Thầy introduces two books of practice verses: Tỳ Ni Nhật Dụng Thiết Yếu (The Essential Vinaya for Daily Use) and his own work, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment. These collections of gāthās offer a beautiful way to maintain mindfulness throughout the day, whether washing our hands or boarding a plane. As Thầy reminds us, mindfulness is the very base of all precepts; if we are truly mindful, that is enough.

Sharing his own path, Thầy describes his monastic aspiration as a “falling in love” that began at age nine, when he was struck by an image of the Buddha’s calm presence on the cover of the magazine Đuốc Tuệ (The Torch of Wisdom). This “Dharma talk without words” planted a seed of desire that led him to resolve to become a monk by age eleven. Thầy also touches upon the human dimension of his journey, including falling in love with a young nun as a novice, showing how these stirrings of the heart were all part of his unfolding path.

Thầy emphasizes listening to the Dharma without thinking, allowing our Store Consciousness to receive teachings like soil absorbing rain. This openness facilitates the practice of śamatha (stopping and calming), which is inseparable from vipaśyanā (deep looking). Referring to the Sōtō tradition, Thầy clarifies that “just sitting” is not a mere physical posture, but a continuous samādhi maintained while walking, eating, and working.

When we harmonize our five skandhas—form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness—through mindful breathing, we experience the peace of the Buddha within us. In this state of stillness, reality reveals itself without effort, and we discover that nature itself is a Dharma talk unfolding all around us.

This is the second talk inf a series of thirteen giving during the Looking Deeply in the Mahāyāna Tradition, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 1992. Thầy offered this talk at the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

What Our First Love Teaches Us About Ourselves

Thầy reads a note from Sangha member and author Natalie Goldberg, who suggests that practitioners write about their first love. Reflecting on this, Thầy shares that deep practice would be difficult, or even impossible, without the Sangha. He emphasizes that developing interpersonal relationships within the community is the key to success in the practice; without this connection, transformation is unlikely. In a healthy Sangha, transformation happens naturally and without effort. Therefore, Sangha building—accomplished through understanding and caring for each member—is the most important practice for a Dharma teacher.

Thầy explores the roots of the bodhisattva’s practice as described in the Ugradatta Sūtra. He highlights the importance of bodhicitta in Mahāyāna Buddhism—the aspiration for the enlightenment of all beings. Thầy notes that the Buddha intended for laypeople to practice alongside monastics, citing Vimalakīrti (Ugradatta in a former life) as a lay bodhisattva whose practice on behalf of all beings surpassed that of many monks and nuns. He also discusses how the Lotus Sutra, with its focus on reconciliation and love, was pivotal in the development of the Mahāyāna tradition.

Sharing deeply from his own life, Thầy recounts falling in love with a young nun. He recognizes that this love actually began at age nine, when he first encountered an image of the Buddha on a magazine cover. He describes the feelings of unrest that followed and his efforts to understand these emotions through poetry. Thầy shares how his desire for an “Engaged Buddhism” that could help society was also born at that young age, inspired by articles he read in that same Buddhist magazine.

Thầy recounts his attempt to tell the nun he loved her and how, despite his skill with words, he found himself unable say it. However, the following morning, she shared that she understood and was also swept up in that powerful storm. Thầy concludes by reading the first love poem he wrote following that encounter.

This is the third talk in a series of thirteen giving during the Looking Deeply in the Mahāyāna Tradition, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 1992. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Thầy interweaves his love story as a young monk with the Diamond Sutra—the sutra for teachings on emptiness of a separate self, beginning with a teaching on anger. Before we are angry, when we are calm and happy, he invites us to create a Peace Treaty (he suggests the contents) with the help of our loved ones. When anger arises, he advises us to take the time—but no more than twenty-four hours—to breathe with our anger in order to calm it. If our anger has not transformed, we have the Peace Treaty available as a instrument for healing.

Thầy continues his story of his love for a nun when he was a young monk, sharing the strong emotions he felt, the desire to be in her presence, and the confusion he experienced by being in love with her. He says that they took refuge in the happiness of, and trust in, each other. They enjoyed long conversations about their shared dreams of an Engaged Buddhism. He says that because his love felt so sacred, he never even had the idea of holding her hand or “putting a kiss on her forehead.”

Ten, twenty years later, looking back he began to understand that she represented “everything that I adore, that I think to be the most important thing in my life.” He realized that it was bodhicitta—the strong desire to realize the Dharma, to bring yourself and other living beings to the other shore, the shore of happiness and freedom—that protected the two of them.

Thầy goes back to the Diamond Sutra, where Subhūti is questioning the Buddha about the career of a bodhisattva. The Buddha explains that it is bodhicitta—making the vow to practice for everyone, not just yourself—that is the key practice of bodhisattvas. Thầy explores the four notions that the Diamond Sutra advises us to transcend:

1. The notion of a self
2. The notion of a person,
3. The notion of a living being
4. The notion of a life span
   He examines each notion carefully and in detail, saying that understanding these teachings “should be the practice of looking, realizing, living in mindfulness.”

Thầy invites Anne, a lay friend, to lead a mindful movement meditation that is a practice of breathing as interbeing. Thầy promises to distribute a little book of more than one hundred mindfulness gāthās from the Avataṃsaka Sūtra—and refers to his own book, Present Moment, Wonderful Moment that also offers mindfulness gāthās. He proposes that each person in the audience write one gāthā for their practice of mindfulness in daily life and that they share them with each other.

This is the fifth talk in a series of thirteen giving during the Looking Deeply in the Mahāyāna Tradition, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 1992. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Thầy delves deeply into the teaching of the Three Doors of Liberation which is woven throughout the Diamond Sutra, the Sutra on a Better Way to Catch a Snake, the Lotus Sutra, and other Mahāyāna texts.

He begins by preparing us for the profound lesson that follows with short teachings on impermanence and suffering. He says that when we are aware that everything is impermanent, every door is opened for change and from this opening healing can arise. He says that suffering is not inherent in things; it arises from our attitude, our grasping, our ignorance, our habit energy, our misunderstanding of reality.

Now we are ready for his teaching on the Three Doors of Liberation.

1. Door of Signlessness
   Our perception of self, Buddha, or any object is merely a sign or mark, a construction of our mind, a notion. Thầy invites us to transcend the four notions—self, man, living being, lifespan—so that we can realize the one in the many. Because, according to the Buddha, where there’s a sign, there is deception, in order to touch reality and see the Tathāgata, Thầy says, “…we must learn the art of handling and finally ‘killing’ our notions—however useful they may seem—to free ourselves from their trap.” We cannot grasp the highest wisdom by our notions, so the practice is to see things as they are instead of our perception of things. Thầy acknowledges that it is difficult for us to accept that we can’t understand the Dharma using our notions.

2. Door of Emptiness
   “Emptiness means interbeing of everything.” Everything is empty, but empty of what? Empty of a separate existence. A sheet of paper is empty of a separate existence because it can’t exist by itself; it has to inter-be with every other thing: “non-paper elements like trees, sunshine, rain, soil, minerals, time, space, and consciousness.” The sheet of paper—the flower, the government leader, each of us—everything is empty of a separate self because it contains the whole cosmos. The Buddha said, “…if a person is afraid of the doctrine of emptiness, I say he is crazy and has lost his mind. Why do I say so? Because he is always in emptiness, and yet he is afraid of it. Because emptiness is also empty.” The emptiness of emptiness.

3. Door of Wishlessness (Aimlessness)
   There is nothing to attain, nothing to run after. We don’t need anything more to be happy. Thầy says, “You are already what you seek—nirvāṇa and buddhahood are here and now when seen without grasping.” There are two dimensions of life: the ultimate dimension and the historical dimension. In the historical dimension there are things to be done, people to help; in the ultimate dimension since everything is already perfect, there is nothing to be done. The Lotus Sutra says that the two dimensions are empty of a separate self, are both one. Thầy adds, “When we practice, we aspire to reach nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is the blessed rest, the happy place we want to come. But according to the teaching, nirvāṇa is already there. You have been nirvanized from the very non-beginning.”

Thầy encourages us to apply the Three Doors of Liberation to the practice of the six pāramitās: generosity, precepts, patience, energy, dhyāna, and understanding. We should walk the Middle Way, free from extremes like permanence and impermanence; self and non-self; existence and non-existence, and look deeply to uncover the true nature of interbeing and liberation. Only the Middle Way that is free from extremes will allow us to touch reality as it is.

To encourage us in our practice of the Three Doors of Liberation, Thầy says, “You—as a bodhisattva—if you find that you have a lot of suffering, confusion, defilements, don’t be afraid. You can make very good use of these sufferings, confusion, afflictions. You are going to grow a flower out of it.”

Thầy ends his Dharma talk with an invitation to burn the handouts of the readings he has provided that were the source of his talk. Like the wonderful Zen Master he is, Thầy says, “If you feel that you understand the meaning of the sūtra, I think we can burn these two pages—to prove that you are free. [Thay holds up a box of matches.] You might burn them with these, you might burn them in other ways. It depends on your faith. But you have to burn them.”

This is the sixth talk in a series of thirteen giving during the Looking Deeply in the Mahāyāna Tradition, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 1992. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.