Thay begins with a guided meditation on touching our freshness, solidity, stillness and freedom. He then speaks to the children about maintaining joy and happiness while playing, emphasizing that playing with anger leads to loss. He teaches that the highest way of playing is to ensure neither the winner nor the loser suffers. He also introduces the third mantra about love, “Darling, I know you suffer and I am here for you,” and discusses the wisdom of non-discrimination and the three complexes: superiority, inferiority and equality.

Thay shares the fourth mantra, “Darling, I suffer and I want you to know. I’m doing the best I can. Please help,” and explains how pride and anger can prevent us from seeking help. He advises practitioners to take care of their anger with mindful breathing to understand the wrong perceptions behind it.

Thay elaborates on the eleventh and twelfth exercises of mindful breathing—concentrating and liberating the mind. He discusses the three doors of liberation: emptiness (śūnyatā), signlessness (animitta), and aimlessness (apranihita), as well as four other objects of concentration: impermanence, non-craving, cessation, and letting go. These practices help free us from notions of being and non-being, birth and death, coming and going, sameness and otherness, and the four notions of self, man/human, living beings, and lifespan, allowing us to touch reality, nirvana, and realize our true nature of no-birth and no-death.

This is the fourth talk in a series of five given during The Body and Mind Are One retreat in the year 2011. Thay offered this talk at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado, the United States.