A retreat is an opportunity to cultivate the energy of mindfulness and concentration so that compassion—“like a flower brought to us by the practice of understanding”—can arise. Understanding here means seeing the first two Noble Truths: 1) suffering (ill-being) exists and 2) we ourselves have “consumed” in ways that create it. Our daily life is shaped by watering both positive seeds (compassion, love, wisdom) and negative seeds (anger, fear, hatred) through unmindful consumption—of food, media, conversation, and more. By learning to 
– water only the flower and not the garbage (selective watering) 
– recognize, embrace, and look deeply into our afflictions (mindfulness of anger, fear, despair) 
we water the seed of mindfulness instead of strengthening our pain.

The Buddha spoke of four kinds of nutriment and today Thay describes the first two:

1. Edible food: mindful eating that “retains compassion and understanding,” so we do not “eat the flesh of our own children”—forty thousand die daily from lack of nutrition—nor rob future generations of food.
2. Sensory impressions: everything we see, hear, read, or say can be food for our consciousness. Television, advertising, news and conversation often carry “poisons” of craving, fear, violence and anger; we must awaken to protect ourselves, our families, and society.

When anger or fear arises, we don’t suppress but invite mindfulness to embrace it—“Hello, my little anger”—giving it a bath of attention and tenderness until it returns to a seed. With enough mindfulness and concentration, insight will follow, and compassion becomes possible. If our individual mindfulness is still fragile, we take refuge in the Sangha: its collective energy of mindfulness acts like a boat keeping us afloat on the ocean of suffering.

Compassion is born from understanding suffering—its presence in us, its origins and how it ends—and meditation is the effort that cultivates this understanding. Mindfulness of breathing is the first step: bring continuous attention to each in-breath and out-breath (“Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out”), like a train that never leaves its track. As mindfulness and concentration grow, you move from the realm of the body into feelings, perceptions and all 49 mental formations—fear, despair, anger, jealousy and so on, as well as compassion, insight, non-discrimination and forgiveness—recognizing each by its true name and bringing relief or nourishment as needed.

The Buddha’s four exercises of mindful breathing order this journey:

1. Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
2. Follow each in-breath and out-breath all the way through.
3. Breathing in, I am aware of my body. Breathing out, I smile to my body.
4. Breathing in, I calm my body. Breathing out, I smile to my body.

Walking meditation uses the same energy of mindfulness: slow steps tied to each breath, arriving “home” in the here and now with the gatha
“I have arrived—I am home.
In the here—in the now.
I am solid—I am free.
In the ultimate I dwell.”

In retreat, noble silence and the collective energy of the Sangha support practice, whether walking, sitting or eating. Mindful eating focuses only on food and community, seeing each morsel as an ambassador of the cosmos—chewing with full attention, generating freedom from past and future, and nourishing peace, joy and insight in every moment.