community, this is a very important practice of love, to restore the communication is to bring about reconciliation and happiness, this is the true of practice of love.

The Fifth mindfulness training is about mindful consumption, only consume thing that bring health, well being into our body and spirit, we refrain from consuming the items that contain toxin, like craving, violence, fear, hate, this is really the way out of our difficult situation,  that is why the practice of the path leading to cessation of ill being should include the practice of five mindfulness training, because that is the practice of love.

In the practice called the Eight Noble Path, Buddha recommend the right view, this is the fundamental, right view is the insight of inter being, suppose we look at the couple, looking at father and son, the practice of looking deeply allow us to see that the son is the continuation of the father, and the father is fully present in every cell of the son, looking into the father you see the son, and looking into the son you see the father.

When you plan seed of corn in a dam soil, you wait and 10 days later you have young corn with two leaves, you don't see the seed of corn anymore, but the seed of corn has not die, the seed of corn is still alive in the new plan of corn. If you are smart enough, you can see the seed of corn in the new form that is the new plan of corn.

This is also true between the father and son, looking into the son you will see the father, you see that the suffering of the son must be seen as the suffering of the father, the happiness of the father can be seen as the happiness of the son. Looking deeply like that you discover the truth of interbeing, happiness and suffering is not an individual matter, When your father is suffered deeply, there is no way you can be happy, When your son suffered deeply, there is no way that you as a father can be happy.

So, you touch the truth of no self between father and son, you touch the truth of inter being between the father and son, this is the part which the Buddha called right view, right insight, impermanent, no self, and inter being. When you got that kind of insight, then your thinking will be the right thinking.

As a practitioner, when you produce a thought, you should be aware the nature of the thought, your thinking might be one of the 51 mental formations, when you produce a thought your thought might be compassionate, might goes to the direction of understanding, compassion, non discrimination, that thought described by the Buddha as right thinking. As soon as you produce such a thought you feel wonderful within your body and mind, this thought of compassion, non discrimination, loving kindness has the capacity to heal you and to heal the world, that is why a good partitioner are capable to produce many thoughts like that everyday.

Right thinking is the thinking in the direction of non discrimination, no self, impermanent, inter being, because right thinking based on right view.

When you produce a thought that is full of anger, the wishes to punish, to cause a harm, that is not a right thinking, this kind of thought is harmful to your health also harmful to the health of your society of the world, that is wrong thinking.

cultivating right view is the part of the path leading to the cessation of ill being, cultivating right view, right view you can get by the practice of meditation, mindfulness, concentration and insight help you to touch the truth of inter being, the truth of impermanent, the truth of no self.

Right view also help you to produce right speech, you say something that can aspire confidence, and hope and make the other person happy that is right speech, when you able to write a letter full of love, forgiveness, kindness, you feel wonderful within yourself, when you are able to say something kind like that, that saying can have an effect of healing right away, have the effect of healing for the other person and for the world, everyday you can say something like that, we can create thing like that, that is the path leading to the cessation of ill being.

Then, the Buddha continue with the right action, action that help to protect, support, help ans save. When you take an action like that you are feeling wonderful, the healing is taking place in you and the healing also taking place at the other person, in the society, we also know that 4th noble truth, the path leading to cessation of ill being is something very concrete like a right thinking, right speech and right action. We know very well that the 5 mindfulness training also about right thinking, right speech, and right action. If we can apply this teaching into our individually life, family life, workplace, community, then we can end so a lot of suffering, we can bring about a lot of happiness.

Few example in order to show us that Engaged buddhism could be understood and could be seen in the 4 noble truth, Engaged Buddhism is a kind of Buddhism that response to suffering, to response ill being with Eight Noble Path, first of all response the suffering of our body, suffering in our feeling and perception, suffering happening in people around us, environment, responding to suffering, helping living being in countless way, that is the practice of Avalokiteshvara.