Thay reflects on his upcoming return to Vietnam after thirty-eight years of exile. He then shares the story of the baby Buddha, who, upon his birth, took seven mindful steps. Thay emphasizes that, although the Buddha lived over 2,600 years ago, he continues to live within each of us. Through the practice of mindfulness, we become the Buddha’s continuation, carrying his teachings and presence wherever we go.

This is the first talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thay offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Thầy speaks about the four layers of consciousness and how they interrelate. He notes that brain and body are two aspects of the same thing. Consciousness involves the brain but originates from deeper awareness. Store consciousness (Bhavaṅga) is continuously present and always storing seeds (bija) of information, whereas mind consciousness is often interrupted; for example, when we have dreamless sleep or when experiencing samadhi.

When organ, object, and background consciousness come together, a mental formation results. There are fifty-one mental formations, of which touch is the first. Store consciousness operates independently, shaping decisions and preferences, and it’s influenced by the store consciousness of others and the collective consciousness. Surrounding oneself with compassionate communities positively impacts consciousness. We must practice not only with mind consciousness but with store consciousness.

The concept of a separate self is deeply seated in store consciousness. Store consciousness operates without discrimination and is always neutral in terms of feeling. There’s no need for a thinker, a self to do the thinking. Thinking is enough. Mind consciousness is the screen on which the fifty-one mental formations are displayed.

This is the second talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

This talk details the reverence for all beings and mindfulness embodied by the Buddha, emphasizing effortless walking and the practice of non-practice from the sutra of 42 chapters. Walking meditation, honoring ancestors, and connecting deeply with the earth are highlighted as paths to joy, freedom, and healing. The Buddha nature within each person can guide through difficulties, cultivating love, compassion, and understanding. The lover consciousness, influenced by attachment and misconceptions, contrasts with direct access to reality. Understanding the five universals—mental formations, touch, attention, feelings, perceptions, and volition—is crucial. Surrounding ourselves with wise companions and practicing mindfulness nurtures positive seeds in consciousness. The wisdom of non-discrimination transforms love into true love, characterized by insight. The interconnectedness of touch, feeling, and attention influences consciousness, guiding mindful actions. Cultivating appropriate attention nourishes consciousness, fostering healing and peace. Recognizing perceptions shaped by past experiences and cultivating wisdom and compassion influences volition, guiding beneficial actions.

This talk details integrating Buddhist meditation practices into various fields without overt Buddhist terminology, emphasizing mindfulness and compassion. Concepts like store consciousness can be explained using subconscious and unconscious terms. The essence of Buddhism transcends labels, encouraging compassion and understanding. Happiness stems from clarity on one’s path, practicing mindfulness, and embodying compassion. The Noble Eightfold Path and Four Noble Truths are crucial teachings, adaptable to contemporary language. Engaged Buddhism integrates these principles into daily life, fostering renewal and transformation within traditions. Recognizing shared suffering aids healing, and mindful eating nurtures compassion. Taking refuge in a supportive sangha nurtures growth and belonging.

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Thay shares how we can transform our suffering and heal ourselves so that we can build Sangha in our personal relationships, our family, our workplace and the community. We do this by cultivating mindfulness, understanding, compassion, friendship and harmony.

Thay describes store consciousness, the base of all the other seven consciousnesses. Store consciousness stores all experiences in the form of bījas or seeds. Our transformation happens when, with the help of mind consciousness, we go back to our store consciousness and take care of these seeds. Thay outlines the five characteristics of bījas.

Thay expands upon Henri Bergson’s image of consciousness having a “cinematographic” nature: forever changing, being born and dying in every moment, never the same thing in two consecutive moments. The nature of reality is constructed by our minds; it is like a dream, an illusion; not a “thing” but a “process.”

Practicing meditation and mindfulness helps release our suffering as we bring our awareness to the true nature of reality.

This is the fourth talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thay offered this talk at the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Thay begins by recounting a dream in which he enrolls in a music class and comes face-to-face with his double.. Thay connects this dream to the ancient story of the Tripitaka Master Xuanzang’s quest for Buddhist scriptures, where Master Xuanzang and three students embark on a symbolic boat journey, encountering transformation and shedding their fears. Thay delves deeply into teachings on consciousness, including store consciousness (sarvabījaka) and the seven evolving consciousnesses, such as the sixth, mano-vijnana and the seventh, manas. Thay explores how the interconnected cycle of karma shapes our destiny through our actions, illustrating the different levels of consciousness: store consciousness, mentation, and mind consciousness. Returning to the subject of dreams, Thay highlights how the first five evolving consciousnesses can bypass mind consciousness and go directly to store consciousness.

This is the first talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thay offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Thay shares about scientific developments in relation to understanding consciousness and the importance of watering wholesome seeds in our store consciousness through the practice of mindfulness, proper/positive attention and supportive environments.

This is the sixth talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thay offered this talk at New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Thay highlights our interconnectedness, showing us how we can look upon ourselves and our environment in terms of an individual and collective manifestation. Explaining key functions of store consciousness, through the concepts of appropriation/preservation of information (upādhi) and our affiliation to place/environment (sthāna), Thay shows how most of our actions (karma) are governed by the unconscious but, that with practice, we can shed light on this process.

This is the seventh talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thay offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Getting to Know Our Different Modes of Consciousness

Thầy begins this teaching by emphasizing the importance of the bell-master in renewing our attention and providing moments of rest during the Dharma talk. This practice of stopping and breathing is contrasted with unwholesome habits like smoking, highlighting how we can program our environment—including our computers—to support mindfulness. Thầy then transitions into a deep exploration of the mechanics of intention, explaining the neuroscientific and Buddhist perspectives on how “pre-intention” functions at an unconscious, metabolic level before manifesting as a conscious mental formation.

The talk delves into the relationship between mind consciousness (manovijñāna) and store consciousness, questioning the extent of our free will. Thầy suggests that much of our daily activity, from eating to walking, is the fruit of “implicit learning” and processing within store consciousness. He challenges the notion of an objective reality, explaining that our world is largely a collective mental construction shaped by our sense organs and karma. Using the analogy of a table appearing as food to a termite but a writing surface to a human, Thầy introduces the three realms of perception: the thing-in-itself (svalakṣaṇa), representations, and mere images.

Finally, Thầy explores how practitioners can use “mere images” and visualization as powerful instruments for transformation. He shares a traditional novice’s practice of visualizing the interbeing nature of the “one who bows and the one who is bowed to,” using the image of Indra’s net to erase the barrier of duality. By understanding the modes of cognition—direct, indirect, and incorrect—practitioners can use mindfulness and concentration to eliminate errors in perception. Thầy concludes by encouraging the Sangha to use their “lazy day” to observe these mental landscapes and use mindfulness to transform their daily lives into the Pure Land or the Kingdom of God.

This is the eighth talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

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Thay speaks about the nature of interdependence, the importance of training the mind to recognize the true nature of reality, the importance of the transformation bodies, sameness and otherness and the process of cognition by store consciousness.

This was the ninth talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thay offered this talk at the Dharma Cloud Temple, Upper Hamlet, in Plum Village, France.

Independent or Mind Consciousness

Thay explains the various ways that independent or mind consciousness functions. He discusses how dispersion leads to unwholesome actions and thoughts while concentration results in right mindfulness and the uniting of the mind with the other sense consciousnesses. Thay then describes the system of Buddhistic logic named hetu vidya, showing how syllogism uses induction to explore propositions. Thay ends the talk by saying he’ll soon be able to return home to Vietnam after thirty-nine years of exile and invites practitioners to accompany him.

This is the tenth talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thay offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

The Freedom to Make One Happy, Peaceful Step

Thầy reminds us that in order to succeed in the practice, we need to be able to take one happy and peaceful step, he then discusses various mindfulness practices that can help us recognize when we are not doing so. Thầy then expands on the previous day’s discussion of hetu vidyā with explanations of analogy and contrast. He also discusses how habit energies form and how they are the foundation of suffering. Thầy ends with an explanation of the Kāḷaka Sutta and the limits that scientists have when exploring whether the mind and the brain are separate entities.

This is the eleventh talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thầy offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Thầy begins with Nāmaparyeṣaṇā (Inquiry into the Name), warning that names create a false sense of stability. While a name like “Mississippi River” or “Frenchman” stays the same, the reality it points to is in constant flux. He specifically addresses the danger of labels like “terrorist” or “enemy,” explaining how these words trigger immediate emotions and discriminations that prevent us from seeing the human being behind the term. Using a personal story from a 1966 peace demonstration, Thầy shows how refusing to be “boxed” into a label (North vs. South) can shatter dualistic thinking and open a path toward truth.

In Vastuparyeṣaṇa (Inquiry into Reality), Thầy shifts from the label to the thing-in-itself. Using the meditation on a cloud, he illustrates that we are not separate entities moving through time, but a continuous stream of manifestation. Just as a cloud “inter-is” with the rain, the river, and the ocean, we are a composite of “non-self” elements. Thầy challenges the common notion of birth and death, proposing a logic beyond the formal: “No one will die, because no one has really been born.” Like a flame that manifests when conditions are right, we are a “Happy Continuation” of our ancestors, our environment, and our actions.

The heart of the teaching lies in nirvāṇa, which Thầy defines not as a place, but as the extinction of the eight basic notions (Birth/Death, Being/Non-being, Sameness/Otherness, Coming/Going). He uses the metaphor of a wave and the water to show that we suffer when we identify only with the “historical dimension” (the wave) and its limits. When we touch our “ultimate dimension” (the water), we realize we were never born and can never die. This non-dualistic insight is the foundation of non-violence; it allows us to handle even our most difficult emotions—like anger and fear—as organic elements to be transformed, much like a gardener turns garbage into beautiful flowers.

This is the twelfth talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thầy offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Thầy guides us through the “Four Reflective Inquiries” to deconstruct our reliance on labels and conventional designations (prajñapti). He explains that while we use names for selves and entities, they are not solid realities. Even the concept of a “nature of interbeing” can become a trap if we grasp it as a fixed idea. Therefore, Thầy introduces the “non-nature nature” (vô tính): the insight that the true nature of things is to have no fixed, separate nature at all. This “non-nature” is what allows for the infinite flexibility and interconnectedness of life.

Using the metaphor of a wave, Thầy illustrates that birth and death are merely shifts in the “Triple Action” of thought, speech, and deed. This energy is our real signature, pushing us forward as a continuous force (vipāka). Like a candle emitting light and heat, we are not contained solely within our skin; we are projecting ourselves into the environment in every moment. By recognizing the cinematographic nature of our consciousness, we see that we are not a static “self,” but a flowing stream of manifestation that exists both inside and outside our physical form.

The core of the teaching is the “good news” of sovereignty. Because retribution matures in every moment—not just at the end of a life—we have the power to transform our trajectory in the here and now. We are not victims of genetic or karmic determinism; we can “remediate” past mistakes by producing new, compassionate actions that catch up to and modify the old. By treating the teachings like a raft rather than a destination, we use these insights to reclaim our free will and ensure a beautiful, “non-nature” continuation for ourselves and the world.

This is the thirteenth talk in a series of fourteen given during The Feet of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2004. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.

Response provided by Thich Nhat Hanh to a written question on June 20, 2004 at Plum Village during the 21-Day Retreat with the theme of The Feet of the Buddha.

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This talk details reflecting on the Buddha’s footsteps and teachings, focusing on mindfulness and compassion. Siddhartha declined King Bimbisara’s kingdom to pursue enlightenment, forming a Sangha of over 1,000 monks. Walking meditation, practiced by Buddha, connects us to wisdom and the Pure Land. Happiness stems from compassion and understanding suffering. The Pure Land resides within us, achievable through mindfulness. Homo sapiens evolved upright, embodying Buddha nature inherent in all humans. Cultivating mindfulness, compassion, and practicing generosity, like the six paramitas, transforms suffering into well-being. Embracing mindfulness training offers protection and happiness, expanding our hearts to alleviate suffering. Diligence involves nurturing wholesome seeds and transforming negative thoughts, focusing on positive consciousness.