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Basic Buddhist Teachings 12 - Five Minds, Six Practices - Loving Kindness
Walking meditation is the practice of mindfulness in each step, each step “arriving” at the destination of happiness: stopping the running and chasing, seeing the blue sky, white clouds, flowers and leaves, and dwelling peacefully in the present moment. For example, Duncan Little uses the image of lovers as a metaphor: when you have arrived at your destination, just sitting together is enough to feel fulfilled.
Vietnam has 74 million people, of which 50% are under 15 years old, and there are many street children (“children of the tamarind tree”). Plum Village is supporting hundreds of teachers for day-boarding schools – opening in the morning, teaching, allowing the children to stay for lunch and a midday nap, then going home in the evening – and nurturing the practice for children through topics such as:
- Breathing, smiling, walking, loving, looking at the blue sky, drinking cool water, sitting…
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The song “I Practice Being a Clear Glass of Water” and many songs from “The Blooming of a Lotus.”
The goal is to train young monks and nuns to become Dharma teachers, to design practice programs for children so that they do not feel lost in their families or at school.
Each experience of mindfulness gives rise to the five universal mental formations – contact, attention, feeling, perception, volition – like seeds (bīja) of memory in the store consciousness. Karma (the mental formation of volition) has four functions:
- the capacity to produce (arising)
- the capacity to maintain (sustaining)
- the capacity to wear away (diminishing)
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the capacity to destroy (transforming completely)
Practicing correctly not only brings peace and happiness to the present moment but also nourishes the roots for the future, nurtures the mind of awakening (bodhicitta), and leads the practitioner onto the path of liberation.