Thay reviews the evolution of earlier twenty-one-day retreats, beginning in 1990. He describes practices and skills expected of members of the Order and the extended community. Thay underscores the importance of sangha-building and cultivating harmony within communities. He then describes the historical and ultimate dimensions, and the four kinds of perception. He explains how nirvana is here and now, not in the future; it is our true nature of no birth and no death. In the final part of the talk, Thay describes how to accompany a dying person, using the teachings of no birth and no death, as taught over 2,500 years ago by the Buddha’s disciple Sariputra to the dying lay practitioner Anathapindika. Thay recounts how he and Sister Chan Khong helped their friend and fellow peace activist Alfred Hassler to pass. Thay ends his talk with the encouragement to bring Plum Village home in our heart. The session ends with Sister Chan Khong singing “This Body Is Not Me” in Vietnamese and English.

This is the final talk in a series of fourteen given during The Breath of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2006. Thay offered this talk in the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.