This is an excerpt of the Dharma talk "Transforming the Fears Inside" given by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh on February 04, 1993 in the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village France.

🔔 Video transcript

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"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 the fact is, these things can happen to anyone among us. [...]

"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. [...]

"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."

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Original Vietnamese title: “Cái sợ quanh ta - Pháp thoại Sư Ông Làng Mai 4/2/1993”

Full Dharma talk originally posted by TCT Phuong Tran

You can also find the original Vietnamese talk, which is the 20th episode of the 1992-1993 Manifestation-Only Psychology Teachings series from the Thich Nhat Hanh's Library website (available only in Vietnamese), or this viewable Google Drive link.

Talk given: February 04, 1993, Upper Hamlet, Plum Village France

Length: 17 minutes 28 seconds

To watch the full Dharma talk with English subtitles and transcript, please visit this page.

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REFERENCES (Resources used to translate this Dharma talk)

1. Thich Nhat Hanh, 2004, Touching the Earth: Guided Meditations for Mindfulness Practice, California, USA: Parallax Press.

2. Wikipedia, Upajjhatthana Sutta

3. Lang Mai, Y báo và chánh báo, n.d.

4. Sr Thuận Nghiêm, 2018, "Dharma talk: Five Remembrances"

5. Lang Mai, n.d., "Tháo gỡ kết sử" (in English, "Undoing Internal Knots")

6. Dhamma Wiki, n.d., "Samyojana"

7. Wisdom Library, n.d., "Samyojana"

8. Thich Nhat Hanh and the Monks and Nuns of Plum Village, 2006, "The Discourse on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness", Chanting From The Heart, page 297

9. Wikipedia, n.d., "Czechoslovakia"

10. Wikipedia, n.d., Pham Duy

11. Thich Nhat Hanh and the Monks and Nuns of Plum Village, 2006, "The Five Remembrances", Chanting From The Heart, page 53.

12. Wikipedia, n.d., "Léopoldine Hugo"

13. Wikipedia, n.d., "Victor Hugo"

14. YouCanTrustHim, 2019, "Inconsolable: 'A Villequier' by Victor Hugo"

15. AllPoetry, n.d., "In Villequier"

16. Lion's Roar Staff, 2019, "What Is the Threefold Training?"

17. Amitabha Pure Land, n.d., "Three Learnings"

18. Plum Village App, n.d., "Guarding the Six Senses"

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Republished on the Plum Village App with kind permission of Thich Nhat Hanh's Talks channel 🙏