January 23, 2011. 77-minute Dharma Talk given by Thich Nhat Hanh, New Hamlet, Plum Village, France. We begin with 8-minutes of chanting.
“Sitting in this meditation hall, we perceive that the clouds are floating high in the sky. But in reality we are surrounded by clouds; there is water vapor all around us. When we have fog we see this clearly. We also have vapor in our body in the form of water. So we interare with the cloud. Science shows us this; Buddhism can also show us this.”
“According to our practice, mindfulness, concentration and insight are a source of happiness. And we as practitioners need to generate this energy. Breathing in mindfulness you generate the energy of mindfulness; we get in touch with the wonders of life that are all around us.”
“The tour this year will have the theme, ‘Now is the time: this is it.'”
The Path of liberation. We must know how to take care of the path to overcome our difficulties. The path of eight correct practices (Right View, Right Speech, Right Action, etc).
Body, Speech, and Mind
Mindfulness, Concentration, Insight
Right Livelihood, Right Diligence
These are the fruit of our practice.
For those of you interested, Thay mentions the 5-year monastic training for young people. At about 59-minutes into the talk, we transition to the sutra commentary we’ve been exploring. Here we here about verses 28-31.
Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, the recording is cut off before it is completed and I am unable to get the missing recording at this time. It is cut off shortly after the sutra commentary begins. The video link below has everything.
The talk was given in Vietnamese with English translation and is available below (French and original Vietnamese audio are also available, as well as video version).