Happiness is Found in the Present Moment

Summary

The talk is a Dharma teaching centered on mindfulness as a lived, immediate practice that transforms ordinary activities into expressions of awakening. Delivered during a winter retreat at the Lower Hamlet in 2006, the speaker begins with reflections on walking between the Upper Hamlet and the temple through pine groves and green grass, using the landscape to illustrate the joy of being fully present. The speaker contrasts this with earlier years as a novice and young Dharma teacher, when practical duties and ambitions prevented appreciation of each step. The message is that mindful walking is not a future goal but a present possibility available to anyone. A major theme is the healing power of brotherhood and sisterhood in the Sangha. The speaker recounts a retreat in the ancient capital with hundreds of monastics, including many young monks and nuns who were born during the speaker’s absence from the country. That gathering, along with the first recitation of the precepts after years of division, is presented as a profound moment of reconciliation. The speaker emphasizes that community harmony is more precious than political slogans about independence and freedom, because without brotherhood and sisterhood, no meaningful collective life is possible. The retreat theme of building brotherhood and sisterhood is therefore linked to healing historical division within the Buddhist community. The talk also describes developments in Hue, where two communities—one for monks and one for nuns—practice in a style modeled on Plum Village. The speaker highlights three innovations that have met resistance in this conservative city: using Vietnamese rather than classical Chinese in study and chanting, practicing as a fourfold Sangha with laypeople and monastics together, and promoting gender equality. These changes are presented as part of the future of Buddhism, requiring patience, love, and time to be accepted. The speaker notes that the Day of Mindfulness has attracted many young and educated participants, suggesting that the practice is resonating widely despite conservative objections. Mindfulness is explained as a mental formation and a kind of energy that, when activated, changes the practitioner’s relationship to everything: feet become “the Buddha’s feet,” the eyes become “the Buddha’s eyes,” and ordinary actions become sacred. The speaker insists that one does not need more ordination, more study, or more years of practice to walk like a Buddha; one only needs to touch the seed of mindfulness already present. The talk repeatedly rejects the idea that practice must be forced through effort. Instead, the speaker argues that genuine practice arises from desire, inspiration, and enjoyment. Teachers should model mindful walking rather than scolding students, because inspiration is more effective than pressure. Eating is given equal importance to walking meditation. The speaker describes eating as a deep practice that connects the practitioner to the Sangha, to the food, and to one’s ancestors. By eating with the “mouth” of one’s mother or father, a person can feel continuity with family lineage and gratitude for inherited habits and tastes. The speaker asks for more time at meals so that eating can become a relaxed, communal practice rather than a rushed necessity. The talk explains that mindful eating reveals interdependence: a carrot, an apple, or any meal contains the whole cosmos of causes and conditions. Eating mindfully can lead to insight, compassion, and even enlightenment. The speaker broadens the teaching by describing mindfulness as a holy energy comparable to the Holy Spirit, one that makes the practitioner alive and sacred without needing titles or status. The Buddha is portrayed as continuing through mindful practitioners who make the Earth itself a Buddhafield. The talk concludes by urging listeners to receive the Dharma fully, with gratitude and wholeheartedness, and to recognize that joy, love, peace, and healing are available now in ordinary life through mindful walking, sitting, and eating.