In this session of questions and answers the following questions were asked:

By the children:

• Why do people get so angry sometimes when they don’t even mean to get angry?
• Why do people have to suffer?
• What do you have to do to have a calm mind?

By the teens and young adults:

• If you had a chance to live your life again, would you choose the same path or a new life?
• How can I practice non-attachment to my sister who is living in Blue Cliff Monastery?
• What made you decide to become a monk?
• What is the hardest thing to practice?
• How can you detach from your strongest attachment in life?
• Is it possible to do something fast mindfully, like a sport?

By the adults:

• What could have prevented the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and what changes can help prevent such suffering in the future?
• After losing my nineteen-year-old daughter to leukemia, is it possible to truly be happy again?
• What would you advise the president regarding military intervention in Syria, and how can we deal with our despair?
• How can we engage young men in post-conflict zones to turn away from violence and embrace peace?
• How do we practice joyfully with physical limitations and pain as we grow older?
• How can we use the energy of mindfulness to forgive ourselves for trusting someone who hurt us?
• How do we practice transforming inherited seeds of depression and mental illness?

This session of Questions and Answers was organised during the Art of Suffering retreat in the year 2013. Thầy offered this talk at Blue Cliff Monastery, Pine Bush, New York, in the United States.

Thầy details the importance of being present, focusing on mindfulness and concentration through practices like inviting the bell, listening to the bell, mindful breathing, and walking meditation. The bell serves as a reminder to pause, breathe, and return to the present moment, inviting ancestors and cultivating mindfulness, concentration, and peace. Mindfulness, concentration, and insight are foundational energies for being alive in the present moment. Through mindful breathing, walking meditation, and recognizing habitual energies, practitioners embrace the present moment deeply, experiencing life’s wonders and cultivating compassion and love. The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path guide practitioners in addressing suffering and developing virtues like forgiveness, compassion, tolerance, brotherhood, and sisterhood.

This is the second talk of a series of thirteen giving during The Path of the Buddha, twenty-one-day retreat in the year 2009. Thầy offered this talk at the New Hamlet, Plum Village, France.