A collective change begins with an individual change:
Practicing right thinking, right speech, and right action allows us to transform the world:

1. Right thinking is “a thought that brings well-being,” characterized by understanding and compassion, born from deep looking into suffering (the First Noble Truth).
2. Right speech arises from this understanding and compassion and immediately relieves both the one who speaks and the one who listens.
3. Right action aims to “support, help, save, protect,” and heals both body and mind.

The Buddha formulated the Four Noble Truths:

1. The truth of suffering (suffering exists).
2. The truth of the causes and roots of suffering (understanding suffering).
3. The truth of the cessation of suffering (the presence of well-being is possible).
4. The truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering (the Noble Eightfold Path, including right view, right thinking, right speech, right action…).

Breathing in, I know that the Sangha is there, surrounding me. Breathing out, I smile to my Sangha.
The Sangha brings together practitioners whose solid mindfulness allows them to live each moment (breathing, walking, watering the garden) deeply. Joy is born there from the capacity to selectively water the good seeds (understanding, compassion, joy, hope) and not to nourish the negative ones (anger, fear, jealousy, despair). Recognizing the Buddha nature in oneself and in the other, and first acting on one’s own seeds, transforms relationships and builds a community that carries happiness.

With conscious breathing and walking meditation, each step and each breath brings the mind back to the body, resists the rush toward the future, and reveals the wonders of life in the present moment. A step taken in mindfulness simultaneously generates:

1. the seed of mindfulness (awareness of the step),
2. the seed of concentration (focused attention),
3. the seed of insight (wisdom: life exists only in the present moment).

The Sutra on Mindful Breathing recommends sixteen exercises;
– In the third exercise: “Breathing in, I am aware of my whole body” (reconciliation of mind and body).
– In the fourth exercise: “Breathing in, I allow my body to relax” (deep relaxation).

We are stars. To think is already to act:

• “Karma hetu” (action-cause) and “karma-phala” (action-fruit/retribution); thought-energy produces effects within us and in the world.
• It is important to cultivate right thoughts, speech, and actions every day in order to transform both individual and collective karma (Plum Village is a “collective product” of this practice).
• Every manifestation (flower, body, society) is born from a “multitude of causes and conditions”; to touch one thing is to touch the entire cosmos.

Three doors of liberation are offered:

1. Emptiness (no separate self)
2. Signlessness (beyond forms, signs, appearances)
3. Aimlessness (happiness, the Kingdom of God, or the Pure Land are available here and now)

Each door requires mindfulness and concentration to transform fear, despair, and the mad pursuit into freedom, joy, and brotherhood.