Parallax Press

  P.O. Box 7355

  Berkeley, California 94707

  parallax.org

  Parallax Press is the publishing division of the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, Inc.

  © 2020 Plum Village Community of Engaged

  Buddhism, Inc.

  All rights reserved

  Ebook design adapted from print design by Debbie Berne

  Illustrations by Jason DeAntonis

  The material in this book comes from previously published books and articles by Thich Nhat Hanh.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  Ebook ISBN 9781946764553

  a_prh_5.5.0_c0_r1

  CONTENTS

  Notes on Connecting

  Practices for Connecting

  NOTES ON CONNECTING WITH OURSELVES, EACH OTHER, AND NATURE

  We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness.

  Mindfulness is a healing balm that can put an end to our sense of alienation. It is a nonjudgmental awareness of whatever is happening inside us and around us.

  When we bring all our attention to truly connect to whatever we’re doing—whether we’re walking, breathing, brushing our teeth, or eating a meal—it takes us back to being present in the here and now, which is the foundation of happiness.

  When I am mindful, I enjoy everything more, from my first sip of tea to my first step outside. I am here, available to life. And life is available to me.

  Practicing mindful breathing and mindful walking, we can connect with the wonders of our body, the wonders of the Earth, and with the whole cosmos.

  THE ENERGY OF MINDFULNESS

  The energy of mindfulness helps give us the stability we need to recognize and embrace our difficult emotions and not let ourselves be overwhelmed by them. We can be in touch with the wonders of life around us and the generosity of Mother Earth, and we can recognize the many conditions for our happiness that already exist.

  AWARENESS OF BREATHING

  In daily life, we often forget that mind and body are connected. Our body is here, but our mind is somewhere else. We easily get caught up in our work, our plans, our anxieties, our dreams, and we aren’t living in our body anymore. Today we are living more and more in our mind and becoming increasingly alienated from the natural world. Our breath is the bridge connecting our body and our mind. Returning to our breathing, and following it all the way through from the beginning to the end with awareness, brings body and mind back together, and reminds us of the miracle of the present moment. Awareness of our in-breath and our out-breath calms us down and brings peace back to our body.

  SEEING CLEARLY

  The practice of harmonizing body and mind brings clarity, which helps remove wrong perceptions. When we feel overwhelmed, confused, or unable to think clearly, we don’t perceive things as they are, and our words and actions can create suffering and separation for ourselves and others. When we cultivate peace inside us, we begin to see things as they really are. When we’re able to see clearly, understanding and compassion arise, and anger and jealousy fade away. We accept ourselves as we are, we accept others as they are, and we can look at ourselves and others with the eyes of compassion.

  ENJOYING SITTING

  Allow yourself to sit quietly, with mindfulness and concentration. Allow your breath to follow its natural rhythm. Enjoy your in-breath and out-breath. Don’t strive; relaxation will come. When you are completely relaxed, healing takes place on its own. As we sit, we may become aware that outside, up in the sky, there are so many stars. We may not be able to see them, but they are there nevertheless. We are sitting on an amazingly beautiful planet, which is revolving in our galaxy, the Milky Way, a river with trillions of stars. If we can have this awareness when we sit, what else do we need to sit for? We clearly see the wonders of the universe and our planet Earth. Sitting with this kind of awareness, we can embrace the whole world, from the past to the future, and our happiness is boundless.

  COMING HOME TO OURSELVES

  In daily life, we are often carried away by our feelings, perceptions, and thoughts. We are seldom free. We’re like a leaf floating on the ocean, with the waves tossing us to and fro. We don’t have sovereignty over ourselves or our situation. It is so important to be able to come home to ourselves and to cease being the victim of our circumstances. Coming back to ourself with our in-breath and out-breath is the basic practice of peace.

  FINDING SOLID GROUND

  In our society, countless people suffer from loneliness. We try to cover up our feelings of emptiness by consuming things or by constantly trying to connect with others. Technology supplies us with many devices for staying connected, yet we continue to feel lonely. We might spend the whole day trying to connect—checking email many times, sending texts, posting messages, watching videos—without reducing the amount of loneliness inside. All of us are looking for our solid ground, our true home, a place where we feel safe, comfortable, fulfilled, no longer lonely. But where is home? The Buddha said that home is inside us, that there is a peaceful island within that we can go back to with mindful breathing or mindful walking. You can visualize a beautiful island, with trees, clear streams of water, birds, sunshine, and fresh air. One breath, one step is all we need to feel at home and comfortable in the here and now. When we come back to ourselves like this and take refuge in our inner island, we become a home for ourselves and a refuge for others at the same time.

  THE HEART OF PRACTICE

  Practicing meditation in our society is very difficult. Everything seems to work in concert to try to take us away from our true self, and we have access to a multitude of things, like the Internet, video games, and music, that help to take us away. Meditation is an opportunity to come back to ourselves, to allow ourselves to take care of our body and our mind, to be aware, to smile, to breathe—not doing anything, just going back to ourselves to see what is going on inside and around us. First we allow ourselves time to release the tension in our body and our mind. Then we can take time to look deeply into ourselves and into the situation we are in.

  BRINGING MEDITATION INTO DAILY LIFE

  How can we bring meditation out of the meditation hall and into the kitchen and the office? How can we practice in a way that removes the barrier between practice and non-practice? I have a friend who follows her breathing mindfully between phone calls, and it helps her. Another friend does walking meditation between business appointments, walking mindfully between buildings in downtown Denver, and as a result his meetings are often pleasant and successful. We can bring the practice from the meditation hall into our daily lives. Meditation becomes the matter of everyday life.

  CONNECTING PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

  Mindfulness means to establish yourself in the present moment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look into and learn from the past or plan for the future. When we bring past events to the present moment and make them the object of our mindfulness, it teaches us a lot. When we were part of those events, we could not see them as clearly as we do now. With the practice of mindfulness, we have new eyes, and we can learn many things from the past. If you are really grounded in the present moment and the future becomes the object of your mindfulness, you can look deeply at the future to see what you can do in the present moment for such a future to become possible. The best way of taking care of the future is to take care of the present, because the future is made of the present.

  TRUE COMMUNICATION

  Nowadays we have many means of communication, like smartphones, computers, and television, but communication has become very difficult between partners, father and son, and mother and daughter. Having many electronic devices doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of our communication. If we are unable to be in touch with ourselves, to understand ourselves, to know the cause of our suffering, fear, and anger, then we’re not in communication with ourselves. If we can’t communicate with ourselves, how can we communicate with another person? Coming back to ourselves, we get in touch with our body, feelings, perceptions, and our suffering, and we develop our capacity to listen to ourselves and then to be able to listen to others.

  WALKING ON COUNTRY PATHS

  I like to walk alone on country paths—rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I am walking on the wondrous Earth. In such moments, existence becomes a miraculous and mysterious reality.

  THE REAL MIRACLE IS TO WALK ON THE EARTH

  People usually consider walking on water or in thin air to be a miracle. But I think the real miracle is to walk on the Earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle, which we don’t even recognize: the blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

  MINDFUL WALKING

  Walking mindfully is an art. When we are truly present with our steps and our breath, our mind calms and we feel peaceful. In this state we can have many insights; we see things more clearly. Suddenly our problems do not seem so bad, our suffering less intense, and we begin to notice the wonders of life all around us—the beautiful trees and flowers, the sound of the birds.

  TOUCHING ONE THING DEEPLY, WE TOUCH EVERYTHING

  Standing on the ground in our Plum Village practice center, I am aware that I am standing on French soil. I am also aware that France is linked to the rest of Eurasia. This kind of awareness transforms t he spot you are standing on to include the whole Earth. When you practice walking meditation and you realize you are making steps on the beautiful planet Earth, you are liberated from narrow views and boundaries. With each step, you touch the whole Earth, and with this awareness, you liberate yourself from many afflictions and wrong views. When you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.

  INTERBEING

  “Interbeing” means that nothing can be by itself alone, but can only inter-be with everything else. Suppose we look at a rose deeply, with mindfulness and concentration. Before long, we will discover that a rose is made of only non-rose elements. What do we see in the rose? We see the cloud, the rain, the sunshine, the soil, the minerals, the gardener. If we were to remove the non-rose elements, there would be no rose left. A rose cannot be by herself alone. A rose has to inter-be with the whole cosmos. We can live our daily life seeing everything in the light of interbeing. Then we will not be caught in our small self. We will see our connection, our joy, and our suffering everywhere.

  WE INTER-ARE

  When we look at the Earth and at ourselves, we see that human beings are made only of non-human elements. Looking into our body, we see minerals, animals, plants, and other elements. We can see the whole evolution of life and of the human species. If we were to remove the non-human elements, human beings would disappear. So, to protect humanity, we must protect the non-human elements.

  THE ONE CONTAINS THE ALL

  The present contains the past and the future. When I look deeply into the present, I can touch the past and the future. My ancestors continue in me and are present in every cell of my body. I can be in touch with all my descendants because the future generations are already present in me. Every mindful step made with solidity, peace, and freedom nourishes me, my ancestors in me, and countless generations of descendants waiting to manifest. We practice mindfulness and keep our body and consciousness healthy, not only for ourselves, but for our ancestors, our parents, future generations, society, and the world.

  NONSELF

  Meditation practice helps us to see the interconnection and interdependence of everything that is. There is no phenomenon, human or otherwise, that can arise on its own and endure independently. This relies on that; one thing relies on another in order to arise and endure. This is the insight of interbeing, of nonself, which simply means that there is no separate, permanent entity, including ourselves; we also inter-are.

  LISTENING TO THE BELL

  When I was a young monk in Vietnam, each village temple had a big bell, like those in churches in Europe. Whenever the bell was invited to sound, all the villagers would stop what they were doing and pause for a few moments to breathe in and out in mindfulness. At Plum Village, my community in France, we do the same. We have many bells throughout the day—bells in the meditation hall and bells that call us to activities—and every time we hear a bell, we go back to ourselves and enjoy our breathing. When we breathe in, we say, silently, “Listen, listen,” and when we breathe out, we say, “This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home.” Our true home is in the present moment.

  STOPPING FOR A RED LIGHT

  When we see a red light or stop sign, we can smile and say thank you, because it’s helping us reconnect with ourselves and the present moment. The red light is a bell of mindfulness. We may have thought it was preventing us from reaching our destination more quickly. But now we know the red light is our friend, helping us to resist rushing and calling us to return to the present moment, where we can meet with life and peace. The next time you are caught in traffic, don’t fight. If you sit back and smile to yourself, you will enjoy the present moment and make everyone in the car relaxed and happy.

  BELLS OF MINDFULNESS

  Over time, we can identify our own “bells of mindfulness”—a sound or a repeated daily action that reminds us to return to our conscious breathing. It might be a stop sign, the first three rings of the telephone, climbing up or down a flight of stairs, opening and closing the door, or walking up the path to your front door at home. You can also download a bell of mindfulness to sound on your computer at work. We can use all of these as opportunities to remind ourselves to pause and come back to our body and to the present moment.

  RETURNING TO YOUR HERMITAGE

  One sunny morning following a rainstorm, I decided to spend the day in the woods near my hermitage. Before setting out, I opened all the windows and doors, so the sun could dry things out. But in the afternoon, the weather changed. The wind blew, and dark clouds gathered. Remembering I had left everything open, I returned home right away. When I arrived, my hermitage was in a terrible condition. It was cold and dark inside, and my papers were scattered all over the floor. First, I closed all the windows and doors. Then I lit a lamp and made a fire in the fireplace. And finally, I picked up the papers from the floor, put them on the table, and weighted them down with a stone.

  Now there was light and warmth. I sat by the fire and listened to the wind. I was aware of my in-breath and out-breath and I felt very content. There are moments in our daily life when we feel miserable, empty, and cold, and it seems everything is going wrong. We think, “This is not my day.” That’s exactly how my hermitage was that day. The best thing to do at such times is to go back to yourself, to your island within, to your hermitage, close the windows and doors, light a lamp, and make a fire. This means you have come to a stop and are no longer busy running around, thinking, or talking. You’ve gone back to yourself, back to your hermitage, and become one with your breathing.

  OUR HERMITAGE IS WITHIN

  Each of us has a hermitage to go to inside—a place to take refuge in and breathe. This doesn’t mean we’re cutting ourselves off from the world. It means we’re getting more in touch with ourselves. Breathing is a good way of doing this. We begin by noticing our in-breath and out-breath. With the in-breath, we can say, “Breathing in, I am in the present moment,” and with the out-breath, “Breathing out, this is a wonderful moment.” As we repeat this, we can simply use the words “present moment” for the in-breath, and “wonderful moment” for the out-breath. Breathing mindfully will make our hermitage a lot more comfortable. When our hermitage inside is comfortable and peaceful, then our contact with the world outside of us will become more pleasant.

  THE TELEPHONE

  Our phone is such a convenient means of communication. It saves us travel time and expense and it connects us with each other. But our phone can also tyrannize us. If we spend time on our phone without awareness, we waste precious time and energy; we lose ourselves, and we can’t accomplish much. Many of us are victims of our own phone.

  When your phone rings, you can practice mindful breathing and come back to yourself before answering. Remember, you are your own master. Say to yourself:

  Breathing in, I calm my body.

  Breathing out, I smile.

  Before making a call or text, we can practice mindful breathing and recite this verse:

  Words can travel thousands of miles.

  May my words create mutual

  understanding and love.

  May they be as beautiful as gems,

 

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