In this talk for teenagers (and the “forever teens at heart”), Sister Đẳng Nghiêm shows young people how to take care of their body and mind amidst the rapid changes of adolescence. Summer Opening Retreat 2022 in the “Dharma Cloud Temple”, Plum Village France.
All you need to do is to recognize what you have, cherish it and take care of it. That makes you enough right here and right now.
The practice of flower watering
It has become such a habit that only negative things impress us. We only remember negative things. When there are so many good conditions in our lives, like the fact that you are young, you are healthy, you are beautiful. But do you know that you are beautiful?
Yesterday I gave a consultation to a woman. She’s a beautiful woman but she has gone through such trauma in her life so she’s had destructive relationships because she didn’t know her own value. When I told her that she was beautiful, she expressed such a surprise that I was surprised by her surprise. We should know our own value.
This practice is so important. You do it for yourself. You look at the mirror, you look at your eyes and you say, ’thank you eyes, I have eyes that can still see, healthy eyes, thank you eyes.’ You look at your hair, you have a head full of hair and you are thankful, ‘thank you hair’. When we are sick we have to wear a wig. When we’re sick our hair becomes very weak. You look in the mirror, you look at your teeth and say, ‘thank you teeth’. One day we’ll have to wear dentures. We’ll have crowns, we’ll have root canals but now you have real teeth and that is a condition for happiness.
These are the things that are there but we take for granted. Somebody who’s a millionaire, let’s say they are in their 60s, 70s. They have millions of dollars but all they wish for really is your beautiful skin, your healthy teeth, your healthy heart, your strong feet. They can’t have those things and money cannot buy those things, so to appreciate what we have so important. It gives us that confidence and strength. It gives us that positive energy so that we can care for ourselves. When the storms come we are strong and stable from within and we can withstand the storm.
Please remember this when you go through a storm of self-doubt thinking, ‘I’m not good enough, I’m nobody’. Please sit down. Please come back to your breath, please look deeply and recognize all the conditions that you have already. Please smile and say, ‘I am enough’, and that storm of self-doubt will pass over you.
Your future is now
This practice is so important for our brain during this time because whichever neurons you don’t use will be pruned. They will be deleted. Whatever neurons that you use may become strengthened. It’s like when you exercise. If you use this arm a lot it will get strong. It will get big, but if you don’t exercise this arm at all then it will shrink. The brain is the same way. In the brain right now your neurons that are used a lot will get stronger. The connection gets so strong, even the axons themselves will get bigger. The transmission, the electrical signals will go faster. The areas that you use will get big and the areas that you don’t use will just shrink. They will literally get pruned off.
We know this happens throughout our lives but right here and right now during adolescence it happens so strongly. It is a time for you to really water the good seeds in yourself, the skills that you want to have in your life. If you want to know languages, learn them now. If you want to play sports well, do it now. If you want to read and learn about history, about science, do it now because your brain is so incredibly active and it is selecting those parts that are used a lot and that will get strong. Those parts that aren’t used a lot will be pruned off. This is what is called, ‘neuroplasticity’.
Neuroplasticity or a ‘plastic brain’ means a brain that is changeable, that is malleable, that is modifiable. A brain that is always constantly changing. It interacts with the environment and it’s shaped by the experience, by the environment. So when you water the flowers in yourself and you say, ‘I am enough, I am enough, I’m okay, I always do my best. I don’t have to compare myself with others. I can just be my beautiful self’, you are actually strengthening these certain connections in your brain. And the more you tell yourself that, the stronger these connections will be. The thought of self-doubt will become less and less and the self-love, self-confidence and self-care will be stronger.
One thought triggers a thousand thoughts
People say, ‘oh it doesn’t matter what I say, it doesn’t matter what I do’, but it does matter. It matters because every time you do, chemicals are released and connections are made you. One thought is like a trail. You think it again and it becomes a little thicker. You think it again, it becomes a little thicker until short-term memory becomes long-term memory. Before you know it, it becomes a freeway. You only need to think of one thought and a thousand thoughts come in.
It’s like a Google search. Let’s say you google Tom Cruise or another famous actor, so many videos and sites of that person appears. One thought will trigger a thousand thoughts, just like the search bar, they link and associate, so it’s very important that you learn to recognize the positive things in your life and to be grateful and reinforce that.
Knowing you are enough
Foreign traffickers who kidnap young people and turn them into a slaves to sell know about this. One trafficker was interviewed about how he was able to kidnap young people and he said he would go to a bus station or an airport and go up to a young woman or sometimes a young man and say ‘your eyes look beautiful’ and if they looked down he felt he could kidnap them without any resistance.
If he went to a young woman and said, ‘your eyes look so beautiful’ and she said, ‘oh thank you’, he knew he had no chance and he would walk away. If he went up to another young woman and said the same thing and she looked down or she said, ‘no they don’t’ he said, ‘I got her’.
The key is , they pick up on your insecurity. They pick up your self doubt. Bullies also do that. They see you’re afraid so they pick on you. But if in your daily life you practice watering the flowers in yourself, thanking yourself, make an effort to recognize what you have and be grateful for it, there is self-love, self-confidence and stability in you. When somebody comes along and picks on you or says something unkind it won’t touch you because you know your own value.
