Thầy offers a simple question to ask the person we love: “Darling, do I deprive you of your freedom?” Answering a question left over from an earlier session, he shares how nonattachment is not carelessness, and how we can love in a way that keeps both people free.

Speaking the day after the 2004 US presidential election, Thầy begins by applying interbeing to politics: Mr. Bush contains Mr. Kerry. He encourages us to keep sharing our insight and hope, trusting that in time they can penetrate the other side.

Asked how to open the door to the practice for others, Thầy points to being a living Dharma talk, and to Sangha building, which he calls the most noble task we may undertake: “If you don’t know what to do with your life, build a Sangha.” He tells of the Buddha going to look for the five friends he had practiced with, and of the king of Kosala, both men now eighty, seeing the Buddha in his Sangha. Thầy offers the image of a rock and a boat for what it means to take refuge in the Sangha.

A final question asks why difficult feelings can surface when we come to a practice center. Thầy describes mind consciousness as a living room we usually keep busy, and shares how mindfulness, supported by the Sangha when needed, can greet and embrace what arises. He closes with cutting wood in summer for the winter, and a poem by the Vietnamese poet Mai Thảo on manufacturing our own sunshine.

This talk is from a series given during the Ninety-Day Fall Retreat in the year 2004. Thầy offered this talk at the Lower Hamlet, Plum Village, France.