Creating Freshness and Beauty

Summary

The talk centers on a retreat teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh during a Body and Mind Hour session at Plum Village on 14 August 2012. The speaker emphasizes that freshness and beauty are already present in every person, including those who appear angry, violent, or emotionally closed. The practical task of the retreat is to learn how to bring these qualities out through mindful breathing, smiling, walking, and respectful presence. This is presented not as a theory but as a lived practice that can transform one’s own state and also help others rediscover their own inner Buddha nature. A major theme is the ritualized greeting used in Plum Village: joining the palms like a lotus flower, bowing with mindfulness, and silently offering respect to the person in front of oneself. The gesture is explained as a practice rather than a mere ritual. The practitioner is asked to breathe in mindfully, visualize the hands as a lotus, and mentally offer that flower to the other person with the understanding that the other person contains a Buddha-to-be. This same spirit extends to daily communication through telephone calls and email. The first mantra, “Darling, I am here for you,” is introduced as a way to offer one’s presence, but only after establishing calm, freshness, and beauty through mindful breathing. The second mantra, “Darling, I know you are there and I am very happy,” is presented as a way to recognize the precious presence of the loved one. The speaker insists that these mantras work immediately when practiced correctly and that they can be used in ordinary family life with parents, partners, and children. The talk then moves into the practice of loving speech and deep listening. The speaker recounts an example from a retreat in Oldenburg where a participant was able to call his father and speak with unexpected tenderness after several days of practice. This is used to illustrate how mindfulness can restore communication in families. Deep listening is described as compassionate listening in which the listener’s purpose is not to correct, debate, or defend, but to help the other person suffer less. The listener must maintain compassion throughout the exchange, even when hearing accusations, bitterness, or misinformation. The speaker also describes how this method was used with Palestinians and Israelis at Plum Village: first helping both groups calm down through breathing, walking, and contact with nature, then guiding them into deep listening and loving speech. By hearing each other’s suffering, each side could recognize the humanity of the other, reduce anger and fear, and begin reconciliation. The speaker suggests that the United Nations and UNESCO could benefit from organizing peace negotiations in a similar way, beginning with calming practices and structured compassionate listening before any negotiation begins. A second major section explores Buddhist philosophy, especially the notions of birth and death, being and non-being, coming and going, sameness and otherness. Using the example of a cloud, the speaker argues that nothing truly comes from nothing and nothing truly disappears into nothing. A cloud is shown to be a continuation of water vapor, heat, and other conditions; likewise, a human being is a continuation of parents, conditions, and ongoing energies such as thought, speech, and action. The first law of thermodynamics and the French phrase attributed to Lavoisier, “Nothing is created, nothing is lost,” are invoked to show agreement between science and Buddhism. From this perspective, birth and death are notions rather than ultimate realities. The same logic is extended to flowers, waves, and flames, each of which is made of non-self elements and cannot exist independently. The concept of interbeing is introduced to explain that nothing can be by itself alone; everything depends on everything else. This insight leads beyond the dualities of being and non-being, and the speaker argues that even God, if understood as ultimate reality, must transcend such dualistic categories. The final philosophical point is the Buddhist middle way, which transcends pairs of opposites. The speaker explains that a person is neither the same as nor entirely different from the five-year-old child they once were, and that a wave is free when it realizes it is also water. In this way, fear, suffering, anger, and discrimination are shown to arise from mistaken notions about reality. The talk concludes by returning to the practical and communal setting of the retreat, inviting the audience to continue with walking meditation and to return the next day for a question-and-answer session. Overall, the talk combines concrete mindfulness exercises, interpersonal healing practices, and deep Buddhist teachings on impermanence, interbeing, and reconciliation.