The Noblest Aspiration is to Help People Suffer Less

Summary

This talk presents a comprehensive teaching on mindfulness, community, and compassionate living, delivered in the context of a retreat at Deer Park Monastery’s Ocean of Peace Meditation Hall on October 13, 2013, during a retreat themed around finding one’s true home. The speaker begins with traditional chanting and refuge language centered on the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, emphasizing that the Sangha should breathe, listen, and chant as one body. This opening frames the central message: healing and liberation arise not from isolated individual effort, but from collective practice and shared energy. A major theme is mindful consumption. The speaker explains that people consume not only food, but also sense impressions, media, conversations, and mental states. Television, books, the internet, and daily interactions can carry toxins such as craving, anger, fear, and despair. Because of this, people must learn to consume in ways that protect compassion, health, and family life. The talk identifies volition, or deepest aspiration, as a crucial form of nourishment. Human beings are not meant merely to seek wealth, fame, power, or sensual pleasure; they need a meaningful purpose that sustains life and points toward service. The speaker encourages listeners to ask themselves and their loved ones what they truly want to do with their lives, and to support one another in realizing those dreams. The talk repeatedly returns to the problem of alienation. When people run after objects of craving, they become disconnected from themselves, their families, and nature. This alienation is presented as a root cause of suffering in modern civilization. The speaker argues that a new direction is needed: instead of producing goods that help people forget themselves, society should create conditions and technologies that help people return home to themselves, to their families, and to nature. The example of the “Now Watch” illustrates this idea. Rather than distracting users, it reminds them to return to the present moment, breathe, and release tension. The speaker also describes mindful walking, especially in urban settings like Hong Kong, as a way to connect with life, the teacher, and the present moment without relying on electronic devices. Another central topic is communication within families and communities. The speaker stresses that deep listening and loving speech are essential for reconciliation. He explains that many people suffer because they do not know how to handle their pain, and instead try to cover it with consumption or avoidance. This creates misunderstanding and conflict, especially between spouses, parents and children, and other close relationships. The practice of compassionate listening begins with listening to oneself and recognizing the wounded child within. Once one understands another person’s suffering, anger naturally dissolves and compassion arises. The speaker gives a concrete example of a retreat participant who reconciled with his father after practicing these teachings. Loving speech, especially in the form of acknowledging one’s own mistakes and expressing a desire to understand the other person’s suffering, is described as a powerful tool for healing. The talk also develops a Buddhist psychology of consciousness. The speaker distinguishes between store consciousness and mind consciousness, explaining that the store consciousness contains seeds of wholesome and unwholesome states. Good seeds include mindfulness, concentration, insight, loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and brotherhood; negative seeds include craving, anger, fear, despair, and discrimination. The practice of selective watering is introduced as a method for nurturing beneficial seeds while refraining from feeding harmful ones. If anger or fear arises, one can embrace it with mindfulness or invite the seed of compassion to manifest instead. The speaker compares this to changing a CD or replacing a wooden peg, emphasizing that transformation does not require violence or suppression. Instead, one should recognize, embrace, and redirect mental energy skillfully. The relationship between suffering and happiness is another major insight. The speaker rejects the idea of a perfect kingdom or heaven without suffering. Instead, he teaches interbeing: suffering and happiness depend on each other, like the left and right sides of a sheet of paper. Suffering can be transformed into understanding and compassion, just as mud gives rise to the lotus flower. The practitioner is not afraid of suffering because suffering, when understood, becomes the basis for wisdom and love. This teaching is extended to children, families, and communities, where the goal is not to eliminate all difficulty but to learn how to make good use of suffering in order to create happiness. The talk broadens from personal practice to institutional and social transformation. The speaker argues that teachers, psychotherapists, corporate leaders, public health institutions, and political leaders all need Sanghas—communities of practice that share a common vision and support one another. He cites examples from Plum Village, Hong Kong, Harvard University, the World Bank, and conversations with leaders such as Dr. Yeung, Mr. Kim, and references to Martin Luther King Jr. and President Obama. The message is that no leader can create lasting change alone. A healthy corporation, school, or government must function like a Sangha or beloved community, grounded in harmony, brotherhood, sisterhood, and a shared aspiration to reduce suffering. In conclusion, the talk presents mindfulness as a practical path for personal healing, family reconciliation, social responsibility, and civilizational renewal. It calls for communities and institutions to embody the change they wish to see by practicing mindful breathing, walking, listening, speaking, and consuming. The overarching vision is one of returning home—to oneself, to loved ones, to community, and to the Earth—through compassion, understanding, and collective practice.