Getting Back into Touch with Life

Summary

The talk centers on a Dharma teaching given at Plum Village on July 21, 2012, during the summer opening and the 30th anniversary of the community. The speaker greets the Sangha from the Lower Hamlet, in the Assembly of Stars Meditation Hall, and notes that the day also marks the beginning of Ramadan. A monastic brother, Muhammad Zaimudi, whose Dharma name is Sky of Great Concentration, is mentioned as fasting in solidarity with his Muslim tradition. This opening establishes the inclusive, interfaith spirit of the gathering and the communal life of Plum Village. A major theme of the teaching is mindfulness of suffering as the basis for compassion. The speaker explains that chanting is not merely devotional sound but a practice that generates the energy of compassion for healing and transformation. During chanting, practitioners are encouraged to return home to themselves, recognize suffering within, and listen deeply to fear, anger, despair, and other painful states. The teaching emphasizes that one’s own suffering contains the suffering of parents, ancestors, nation, and humanity, and that understanding one’s own pain makes it possible to understand the suffering of others. Compassion, once awakened, reduces suffering immediately and naturally leads to the wish to help rather than punish. The bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, also named Kuan Yin and Kuan The Am, is presented as the model of deep listening. The speaker describes a practice of chanting Avalokiteshvara’s name three times: first to touch one’s own suffering, second to recognize the suffering of those nearby, and third to become aware of suffering in the wider world. This progression expands compassion from the personal to the collective and global. The talk also critiques modern consumer culture, arguing that people often use food, television, music, the internet, and other forms of consumption to avoid facing inner emptiness, loneliness, anxiety, and despair. In contrast, the Buddha’s teaching invites practitioners to stop running away and instead meet suffering directly with mindfulness and tenderness. The speaker then turns to practical methods: mindful breathing, mindful walking, and stopping the thinking mind. Breathing in and out with awareness allows the body to relax, release tension, and reduce pain. The speaker repeatedly stresses that much of ordinary thinking is unproductive because it pulls people away from the present moment into regret about the past or fear about the future. Mindfulness brings body and mind together in the here and now, where true life is available. The talk presents the present moment as the “country” or “kingdom” of true life, the Pure Land of the Buddha, and even the Kingdom of God. These are not abstract destinations after death but realities accessible through one mindful breath or one mindful step. Walking meditation is described in detail as a way to arrive in the present moment with each step. The practitioner is invited to feel the contact between foot and earth, to walk as if kissing the earth, and to recognize that every step can be healing for both the person and Mother Earth. The speaker references the mudra of touching the earth, Bhumi Spaksha, and the phrase “I have arrived, I am home,” which expresses the realization that the present moment is one’s true home. The talk also highlights the importance of collective practice: when many people breathe, walk, and sit mindfully together, they generate a powerful energy of peace, joy, and healing that benefits the whole community, including children, family members, and even those who are sick or in the hospital. Another important section explains the relationship between mindfulness, concentration, and insight. These three energies are described as the basis of true happiness, not wealth, fame, power, or sensual pleasure. The speaker cites the Buddha’s teaching from the Anguttara Nikaya that an untrained mind brings suffering, while a cultivated mind brings happiness. The Pali term Bhavana is explained as cultivation of the mind, like tending a field where seeds of peace, joy, understanding, and compassion can grow. The talk also introduces the idea of the Dharma body, Buddha body, and Sangha body. The Dharma body is one’s stable practice; the Buddha body is the seed of awakening within; and the Sangha body is the community of practice that supports and protects individual practitioners. The speaker emphasizes that the living Dharma is not just scripture or doctrine, but the embodied presence of mindfulness, concentration, and insight in the way a person walks, sits, listens, and lives. The talk concludes by stressing refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as lived practice rather than belief. The speaker encourages building Sanghas in local communities and mentions efforts to bring mindfulness into schools, including teacher training in Bhutan and other countries. The overall message is that peace, joy, compassion, and freedom are available now through simple but profound practices of breathing, walking, listening, and cultivating the mind together in community.