![[Full] Transforming the Fears Inside (Feb 04, 1993) (EN subtitled) #thichnhathanh](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b_7ml718U5M/0.jpg)
Original Vietnamese title: “Cái sợ quanh ta – Pháp thoại Sư Ông Làng Mai 4/2/1993” (German transcript)
Originally posted by: TCT Phượng Trần (Sakura-Lotus Sangha), https://youtu.be/-e05v-35F3Y. You can also find this original Vietnamese talk, which is the 20th episode of the 1992-1993 Manifestation-Only Psychology Teachings series, on the Thich Nhat Hanh’s Library website (available only in Vietnamese): https://thuvien-thichnhathanh.org/phap_thoai/duy-bieu-hoc/, or this viewable Google Drive link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PIr-BuhOyjhpZbZ2W5XVt-xrEPCdS6jf/view.
Talk given: February 04, 1993, Upper Hamlet, Plum Village France
Length: 1 hour 17 minutes 19 seconds
Video’s note:
This is a full Dharma talk on the Five Remembrances given by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh on February 04, 1993 in the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village France.
Transcript
Live our life whole: The surface and the depth of our being
Today is February 04, 1993. We’re in the Upper Hamlet, and we continue learning the 50 Verses on the Nature of Consciousness.
In this morning’s Dharma talk, we’ve gone briefly into fears. Because all of us have fears within. And those fears are stealthily controlling our behaviors, our thoughts, and our language — without us knowing. In the being of us humans, there’s depth and there’s surface. Let us train ourselves to live the depth of our being also. Instead of living the surface only.
Going about our daily life, perhaps we’re dealing with people or with things, or getting our work done using only the surface of our being. And sometimes we think we’re only that surface. Fact is, we’re much deeper than that. And studying and training ourselves in mindfulness means practicing living the depth of our being. The surface of ours has been pushed around by the depth of our being. We easily react. Constantly on the verge of tears and laughter. We do this, we do that. We talk about this, we talk about that.
We think that we have freedom while behaving that way; while dealing with others that way; while talking, working, or thinking that way. But fact is, we’re being pushed around by elements lying deep in the depth of our being. So, sometimes we’ve done things in a certain way but we don’t know why we’ve done it that way. We’ve thought in a certain way but we don’t know why we’ve thought that way. We’ve spoken in a certain way but we don’t know why we’ve spoken that way.
So, between the two persons of ours — the deep person and the shallow person, there is a gap. And the gap between these two persons — the deep one and the shallow one, is increasingly widening. Until one day, we find that we cannot reconcile ourselves with life, and we cannot reconcile ourselves with ourselves, either. We’ve become a strange guest to ourselves. And we’ve also become a strange guest to life.
In Vietnam, people say there’s a kind of ghost called “ma hời.” At midnight, that ghost leaves half of itself laying well asleep on bed. The other half goes eat somewhere, feeding at night. Wondering if you’ve ever heard about this before. We ourselves are doing the same. But we don’t do this at midnight. We do this during the day. During the daytime, we leave the depth — the lower half, of our being. We only take the other, upper half with us going about our daily life. Meeting this person, that person. Dealing with this matter, that matter. Thinking. Speaking. Reacting. For that reason, our life is not deep. Because we’ve only lived half of it — or even less than half.
For that reason, practicing means to connect these two halves of ourselves together. Whenever we speak, think, or do something, we should be aware of in which parts in the depth of our being do all these speaking, thinking, and doing have their roots. Those deep-lying parts are inextricably linked to the universe and to our blood ancestors.
Perhaps in the present moment, we think we’re not feeling sad, scared, or angry. Because all the sadness, fear, and anger are lying deep down but we’re only living the upper half. So, at that moment we think we’re not sad, angry, or scared. However, the fact is, that sadness, that anger, that fear, is in us. And they are stealthily manipulating us. They’re controlling us indirectly. So these are called internal knots. Samyojana. “Triền sử” in Vietnamese. The fetters that bind us and push us around.
When we practice living this way, we’ll be more cautious. We’ll be more introverted. We’ll be looking inwardly more deeply. Why do we speak that way? Why do we feel so sad like that? Why do we think that way? Because there are seeds, because there are internal knots, because there are habitual energies, or customs lying in the depth of our being. They lead us to act like that, speak like that, and think like that. Practicing without being able to do this will not lead to any transformations. For that reason, we have to sew or stitch these two parts of ours together.
And do not fear while doing this. Because sometimes we’re afraid of ourselves, we don’t want to come back to this depth, this lower part within us. Because in this depth are many wild, deserted areas that we’re so afraid of. Once we have already established a normal tie between the two parts, that’s when we establish a harmonious atmosphere. We feel there’s a circulation in our veins — ‘veins’ here means our spiritual veins. At that moment, we feel less ill because the dividing of our being into halves like this causes a lot of illnesses.
***
We must have encountered someone who’s speaking and laughing all day, as if they’re a very happy person. And we ask, “Why don’t you stop a little bit to catch your breath, dear brother?” “Why don’t you stop a little bit to catch your breath, dear sister?” “Why speak and laugh all day like that?” This is how that person responds. “If I stop, I feel dead.” “If I stop speaking and laughing, I feel dead.”
It’s because in that person, there’s a huge void. And that person has to do everything they can to cover up this void — be it with sounds, with thinking, or speaking and laughing. Otherwise, having to return to this huge void inside, for that person, is too much to bear. But this huge void lies deep down below, in the depth of their being. They just want to cut out this upper part, and fill up this upper part. So, for these people, going back to themselves is something excruciating. And they definitely don’t want to go back.
They don’t like listening to the bells. They don’t like walking meditation. They don’t like sitting meditation, either. Because doing all of that, they’re forced to go back to this depth of their being. For someone who speaks and laughs all day as if they were a very happy person, we can see in that person a kind of illness — negligence. Which means, they’re being divided up by themselves. These people need a sangha and the practice in order to come back to themselves and to connect these two parts of theirs together.
If we’re following the Buddha’s teachings really carefully, we’ll see this is what the Buddha taught us to do. The Buddha said, “O bhikkhus, this is the foot of a tree. Sit down there. This is an empty, quiet room. Sit down in there. This is a deserted walking path. Take this path.” We don’t need much. We just need the foot of a tree; an empty, quiet room; or a deserted walking path in order to come back to this depth of ours.
But if we are always afraid, and all day every day, we want to be in crowds, encountering people, it means we’re constantly running away. Not wanting to come back. That’s what the Buddha said in the sutra, “This is the foot of a tree. This is an empty, quiet room. This is a deserted walking path. Come back to yourselves. Practice.” We don’t need grand temples or big statues to do this.
So, our sadness, our fears, our anger, and our worries and anxieties are lying deep in the depth, the lower part, of our being which we never want to be in touch with, so we behave like ‘ma hời’ ghosts, abandoning one part, and taking only the upper part with us going about our daily life. And that’s not the solution. It’s running away.
That’s why we should do everything we can to come back, and to connect these halves together. Wherever we go, we bring this depth with us. Wherever we sit, we sit with this depth. One day, we’ll see the results for ourselves. Which is, when we look at someone, listen to them talking, see the way they think, or see the way they’re dealing with things, we can see the ‘deep person’ within that person.
Once we’ve seen this ‘deep person’ in them, we’ll get to see why they speak that way, act that way, or think that way. Once we’ve understood them, it’ll be easier to accept them. It’ll be easier to love them, to have compassion for them. If we only see the upper part of that person — their ‘shallow person’, we’ll get upset, we’ll get angry, we’ll want to criticize them in every way possible. We cannot see that all that they’ve spoken, done, or thought have their roots in the depth, the lower part, from which they’ve been well separated.
***
In one sutra, the Buddha taught five things called “The Five Remembrances” which help us get in touch with our own fears. The fears that lie deep in the depth of our consciousness. Obviously, the Buddha also taught us to touch our sadness, anger, and worries and anxieties. But these Five Remembrances are solely about fears because the Buddha knew fear is a very important field of energy that lies deep in the depth of our consciousness.
Even if we’re speaking or laughing as if nothing serious is going on, fears have always laid deep within. Perhaps we think we’re not afraid of anything. But deep down inside, in the depth of our being, there’s fear — and that fear may be very great. Even if we’ve practiced mindfulness just a little bit, we can already see that fears manifest.
In our daily life, we’re usually afraid that others will have a negative image about us. We want to present ourselves as someone whose image is not ugly in others’ minds. We’re often afraid others will have an ugly image about us.
When we wear make-up, or put on our clothes, it’s when we’re being controlled by that fear in a stealthy way. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, brush our hair, put on our shirt, or put on our shoes, we may think all of these things are very simple things that everybody does. But perhaps these things are controlled by fear. The fear that others will have an ugly image about us. An ugly image about our shape. Our body. And we’re afraid others will have an ugly image about the contents of our mind.
What we’re most afraid of is that others will hold erroneous views about us. I’m this wholesome, good, and loveable. But they think that I’m bad, I’m hate-worthy, or that I’m stingy. And this fear… We think it doesn’t exist. But it does.
We’re afraid that others hate us. Everybody wants to be loved. No one wants to be hated. And many times nobody hates us, but we still believe someone’s hating us. It’s because this fear of being hated is in us. We have many fears.
Those fears may be there for a reason. Or those fears may be there for no reason at all. Probably we just imagine and we’re afraid. So meditating on fears is to see whether there’s any reason behind them, or not. And then, look deeply into their nature to see what elements these fears are made up of.
Sometimes we’re afraid the other person feels resentful towards us, hating us, or wanting to destroy us. Or that they don’t want to see us. Or they want to cut us out of their life. Or they want us to leave this place forever. That they don’t want us to be here. These fears are probably there in us.
If we are loved, we’re afraid one day the other person will stop loving us. Probably they hear rumors about us from someone and stop loving us. If we’re not being loved, we fear that for the rest of our life, we’ll never be loved. All kinds of fears. We’re afraid of being lonely. We’re very afraid of being lonely.
As an old person, it’s understandable we’re afraid of being lonely. But as a young person, we’re also afraid of being lonely. We’re afraid of being left unattended to. Unaccompanied. “Please don’t leave me alone.” (translator’s note: a song by Vietnamese songwriter Pham Duy)
Then, we’re afraid of hunger, cold, and not having a place to live. Afraid of being a hungry ghost wandering from place to place, living in exile. The seed of a hungry ghost is in us. We’re afraid of hungry ghosts, but sometimes we want to become one. There are seeds that contradict one another like that. Afraid of being unattended to, afraid of wandering like a hungry ghost, but at times we want to become a hungry ghost to wander places until we’ve had our fill.
Perhaps the economic situation is difficult. There may be récessions (recessions). There may be crises économiques (economic crises). In Russia, people are afraid for the economic situation. In Czecho-Slovakia and in Poland, people are afraid for the economic situation. But in France people are also afraid for the economic situation. So are people in the UK. And the fear for the economic situation is a kind of fear that is ubiquitous. Every country has that fear.
We’re afraid we can never find a job. We’re afraid the job we’re having now tomorrow we will lose it. Afraid of hunger, cold, not having a place to live. Afraid of being ill. Afraid of being mentally-ill. Afraid of contracting HIV/AIDS, or cancer. Afraid of having a cold, or having the flu… We’re afraid of all kinds of illnesses.
***
We’re particularly afraid of getting sick as we age, having no one looking after us. Now when we’re still young, there’s still somebody looking after us because we can still take care of them. But as we grow older, when we aren’t of much help to anyone, no one will help us. We’re afraid of things like that. Afraid that when we’re advanced in years, we have no source of solace, or have no one who loves us. Afraid of losing our loved ones. Afraid of losing our source of solace.
When we’re old, we become ugly and powerless. We have to have someone taking care of us. We’re so used to taking care of ourselves, needing no one looking after us. But we’re not young forever. And so, although we may be good on our own now, what will happen when we’re in our old age? When we age, we aren’t of much help to anyone, will they reject, ignore, or spurn us?
We’re afraid of impermanence. We feel very insecure. Even though everything seems, for now, to be running very smoothly, nobody can tell if tomorrow something very unexpected will happen. Or if all the favorable conditions we’re enjoying today will disappear tomorrow. We’re afraid of death. Because ‘fear of death’ is a very big seed and internal knot in everyone. Even though we have the faintest idea what death really is. And we’re afraid we have to let go of or be separated from all the things or the people that we cherish today, and the things that we’re fond of or love today.
Today, it must be that we’re attaching ourselves to certain things. If we happen to remain grounded, it’s because of our clinging on to these things. But what will happen tomorrow? Perhaps tomorrow we’ll lose them all. And it turns out, we’re afraid of being lonely, of being… completely empty-handed.
As far as the material aspect is concerned, it’s not quite important. But as far as the spiritual aspect is concerned, being empty-handed, having no one to care about us, look after us, or have compassion for us, not being able to bring anything with us feels utterly lonely and isolated.
War is also an object of fear. And many people among us are suffering because of war. The wars in the past have already inflicted enough suffering on us. But the wars currently going on… We… Many of us… have lived the life of a refugee. But no one can really tell if tomorrow we’ll become refugees again. Because in the world right now, there are many, many refugees.
Meditating on the Five Remembrances
Basically, the energy of fear is tremendous in us. But because this energy doesn’t make us peaceful and happy, we tend to avoid it and we don’t want to have anything to do with this energy. This energy is lying deep down in the lower part, in the depth, of our being. For that reason, the Buddha taught us to practice The Five Remembrances so that we can come back to ourselves and familiarize ourselves with these fears. Familiarize ourselves with them. Then meditate on them.
The Buddha didn’t list off all the fears a person can have, but the Buddha did mention five of them. As a monastic, on a daily basis we should come back to this depth of our being and greet our fears.
The first remembrance
The first one is, “I am of the nature to grow old, I cannot escape the fact that I will grow old.” “I am of the nature to grow old, I cannot escape old age.”
This is a reality. Not pleasant at all. But we have to learn to touch it. So, whether we are twenty or forty, we should learn to touch this reality. Because whether we’re twenty or forty, we all have this fear in ourselves. And we should not run away from it. Running away is literally a solution everybody adopts. And because we run away — not only from our fears but also from many other things, we have wandered, and become a ‘ma hời’ ghost. For that reason, we should never run away.
The Buddha has already offered us the solutions. We should see that, tomorrow we will age. Learn to accept this reality. When we can touch this fear of old age in us, we get to meditate on it, we get to look deeply into it, to see its true nature, and to smile to it. And while doing all of this, the energy of fear will be worked off. Its nature will be transformed.
Meditating on the process of aging in ourselves — and that in others, is very important. It allows us to have peace of mind, to be free. We should learn to accept it bit by bit. For that reason, we should learn to age. Learn to age very happily and very peacefully. The art of being a paternal grandpa. The art of being a maternal grandma. These should be learned, because a paternal grandpa or a maternal grandma is probably happier than those who are still young.
There are those who can only learn to live happily when they are in their old age. In the flower of their youth, they suffered chasing rainbows. They ran like a weaving shuttle and they had never gotten to taste the flavor of happiness. Old age is peaceful, insightful, and happy. If we practice, we’ll see fears can’t squash us anymore.
The second remembrance
The second remembrance is, “I am of the nature to have ill health. I cannot escape ill health.” “I am of the nature to be sick. I cannot escape sickness.”
Where there’s a body, there are illnesses. What illnesses? We don’t know yet. There’s one thing we’re quite sure about is if we live a decent life, there’ll be less illnesses. Everybody gets sick. And as people grow older, they have certain ailments and illnesses. Old age diseases. So do we. Why do we have to be too concerned about it?
If we practice, when those diseases come, we’ll be able to better cope with them. There are those who died in great peace. Yet there are those who died in great pain. The difference is we didn’t learn and train ourselves. If we can learn to age, we can learn to get sick. Having the same disease, but one person goes through it in great pain, but another person goes through it in much less pain. It’s all down to our ability, down to our way of passing it by.
The third remembrance
The third remembrance is, “I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape death.” “I am of the nature to die. I cannot escape dying.”
Contemplating the nine stages of a decomposing corpse is a very important meditation practice. Practice dying. Don’t wait till we die to practice dying. Let us train ourselves to die in every moment. The more diligently we train ourselves to die, the more alive and flower-fresh we become. Very odd and miraculous! But if we don’t die, we can’t live.
We should train ourselves to die every day. It’s thanks to this training of dying — first of all, our awareness of our own death, that we can truly live. Until one day, we’ll realize death’s really not that serious — it’s just a doorway through which we pass, and that death cannot touch us. We are not too afraid of death, we have nothing to fear, when we have the insight of no birth and no death.
But first, we have to learn to accept it. However, death, first of all, is our idea about death. The same with old age and sickness. It is, first of all, our ideas about old age and sickness. It is these ideas that kill us. Not that old age, sickness, and death kill us. There are deaths peaceful like a dream. Very pleasant. Very liberating. But we’ve been afraid of it for sixty, seventy years in an entirely useless way.
The fourth remembrance
The fourth remembrance is, “Everyone that I love today and all that is dear to me today, one day, I will have to let them all go.”
This is the fourth thing the Buddha taught us to meditate on. This is the fear of loneliness. It’s not really the matter of being afraid of losing one’s house, one’s car, one’s refrigerator, one’s housekeeper, one’s partner, one’s children, older siblings, or younger siblings. But it’s the fear of loneliness.
Fear of becoming a lonesome wayfarer. Completely forlorn. Not having even a meter of land. Not even down to the simplest instrument that protects. Or one that safeguards. Absolutely unaccompanied. Even our beloveds. Those who vowed to live together and die together with us; ‘Till death do us part’. Fact is, no one can go with us. It means, we should look deeply, we should recognize this fear. The fear of absolute loneliness.
Absolute loneliness, first of all, is an idea. But this idea squashes us flat. It panics us. Whenever we touch on this idea, we always suffer a great deal. But if we don’t touch on it or meditate on it, we won’t realize that this, first of all, is just an idea. But we allow ourselves to suffer because of this idea. For that reason, we should learn to be lonely. Train ourselves to be lonely. Train ourselves to be lonely now, at this moment. Learn to see clearly that the things we’re still dependent on, the things that we think will allow us to be less lonely, are just the creations of the mind and the consciousness.
And for that reason, learning to be lonely — like learning to get sick, to age, and to die, is a daily practice. Take footsteps in such a way that we can live in harmony with our loneliness, that we can turn this feeling of loneliness into freedom, into liberation for this practice to work. Perhaps what we believe is loneliness is actually our freedom, is actually our liberation. But we’re so afraid of it.
The fifth remembrance
The fifth remembrance is, “I will depart on my own, and my actions are the only things that follow me.” Tomorrow “I will depart on my own, and my actions are my only true belongings.”
“Actions” means karma. I’m the one who’s to inherit the consequences of my own actions. As far as my own actions are concerned, I’m the only inheritor. And so, I’m the only one who’s to bear all the consequences of my actions. The Buddha taught us to contemplate. The Buddha taught us, through this last remembrance, that we’re our own inheritor. The inheritor of our own bodily actions, our speeches, and our thoughts.
And, in an indirect way, the Buddha taught us that the idea of loneliness, the idea of fear, we should meditate to see that we are always followed by the karmic fruition of our own actions. The karmic fruition can be negative or positive. And this fifth remembrance opens up a way out for us. That is, if we live mindfully, if we sow wholesome karmic seeds or causes, we’ll always be pedestaled or supported by these wholesome karmic seeds.
At this very moment and at any given moment or at any point in time in the future — even at our dying moment, all these wholesome seeds will still follow, and uphold us. For that reason, we — to a certain extent, have sovereignty over our present and over our future, which we should make use of.
These Five Remembrances are absolutely not the five things we learn to only accept and do nothing about. These are the five things to meditate on in order to break the shackles of wrong perceptions, of fears. At the same time, it helps us to lay the foundations that are very solid for ourselves in the present and in the future. These foundations allow us, help us, to be free from fears.
Touching the reality of impermanence to allow real life to be
In Western psychology, they talk about fears like a strong emotion. And they said, if we’re well-prepared, we won’t be squashed or carried away by this strong emotion. If we know it’s cold outside, and we’ve already prepared in advance, when we open the door, we won’t be taken aback, and there’s a small chance we’ll catch a cold. But if we don’t know it’s cold outside, we go out, and it suddenly gets cold, we’ll be taken by surprise, we’ll be very likely to catch a cold. The difference is whether we’re prepared or not.
When someone goes on a bear hunt in a forest, they’re ready to see bears. When someone goes on a tiger hunt in a forest, they’re ready to see tigers. And for that reason, when these hunters see the bears and the tigers, they’re not as afraid as us, who may be taking leisure walks in the forest. Taking a leisure walk in a forest, if we happen to bump into a bear, we’ll be extremely afraid because we haven’t been prepared beforehand.
Perhaps the hunters do feel afraid a little bit. What are they afraid of? Afraid that they’ll misaim. But relatively speaking, the fear of the hunters isn’t as great as that of the non-hunters. Because we’re not expecting a tiger. We’re not mentally prepared to see a tiger or a bear, so if we chance to meet one, we’ll be panic-stricken, we’ll be extremely afraid.
So, being mentally-prepared is very important. Meditating on impermanence is a practice which gets us to see that anything can happen. Because going about our daily life, we’ve always believed that car accidents and cancers only happen to others. They can never happen to us. That’s what we’ve always believed. But when they happen to us, we say, “No way! Impossible!” We can’t accept reality. But fact is, these things can happen to anyone among us.
First off, when we train ourselves to meditate on impermanence, we see that those accidents and mishaps can also happen to us. At first, we feel that we are living in a world full of misfortunes. The ones who love us today can stop loving us tomorrow. The job that we’re doing today can be lost tomorrow. Our good health today can become poor tomorrow. We’re afr… At first, we feel very insecure. The feeling of insecurity. But the fact is, touching reality brings us a lot of benefits. We live deeply in the present moment.
First off, the thought of living in misfortunes makes us feel very unsettled, very uncomfortable. When the great poet Victor Hugo lost his first daughter — her name is Léopoldine, he suffered a great deal. He retired to live in the countryside of Villequier. He could no longer enjoy the wonders of the earth and the sky. He just confined himself in his pain.
And in a poem he wrote in Villequier, deep down inside, he really wanted to blame God. He thought, “How’s it possible a young girl who’s that young and flower-fresh, that healthy, and that graceful, can die?” And he realized… He touched the reality of impermanence. But he was Christian, so he found solace in Christianity.
He said, “Dear Lord, I come to you, Lord, Father to be believed in; I carry you, appeased, the pieces of this heart full of your glory that you have broken.” “Je vous porte, apaisé, Les morceaux de cœur plein de votre gloire Que vous avez brisé.”
I know God willed “everything that happens to me.” I confess that “you’re good, merciful, indulgent and sweet!” But we mortals never can tell… we never can tell the… the… the acts of God, the… the plans of God. So we have the feeling of walking in “the night of a frightening mystery,” not knowing what’s really going on.
“Je viens à vous, Seigneur ! confessant que vous êtes Bon, clément, indulgent et doux, ô Dieu vivant ! Je conviens que vous seul savez ce que vous faites, Et que l’homme n’est rien qu’un jonc qui tremble au vent .” “I agree that only God know what God is doing, and that, man is nothing but a reed quivering in the wind” — completely useless. Man is nothing but a fragile reed, and any wind that gusts by can quiver it. Totally helpless.
“Nous ne voyons jamais qu’un seul côté des choses ; L’autre plonge en la nuit d’un mystère effrayant. L’homme subit le joug sans connaître les causes. Tout ce qu’il voit est court, inutile et fuyant.” “We humans only ever see one side of things; The other plunges into the night of a frightening mystery. Man submits to the yoke without knowing the causes.” Man bears calamities and disasters without knowing the reasons. “Everything he sees is short, pointless and fleeting.” That’s how he sees things.
It means, Victor Hugo is not a Buddhist but he could already touch the reality of impermanence. And in it, there’s an idea of resistance. God knows it all, we know nothing. We only know just a little bit the ‘stem’ of things but the rest remains entirely hidden behind a shroud — only God knows.
In the Christian attitude, in pain and suffering, we should believe in God. We should know that… We should think that God plans everything and we have to obey and endure. We just have to believe God knows what God is doing and why. For some reason, God wanted our daughter dead. We have to believe that God is merciful, benevolent and compassionate. But for a good reason, for our own good, God did this. This is faith.
But when we move on to Buddhism, we see a different way of looking at things. We see that Buddhism helps us touch the reality of impermanence. And although this characteristic of impermanence can bring us pains, anxieties, and fears, Buddhism teaches us to always touch reality. We have to courageously touch reality.
That AIDS infection, that cancer, that car accident, can totally happen to us, not just those around us. Once we allow this reality to sink in fully, we’ll open up a brand new horizon — we’ll live in an awakened awareness. We’ll no longer take each of our days for granted. Each day granting us twenty-four hours becomes a precious gem. And we vow to live those twenty-four hours deeply. Each day is a gift of the whole universe. And each of our footsteps will be taken in leisureliness, because we have no idea if we’ll be granted another day to live.
So for that reason, touching impermanence, first of all, deprives us of our security. The sense of security. But that sense of security is a false sense of security. We believe things are permanent, so this sense of security is based on that idea of permanence. This is ignorance. Now, when we see everything is impermanent, we lose this sense of security. But we learn something else — we learn to live in reality, and we know how to touch life deeply in the present moment.
And perhaps in one day, in just one day, by touching impermanence and living life deeply that single day, we can already live much more than living a hundred years in ignorance, in this false sense of security. We live in this false sense of security until we meet with a mishap. Our loved one suddenly dies, or we ourselves are facing our own death. We realize, this sense of security has already lasted for ten or twenty years. But we’ve never truly lived because it’s a delusion. We’ve let time pass us by so quickly, so wastefully. We’ve stomped on, we’ve trampled on our own life. We’ve always believed life is permanent, so twenty years have passed us by like a dream.
Now, when touching impermanence, we lose this sense of security, but this loss is good because it’s a false sense of security. We’ve been sitting on a timing bomb without knowing. Now we know we’re sitting on a timing bomb, we stand up. And we know that the present moment is the most important. We’re gifted with a day with twenty-four hours with the sunshine, the sky, the clouds; with our fellow practitioners; and with our teacher.
So with this awareness of impermanence, live deeply to deserve these twenty-four hours. Only in this way, only in this way of living, only with this attitude, can we address impermanence. Only in this way of living, can we address this crippling feeling of insecurity.
If someone asks, “You follow Buddhism, practicing Buddhism. How do you deal with, or cope with, misfortunes?”
We can respond, “We cope with them by living truly deeply every moment of our daily life. If I can truly live this way, if I can take good care of my loved ones today, if tomorrow it happens that they die, I’ll have nothing to regret. Otherwise, I’ll regret it for the rest of my whole life. Because I’ve had this false sense of permanence, I’ve thought my beloveds will always be there for me. I don’t even bother to take care of them. I thought, “Well, there’s plenty of time for that.” So I’ve never cared for them to the best of my ability. But if I have this awareness of impermanence, I won’t wait till tomorrow. I’ll express my love through words, I’ll do something for them, I will think about them, I will care for them and I will make them happy, today. Right now.”
And that’s a Buddhist response to mishaps and misfortunes, to the feeling of insecurity. It’s not to become worried, but to truly live well in the present. And if I’ve already lived this way, and if I’ve already helped you live the same way in the present moment, it means I’ve already done my very best. I’ll have nothing to regret when that moment of impermanence comes. That’s a Buddhist insight.
Touching impermanence isn’t to feel afraid, unsettled, or insecure. That sense of fear or insecurity may be there in the beginning in order to break the false senses of permanence and of a separate self-entity. They deprive us of real life. Now, touching impermanence and non-self helps us touch deeply the reality of life, and allows real life to be.
Three learnings: Buddhist responses to fears
Now, in order to cope with fears, the energies of fears, that are in us, Buddhism has offered very clear responses.
The first learning: Precepts
First off, it’s precepts. What are precepts? Precepts means living in right mindfulness. Because precepts are flowers and fruits of mindfulness. “For my protection, and yours.” (translator’s note: excerpt from the poem “Guarding the Six Senses“) We live the precepts while eating, while drinking, while lying down, while sitting, while speaking, while dealing with people and things. It means practicing right mindfulness.
Precepts means not doing, not talking, not thinking about things that inflict sufferings on ourselves and others in the present and in the future. That’s what precepts are. Precepts are not a number of restrictions and bans. “Precepts” is one of the three learnings in Buddhism, i.e. “learning to cultivate precepts,” or “tăng thượng giới học” in Vietnamese. Meaning, living the precepts in every moment of our daily life.
I live in such a way that there’s awakened awareness in this moment. “For my protection, and yours.” There’s real life and true happiness in the present moment. It’s within our reach. We can’t say we’re utterly powerless in the face of impermanence. We know that if we train ourselves well in living the precepts in the present, we have nothing to fear or worry about. In the face of impermanence, we can smile and say, “I’ve already done my very best.”
Impermanence. Learning to cultivate precepts. It means, we don’t live in an unrestrained, self-indulgent way. Living the precepts means we’re in control of the situation, that we have sovereignty over the situation. We’re not running away. Living the precepts means living the surface and the depth of our being at the same time.
We know that, living the precepts means protecting ourselves. Not only does it protect the upper part — the surface, it also protects the lower part — the depth. Not only does it protect ourselves alone, it also protects our fellow practitioners. So, each of my speeches, each of my thoughts, each of my deeds, is characterized by safeguarding me and safeguarding you in the present, as well as in the future — that’s “precepts.”
And the opposite of living the precepts is living a reckless, indulgent life; speaking reckless speeches; doing reckless deeds; and thinking reckless thoughts.
The second learning: Right Concentration
And in precepts, there’s right concentration, because precepts (right mindfulness) always lead to right concentration. We can never keep the precepts if we don’t have right concentration. And for that reason, “learning to cultivate right concentration” is another aspect of the practice.
Right concentration means dwelling peacefully in mindfulness. Don’t indulge yourself. Don’t lose yourself. Don’t be a ghost deserting its lower part and floating away to search, to look and search for the sounds, images, or gales of laughter to cover up this huge void inside. Because in our daily life, if we lose ourselves, we only live the surface of our being. The ‘ghost’ part. Then, we’re the sole victim of the internal knots, the fetters, of our own.
So when walking, walk with our whole being. When sitting, sit with our whole being. When standing, stand with our whole being. When speaking, truly be there. Speak with the whole of our being. Don’t speak with just the surface, the upper part.
The third learning: Right Views, or Right Understanding
The third aspect is “learning to cultivate insights.” Where there’s precepts, there’s right concentration. Where there are precepts and right concentration, there’s insights. Because when we’re not living an indulgent life, we’re not losing ourselves, we’re our true person. We’re the whole of our being, the surface and the depth rolled into one. Suddenly, such right concentration, and such precepts lead us to a kind of perspective, a kind of view, that’s much deeper about ourselves.
Insights mean right views, right understanding. Right views or right understanding of impermanence. Right views or right understanding of no separate self-entity. Right views or right understanding of inter-dependent co-arising. When we can see the reality, when we can look deeply into our own fears, we’ll discover that our fears are made of the fabrics of ignorance. And once we can see what fabrics those fears are made of, or the true nature of those fears, we will break free from those fears.
Let’s give an example. Let’s say, there’s a couple who are unhappy living with one another. The husband often makes his wife/partner suffer. Or the wife often makes her husband/partner suffer. Or both often make each other suffer. Sometimes the thought of divorce occurs to one partner or the other. Why do we create hell for one another? Why don’t we just divorce? Why don’t we simply change our life? Because life on a daily basis is hell, indeed.
But both have already developed a habit — a habitual energy, of living with one another. And this way of living has ‘made a fold,’ has ‘developed mold’. I.e. both have become too fixed in their ways. And they’re scared of change. Even when that change brings them freedom.
We see many female partners really want a divorce but are so afraid… Afraid of loneliness. Meanwhile, they have to endure all the humiliation and pain in their daily life. Such a person is incapable of receiving freedom, or enjoying freedom. Because they’ve grown used to living in a fixed routine, a familiar environment. They’ve grown used to relying on these things. For that reason, sometimes they can get a glimpse of the horizon of freedom, of happiness. But they don’t have enough courage, they don’t have the guts, to let it go. Because it’s already established a ‘fold’ — a pathway.
Let us look back at ourselves. We’re not that couple. But we’ve had folds already established in our brain, in our being. We’ve had ideas of happiness and we’ve had ideas of security that are very old, very outdated, very bad, very erroneous. And we’ve clung on to these ideas going about our daily life. We’re incapable of detoxing the mind of these thinking patterns, these ways of seeing things, in order for us to touch true happiness and true freedom. We’re suffering a great deal. But we’re being glued to this suffering. We’re afraid that, if we let this suffering go, we’ll suffer even more.
[Translator’s note: Somehow the talk was interrupted at this point, and resumed as follows]
True Security in Life
And that’s the foundation of non-fear for a retreat. But I also know that, although I’m trained as a doctor, although I’m trained as a professor, I can still be subject to unemployment like anyone. Nobody hires me. For that reason, this kind of foundation isn’t necessarily the foundation of non-fear. It can give us a feeling of security. But perhaps it may not be enough to allow us to have true security.
However, what we call “karma” is something much more reliable. When we have loving-kindness and compassion in our hearts, we’re protected in a very concrete way. Loving-kindness and compassion in our hearts protect us. And we’re protected by retribution in terms of body and mind (“chánh báo”), meaning our body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. We’re also protected by retribution in terms of our living environment (“y báo”).
Now let’s take sangha as an example. Take sangha as an example. If we practice loving-kindness and compassion in the sangha, the sangha will become a foundation that guards and protects us. Of course, we really need a place of refuge. We can take refuge in our family. We can take refuge in our talents, our job titles and occupation, our intelligence, our diplomas and degrees. But all of these things are subject to impermanence.
There’s one thing that isn’t impermanent which is the practice of sowing wholesome karmic seeds in us and around us. If we can do this today and tomorrow, it’s how we… have provided ourselves the very foundation of non-fear. So, any fears that happen to manifest, be it fears out of imagination, or fears that are a little bit… based on truths, we are all capable of coping with them through living deeply in the present moment; through living the precepts, through right concentration, and through right views; through sowing seeds of love, loving-kindness, and compassion.
With that, we see that there’s nothing more to fear. Because the Buddha already made it clear in the fifth remembrance, “Only my actions are my true belongings.” Only my actions can protect me. And for that reason, all the fears that we’ve listed off earlier — fears of being unattended to, of being lonely, of being incapable of dealing with sufferings, of hunger, of cold, of sickness, death, old age, of having to let go of what we cherish.
All of these fears can only have one way to address. That is to make sure the seeds that we’ve sown today, in the present moment, become our protecting factors in the future. Because our karma follows us like a shadow. We don’t wait till we die for our karma to follow us. Even if we practice, in just one day, in only twenty-four hours, the precepts, right concentration, right views, loving-kindness, and compassion, it’s already been following us. We’ve already had protection.
Therefore, among the Five Remembrances offered by the Buddha, the last one shows us only the karmic seeds that we’ve sown follow us. And those karmic seeds, when they mature and ripen, and become karmic fruits, they’ll become the very thing that protects us. And we don’t have to fear. That’s as far as misfortunes that can possibly happen in life are concerned.
And as far as right views are concerned, we can also see that our fears are given rise by ignorance. And many — if not most, of the times, it’s our own ideas and perceptions that make us suffer. All of our fears — the objects that we fear, first of all, are our ideas and perceptions. And for that reason, right views are the light that shines into those ideas and perceptions. Right views shine into the gaps and cracks of our fears. And this will liberate us from those fears.
And I suggest that each one of us spend the time of mindful sitting and mindful walking to touch our fears, the fears that are gnawing at us. What we fear most. What we’re worried about most. We have to use the time of sitting meditation to look deeply into and to touch our fears. You can put your contemplation into a piece of writing. Not necessarily for Thay or your fellow practitioners to read. Because writing is also a method for deep looking. Because those fears follow us like ghosts, and they control us.
If we really want to be free, we have to hold their hands, look them in the face, in order for us to be free from them. Perhaps, we’ll sit down together one day for an hour or two. Each will write a piece about their own fears. And after you finish, you’ll read it for yourself. No need to submit it to Thay. But there should be a time for the whole sangha to practice together. Before that, we should spend the time of mindful walking and mindful sitting to get in touch with our fears first. To bring the surface and the depth of our being together, combining them into one.
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You may enjoy listening to the song “Guarding the Six Senses” here: https://web.plumvillage.app/item/guarding-the-six-senses
References
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