[Thay writes on the board.] In the Sutra of Mindful Breathing, four methods are proposed. First it is the meditation on impermanence, the second is non-craving, third is cessation, and fourth is letting go. There are many dozens of concentrations that we can learn and select from. Impermanence is a concentration. We know that everything is impermanent, intellectually. We know that we cannot take a bath twice in the same river. We know that things change all the time. But that is intellectually only. We see that we are impermanent, our beloved one is also impermanent, everything is changing, and yet we still behave as we are permanent, and she is permanent. That is why impermanence is not a doctrine, an idea, but an instrument, a concentration. You have to keep it alive, the insight of impermanence.

Suppose you get angry at your beloved one. You suffer. You want to say something, to do something to punish him or to punish her because she has dared to make you suffer. And at that time you need to practice concentration. And you may choose impermanence as a method. You close your eyes. You breathe in. And you visualize yourself, three hundred years from now. And your beloved one, three hundred years from now. It needs only three or four seconds during your in-breath to visualize your beloved one three hundred years from now. And you touch the reality of impermanence. And you wake up, you see that she's still alive, he's still alive in front of me. And your anger disappears right away. And the only thing you want to do when you open your eyes is to take her into your arms: "Darling, you are still alive, I am so happy." So impermanence is not a theory, a notion, but a concentration. We need the concentration of impermanence than a theory.

Non-craving. We crave for this and for that because we don't know the nature of the object of our craving. Happiness is made of understanding and love and not objects of craving like power, fame, sex, and wealth. And many people suffer very deeply and destroy their body and mind running after these objects of craving. When the fisherman uses a bait in order to catch a fish, he knows that a fish will be attracted to the bait. If the fish knows that there is a hook inside of the bait, he would not bite. So it's very important to look into the nature of the object of our craving. There is a hook inside. And that is a concentration. The other object is very attractive, appealing, but because you have the insight into the true nature of that object, that is why you are still free. You are not caught by it.

And cessation here means to remove all the notions, including the notion of being and non-being; beginning and ending; above and below. There is a Buddhist teaching on symmetry. If there is above, there is always below. And the above and the below appear at the same time. One basing on the other. And right view is the kind of wisdom that transcends both notions. We are sitting here doing sitting meditation, and we believe that this direction is our above, and this one is our below. But the people who are sitting on the other side of the planet, they don't agree with us. Above is there below. And they think that we are sitting upside down. [Laughter.] So the notion of above and below cannot be applied to the cosmos, to reality. The same is true with the notion of being and non-being; birth and death. And cessation here means to look deeply in order to remove all these notions that can create fear and despair. It's a very deep meditation called the Middle Way, transcending all opposites.