Sitting is an Art

Summary

The talk is a reflective teaching on mindfulness, peace work, and the lived history behind the speaker’s anti-war activism. It begins with a recollection of October 7, 2012 at Stillwater Meditation Hall in Upper Hamlet during a Fall Retreat, then moves back to the Vietnam War era and the speaker’s efforts to oppose violence through nonviolent action, poetry, and social service. The speaker explains that many Vietnamese people did not want the war to continue, yet were trapped between foreign-backed ideological camps: Marxism-Leninism on one side and capitalism/anti-communism on the other. In that context, peace advocacy was dangerous, and the underground peace movement risked arrest, persecution, and assassination. The talk highlights several concrete expressions of that peace movement. The speaker describes writing anti-war poetry that could not be openly published, including the collection Let Us Join Our Palms and Pray, and a book calling for an end to hostilities, Lotus in a Sea of Fire. The speaker also recalls the School of Youth for Social Service, Van Hanh University, and related Buddhist institutions created to train young monks, nuns, and laypeople for reconstruction, refugee support, village rebuilding, health, education, and care for the wounded and orphaned. These efforts were grassroots and independent, because accepting government support would have meant aligning with one side of the conflict. The speaker notes that many social workers were kidnapped, killed, or disappeared while serving, and recounts a grenade attack on the school in which the speaker narrowly survived because of being away in the United States. A major theme is the relationship between spiritual practice and social action. The speaker explains that after being prevented from returning to Vietnam, exile in the West began, eventually leading to Paris and a peace delegation. In exile, the speaker relied on meditation to survive emotionally and continue serving. The talk emphasizes that peace work without spiritual practice can lead to burnout, despair, anger, and frustration. Meditation, especially sitting meditation, is presented not as hard labor but as an art of being. Sitting is described as a way to generate peace, harmony, joy, healing, and nourishment in the present moment rather than as a means to achieve something later. The speaker then gives a detailed teaching on mindful breathing, especially the first four exercises of the sixteen exercises of mindful breathing. The first exercise is to know that one is breathing in; the second is to follow the in-breath from beginning to end; the third is to be aware of the body; and the fourth is to calm and release tension in the body. These practices are framed as simple, immediate, and available in daily life, whether one is sitting, walking, washing dishes, driving, cooking, or drinking tea. The speaker repeatedly stresses that mindfulness should be pleasant and nourishing, not forced or painful. When practiced well, it brings freedom from being trapped in the past by regret or in the future by fear and anxiety. The talk also connects mindfulness to Buddhist psychology and metaphysics. The speaker explains the relationship between mindfulness, concentration, and insight using the Sanskrit terms smriti, samadhi, and prajna. Mindfulness allows one to be present; concentration stabilizes attention; insight or wisdom can then arise naturally. The speaker also uses the terms dharmakaya, suchness, and nirvana to describe ultimate reality, and compares them with the Christian phrase kingdom of God. The point is that ultimate reality is available in the here and now, not only after death. A flower, a cloud, a piece of bread, the body, and even suffering itself are all presented as wonders or manifestations of that reality. The well-known lotus-and-mud image is used to show that suffering can nourish happiness, just as mud nourishes the lotus. Another important thread is embodiment. The speaker insists that mind and body cannot be separated, and that many people lose contact with their bodies through distraction, work, or worry. Mindful breathing brings the mind home to the body, making one fully alive and present. The talk includes practical suggestions such as using a mindfulness bell on a computer, pausing every quarter hour, smiling in the mirror, relaxing the face and shoulders, and scanning the body with compassionate awareness. The body is described as a wonder and a mystery, a formation made of many conditions, deserving of care rather than contempt. The speaker also invokes Mother Earth as a source of healing and trust, especially in walking meditation, where each step can be a step of peace and reconciliation. The conclusion returns to the value of collective practice in the sangha. Practicing together creates a powerful shared energy of mindfulness that supports healing and transformation. The speaker’s overall message is that peace, freedom, and happiness are possible now, through simple but profound practices of breathing, walking, sitting, and living with awareness in everyday life.