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Diligent Practice Opens the Thousand-Petaled Lotus: Opening of the Winter Retreat
Right from the beginning, the talk affirms Happiness in the Present Moment: the past is already gone, the future has not yet come, there is only the present moment to live. If we want to be happy right here and now, we need to practice four steps:
- Recognize the supposed conditions for happiness that we consider essential.
- Face the possibility that these conditions may never come, and ask ourselves how much we would suffer.
- List all the conditions for happiness that are already available right now.
- Arrange our daily life so that we can fully make use of and enjoy these conditions.
Every thought, word, and action either creates merit or produces unwholesome karma; only mindfulness and taking refuge in the Three Jewels (the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha) can help us recognize and transform our negative habit energies. Sweeping the yard, watering the plants, cleaning the house—when body and mind are in harmony—are all practices: every step is Buddha land, cultivating merit and insight. Prajna is your career—insight is the only true career of a practitioner, and it needs to be nourished every day.
The winter retreat, with its discipline and communal life of the Sangha, is an ideal condition to go deeply into self-observation and transformation. Especially, the talk is also a wake-up call for young people: do not waste your vitality, use your energy and merit-insight to live fully and bring benefit to yourself and those around you.