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 "History of Engage Buddhism", enjoy the talk.... You can also click here to listen to the "Definition of Engage Buddhism" which was offfered last week.

Source URL: http://vimeo.com/6428782
Video Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
Transcribed by: Nyanabhadra

Breathing in, I invite Lord Buddha to sit with my back
Breathing out, I invite Lord Buddha to breath with my lungs
Buddha sitting with my back, Buddha breathing with my lungs

[Bell]

Buddha is sitting, Buddha is breathing
Buddha is smiling, I enjoy the sitting, I enjoy the breathing, I enjoy the smiling

Buddha is sitting, Buddha is breathing,
I don't have to sit, I don't have to breathe, I let him breathe

Buddha is sitting, I enjoy the sitting
Buddha is breathing, I enjoy the breathing

[Bell]

Good morning dear friend, today is May the 7th, 2008, we are in Hanoi for our retreat of Engaged Buddhism in the 21st century, this is the third day of our retreat.

I hope you enjoy walking, when we walk together, we should not go too slowly, when we breathe in, maybe we would like to make two or three steps, you walk normally, and when you breathe in you may say “every step”, when you breathe out you may say “is life”, every step is life, you touched life, when you feel that you are successful in touching life and the wonders, then you change the word, “every step is a miracle”,  then you touched the miracle of walking on earth.

A disciple of Zen master whose name is Linji, he said that the miracle is not to walk on thin air, but to walk on earth. The miracle is walking on earth, we enjoy performing a miracle while walking, it is so wonderful to be alive and walking on this planet, every step is a miracle. So, we should enjoy every step, not only when we practice together like that but also when we are alone, we are also apply this art of walking, every step should be a miracle, and mindfulness make it possible, and every step help us to touch the wonders of life, every step is become a miracle and we are performing a miracle at every time and every moment.

Then we move to the third sentence that is Every step is healing, you feel the healing taking place, this is not an auto suggestion but this is a real feeling if you walk relaxingly, peacefully like that. Healing is every step.

Then the fourth sentence is  every step is freedom, we walk like a Buddha, we are free from our affliction, fear, anger, because we are in the kingdom of God, we are in the pureland of the Buddha to enjoy every step. The French writer, he said that the God is happiness, God is available 24 hours a day, if god is available 24 hours a day then his kingdom also available to us 24 hours a day, so make ourself available to the kingdom and enjoy walking at the kingdom everyday, there is no day when I did not enjoy walking in the kingdom of god, and I want friend to do the same, the kingdom is available if you have some freedom in your heart. You have mindfulness and concentration then you can enjoy the kingdom in the here and the now, you can enjoy the pureland of Amida Buddha at every step, the pureland is now or never.

So, when we walk together as a group, as a sangha, there is no big distance between us, we adapt the same speed, so we go like a river, that emanate a powerful energy that will penetrate everyone of us, everyone see us walk like that then they will be penetrated by our peace, our joy. Maybe we can do walking meditation around Hou Hwa Kiem, the lake, we enjoy the lake.

In Buddhism we learn the elements of enlightenment. Buddhism is about enlightenment, mindfulness is already an enlightenment, when we are aware of what is going on, we are awake, we are not live like in a dream anymore, so mindfulness make it possible for us to get enlightenment every moment. When I breath in I know that I'm breathing in, that is already an enlightenment. Enlightenment is always enlightenment about something, and in this case, when I'm breathing in I know that I'm breathing in, when you are walk you become aware of every step, so mindfulness make it possible for you to be enlightenment on the fact that you are alive, you are walking on earth. So enlightenment is not something very far away.

In the teaching of the Buddha, there 7 factors of enlightenment, [1] mindfulness is one of them, [2] concentration also, you maybe surprise to hear that [3] Joy also one of them, without joy you can't reach enlightenment, and enlightenment is joy itself.

When you are aware of your breath, your step, you are enlightened, you are awake, and you enjoy yourself, you enjoy your time of being there on earth, you enjoy your steps, you enjoy your breath, you enjoy the pureland of Buddha, you enjoy the kingdom of God. So, joy is one of the factor of enlightenment. The practice of Buddhism should include joy, if you have no joy in your practice, that is not the Buddha want us to do.

Another factor of enlightenment is [4] ease, being light, being peaceful, if you don't have the lightness in  yourself, if you don't have peace in yourself, there is no enlightenment. Passadi is the term in Pali, translated as keun an in Vietnamese, keun means light and an means peace, If you are light then you are peaceful. So feeling light and peaceful, feeling relax is a factor of enlightenment.

Let us go back to the Four Noble Truth, the first truth is ill being, yesterday we had agree with each other that the first aspect of ill being that is the stress, tension, heaviness in our body and mind, that is the ill being.

We know that the 3rd Noble Truth is the cessation of ill being, the cessation of ill being means the presence of well being, like the absence of darkness means the presence of bright light. when ignorance is no longer there, then wisdom is there. When you remove darkness, what is there? There is light. So, the cessation of ill being means is the presence of well being. That is the truth that opposite to the first Noble Truth.

The Third Noble Truth is the cessation of ill being, you may like to call it well being. I think the dharma teacher in our time should call it well being to make it more positive. they are the same thing.

The teaching of the Buddha confirmed the truth that well being is possible, because there is ill being that is why well being is possible. If ill being is described in term of tension, stress, heaviness, then well being is described in term of  lightness, relaxation, and peace. With your body, your breath, your feet and with your mindfulness, you can reduce tension, stress, and heaviness, and bring about lightness, relaxation, and peace.

So the Four Noble Truth can be spoken in a very concrete term, we have a method to practice, so we can reduce ill being, that should be seen in the 4th Noble Truth, that is the path, the path leading to the cessation of ill being, or you can call it the path of well being. The cessation of ill being means the beginning of well being, it is so simple. The Buddha always remind us about that.

When Buddha said that there is avidya (ignorance, delusion, wrong perception), you can remove delusion, ignorance; the extinction of ignorance bring about the birth of wisdom of light. When avidya is no longer there then enlightenment, wisdom, insight is there. So it is very clear that when the darkness is no longer there then something else must be there, that is light. When ill being is not there, something else should be there, that is well being. Who said that teaching of the Buddha is pessimistic? He confirmed that happiness is possible, well being is possible, you can make it, you can do it.

When we talk about the Forth Noble Truth in term of well being, then the path is the path of well being, that is the noble path, so the path of well being, Buddha proposed the practice to reduce tension, that can bring lightness, bring peace into our body and mind.

Buddha gave us a very concrete practices, if you study the Sutra on Mindfulness of breathing, you will see the 16 exercises proposed by the Buddha is a very scientific in his presentation.

[1] Breathing in, I know this is my in breath
[2] Breathing out, I know this is my out breath
[3] Breathing in, I follow my in breath all way through
[4] Breathing out, I follow my out breath all way through

When you practice like that you become your in breath and out breath, you are detach from past, future, and your project, the in breath and out breath bring concentration, light, relaxation into you body and mind, that is already the beginning of well being.

[5] Breathing in I aware of my whole body

First you go back to your breath that is part of your body, then second you go back to your body by the way of the breath, way to go home by in breath and out breath.

[6] breathing in I release the tension in my body

I think all of us who live in this 21st century have to practice this exercises whether we are called ourself a buddhist or not, because all of us are the victims of stress and tension, the hectic life, this exercise can be done whether in sitting position, lying position; you can survive with this kind of exercise. The doctors nurses, school teacher, have to practice this in order to keep them fresh and available, so they can help others to do the same, that is about dealing with the body.

When we come to the realms of feeling, the Buddha proposed very much the same thing,

[7] Breathing I'm aware of the feeling in me, the painful feeling

(emotion: fear, anger, etc) in me, mindfulness is use to recognize and embrace that painful emotion, so have to take care of ourself, our feeling and emotion, we should not let our emotion and feeling destroy us, and push us to do thing that will be devastating or destructing. Generating the energy mindfulness in order to recognize your painful feeling and emotion is a very important practice.

[8] Release the tension in your feeling, in your emotion,

because you know how to embrace tenderly your emotion, your painful feeling with mindfulness, you are doing like a mother holding a child, and you release that tension, then you get a relief.

You can see the compassion of the Buddha in this exercises, he knows that the human being quite well, and his teaching dated from 2600 years ago, now are still relevant to us in our time, even more relevant in our time.

When we talk about the path of well being, first of all we should include the practice the that can reduce stress, tension, the heaviness, this is our daily practice. If parents and teachers practice like this, they can help their children to practice like that. If you are the ministry of education, I suggest that you can bring that kind of training and learning into school. In elementary school we have already have to teach the children how to do it, how to relax, you can imagine a teacher leading a total relaxation to the students, it is very beautiful.

Two years ago when I spoke for UNESCO in Paris, I proposed to UNESCO to set up a school of peace, so people can come, school teachers and others can come to learn this kind of technique and we are from plum village can be volunteer to come and teach them without salary.

When we look at the first noble truth, ill being, we recognize different aspects of ill being, then we wish that we can stop ill being in order to get well being. Since we look deep into the first noble truth then we discovered the second noble truth, which is the making of ill being or the path leading to ill being, many of us are following the path to ill being, we are getting ill being every day.

We are getting ill being by the way we consume, by the way we work, by the way we deal with each other. The path leading to the cessation of ill being, now we call it the path leading to well being. It is called a noble path, and this is (the second noble path) not so noble, we called it ignoble path that lead to ill being.

If tension, stress and heaviness is here, you know that hectic life is at the root of this kind of ill being, so we discovered. Everyone of us can sit down and describe the four noble truth that we had experienced them, we touch the suffering in us, we make the a list of our suffering and the suffering around us, then we will have an image of the first noble truth.

When we look deeply, we discovered the second noble truth, that is the root, when we don't see the root we can not find a path. Buddha had confirmed the cessation of ill being, the well being is possible, so this is a good news. We also know that the healing, transformation is possible, that is why when we are learning the first and the second noble truth, we will see the third path that is the well being is manifested in front of us clearly.

If the truth of ill being include the conflict, war, anger, hatred, we can mention the opposite of this emotion in the third noble truth, if there is a conflict here then there should be reconciliation here, if there is an anger here there should be compassion here, if there is a blocking communication here then there should be a good communication here. When there is a good communication we can help each other to remove a wrong perception, wrong perception is ignorance, delusion, here we have insight, we can see in the path, we have the practice of deeply with compassion in order to understand, using loving speech in order to restore communication, this is the part of the path, the path can not be detach from the other truth, you can only see the path through the fourth noble truth, so the third is the oppose of the first, and looking into the second noble truth we see the path leading to cessation of ill being and the beginning of the well being.

You don't need to be a scholar, you only need to be a practitioner in order to present the 4 noble truth of the Buddha in a most concrete, effective and clear way, because all of us have experience of ill being, we just look deeply, we just mention all aspects of our ill being, if we look deeply in this sources of ill being, we discovered the second noble truth, then the path begin to appear very clearly.

[bell]

You can come together as a group of 5 or 10 people, we can share about the truth of ill being, and one person will write it down the aspects of ill being on a sheet of paper, because we are using the practice of looking deeply collectively in order to look deeply, 5 to 10 people sitting together using concentration, mindful looking in order to discover the truth of ill being and one person will write it down.

Then we come to the second truth, that is the making of ill being, we must have lead in such a way that such a ill being has come to us, so we described the way we had done in order to make this ill being become a reality, so one person will write down how this aspects of ill being has come into existence, this is the newer version of the four noble truth. The Buddha expect us to do that, because in his time the list should be different, the suffering of his time should be different from the suffering of our time. So, we need a description of the four noble truth very clear, and our practice will be base on that description of that four noble truth, there is nothing mystical here, everything is clear, everything can be described in scientific way.

When you had come up with a beautiful description of four noble truth, please share with us, we will combine all the best kind of our sharing in order to make a dharma book for the new generation of practitioner, the sangha should do it, we have to help the Buddha, you are the continuation of the Buddha, you should help the Buddha, you should present the teaching of the Buddha in such a way that will be relevant to our time, to our younger generation, we should use our wisdom, intelligent, art, in order to do so. Helping the Buddha, you are very kind, If you don't want to help the Buddha, who will?

I would like to go back a little bit on Engaged Buddhism, in 1950th, I begun to write because people need a kind of orientation so they can overcome their confusion, one day I wrote about the relationship of religious believe and the way we organize our society, I based on Owen Scolt to describe the evolution history of our society.

At first, our society was organized in a group of people called tribe, then with time, several tribes come together finally they set up a kingdom with a king, when the time come we have enough kings, then we want to create republic democracy. Our religious believe has been changing along the way.

First of all establishing the tribe, the believe in polytheism, we believe that there are many gods, each god has power, you are free to choose one god to worship and that god will protect and support you against the other god, against the other tribe.

When we come into kingdom, then our way of believe or tendency to believe has change also, we come to monotheism,  there is only one god, the most powerful god, we should only worship one god, not many gods.

When we come to democracy, there is no king anymore, everyone is equal to everyone else, we rely on each other to live, that is why monotheism is change into believe into interdependence or inter being. In a system of believe when there is no longer god, we are fully responsible for our planet, life, and world.

I wrote things like that during the time I was trying to build up Engaged Buddhism. In between 1963 and 1964, we established the Order of Interbeing (OI), the birth of the OI is very meaningful, we only need to study the fourteen precepts, the 14 mindfulness training in order to understand why and how the OI was established. At that time, the war is going on, very furiously, there is a kind of conflict between ideologies, the north side of Vietnam has their own ideology, the south also has its own ideology, one side is Marxism, Leninism, the other side is personalism and capitalism, not only we fight with the ideology imported from outside, but we are also fight with the weapon imported from outside. Imported gun and bomb from Russia, china, America.

As a Buddhist, someone who practice peace and reconciliation, brotherhood and sisterhood, we don't want to accept such a kind of war, you can not accept the war where brothers are killing brothers with the ideologies imported from outside, with weapon imported from outside, so the spirit the OI is born in the resistance movement, spiritual resistance movement, based completely on the teaching of the Buddha, if you read the first mindfulness training, you will know that this is the practice of non attachment to views, freedom from all ideologies, this is the direct answer to the war, direct answer to dogmatism, every one is ready to kill and die for their belief.

first mindfulness training, aware that the suffering created by fanaticism and intolerance, we are determined not to be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology even buddhist one, this is the lion roar, Buddha's teaching means as a guidance to help us learn to look deeply and develop our understanding and compassion, they are not doctrine to fight, kill, and die for. This is a direct answer to the ideological conflict and war fought with weapon that imported from outside.

The teaching of Buddha concerning the view is very clear, from Sutta Nipatta, “We should not venerate or attach to any view, we have to transcend all views, and right view is the absence of all view, attachment to certain view is the source of suffering”

Suppose you are climbing on a ladder, when you in 4th steps, you think that you are the highest, then you are stuck. You need to release the 4th step in order be able to climb to the 5th step, in order to be really scientific, the scientist has to learn how to release what they had found in order to come to a higher kind truth.

So, this is the teaching of the Buddha you some view, some understanding, learn to release them in order to achieve higher. When you consider something to be the truth, if you are attach to it, you have no chance to move further.

There is a story about a merchant who left his little boy at home and he went for his business, in his absence, the pirate came to burn out the village, they took the little boy away. When the merchant came home, he was so terrified, he saw a burnt body of a child close to his burnt house, he believe right away that is his son, he throw himself to the ground, he cried and beat his chest, he pulled his hair, he had regretted that he left his little boy alone in home, so now his little boy is dead, a lot of guilt and suffering, so according to Indian tradition, he organizes a cremation ceremony and took the ash then put it in a beautiful bag, he carries the bag day and night. He believe that his beloved son is now only ash.

This story told directly by the Buddha, when the merchant go to sleep, he had his bag of ash with him, when he goes to walk he also had his bag of ash with him, he was so attached to his son, the one and the only son.

One day, the little boy was able to escape at mid night, so he came home, to the new home, he knocked at the door, the merchant was crying suddenly because of his grief, the merchant heard the knock of the door, he said “Who is that?” “Who is that at this late night is still disturbing?” The Little boy said, “Daddy its me!” The Merchant didn't believe, he believed that his son is already dead, there must be some naughty child outside disturbing him, so he shouted at him, he did not get up and open the door, finally the child had to go away, the merchant lost his child forever.

The Buddha said, at sometime, somewhere, you adopt something as the truth, an ideology, you revered it as the absolute truth, you are caught, even if the truth come to knock at your door, you refuse to open your door, this is a lesson about non attachment to views.

The basic spirit of Buddhism is non attachment to view, wisdom is not view, insight is not view, we should be ready to release our notion, our ideas in order for the true insight to be possible.

Supposed you have an an idea about impermanent, of non self, inter being, Four Noble Truth, that maybe dangerous, because these are only views, you are very proud that you know something about the four noble truth, about interbeing, about interdependence origination, about mindfulness, concentration and insight, but that teaching is only means for you to get the insight, if you are attach to these views and teaching, you are lost.

The teaching about impermanent, non self, inter being is to help you to get insight of impermanent, inter being and non self. It is like a matches, you use a matches in order to produce fire, while the fire is  born it will consume the matches.

You use the teaching in order to produce insight, when you have the insight, you burn away the teaching, it is like the finger pointing to the moon. The Buddha said, my teaching is like the a finger pointing to the moon, you should be skillful, you look the direction of my finger then you can see the moon. If you take my finger to be the moon then you will never see the moon.

Buddhaharma is not the insight, Buddhadharama is not the truth, but Buddhadharma is only an instrument for you to get the truth, this is a very basic in Buddhism.

War is the the outcome of attachment to view, fanaticism, if we look deeply into the nature of war in Iraq, it is also a religious war, people are using religious believe as an energy or strength to backup the war,  Mr Bush was supported by many evangelist, and the terrorist in Iraq was back up by Moslem's belief, so this is somehow a religious war. That is why to be free from view is basic practice of Buddhism, peace can not be if we still maintain our fanaticism concerning our views.

In 1965, I wrote a small book called Vietnam Lotus in the Sea of Fire, published in America on 1966, the war in Vietnam was raging it was an ocean of fire in Vietnam, we are killing each other, we allow American bombers to come to destroy our forest and people, we allow weapon from Russia and China to come, so there was really an ocean / sea of fire, but Buddhism was trying to do something, those of us who don't want to accept the war would like to do something to resist the war, and sometime we have to burn ourself alive in order to tell people that we do not want this war, but the Buddhist didn't have a radio, TV station, there is no way to express themself.

Whoever is listening be my witness, I do not accept this war, let me say this one more time before I die, this is few line of my poem.

Our enemy is not man, but our enemy is hate, fanaticism, violence, if we kill men then with whom shall we live? This is a kind o teaching and peaceful movement in Vietnam, we need badly the support from international, over there no one can hear us, so sometimes we have to burn ourself alive to tell you that we don't want this war, we don't want brothers killing brothers, please help stop this war, this killing of brothers by brothers.

Buddhism was like a lotus flower try to survive in the ocean of fire, Buddhism is a kind of spiritual strength from the heritage of Vietnam, we want to make use of this spiritual heritage in order to defend ourself from destruction, that is why we had chose the title Vietnam lotus in sea of fire, the peace movement in Vietnam at that time was a lotus trying to bloom in the ocean of fire.

I translated the book into Vietnamese, an American man in the peace movement help me to bring that book to Vietnam, the book was printed underground in Vietnam, many young people help to circulate that book as a resistance.

Sister Chan Khong who was a professor of Biology in Hwe University, one day she brought a copy of that book to her friend in Hwe, because another friend ask her to bring a copy of that book to another friend, Sister Chan Khong was arrested and put into prison because she own one copy of that book. Ask her more, she will tell you more about this event. Later on she was transfered to a prison in Saigon, that is some happening related to Engaged Buddhism.

A young French came and ask me to publish my poem about peace, it called anti war poetry, I said that if you want to do please do it, they collected about 60 poems of mine that were written on this topic, later they submitted to the government of south Vietnam, and 55 of the poems were censored, only few left, but our friend were not discourage, so they printed the poems underground, the book called anti war poetry sold very very quickly, and even some policeman like because they also suffered because of the war, they came to the book store and said that, you shouldn't display like this, you should hide behind the cupboard, you should give only when people asked.

The Radio of Hanoi, Saigon, and Beijing begin to attack that poems, because the poems are calling for peace, no one want peace, they want to fight to the end.

In 1964, we established the School of Youth for Social Service, we trained thousand of young people including monks and nuns, to go to the country side to help the peasant to rebuilt their villages and so on. We help them in four aspects, education, health, economics and organization. Our social worker comes to a village and teach the children and teach them how to read, write, and sing. When the people in the village like us, then we suggest them to build a school for the children, one family gave a few bamboo trees, another family bring coconut leaves in order to make a roof, then we began to have a school, our workers doesn't have a salary, after having a school in the village, we set up a dispensary, we bring some student who study medicine and doctor, ask them to help for one or two days, we set up a dispensary where we can have temporary medicine to help people who suffered from fever, and so on. We also taught people how to make some handicraft to increase their income of the family, so the School of Youth for Social Service was founded on that spirit, we don't need to wait for the government, we have to begin from ourself start from the grassroots. We have trained many young people including young monks and nuns, finally we have more than ten thousand social workers. During the war we help sponsored more than ten thousand orphans, that was the part of Engaged Buddhism of young people.

This year we are intend to set up an organization of young Buddhist in Europe, we called it young buddhist for a healthy and compassionate society, because our society is not very healthy right now, so much violence, despair, drugs, suicide, depression.

We had been offering retreat in everywhere in Europe and America and Asia, there so many young people who had come to us, now we want to organize them, they will use 5 Mindfulness Training as their practice, they will engaged themself in the society to help produce a healthier society, a society of more compassion, if you are inspired by this idea, when you go home please invite the young people to set up a group of young buddhist for a healthier and compassionate society.

Last month we went to Italy, we had one day practice with young people in the city of Napoly, 500 young women and men came to practice with us, they love it so much, we know that they are ready to engage in the practice of peace, helping to produce a healthier and more compassionate society, our young monks and nuns will be involve in that young organization also.

We also set up an European Institute of Applied Buddhism, I hope during this retreat, Sister Annabel (Chan Duc) will have a presentation about the Institute of Applied Buddhism, the various courses that we have, we are going to offer to the people in Europe, we shall have campus in America and also in Asia.

We deliver certificate of completion after a retreat, like 3 months retreat in Plum Village and in Deer Park, everyone who has completed successfully that 3 months retreat will be given a certificate of completion issued by European Institute of Applied Buddhism.

There are many interesting courses in the Institute, you might like to help to organize a course like that in your area, we will sent dharma teacher, like 21 days course for young man and woman who prepare to set up a family, they can learn many things to prepare themself,

There also will be courses for them who has been diagnose with AIDS or cancer, so that they can learn how to live with their sickness, if you know how to accept and live with your sickness then you can live 20 or 30 more years, so we will offer courses like that.

There were also courses for business people, school teacher and so on, I hope in this retreat we will have time for presentation made by Sister Chan Duc about European Institute of Applied Buddhism, we will also ask this Institute to deliver a certificate for those who are completed successfully this seven days retreat in Hanoi.

One day you might be inspire to become a dharma teacher, to go out and help people, this kind of certificate will help you to become an official dharma teacher, if one day you would like to be the continuation of the Buddha out there in society, and Engaged Buddhism now we are using the word Applied Buddhism it is also a kind of Engaged Buddhism also.