Be Free From Fear

Summary

The talk, delivered at Plum Village’s Full Moon Meditation Hall during the final week of an autumn retreat in November 2012, serves as a concluding teaching on the core themes practiced throughout the retreat. The speaker reviews the community’s shared learning: caring for the body and feelings, generating joy and happiness, embracing pain and suffering, seeing the suffering in others, listening compassionately, restoring communication, and cultivating reconciliation and peace. The retreat’s teachings are framed as practical expressions of mindfulness, especially through mindful breathing, the Five Mindfulness Trainings, and the insight of right view. A central theme is the nature of birth and death, presented through the image of a cloud becoming rain. The speaker explains that what appears to die is only continuing in another form. A cloud does not disappear; it becomes rain, river, ocean, and eventually water vapor again. In the same way, human beings do not cease to exist at death but continue through their actions, thoughts, speech, and bodily deeds. This is linked to the Buddhist understanding of interbeing and the three doors of liberation: emptiness, signlessness, and aimlessness. Signlessness is emphasized as a way of seeing beyond fixed appearances so that one can recognize continuity rather than loss. The speaker uses this teaching to address grief: when a loved one dies, one suffers because one is attached to a single form, but with the eyes of signlessness one can recognize the person’s continuation in new manifestations. The talk also connects Buddhist insight with science and Western thought. Antoine Lavoisier’s principle that nothing is created and nothing is lost is cited as a parallel to the Buddhist view of no birth and no death. The speaker also references Jean-Paul Sartre’s idea that a person is the sum of their actions, using it to reinforce the teaching that karma is continuation. The body and mind are described as interdependent, and the speaker argues that the notion of a separate self is mistaken when one sees the full cycle of input and output, transformation, and continuation. Another major section concerns karma and ethical practice. Karma is described as thought, speech, and action, with thoughts themselves already being actions that affect one’s body, mind, and the world. Right view is presented as the foundation for right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, and right diligence. The speaker explains that right view is gained through mindfulness and concentration, and that it frees practitioners from discrimination, fear, anger, and other wrong views based on being and non-being. The Noble Eightfold Path is presented as a concrete method for transforming suffering into happiness. The talk gives a detailed explanation of the mind as having a storehouse of seeds and a conscious upper level. Seeds of anger, fear, despair, mindfulness, compassion, hope, and loving kindness all exist within consciousness. Right diligence is described as the art of selective watering: practitioners should avoid watering negative seeds in themselves and others, and instead invite wholesome mental formations such as joy, compassion, and understanding to manifest. If anger has already arisen, mindfulness should be invited to recognize and embrace it, like a mother holding a crying baby. Compassion can also be used to transform anger by seeing the suffering in oneself and in the other person. The speaker encourages practitioners to make a “peace treaty” with partners and companions, promising not to trigger each other’s negative seeds and to help each other cultivate positive ones. The conclusion returns to the practical and communal dimension of the retreat. The speaker reminds the Sangha that happiness is not found in money, fame, or power, but in understanding and compassion. The community is invited to continue building a harmonious Sangha that can serve as a refuge for others. The talk ends with announcements about an ordination ceremony for sixteen young men and women, including four from the United States, and an invitation to a formal meal and ceremony. The overall message is that meditation, ethical conduct, and communal practice allow one to touch the reality of no birth and no death, live without fear, and help others do the same.