In this first dharma talk of the Winter Retreat, Thầy shares about how to find peace, happiness, and healing in our breath and our steps.

Today’s society is organized in such a way that we live with a lot of pressure. We are pushed by the habit energy of running, and always looking for something to make us happy. Thầy teaches us how mindful breathing and mindful walking help us stop running. If we breathe and walk in such a way that we find peace and happiness, we are nourished and we can be healed. If we walk with an idea to achieve something, we are still running. But just the willingness to stop alone is not stopping. Thầy reminds us that we need insight to be able to really stop.

Thầy introduces foundational teachings from the Manifestation Only school of Buddhism: the fifty-one mental formations (including the five universals and the five particulars), as well as store and mind consciousness. When seeds in our store consciousness are touched, they become mental formations. Mindfulness and concentration are two mental formations that grow together. When both of them are powerful enough, we will get insight. Insight can help free us from our suffering and illusion, and help us to really stop. We can touch the insight that running cannot get us anywhere, it is not bringing us happiness. Then we can be in touch with the wonders of life again.

Thầy also shares about the mental formation called ease, one of seven factors of enlightenment. Ease helps us to heal, and we can cultivate ease through mindful breathing and walking. Restlessness is mental formation of the opposite nature. When we are restless, we don’t know what to do. We don’t know how to handle the suffering and loneliness in ourselves, and we keep doing things to cover up our loneliness and suffering. Restlessness can compel us to work or to seek refuge in our electronic deices to distract ourselves.

Thầy encourages us to stop running, to recognize our restlessness and suffering, and to transform the energy of restlessness in us. By looking deeply at our habit energies, we will find insight that liberates us. With insight, we can stop running. We can recognize that time is more than money, time is life. And we can live simply, deeply, and happily.

Thầy shares that the Sangha will continue learning the teachings of the Manifestation Only school and how to apply them to daily life throughout the Winter Retreat.

This the first talk of the 2013-2014 Winter Retreat. Thầy offered this talk at the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, France.